Heyo everyone!
Name’s MissDagger 
and I first joined WK October 28, 2018 (only joined the forum November 2, 2018; I didn’t realize my forum account didn’t get created until I visited the forum, ah well…). I became level 60 on December 1, 2022, and finished my last lessons (until any future additions) on December 17, 2022.
I’ve been a bit of an on again, off again feature of the forums. When I’ve been on break from WK learning, I’ve also disappeared from the forum. 
So some of you might know me of old, older, oldest, or from the last six-seven months. xD
This thread should more or less contain my whole journey, but if after reading this you have even more time to waste spend, then you can read one/all of my logs (chronological order): MissDagger’s 1 Year Adventure in Japan (includes some pictures from Japan), MissDagger’s Try for 30 Levels in One Year (failure), and MissDagger’s (Final?/Ultimate) Study Log (currently active; does have pictures of my cute cat!). 
Who am I? Why Japanese?
I’m a Swede 
who grew up in Stockholm but after some adventures I now live in northern Sweden. I’m 30+ years old and I became fluent in English in my late teens. Although I’ve kept picking up more words since then.
My main way of reaching English fluency was through reading. (Thankfully school 
prepped me well to dive into novel reading when I was about 14-15 years old. But school wouldn’t have gotten me to fluency by itself.)
Speech was through speaking. I played World of Warcraft back then and used Ventrilo and Teamspeak to talk to my guild that was 90+% brits.
So why have Japanese become my third language? (Although I’m still far from fluent!) Well… it all started when I was a little kid and watched dubbed Sailor moon 
and then watch Pokemon and played it…
Nah, not really. I didn’t even know those were originally from Japan. I probably didn’t even know there was a country called Japan. 
In my teens, friends got into manga and anime. So I peeked into that world. I read the 42 volumes of Dragon Ball (Swedish translation). I also read a few others, but mostly in English translation since Swedish translation of manga was in its infancy. I fell in love with Alice 19th by Yuu Watase (see more under the reading heading).
Still, I was never a massive fan. Like most manga/anime nerds were in Sweden back then (it wasn’t well known yet so only those really into it even knew it existed). I only watched a little and read a little, and was never particularly attached.
Then I started college and I thought myself interested enough in manga and anime to take a course called “Japans konst, arkitektur och visuella kultur” (Japan’s art, architecture and visual culture). Visual being anime/manga.
I thought I’d slug through the art and architecture stuff to get to the visual culture stuff, but it ended up being the opposite. I loved the art (pottery, painting, etc.) and architecture 
sections, but the visual media/culture part used such a dry book of essays that I don’t think I ended up reading more than 10 pages total. (Basically it was a study of how to take fun entertainment and make it boring.) So I basically faked my way through that part of the course. Good thing it was a distance/online course.
The architecture part covered Japanese gardens. So it was through this I fell in love with that, and the concept of wabi sabi (more from the art part, but anyway), about how important it was to bring in the outside inside, and a lot of other concepts.
And that my friends is how I ended up deciding to learn Japanese, so I could understand more about these things and get access to more nonfiction literature. Which I still haven’t tried to find or engage with. 
If you have some non-dry recommendations for these kind of things from Japanese authors (preferably writing in Japanese). A little bit of dryness is fine, but I’m not gonna slug through something written with the intend to be impressive rather than educational. A popular science kinda style would be ideal. 
My Japanese Language Journey
After discovering that I had more interesting in Japanese things than my “I guess manga and anime is entertaining but too expensive (this was before streaming)”, I decided to try my hand at a couple of Japanese courses.
So this was my early twenties and I think I forgot more or less everything as soon as I finished the second course. Both taken at one short semester each.
Then a few years later (with basically no Japanese study or anything), it became 2014 and I went to Japan for a month. I studied at GenkiJACS in Fukuoka, living with a host family. My host family was nice, but since I’d forgotten all Japanese I knew except hello and goodbye (basically), I couldn’t really communicate with them. Only their adult daughter knew any English. The school was good though and I had fun classmates. I wish I would have gone for longer.
I had a good time too, and had a chance to see enough to know I wanted back again to see more.
Still my Japanese studying was basically dead. I’m a reader and without the ability to read, any self study just didn’t stick and I’d found no good online resources. Not saying they didn’t exist, but I didn’t find them.
2017-2018 winter 
, I have the chance to stay for the whole 3 months of tourist visa. I stay in a share house in Tokyo. And I find many things I love. I’m in charge of Christmas dinner with help from some people. And still I speak no Japanese, and I am not studying.
Then October 2018, almost a year after my longer stay, I find Wanikani. I can’t remember how I found it. But it was the puzzle piece I needed to get on track. Through it I also found Bunpro and Torii, both of which I’ve used.
I was also applying for a 1-year study visa to Japan to study Japanese at a language school in Kyoto. Giving me a proper start at learning Japanese and also a lot of time in Japan. Kyoto being ideal for my interests of temples (I haven’t mentioned that but I like those too), shrines, old architecture, etc.
I wasn’t very consistent nor quick after the first 2-3 levels. I barely hit level 10 before going to Japan to start my school year in April of 2019. I wanted to do as much WK as I could before reaching Japan and still only managed 10 levels. I was a bit too anxious, waiting for a reply to my visa application despite knowing the Japanese school wouldn’t have sent it in if they didn’t think it would be approved.
If you want to read about my year in Japan 
, I’ll point you to my study log from that time (also linked close to the top): MissDagger’s 1 Year (or more) Adventure in Japan.
I credit a lot of my success with Japanese to my Japanese language school experience. It laid a foundational vocabulary, and helped a lot with grammar. WK is the teacher of kanji with some vocabulary. Bunpro helped a lot with N5 and N4 grammar but I fell off that after my year in Japan. Torii was my go to SRS platform for vocabulary, helping me keep up with words we learnt in school.
Then the year ended rather abruptly. My school year ended in March 2020, and I’m sure we all recognize that date/time. After barely escaping back home, and missing the few weeks of travel I’d planned for after graduation, I started a stop and start routine with WK.
I’d get a few levels in and then take a few months long break. Reset a couple of levels and clear reviews.
Then came this year, 2022. In January, after another long break, I began digging myself out of my review hole (I haven’t used vacation mode ever). And after a few months of building the daily review habit, I felt ready to tackle more. So in April of this year, I joined the Read Every Day Spring Challenge 
, and started up lessons again.
And the rest, as they say is history. I slowly built speed over spring and summer and then as fall became winter here in northern Sweden I went into almost full speed at 4 day levels (I’m not ruining my sleep schedule for WK).
Since finding WK, I’ve read several things, see details below. And lately I’ve only used WK, reading manga, LNs and VNs as my study method. With a good grounding in grammar (N5-N3) from language school, it has been enough.
Can really recommend the Read Every Day Challenges that happen each quarter for camaraderie around reading.
But I guess it is time to tackle the WK beast, my strategy and some stats.
WK stuff
I’ve been debating for the past few months about how much I’d write about which scripts I use and my strategy overall. I’ve written about it in my current study log, so anyone who reads those missives would already know.
Wanikani is a tool. A tool to learn kanji, and to learn kanji properly it teaches a certain amount of vocabulary, and uses radicals to break down kanji.
WK was always a means to an end for me. The end being to teach me enough of the writing system to be able to read. This means I don’t care about learning kanji perfectly. Mistaking similar kanji that would never be mistaken in context isn’t a mistake to me. I don’t need to be able to recall perfectly (in isolation).
And especially this last year, WK has become more of an awareness tool. It shows me new kanji and new words, trying to teach them to me. But I’m not bothered if WK can’t.
Leeches to me is a sign that SRS is probably not the right tool to learn those words.
I’ve been very liberal with the double check script. In fact, that is an understatement. Because my point has never been to learn kanji perfectly, and certainly not perfectly inside the system of spaced repetition. My goal has been to make reading easier.
And for that, I don’t need to learn every kanji to a degree of being able to recall it perfectly over X number of times over X amount of time. The only test of my ability that I care about is seeing it in the wild and understanding it there.
So I won’t go through stuff deeper. Instead my advice is to ask yourself what you are hoping to get out of WK (/other language learning tools) and use them as best as possible for that purpose. And with anything that isn’t in service of that: “cheat”, aka smartly tailor the tools to fit your purpose.
There is no cheating if you are learning/experiencing what you want.
And if you feel the need to tell me I am wrong, please don’t. I don’t want to see it in my celebration thread. And don’t tag me to argue with me in another thread. I’m at peace with my strategy and it has worked for me. I changed things until they worked in a way that made me happy and kept me learning, which is the goal, not doing things the accepted or “right” way.
All the Manga/Books I Read During My Journey to 60
Here they all are in chronological order:
So that is my wall of read books and manga so far. Everything finished before I finished my last level 60 lesson. I have a few started which you can check out on my bookmeter profile (feel free to add me!). The only thing not on bookmeter is ルーパーズ, a VN I’m partway through. Every book/manga started on bookmeter, I’m only 1-3 chapters into.
Below you’ll find everything I’ve read organized by series/category, I’ll talk a little about each read and also link to relevant forum threads (such as book clubs!). Use my bookmeter profile linked above to find them there.
Graded Readers
So I got the whole set of Ask Graded readers, level 0 through 4, all three volumes of each level. I bought them all at once which is kinda dumb, don’t be me. Haha.
Here is the graded readers and parallel book club on WK (a read at your own pace), and here is my review of the whole series and my recommendation for how many levels are actually needed. I have also generally reviewed each volume/level (can’t remember which) so feel free to look for more of my posts in the club.
ニャンニャン探偵団
Of the easy books I own, these are probably my favorite (although よつばと is super entertaining, it is definitely harder than this one). (Side note: I have not read the dog ones.) I love cats; the art style is beautiful. It is that kinda more Sherlock Holmes kinda mystery where you can’t necessarily figure it out ahead of time (I’m not entirely sure readers received enough clues to actually figure out all cases by themselves). At least I couldn’t.
With a few absurd but still fun mysteries. If a third book comes out, I’ll definitely get it. I’m just very fond of this. The grammar is fairly easy, no casual contractions that mangle the words into unrecognizable bits. (Well I recognize them now, but early on. 
) And it has book club!
If you like the art style and are happy with children oriented mysteries, go for it. Maybe I’m easily entertained, but I can enjoy something written for kids. The biggest detriment is the same as all children’s books: the lack of kanji. Which is only a problem because we are WKers/good at learning kanji.
美少女戦士セーラームーン (完全版)
As this was my first anime (even dubbed), I had to get the manga. I haven’t read all of it yet. I’ve read 4/10 kanzenban volumes, and I haven’t touched Sailor V yet that started before Sailor moon. I will get back to it though. I’m just too busy with WK book clubs right now. This was read as an independent book club in 2020, and I kept up for like two chapters.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. The pace is very high, so characterization suffers, which kinda sucks. And the fact that all the villains love old-fashioned villainy words and seems to know hundreds of verbs I didn’t know made it all the harder. But the first couple of volumes were pretty easy, since it was more time spent in school and such. The dark moon arc though felt like it was very heavy at the end with a lot of vocabulary I didn’t know. So a very uneven reading experience for me.
The art is gorgeous, and the nostalgia helps along the enjoyment.
ありす19th
This was my favorite manga when reading manga in English. Right now I’m not sure I have another favorite that reaches this. It has romance, magic from words, great characterization, plot built on those characters, and I just love it. I wish I could one day meet someone who loves it as much as I do.
When I read it in Japanese the first time, I skim read it. I was reading completely 多読 style, probably looking up less than 10 words total across 7 volumes, despite the amount of unknown vocabulary. I knew the story so well, it didn’t matter. (I have no idea how many times I’ve read it in English.)
My hope is that the next time I read it, so the first time I reread it in Japanese, I will be able to understand more, and truly see if there is a different feeling to it in Japanese.
よつばと
The most recommended series for beginners (probably). And yet, I don’t think I’ve ever really seen people mention how hilarious it is. Instead they talk about the easy language—which is not as easy as it should be for a first native read—and how it is about a little girl, so simple because of that too.
While personally for me, the selling point really is how true to ridiculous life it feels. In real life, all these things probably wouldn’t happen with the same girl, but it works for fiction.
Also, to note, I have only read two volumes so far, despite owning them all; once again because I’ve been too busy with book clubs when I’ve been reading.
As one of the early book clubs here on WK, the format is a bit rough, but there is still a lot of useful questions and resources in the threads!
ホテル・メッツァペウラへようこそ
This is the only thing I’ve read so far in true 多読 fashion, since I didn’t know the story beforehand. I think I’ve looked up 1-3 things total across the first two volumes, and I only looked up those words when they were super critical to the story and I couldn’t figure them out from reading a few more pages.
I enjoy this one so much because while I don’t know every word, I know enough that the little I miss doesn’t seem to matter. Also gorgeous art. And great characters. Honestly pretty art and great characters is what makes manga for me.
I’m also so grateful I prefer to read manga in paper (I wanna look at the pretty pictures on paper), because the tactile feel of the covers on these are so luxurious.
Orange
This is currently (Dec 2022) a book club I am running and we’re reading volume 5, so I’m almost at the end of the main story. I had no idea exactly what I was getting myself into. I first received the recommendation here on the forum when I asked for slice of life with some story recommendations in manga format.
So I knew the first couple of pages of premise. High school girl gets letter in the mail from her future self. And nothing else. Also could see pretty art.
And I’m so happy I picked this up. And I’ve been enjoying reading it together with other people. In fact, it was the mutual interest with a few people that had me starting an independent book club here on WK. And I’ve had so much fun doing that, and engaging deeper with the book club community here. (I now run two clubs in parallel! Ack!)
I highly recommend this manga, but be prepared for 
. Which is kinda given with a lot of Japanese media.
夜カフェ
This was my first book/LN. (The nyannyan books are a bit too short and text light to feel like a book. Also with art on every page it is more like a manga-book or you know 絵本 but for older children.) I really enjoyed the first volume. It felt really well done and fun. Plus cooking and DIY how-tos that were interesting and fun. Also useful vocabulary.
The second volume though… Then the bullying kept happening (and nothing changing) and it started to grate, and the lack of any adults doing anything to stop bullying just felt even more wrong, and then lastly a bully victim has to hang out with their bully and everyone keeps hoping they’ll just get past it and be friends. LIKE WHAT?!?!
I own the third volume, so I will probably read it at some point, but unless things changes I won’t read anymore and I’ll get rid of the volumes I own.
Sad, because I liked the first volume.
I didn’t read the first volume with the book club, but I did read the second volume with the club.
Manga single volumes
So just quickly, the one volume of a series or stand alone manga.
Chi’s Sweet Home: Cute cat, but too much baby speech and too little text to be a useful learning experience. If I could borrow it from the library, I’d probably read it, but not enjoyable enough to buy all the volumes. I did read the first volume with the club and checking on my participation (apparently I kept up through the whole thing more or less 
) I saw I mentioned this was my first finished native material. But I also saw even back then I thought exactly the same about it. Fluffy and cute, but not enough text and such to feel like a useful learning experience. (And too hard to read to enjoy the fluff.)
結婚しても愛してる: So good but it was a crash course in casual language and how much is understood from context, plus cultural stuff. I only lived through it thanks to the WK book club. I keep meaning to get back to this and read volume 2 and 3. It is so nice to read a romance story about a married couple still in love, focused on that love. Highly recommended, but not for a beginner.
渡瀬悠宇 Best Collection 1 & 2: Considering I like Alice 19th so much, I thought I’d get more from Watase Yuu. I’ve read at least one other series from her but didn’t enjoy it as much, and Fushigi Yugi is long enough that I’ve avoided it so far. So these two volumes of collected short stories felt like a good idea. I didn’t enjoy the first volume much but that could have been because of my level of Japanese. I enjoyed the second volume a lot more. I was gonna get rid of both of them, but now I think I need to reread the first volume to see if I missed something or maybe the stories in the second collection fit my taste better.
耳をすませば: I knew nothing about this except what was in the nomination post for the Beginner Book Club, and that was intriguing enough. So I joined the club for it. And no I still haven’t seen the anime, which is on my list. Promise! I really enjoyed the manga and found it easy, but it might be because I’ve read all these other things. I loved the intrigue, and me and the Shizuku have something in common. I’m assuming you can guess? Answer: writing (a mid-story spoiler). I also enjoyed the sequel short story that was in the version I bought.
If you wonder which ones I found easiest, I’ll list the first few here. I’m not gonna try and order them all:
-
Graded readers (surprise!?!?!?!) level 0 or 1, then 2 (and maybe 3). This is my recommendation for which levels are useful to read, after that read easy native content with WK book club help
-
ニャンニャン探偵団 (book with pictures on most/all pages)
-
耳をすませば (manga), this one is a little hard for me to place, because this is the latest one I’ve read in this list, but I think it was easy. Although how much casual language does it have?
I can’t remember -
夜カフェ (LN) except for too much onomatopoeia and some tricky how-to sections (because domain vocabulary), also heavily features bullying as a theme (at least as far as I’ve read, end of volume 2)
-
よつばと (manga), this one and 夜カフェ are hard to order, because よつばと spans more vocabulary and styles, since it is a humor manga with most chapters standing alone. But to me at least, manga is easier to read because pictures help with comprehension
-
Orange (manga), this one has casual language for sure. But a lot of everyday vocabulary. It is also very focused on school and friendships. While the first volume might feel a bit more slice of life, all the volumes are definitely one long story and so volume one doesn’t stand alone. I’d recommend this before よつばと and 夜カフェ if someone wanted something more mature, but it can get quite emotional. And as it is one long story, it gets easier and easier to read. True of 夜カフェ too. While よつばと tends to cover a lot of different topics and tries on different manga styles occasionally. But I think よつばと and 夜カフェ have easier language.
You might notice I skipped Chi’s Sweet Home. Because I didn’t find myself enjoying the learning experience with that one. Chi speaks like a baby and is impossible to understand. Only the parents are fairly easy to understand. And the text density is so low, it isn’t really worth it as a learning manga in my opinion. If you really want to read this, save this for a little later in your journey when you can just relax and casually read this to enjoy spending time with a cute kitten.
Future Plans (Dec 2022 and Onwards)
Surprising hopefully no one by this point (if you read the previous section), my biggest plan going forward is to keep reading. I’m currently in the middle of these book clubs (and one upcoming in less than 2 weeks as of December 18th):
- Orange (manga)
- 神さまがまちガえる (manga)
- BU$TAFELLOWS (visual novel)
- 9-nine- (visual novel) (starting end of Dec 2022)
I’m also in the middle of reading the VN ルーパーズ which was recently read in the VN book club. Although I suspect I won’t be able to finish that one anytime soon with my current reading load.
I’m the one running both Orange (currently on volume 5) and BU$TAFELLOWS. I anticipate leading other clubs in the future. When I find more time in my reading load again.
Definitely after Orange finishes.
Definitely.
I hope.
You ask: What about SRS and other Learning Tools/Materials?
My plans right now is to focus on reading, and to keep doing reviews on WK. I have lifetime so I will probably end up burning everything, but as per my (WK) strategy talk above, it won’t be the achievement other people who’ve burnt everything had.
I’m considering going back to BunPro to finish off N3 there properly. I already felt like SRS for grammar started breaking down after I finished N4 because the number of similar grammar points becomes a lot. I’ll have to see. I definitely want to study grammar a bit more in 2023 but I’m not sure in what form yet.
I have the three volumes of the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar. So maybe I can entice some people to read it together with me from cover to cover or something equally silly.
Or I might just add reading an entry a day as part of a Read Every Day Challenge. I will definitely keep doing those challenges because it is such a chill place to hang out with fellow readers.
As for other SRS, I don’t think I’ll pick up Torii again, although if I decide to go for a core deck, I might very well pick Torii for that. Although I think I’m done with writing input, I’ll do it anki style if so. I’ve been thinking of koohi though, for pre-learning for a specific book series to smooth the ride into the first volume at least if I’m planing to read a long series. Jpdb is also an option, and it has a very, very, very, very long samurai otome VN’s vocabulary list, a VN I happen to have recently picked up. But I’m probably not reading that one until 2024 earliest.
Yes, I am a hoarder collector buying-too-early book/game buyer.
What about Speaking/Listening?
Another good question… I definitely need to up my listening comprehension. And I think I’ll work on that some before trying to dig into speaking again. I never got very good that speaking despite spending a year at language school
I hope to focus some on listening next year (2023) since I hope to visit Japan again in 2024, so would like to be able to talk more. Obviously I’d need some speaking practice too. I will see how it shakes out.
What about JLPT?
Good question. I’m not sure. If I go for it, it’ll be N2 and/or N1. It might be a good study goal, but I think at least for 2023, I’ll focus on reading, with some grammar and listening practice thrown in (hopefully). These kind of things tend to change for me though. So maybe in a couple of months I’ll have signed up for July/December.
In Summary
I’ll stay on the forum, hanging out in my log (probably?!?! What will I write about? ), the Read Every Day Challenge threads, and book clubs. I also occasionally crop up in other places. But the three I mentioned are the places you’re most likely find me.
"Cake"
As we all know, the cake is a lie.
Almost cake
I don’t know about any local bakeries that make custom cakes, and I didn’t feel like baking a whole cake with Christmas right around the corner. But I did visit the UK recently and managed to bring home fresh clotted cream.
Therefore, I made the scones.
Yummy! 
So the scones celebrated finishing the last lessons (yesterday). But when I turned 60 I still wanted to celebrate reaching that number, but it was shortly before the UK trip and I didn’t have a lot of time to bake. Therefore:
Huge Kinder egg, because why not?
T-Rex! The apex predator. I guess it is trying to tell me I’m badass?
So how do I bring this whole thing together? 1511 days of WK later (2018-10-28 - 2022-12-17; I finished the last lesson yesterday), I’m so grateful I found WK and its wonderful community.
You guys have all been wonderful companions on this learning journey, and I hope to keep traveling with you. Without your advice, your userscripts, your encouragement, your support, and your companionship, I don’t think I’d be here today. 
I would have given up WK somewhere along the way. Possibly given up my goal of being able to read Japanese. Instead, it is as strong today as when I first discovered Japanese architecture (both historical and modern). It waxes and wanes like any interest, but it no longer dies off completely like it did before I found WK.
I’m also grateful to the WK team for creating such a great product, and for starting this community.
I could name a lot of names here, but I’m afraid I’d miss super important ones. Instead:
To anyone who’s ever interacted in any of my logs, thank you. 
To anyone who was part of and/or followed along with the Olympians, thank you. 
To anyone part of the read every day challenges, thank you. 
To everyone organizing and running book clubs (whether I was a part of them or not), I am so grateful. Thank you. 
To everyone participating in book clubs, thank you. 
To everyone participating in the book clubs I run, I’m sorry and also thank you. 
To everyone that wasn’t covered by the above lines, thank you. 
I could add some meme lines like I was here when X person was racing to 60, or similar things, but I won’t. Four years and change later, I’ve been here and gone and back again, and I hope I’ll be mostly here for a long time going forward.
Reaching level 60 doesn’t mean as much for fluency as we would all like, but it is a nice achievement nonetheless. 
m(_ _)m
So long, and thanks for all the fish turtles durtles cake! 
PS. This took me a long time to write. Don’t ask how long. It won’t take you nearly as long to read, but for those who do read it all, it will take some time. xD And I still probably forgot things I meant to include…
because I was so excited to make my wall of book covers. xD
greatly 
