I’m not really looking for solutions, just sympathy 
i’ve been stuck on level 21 for over a year now, and it’s seriously killing my confidence and motivation. There are so many kanji with the 貝 radical and so many with useless mnemonics, plus a bunch of leech buildup from other levels - it’s just exhausting and so so frustrating.
Pleeease let me know if you’ve also struggled with this level, I don’t want to be the only one suffering like this 
Not this particular level, but I have been stuck many times.
I know all too well how it feels and I’m sorry you have to deal with this. May the Great Cat of Meowtivation return to you ASAP! 
P. S. I know you said you are not looking for solutions, but still, if you don’t mind an advice, one thing I have understood – is that it’s important to keep moving. It’s better to do a reset (not necessarily to level one, but to the level you feel comfortable with) and start doing reviews again than to sit contemplating an ever growing pile of reviews, trying to muster the strength to tackle it (which was precisely my mistake)…
Anyway, best of luck with overcoming this difficulty!
Remember: if even a small clumsy cat like me somehow managed to do it – so can you! Looking forward to seeing you on level 60! 
I actually was wondering if anybody else noticed level 21 being more difficult. @trunklayer already said all the important things, but I am here for moral support.
Welcome to the club. I got stuck at level 22 on my way up. I even made a post about it:
Now I have progressed… I am stuck at level 29.
The point is, don’t worry about it. Just do your reviews. You are progressing even if the numbers don’t go up.
As for how to fix this issue, if mnemonics don’t work, feel free to make new ones. Compare items that seem similar and focus on differences instead of remembering them in isolation.
Drop the mnemonics, they do more harm then good. If there was an extension to auto hide them I would use it.
Being stuck happens to almost everybody and is a normal part of the process, not only with wanikani but also just with language learning in general. But it seems around lv 20 it gets harder for a lot of people.
But being stuck on a level for over a year is unusual unless you took a lot of breaks (which wouldnt be uncommon, you just didnt mentioned it so I didnt want to assume). Were you taking a lot or longer breaks? Or are you stuck on leeches?
If you want advice on how to overcome this, feel free to ask 
There are a lot of people in this forum who were stuck and managed to get out, so you will probably get tons of advice that you can pick and adjust to your situation But if you really just want to vent, we’re here, too Japanese learning can suck sometimes 
Huh? not that I want to derail the discussion, but do you have anything to back that up? I always thought it depends on the person whether it’s a great tool or not. And all those books I had to read for college about learning psychology were as pushy on mnemonics as they were wirh SRS. But that was a few decades ago Did the consense on this topic change?
My experience shows there are always people who love and those who hate mnemonics. I’m team mnemonic ^^
Getting stuck is such a motivation sapper. But it happens to a lot of us.
If your leeches are on the meaning, try finding an alternative meaning and memorising that. For example, if the meaning is “inspect”, try memorising “examine” instead (if it’s not in the alternative meanings, add it as a user synonym)
If the leech is on the reading, try saying it out loud on repeat, especially with a funny voice or in context.
I defeated 警察庁 by saying “the けいさつちょう, national police agency of Japan, released a statement this morning" in a newsreader voice, repeating the first part over and over.
I got stuck on level 20 and 25. It’s ok, we’re all waiting for you on the other side.
Use wkstats.com to see which level has the most leeches and reset to a level or two below that. I always recommend handwriting and shadowing readings if there are specific kanji giving you trouble. Sometimes SRS alone just doesn’t cut it.
thank you everyone for your kind words 
I’ll keep at it! I went and printed some kanji handwriting practice sheets in the hopes that some muscle memory will help my colander brain retain some information, so maybe I’ll get unstuck sooner rather than later
I write down kanji in a notebook when I’m learning them, and if it’s a difficult kanji for me, I will type in my answer for the review, then check my notes before submitting the answer. Especially with kanji referring to words I rarely to never use in English (plutocrats comes to mind!), I find this strategy keeps me from feeling bogged down.
I do, but I’d rather not dig them out for benefit of my learning. During my time with WK there was points which I accidentally read the mnemonics, and thereby caused me to fail some vocabs reviews for months over memory conflicts that wouldn’t have happened if I just was given the 1:1 on their own.
Hey, just reached level 21 a few days ago and I’m leveling up tomorrow probably, found it relatively easier (?) only kanjis I had some struggle with were 務 and 済 really.
I actually had a harder time with level 11 (still have like 8 not burned out of the 39… )
On topic though, don’t lose faith! I know you’re not looking for solutions. That’s what we’re here for, sympathy!
I 10000000% understand your frustration and that it feels awful, but I can say that at some point you’ll find something to sparkle your motivation up and get to it!
I had this on a few levels as well, where I had absolutely no motivation or sense to do it, but eventually I got to it.
To me, something I noticed is that when I really get into an anime/manga, it gets me motivated and helps me ‘remember’ in a sense why I started to begin with and gives me a boost of motivation!
My median isn’t as big as some people’s are but I sympathize hahaha, stay strong!
Lol that’s strange how different it was for us. I just checked and I have 6 kanji from lvl 8 not burned yet. They’ll return next year for a review, I hopefully get right 
I am also stuck on level 21 and have been since August. I have recently decided there are certain words that I will never learn by using the Wanikani method and have written them in a notebook named “RIP’. If I come across an ‘unlearnable’ word I am just going to put it in my RIP notebook and move on. I think I will end up seeing that word one day in the wild and will understand it in context than in the Wanikani no context world. Some of these words are just stopping me from moving on, so for the sake of all the other words I can learn in Wanikani I am going to ditch the leeches without regret. I feel your pain, I am in level 21 hell too but with the help of my RIP notebook I have a plan.
Incredibly brave to show your stats! I have been stuck at lvl 9 for over a year, mostly due to procrastination. I get scared my brain won’t retain information so I put it off till it feels spongy, but then I only do like 3 lessons. I really just need to form a better habit of doing them daily regardless of how I feel, but it’s just difficult for me.
I do a lot of suplementary studying though, KaniWani, JapanesePod101, Comprehensible Japanese, Speak Japanese Naturally, ect. So I’ve actively studied every day for 303 days, just not always on WaniKani. My brain likes to stay comfy (which is a detriment to learning), so I’m a snail when learning new things. I want to start taking in-person classes so I’m forced to go and sit in Japanese for a few hours, it was helpful in college.
Thank you guys all so much!! This has made me feel a LOT better and I’ll do my best Having something to remember words by definitely helps - I rewatched Akira recently and one of the characters said one of my leeches, 暴走族, and it was like a lightning strike went off! I haven’t got it wrong since! If something is really haranguing me maybe I’ll start an RIP notebook too lol, 議会 would be the very first entry
