This instruction booklet is included with a free trial of WaniKani for the ニンテンドーゲームキューブ (Nintendo GameCube). In a few decades this booklet will be sold on eBay for a couple hundred dollars… without the six disks needed for play.
Prologue (Background)
I started learning Japanese when I was fifteen in 2016. At the time, I really wanted to be a polyglot and know ALL the languages (little did I know that there are 7000 of them lol). I didn’t stick with really any of the others I was learning at that time, not even French which I took four years of classes for, but I stuck with Japanese. Not really sure why I did. Now it’s easy to say why I like learning Japanese. I find it a very straightforward language now that I understand how it works morphosyntactically, and there’s so much media coming out of Japan that the only barrier to immersion is willpower. But back then? I don’t really know.
I really struggled to get past that beginner stage though. I could remember a handful of kanji, but once it got more advanced than 行 or 猫 I couldn’t remember any of it! I tried every free method under the sun to get them in my head. Nothing really worked for me until WaniKani… which isn’t free, but the purchase was 100% worth it. Now I can read kanji pretty easily! Which means I can read books! And subtitles! And video games— wait, you’re telling me old school video games use kana? Oh god.
I still can’t really understand the spoken language that well, but that’s something I’m actively working at right now. Now that I’m done with WK and grad school, hopefully I’ll have more time dedicated to listening and speaking practice.
Stats
Let’s see… put a few hundred experience points into Life, a few hundred into Magic, and I can’t forget about boosting my Attack… oh wait, not those kinds of stats!
Stats
Level 2 was long because I made this account in 2018, did the free trial for a bit, didn’t like it, and dropped it. For some reason when I came back to WK I continued with this account instead of making a new one. Level 4 was long because I was waiting for the yearly sale. Everything other than that… that’s on me 
And now for my level progress (scripts: Overall Progress Bars + Levels Overview Plus)
Still haven’t done all the lv 60 vocab lessons. I’ll get to them eventually
Inventory (Scripts and Resources)
Userscripts
Reviews / Studying
- I don’t use reorder/undo on desktop, but I do use them on mobile (Smouldering Durtles)
- Detailed SRS Popups
- Item Inspector (I use this to find my leeches)
- Previously used Lesson Lock before the lesson update, now just use WK’s built-in lesson limit
Stats
- WaniKani Dashboard SRS and Leech Breakdown
- Levels Overview Plus
- Expected Daily Number of Reviews
- Levels by SRS
- Progress Percentages
- Overall Progress Bars
Current Resources
- LearnNatively - A database of Japanese books, movies, and tv shows all graded for difficulty by the community. one of my absolute favorite sites in the whole world. I will not shut up about Natively.
- Bunpro - grammar SRS
- JADED Network SFX Dictionary - Onomatopoeia dictionary
- Comprehensible Japanese a great youtube channel for easing into listening!
- Irodori - I use this for speaking practice
- Nihongo con Teppei I listen to some other podcasts too but this is the main one I throw on when driving
- other than that, a whole lot of books!
Resources I Previously Used and Recommend
- Human Japanese - my first “textbook” and the only one I really stuck with. Absolutely recommend! Very cheap but excellent quality. By the same people as Satori Reader
- Satori Reader - an excellent graded reader website! Expensive, but worth it imo, especially if you get it on sale
- Anki - Still a big fan of Anki, but I stopped using it for Japanese after starting WK. Might go back to it, but I don’t think I really need to at this point
- Tadoku - free graded readers!
- Japanese Ammo With Misa - Misa taught me so much about grammar, vocab, and natural Japanese! It’s been a while since I’ve watched any of her videos but I still recommend her channel
Disc 1: The Pleasant Valley （快谷）
Tutorial (Free Trial)
Hint! Sometimes you need different resources at different times.
I first discovered WaniKani in 2018, but I didn’t really get into it. I got to level 2, got annoyed at how slow it was, and quit. Two years later, with more Japanese under my belt, I stumbled across it again. I was like, hey, I’ve been struggling a lot with kanji… what if I actually did the first three levels of this? And wow. A completely different experience.
Levels 4-10
Hint! If you’re finding WaniKani too slow, work on other areas of Japanese as you wait for your reviews!
I came into Wanikani after about half a decade of self-study. I knew a lot of vocab (or at least, I thought I knew a lot of vocab). I knew all of the kanji in the first few levels and at least recognized most of the rest. But I was surprised that there was some vocab even in the very early levels I didn’t know. A common complaint with people in my position is that we already know these kanji, can’t we skip them? But I didn’t really care that I knew them. They were just easy reviews to me 
WaniKani itself recommends waiting until after the Pleasant levels to start on grammar. Maybe it’s because I came into WaniKani after a few years of study, but I really recommend starting on grammar asap. Even before kanji! You don’t have to get super into the weeds, but I think you should at least have an understanding of some basic grammar points.
Hint! Don’t do all of your lessons at once!
Hint! Don’t use Anki and WaniKani for the same material at the same time!
When I started WK, I’d already been using an Anki deck for years. In fact, it was the same Anki deck I’d started around the time I tried WaniKani the first time! I added every unfamiliar vocab word in WaniKani to Anki for the first five levels or so. But I quickly realized that wasn’t the best strategy. It was just more reviews of the same material. Thinking about how many reviews I’d be doing now if I continued to essentially SRS each vocab item twice simultaneously… the horror 
I’d be even more burnt out lol
—Please Insert Disc 2—
Disc 2: Painful Forest（苦森）
I remember thinking that this section wasn’t as painful as the name suggests. At this point, I didn’t really have any problems related to WaniKani or Japanese. But a lot of that is because I had already been studying Japanese for years before WK and I had a ton of time to do reviews.
Hint! Use context to differentiate similar words!
Wanikani now has common word combinations for all words up to level 16 and some other words as well, and man do I wish I had these when I was in the early levels. Then it would be easier to differentiate all the words with similar meanings (or at least, similar English glosses even if their actual meanings differ).
And I wish I had them in the upper levels! To the point where I went through the site/forums and found every word level 17-60 with common word combinations listed. You can see how I use that data with Item Inspector here.
At this point, if you haven’t already, start reading! That will also help with understanding the context you use these words and will help with retaining words/kanji long after you burn them. Use the language!!!
(If you’re curious, I recently talked about my literacy milestones on the Bunpro forums)
—Please Insert Disc 3—
Disc 3: Death Mountain（死山）
Fun fact: Death Mountain from Zelda is actually デスマウンテン in Japanese! Not 死山
Another fun fact: in the Japanese version of A Link to the Past / Triforce of the Gods, Death Mountain is only called that in the Dark World! In the Light World, it’s Hebra Mountain (ヘブラ山)
Hint! Slow down around falling rocks!
The Death levels… oh god I felt the Death levels. I wasn’t going record speed, but I was still going fast at about 9/10 days per level. I worked so hard to keep going at that steady rate. And I crashed. Got hit by those falling review rocks and got crushed by my stubbornness to keep going.
Now, I do lessons only if Apprentice + Guru/10 < 150. Usually it hovers around 115 Apprentice and 350 Guru. The lesson lock script is especially useful for this I’m definitely not perfect at sticking to this limit tho lol
—Please Insert Disc 4—
Disc 4: Hell Tower（地獄棟）
Hint! Don’t forget to save your progress!
I started my study log as I reached level 40 (well, I reached level 40 then promptly reset). But it was something I was considering all throughout the level 30s. Making a study log was a great way to hold myself accountable and think through my next steps, and it was also a great way to start being active on the forums in general!
It’s also really neat to have a record of language learning progress. It’s like when you find your very first Japanese notebook and see your first vocab lists and attempts at past tense conjugation. It’s nostalgic and shows you how far you’ve come!
—Please Insert Disc 5—
Disc 5: Paradise Labyrinth（天国の迷宮）
(Another fun fact: you know video game “dungeons”? In Japanese, these are called 迷宮 (labyrinths). Personally I feel like this fits better. Not all dungeons are actual dungeons, but they’re usually kinda maze-like, right?)
Hint! Why not take a break? You can pause the game by any time by pressing +
Towards the end of the Paradise levels, I considered just stopping right there. I no longer struggled with kanji, and for any. I mentioned this in my study log, but it felt like I was no longer using WaniKani for the sake of Japanese. The gamification got to me. I wanted to reach level 60 for that gold badge, so I could make this level 60 post, so I could feel some sort of accomplishment instead of just… stopping. As you might be able to tell from this post, I really love video games. But I’m not here to play games. I’m here to acquire a language. Was WaniKani still a beneficial tool for me to do so?
Take this time to really think about your goals. Is WaniKani still right for you? Does it still align with your goals? There’s nothing wrong with stopping WaniKani (or any other resource) if it no longer benefits you!
As you can tell from this post, I decided to keep going to the end. By this point, I was already putting most of my focus elsewhere (grammar, reading, listening). But it wasn’t a big deal for me to keep using WaniKani for these last 10 levels. It became just a little study thing I could do on the side. And it’s still learning after all. But looking back now, I think I would have been satisfied even if I’d stopped at level 50.
—Please Insert Disc 6—
Disc 6: Temple of Reality（現実の神殿）
This is a weird set of levels. Not just because it was added later (though that certainly factors into it). But also because you’re so close to the end… and yet motivation plummets. You know senioritis? Yeah, you get senioritis in the level 50s.
Hint! Don’t speedrun to the final boss
While you can rush to Ganon the Crabigator in nothing but your boxers armed with a wooden spoon and a pot lid… that’ll be one tough battle
I tried at first to rush through the fast levels to get to the end, but I still took about a month per level and had to reset a couple levels midway through. But I’m okay with it taking longer. WaniKani became something to do a bit of while I wait for my coffee order. Most of my time with Japanese at this point was reading, WK was just a bit of bonus learning.
Along those lines, make sure to still do all your reviews every day. Because I was doing WK in smaller chunks, I tended to use Flaming Durtles (now Smouldering Durtles)… but I had it set up so current level kanji/radicals take priority in reviews. If I was doing all my reviews, that wouldn’t be a problem. But I often just did my kanji reviews, told myself I’d do the rest later, then came back the next day to, you guessed it, more kanji reviews. By the time I got to the vocab reviews, I didn’t really remember them. This is honestly the main reason it took so long to get from 50 to 60. Not because I took a while to guru kanji, but because at the beginning of each level I didn’t do new lessons until I didn’t have so many apprentice vocab.
You’ve probably already established some great habits over the last 50 levels. So don’t throw those away now! Keep on doing your dailies!
Staff Roll
And then suddenly I was at level 60?! I reached the end? Defeated the final boss of 湧 (the final kanji to be unlocked)… and now I’m done. ngl it was rather anticlimactic but I’m fine with that. As per tradition, I got myself a cupcake from a local bakery to celebrate 
(raspberry buttercream cupcake with lemon liqueur filling)
Thank you to the Wanikani community for being so awesome and encouraging! And for helping me past that eternal beginner stage!
Looking Back: Do I recommend WaniKani?
So you may be looking at all of this and be like, “Well of course you would recommend WaniKani, you wrote all this and spend all your free time on the forums!” And it’s true, I love the community here and I had so much fun making this post. But… do I actually recommend WaniKani? The rumor come out: Does meagstudies is WaniKani fan?
First off, WaniKani and the WaniKani forums are essentially two different resources. I absolutely recommend the forums to anyone who wants to get started with reading or just wants to join a friendly community that will support them on their journey to acquire this wonderful language. There’s active book clubs for all levels, there’s grammar threads with quick answers, there’s POLLs… I mean, uh, those threads don’t exist… Wait where are you going? Get back here, you’re not done studying yet!!
(Damn. Lost another one to the POLLs 
)
But what about WaniKani itself? The kanji-learning website that teaches you over 2,000 kanji and 6,000 vocabulary words? And, most recently, kana-only words? Do I recommend this website?
Well… it depends.
First off, there are much cheaper ways to learn kanji. In fact, you can learn kanji for FREE! (I know, shocker). I really recommend trying some free ways to learn kanji to begin with. Especially if you’re not sure if you’re going to even stick with Japanese. For me, I tried so many different ways to learn kanji, but I just couldn’t get them into my head. And so I turned to WaniKani for some structure. It didn’t matter to me that it was slower than just cramming kanji or making my own Anki deck… because it was still going to be more efficient than whatever method I was using before.
Second (and this may be controversial), I don’t think this is the best resource for absolute beginners. Kanji is absolutely important, of course, and a common mistake is pushing it off for too long. But learning 2,000 kanji is not really the most high-priority thing for an absolute beginner to Japanese. Grammar and basic vocabulary are more urgent in my opinion. Going into WaniKani after a bit of study will help you with your WaniKani reviews as well! You will understand which vocab are verbs, which are nouns, and which are adjectives. You will better understand derived forms such as nominalized verbs. And you will have an easier time with kanji forms of vocab you’ve already learned. (Also, if you’re an absolute beginner, you haven’t tried other kanji learning methods yet!)
All in all, I do highly recommend WaniKani if it meshes with your learning style. But I still think people should look at all of their options before subscribing. This method is not for everyone, it has its issues, and it’s expensive. It was a lifesaver for me, but it might not be for everyone.
So what’s next for me? Well, I will continue to hang out here on the WaniKani forums I’m also active in the Natively forums, if you’d like to DM me you can do so there.
I’m obsessed with your theme
You deserve it!
and completely agree with your take on Wanikani 
Good luck find an awesome job, crossing fingers that you can get one where you can use all your skills including your creativity! 