In 2020, I raced through Wanikani as fast as possible, reaching level 60, and then stopped after a year. However, I later realized that I had forgotten pretty much everything, so I resubscribed and attempted to start whittling down the pile of thousands of reviews I had accumulated.
This is the seventh thread documenting my challenge. You can read about my journey up to now in the previous five threads - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.
The journey so far
I started this challenge on May 12th, 2021 with a mountain of 6218 reviews. I naively thought that Iâd mostly remember everything and that I could get through all that in just a few weeks, but instead I could barely remember anything from the higher levels, and it was brutal and my review count actually kept going up. After a month in a half, with my reviews up to 6618, I gave in and ended up resetting from level 60 down to level 46.
Even after resetting, it still wasnât easy, and my review mountain reached a post-reset high of 5319 before it finally started going down again.
The final chapter??
My review count declined steadily up until this spring, and so when I started the previous thread, I expected to soon hit 0, and optimistically titled that thread âthe race to 0â. However, it wasnât to be. After hitting a temporary low of 47, my review count languished in the 300s for months, and since I just got back from a 2.5 week trip to Japan, my review count is now up to 1130 again.
I suspect that part of the reason for my review count stubbornly staying high earlier this year is that I was also advancing through the levels on WK and doing new lessons at the same time. However, thatâs almost over now. When I left for Japan, I was close to hitting level 60, so hopefully Iâll do that soon, and after that, it wonât be long until Iâve done every lesson and there wonât be any new items getting added to the pile.
Thatâs my theory anyway. Hopefully this threadâs title will prove to be more accurate than âFriday the 13th: The Final Chapterâ.
