Don’t kink-shame me
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Another thing to keep in mind is that just because a kanji is a certain level doesn’t mean that the words associated with it are that level. The idea that 毛 or 玉 are N2 kanji is kind of bizarre to me, but I guess part of it comes from the fact that… well… other important kanji are in N5-3 and so not everything can be in those levels.
But honestly no one gets to N2 without encountering 毛 or 玉, either in kanji or words.
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Like @Leebo said, the old JLPT lists are a bit divorced from reality. 森 and 林 are listed as N2, for example, despite being taught in first grade in Japan and being in common words (both on their own are listed as N4 words).
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If you work and have other hobbies, and you do WK diligently, one chapter of Genki per week is definitely fast. Not impossible, mind you, but certainly not leisurely either. At least, if you also care about learning the Genki vocab, do all the readings and the workbook exercises, etc.
Myself, I would basically do a chapter every two weeks and I still took some breaks here and there from that and I found that a quite workable pace. And that is still faster than most university courses.
I think you’re quite off-base about the lack of reinforcement from doing too little, as long as you consistently practice, that seems like a made-up problem to me.
(It’s also worth mentioning that completing Genki I doesn’t technically put you at N5 level. At least when I did a practice test, there were some things on there that I hadn’t encountered yet, although it was still enough to pass (but it was only a practice test). I think Genki I & II combined put you at N4, though, but I’m not 100% on that.)
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If they don’t introduce 玉 early, how would you know 金玉 by level 5? 
Honestly, I’m not a fan of the sequence of new material of both the WK and JLPT (which is also why JLPT ditched the official list). In your case, I recommend focusing on remembering the stuff that has overlaps in both Genki and Wanikani, and use other materials like the Genki Anki deck, YouTube videos, or N5 practices to aid your study.
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I think I was doing a chapter of Genki per like 8-10 days, but actually doing all of the exercises so 1 week per chapter is fast if one has only evenings to work on it. I agree 2 weeks per chapter sounds more realistic 
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I’m not sure the JLPT ever published an official list of kanji by level (Edit for clarity… they have never published lists for the current version of the test we are discussing). The lists everyone refers to have just existed for a really long time.
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There was something I think, because in the guidebook to the new JLPT (from 2009) there is a Q&A explaining that they are not going to publish those lists anymore.
Q7 Is anything like the currently available “Test Content Specifications” going to be published for the new test?
A7 The “Test Content Specifications” which includes the lists of vocabulary, kanji, and grammar are not going to be published for the new test
Not sure what was exactly in there, and how binding it was though.
I joined last month for very similar reasons. N5 is definitely achievable, so go for it!
From the perspective of a free account WaniKani shouldn’t have available content after level 3. So it’s not a bug exactly, it’s just how the content is locked and why the content is missing for you on wkstats.
And I wouldn’t worry about content ordering at all. Those “higher” kanji come up a lot in popular media. @Arzar33 is right – one of my friend’s children is in the first grade and they had to learn a few N2 kanji this year, but there are several N5 kanji they won’t learn until next year.
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Yeah… But 2009’s change was the one that took it from 4 levels to 5… So there has never been a list for the N# levels.
To me I guess the pre-N# ones don’t feel real lol
It’s just worth pointing out that it’s not that the “N2 kanji list is old and not published anymore” but there were lists from before N2 even existed. So any attempt to fit them to N2 has always just been people guessing.
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I don’t really know the distribution of kanji on WK, and I think you’ve already received a lot of clarification on that, but I’d just like to comment on the usefulness of these kanji:
毛 is something you’ll come across for sure in almost any anime, just that it might not be written in kanji. You know ahoge? Cowlicks? Yeah, it’s literally 阿呆毛 in kanji (‘idiot hair’), because it’s hair that just sticks out any which way. Knowing it as a word (け) can also give you intuitions for other words: けもの=‘beast’ has a pretty complicated-looking kanji (獣), but if you know もの usually means ‘(concrete) thing’, you’ll realise it’s just a ‘hairy/furry thing’. At least it’ll be easier to remember what it means in that case.
刀 probably isn’t very useful in everyday life, but the kun/native Japanese reading (kun’yomi) is かたな, and I think most people interested in Japanese culture have come across that type of sword at some point. It’s also a useful component in a lot of kanji, especially in its alternative radical form (刂).
玉＝たま is just ‘ball’ in Japanese usage. (It can also mean ‘jade’, and that’s what it normally means in Chinese, but I think that meaning is slightly rarer in Japanese.) I haven’t seen a ton of words containing it, but it’s still good to know, and I mean, there’s also the kendama (剣玉) toy, which should make it more memorable.
矢… OK, this one isn’t immediately useful, yes. The only everyday word I can think of for it is 矢印（やじるし）, which literally means ‘arrow symbol’. You can still use it for the arrow keys on a keyboard though: 矢印キー (‘arrow symbol key(s)’). Nonetheless, it’s good to know this exists, and to avoid mixing it up with other kanji like 失. That aside, I think 矢 is also a fairly common kanji component, so again, it’s helpful to know, even if it’s not that useful on its own.
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That’s pretty much it, I would bet that 90% of the reason of learning 刀 and 矢 that early is to be able to use them as component for 切 (切る level 3) and 知 (知る level 6)…
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Well, the book is copyrighted material, but you can still find it:
Unofficial lists based on the published book:
http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/nifongo/data/noryoku_1.html
How they pick vocabulary and kanji for the test:
現行の日本語能力試験では問題作成者用に『出題基準』が作成され、１９９４年からは一般にも公開されているが、検討会では新しい試験に合わせた出題基準の構築も行っている。出題基準分科会は、そのために組織された分科会である。分科会はさらに２つの部会に分かれ、漢字表と語彙表は漢字表・語彙表部会（以下、部会と略）、文法項目表は機能表・文法項目表部会が担当している。
As I said in the next post, these aren’t for the N levels we are discussing these days, which as far as I know have never had lists. But yes, at some point they officially published lists for the old form of tests that aren’t offered anymore.
I was responding to your original reply but yes, one reason they don’t publish these lists anymore is because they will update what vocabulary they pick every year.
I think you should go with your pace but i also think it’s important to hit the sweet 7-14 days per level too since you forget what you learn so quickly if you don’t use it much. When you get to level 10 only 1 kanji is left from N5 and that is 書 (which means write) learn the last kanji by yourself and take the test that’s what i’m planning too.
It definitely varies. I just finished Genki 2 doing 2-2.5 chapters / week (usually 1 chapter Saturday and 1 Sunday) but I skip most of the exercises, do my own vocal and do WK of course. Generally, I find it plenty to just practice with Bunpro and sneaking in the grammar when doing assignments for class.
Going at a high (but manageable) pace does definitely help with reinforcement, but I do think that reading a lot does wonders, too.
lol I like this phrase
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I’m not saying that you can’t be faster. If you’re highly motivated and/or have a lot of time, of course you can breeze through Genki. You can also skip exercises and vocab if you think those are of no particular value to you, everyone has their own learning experience that works best for them.
I only intended to dispel the IMHO rather silly notion that doing less than 1 chapter of Genki per Week or aiming for N5 in a year is equivalent to “shallow” learning.
The thing about reinforcement is that it’s important to be consistent. It’s better to practice half an hour every day than to only practice every two weeks for 7 hours straight.
Also, language learning is not a video game. Nobody cares how fast you reach N5 or N4 or whichever level. Your current competence in the language is much more complex than what is described by a simple categoric JLPT level. For example, I would definitely fail N4 because my listening skills are atrocious (I’d even struggle on N5), but I already know the vast majority of N5-N3 Kanji according to wkstats.
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For the record, I didn’t make it up.