This is the truth, I need to restart entirely because if you skip for months like I did it's just not possible to get back where you were in my experience

u/sidhantsv just bought annual thanks to u <3

Same and thought it was a good deal 😭

How much was it?

If kanji give you a hard time try the first 3 levels for free, if you are cruising through your Anki deck then skip

WaniKani for kanji, Anki for vocab.

I think Wanikani SRS is much worse than Anki's, so you'll spend more time doing reviews. That said, it puts more emphasis on being able to recognize kanji in isolation (compared to vocab mining in Anki), which has some good points (stronger recognition of kanji) but also bad points (less efficient, less contextual).

I did finish Wanikani before switching to vocab mining in Anki, so I might be accidentally biased (under-appreciating how much it helped), but I wouldn't recommend doing Wanikani unless you really struggle with kanji in Anki. All up took 1.5y of 2-3h/d which is a sizable time commitment.

It's not for everyone is what I'll say. Many people swear by it, but I struggled with the first couple of days where I needed to sit through their radical lessons which felt absolutely pointless to me (I didn't need to know that you call the radical 一 ground) . There's not much context to their vocab as well; I might be wrong and it may get better, but they only provide something like 3 context sentences per vocab word and their SRS is just the word without any contextual content to it. Maybe I'm just used to the Bunpro style, where all reviews are accompanied by a sentence and I can actually read and parse how some words are used in the context of a variety of sentences during my review

One thing I'll give Wanikani that Bunpro doesn't have is their SRS also includes translating back from Japanese to English, but I think it's also possible that you might be at the mercy of how Wanikani translates it, and that your answer may be technically correct but is marked as wrong by them because it doesn't match what they have in their database. Haven't had the chance to test it out though.

In any case, the first 3 levels are free, you can something like 3 weeks to play around with it to see if it's for you.

It works incredibly well for me. The dumb nmeumonics really stick and I'm able to "read" a kanji's radicals to remember the meaning. Anki was really tough and boring for me. Wanikani has felt like a game and I've learned so much vocab in a short time, it's made watching tv basically entirely understandable. I'm an extremely lazy studier and have honestly never given anything a good go except for this. Prior to this I've basically only learned from shadowing and a cursory effort to study properly a few times a year.

It's worth a try. It'll be frustrating as it starts you from the absolute basics, but it's important for the foundation of the way they teach radicals. I do all reviews almost immediately so I get through a level every 8 days or so. I've heard it gets extremely overwhelming if you slack because the reviews will stack up, and people are likely to quit at that point, so you do have to be strict. The toughest part for me is the new lessons. You get like 80 or so when you level up and it takes me about 30 minutes to get through them all, but that's the only part of it that I find I really need to push myself to do. I know if I slack there and take my time I'll put it off for "tomorrow" and be in trouble. The reviews are fun and it's satisfying seeing the little rank up thing

Make sure to download the app Smouldering Durtles and turn on the undo feature and be strict to only use it when necessary. Just for typos/not quite getting the word of the answer right

Anki is inferior imo because it isn't on rails and it doesn't do hard testing. Wanikani is more rigorous.

Use the app, it's way better. Tsurukame is for iOS and Flaming Durtles for Android.

I think it’s a third party app? It’s called Tsurukame. I only use the app.

The promo code expires in 2026. The membership expires 365 days from when you purchase/activate.

Ah sorry, should've mentioned that, it expires January 31, 2026.

Around $45

Pls don't hate me, but how the heck do I get the promocode to pop up?

I'm not sure about that, but the promo code section was on the final payment page (which is what you see after selecting your plan and hitting continue).