I’d also take a look at doing fewer lessons per day 
there’s no need to do them all at once, and as soon as you start hitting genuinely new material it really does get harder to cram that much new information in all at once.
I definitely think it works better to do a smaller number of lessons every day, but perhaps spend a little more time on them.
In terms of not recognising stuff in the wild; that’s normal, and the more exposure you get the better that will get too. I’d recommend the font randomizer script too; it can help to shake you out of only being to recognise things in the WaniKani font, which is one aspect of this issue.