That makes sense, I just felt that I had the same exact problem with those two so I switched up the mnemonics for にゅう and it helped me a lot during the phase where I needed the mnemonic to remember it ^^ As time flies though it won’t be needed anymore and I can now answer it without the use of the mnemonic. But just saying that it can work when you get a new item and are using a mnemonic for it to come up with something that you can relate to better, especially if you feel like the mnemonic provided doesn’t cut it for you 
I took classes in effective studying and memory techniques when I was around 6 years old, I always used mnemonics for stuff, also, as English is not my first language I make mnemonics in Polish for sounds that work better that way for me.
On another note, the mnemonic that does not work for me at all is the SEI one, with Hard Gay. I usually try do make my own mnemonic for that one.
Heh, in my case it’s the other way around - I’ve never yet forgotten any item with that mnemonics 
I think it may because I have no idea who Hard Gay is, and even after I checked it still helps me not at all
I use portuguese for that one, “eu sei” means I know in portuguese, so I use it for correct, and “I know about life”
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I never liked Hard Gay either. But he appears so freaking often, that after a time I started creating my very own picture of him. He’s become a person like Miss Chou… Same goes for Charlie Sheen. Don’t even know who exactly that is.
Few days ago I got ‘food’ for ‘ふう’ and for ‘ふだ’ in the same lesson batch. And with the first review coming up, of course I interchanged them.
立つ is probably soon due for enlightened. And I can’t remember the reading…
Hint: NOT よっつ。
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For me the problem with Hard Gay as a mnemonic is that げい is a reading too. It’s much less common than せい though, so I guess if they wanted to use Hard Gay, they went with the one that was going to appear more times.
I definitely agree with Metamorphosis. There’s been a few items that I made a Mnemonic that was simpler for me to remember. Like with ‘finish’ 了 I came up with 'FINISH the race in Rio". I think the Wanikani mnemonic was something about row houses, but I kept using ろ instead of りょ.
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My eight things have been knocked back to apprentice because of that goshdarn yacht
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same here 5+ years later… native French speaker here, and we were taught at school to pronounce yacht as ‘ee-o-t’ , so total mnemonic fail 
, switching to German for that one “Ja acht” (yes eight!).
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