Honestly, this is one of the few mnemonics that stuck with me. I still see the kanji in terms of this mneumonic rather than just seeing it for what it is. 
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If it’s any consolation, in the old mneumonic, the little brother did in fact die （だい）
During the great re-writing of mnemonics (whenever that took place, idk 2020? 2019?) they made a lot of the mnemonics a lot more tame, and in my opinion less memorable.
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Difficult, ね? But don’t worry, anyone can get through with enough work. Try checking out Pain Club if you want to see other people working on this same section of WK.
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that is a “つごうい” mnemonic! 
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It actually wasn’t the Overhaul of 2018, but instead:
The last Content Updates before the WHO made COVID-19 a pandemic… wow!
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I’ll just jot that down under “things I wish I knew two years ago” 
I remember there being quite a few breakpoints for me in going through Wanikani. These are places where I found out that the method I was using wasn’t sustainable and I had to change it up.
I think this is what you’re going through.
For me, when I hit that point, I condensed the mnemonics into short sentences with keywords, but you’ll have to experiment a bit and see what works for you, and it may take a few levels to figure it out.
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This is probably the best advice in the thread. I’ve been doing this from level 3. If a mnemonic is a small paragraph, it is more work to remember the mnemonic than to remember the thing the mnemonic is supposed to be helping you remember. You’re working for the mnemonic instead of the mnemonic working for you.
It HAS to be a single, simple sentence. No one is going to remember 2,000 mnemonic paragraphs on top of 6,000 vocabulary.
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True, but for me the mnemonic is to remember the vocab better after you just memorized it. For the first couple of reviews I have to think for a couple of seconds about the mnemonic part, but after multiple reviews the answer comes up without having to think about the mnemonic anymore.
When a vocab is in guru or master and I still have to take some seconds to think about the mnemonic, I sometimes fail the review on purpose to move it back a stage. I want to review that word more often because it hasn’t really burned into my brains yet.
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Ahh, I’m the opposite. I give myself as long as I need to remember it (if I think I can actually remember it given enough time), because the more times you successfully recall something, the deeper it is driven into memory.
Giving up after a short period of not being able to readily recall something means a lost opportunity to recall it. The way SRS works is that you don’t remember something because you’ve been exposed to it multiple times (that’s what flashcards do). You remember it better because you’ve remembered it before.
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If it takes me several seconds to think about the mnemonic before I can recall the word I don’t feel that I -really- know it. So that’s why I move the word back a stage by failing it. Only when I immediately know the word without having to think about the mnemonic anymore I’ll let it go to the next stage.
Maybe not the way SRS is intended but for me it seems to work the best 
Nothing wrong with that. I have kanji/vocab that just doesn’t stick well, and I will note those and do something with them later. I am actually considering paper flashcards for the problem ones. I wanted to get some writing practice in anyway, so writing out some cards serves a dual purpose.
At the end of the day, the best method is the one that works for you, although I’m still convinced that using a wide variety of techniques instead of just 1 or 2 expedites the process.
Also, for some reason my brain rebels against a purely digital education. I want a couple physical textbooks, a physical notebook (I buy cheap graph paper notebooks which are way more economical than genkouyoushi notebooks), my tablet with its 20 or so favorite apps, and my 3DS with Sonomama and Kakitori all next to me while I use WK and Kanshudo on my PC. I am highly hyperactive, so I flip between multiple digital and analog resources to not get fatigued on any single one. This usually means slower progress per resource, but greater efficiency in overall learning for me.
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My main method for the ones which just won’t stick is writing them down in my notebook with all kinds of stupid notes and silly drawings
I never heard of the 3ds games you mentioned, will dust off my 3ds and check them out
There’s also My Japanese Coach and the Kanken series, which are fun as well. Sonomama isn’t a game per se; it is functionally equivalent to a cheap electronic Japanese dictionary. Except for the 3DS pixelation of dakuten being annoying, IMO Sonomama is better than most mobile apps that try to replace electronic dictionary appliances. This game is like 14 years old and still hasn’t been surpassed by modern mobile apps.
The music for Kakitori is catchy though. You’ll randomly play it in your head while picturing an oddly square-shaped chicken.
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Just jumping in to reply to @Leebo and say that there are definitely times that a little bit of etymological effort would go a long way for some words.
A lot of the words that WK claims “don’t make sense” actually do, but you have to do a bit of digging to find out how they came about. Once you do, remembering them becomes a lot easier.
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The World Health Organization didn’t make COVID19 a pandemic, SARS-COV-2 made it a pandemic. The WHO just recognized that it was happening and called a spade a spade if you will.
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I was using the word more like Merriam-Webster’s definition 4c than 3b
Of course the World Health Organization didn’t cause the pandemic; that’s ridiculous.
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