Hello,
I am new to Wanikani. I would like to learn from other users who subscribed and advanced through the upper levels. I am on the fence, considering Wanikani for my learning journey. I am on my way to finish level three lessons and reviews.
I hope users (i.e. not Wanikani administration) share their experiences with Wanikani.
I am looking forward to reading your comments. 
I was talking to a classmate of mine who has been studying for two years why we didnāt start Wani Kani sooner. We both independently paid for it without consulting for each other. It has helped so much in helping recognize and read Kanji which indirectly helps with vocabulary.
Check out the Level 60 Celebration category on the forums for opinions from people who completed the course:
Yes, it is.
Not only does it help you memorize the kanji and vocab, but it also gives you some routine during the period when having a routine is critical. A lot of people drop from studying Japanese at the very beginning. To prevent that, one desperately needs some routine, something to do every day.
Granted, different methods work differently for different people, and maybe you would find that SRS is not how you would prefer to studyā¦ So, ultimately, only you can decideā¦
But I am very glad that I joined WaniKani. I came here hoping that someday iād be able to read my favorite manga in Japanese.
Now I am able to read my favorite manga in Japanese. I donāt think Iād ever get to this point without Wanikani.
In any case, whether you decide to subscribe or not, best of luck with your studies!
May you reach all your Japanese goals! 
The radical breakdown and mnemonic system worked wonders for me.
Learning not just vocab, but kanji and onāyomi also meant that there are compound words that I could read and understand even if they werenāt in WK.
Levels 20-50 have a huge amount of useful kanji. After putting in the work with grammar, something like Ace Attorney started feeling accessible in the level 20s.
For me personally, it was worth it. Iām not sure I would have ever managed if I was just trying to do rote memorisation of kanji vocab without extra aids.
Iāve been using WaniKani for about 10 months now and itās been a lot of fun. I spend about 30 minutes a day doing reviews and lessons, and I feel like Iām not too far away from reading some of the easier manga out there.
Just the other day, I was reading the top part of a Japanese Wikipedia article, and I didnāt have much trouble with it. I even figured out the meaning of a few words based on the context and what I knew about the individual kanji, despite WaniKani not teaching those specific words. It was honestly pretty surreal.
Iāve gotten to that point with WaniKani being my main way of learning and practicing. Recently, Iāve started using BunPro for grammar, and thatās been a blast, too. It even syncs with WaniKani so it keeps track of the kanji and vocab Iāve learned, too. Iām not qualified to give advice on the ābestā approach, but doing 10 levels of WaniKani, then adding BunPro has worked well for me so far.
Iām going through it for the second time now, after a few years of not using my Japanese skills actively, and while I thought I had lost my knowledge, I see to still remember at least 80%-90% of the kanji I find, and thatās including all the kanji that they added in my absence. Almost halfway through, and Iām still having a great time going through everything, especially now that I can mostly focus on the things that were difficult for me last time, and even discovering some small nuance differences between kanjis I thought were describing similar things.
Iām almost halfway through again, after resetting from a fully burned level 60 in the past. This time, Iām also accompanying my study with BunPro as well, which provides not only an SRS implementation for grammar, but has massive amount of vocab decks as well, and even decks specifically made for reading certain books. If you want to try another program that you couldnāt believe you were learning without, try them out as well!
Wanikani (and Bunpro as well) have been upgrading the website, listening to users, and adding important and interesting kanji and vocab all the time, even after all these years, so you can be sure to be able to enjoy a great product.
Thank you for sharing your insights. 
Thank you.
Iāve been using WaniKani myself for a month and a half, and while Iām relatively early into the overall journey I think itās worthwhile. As trunklayer mentioned, the routine the service provides provides structure and means Iām always making at least a little bit of progress every day, and I completely agree with Omun about the radicals and mnemonics. When the site suggests a mnemonic I simply donāt understand, at this point I trust in the system to either brute-force the knowledge into my brain or that I can come up with a separate mnemonic in order to memorize the information.
The payoff has been tangible as well; even early on, there were words that I began to recognize in anime and songs (eg. äŗäŗŗ) and that number only continues to grow as I learn more kanji and vocab here. Plus Iāve been able to read some social media posts I see around, which is always fun. It was frustrating not understanding some vocab or another in grammar lessons before, but now that Iāve got a reasonable base itās much less frustrating even if I do find a kanji or word I havenāt been specifically exposed to yet.
So, for me personally, having a structured kanji learning routine with pre-defined mnemonics that teaches and tests on readings has been more than worth the subscription. I donāt know that I could suggest it to everyone though; itās less customizable than some other options since itās more or less a pre-defined course, and it doesnāt teach grammar points so you would need to supplement that in other ways. But if the system has worked for you well so far and you have the disposable income, I think itās a worthy investment.
be sure to check out other cheaper and even free options before plunking down money here
wk is by far one of the most expensive methods and still has many deficiencies, undo button ā¦ and really no dark mode even with the new dashboard SHMā¦ insane lolā¦ also biggiest issue is still no freaking leech management of any kind itās insane!!! cannot suspend or stop them they just wonāt die - search the forums not making this up
check out renshuu (they are completely free) has lots of resources and anki also free
if you want paid options
marumori is great site as is bunpro (they are actively improving the overall system regularly)
of course if wk works for you then try, but would avoid paying for any lifetime memberships from them so if it doesnāt work out you can cancel and save the money. The first few levels donāt really tell you much and by the time you figure out if it works itās level 15-20 and by that time the money is gone ā¦
do what works for you of courseā¦but search the forumsā¦wk is far from perfect despite the constant dashboard refreshes every couple of years, the regular script breaking, etcā¦ the main product is just not as good as other competitors now IMO.
WK is effective. I donāt regret the lifetime membership. It provides the right amount of structure to keep me on track and making steady progress.
Some other free options that may also work for you but with fewer bells and whistles:
I could write a long review about this if I wanted to, but I think my personal throughline is that I earnestly believe my Kanji (and further vocab proficiency) would beā¦ 1/10th? what it is if not for using this site. Iāve only been here about a year but I would credit it easily as the biggest tool that has helped my proficiency.
Itās not all-encompassing- no grammar, almost no kana-only stuff, listening/speaking and writing practice is all limited- but for what this program specifically intends to do (familiarize one with Kanji) I would call it the essential resource.
I know you asked for users and not WaniKani staff to chime in, but I was a user before I started to work here so I figured Iād add my two cents.
I studied Japanese on and off for nearly my entire life (since middle school) trying various methods but could never get anything to āstick.ā I felt like so permanently stuck as a beginner, always taking two steps forward one step back.
When I finally got to go to Japan for the first time, I came back determined to actually get a seriousā about Japanese. At the suggestion of a friend, I tried WaniKani and by the third of fourth level or so, I actually found myselfā¦.learning!
I kept going and the tangible progress I was making in WaniKani gave me the motivation and curiosity needed to start practicing grammar, listening, reading, and everything else with a new tenacity. Learning Japanese involves more than what WaniKani alone can offer, but I completely credit it for finally being the thing that worked for me and the jump off point for the rest of my studies.
And that was all before I started working here 
Could you tell me more about bunpro and your experience please? Iām level nine and Iāve been studying for 9 years inconsistently during those years Iāve had two children. So overall Japanese study took a back burner for a long time. I really intensely gotten back into it recently and feel really good about where I am but I still occasionally struggle with verb conjugation so your input would be really valuable to me.
yes definitely. i bought a lifetime subscription 3 years ago and iām glad i didāi gave up around level 15 when i went to grad school and recently restarted. iām surprised at how much i managed to remember even then.
highly recommend starting to read very very easy material around level 9 or 10. viewing kanji in contexts beyond flashcards is very important to trigger better memory.
Hey man, if you want to learn kanji, wanikani is the one true way.
Wanikani works like a charm, I am mid-way and am already able to read japanese and comfortably navigate life in Japan. Iām still learning new words everyday of course but the essential material gets covered quick.
I absolutelly recommend.
I have no clue how people learn kanji without wanikani.
It worked for me. It lays groundwork for SRS with vocab learning and Kanji alongside. It also lays groundwork for remembering vocab and Kanji better with radicals and mnemonicsā¦ before moving on to Anki, and using mnemonics less and less often. I tried Anki before using WaniKani, but couldnāt get used to it.
That being said, I donāt see it getting much better content-wise. Radicals can get more detailed and accurate if you consult wiktionary.org. Despite teaching 2000 Kanji, it may miss several alternative Kanji readings and meanings. That makes jpdb.io or Yomitan+Anki an alternative. I hear good things about Ringotan, though I didnāt use it myself.
In contrast, you donāt have to worry about the content for now, and just rely WaniKaniās structure. The first thing to be careful of is about accumulating review pile ā you may need to do review everyday, as well as clear all on most days. Well, this is true of any SRS platform, but this particularly platform doesnāt let suspend or changing SRS level. (So it seems that having limited amount of vocabularies and Kanji in SRS is a good idea ā to prevent review overload; but this is an artificial limit.)
It seems that Bunpro does get better content-wise. Perhaps also MaruMori. But I canāt really comment on what I donāt use. I have tried a little of jpdb.io and a lot of Anki.
Youāve seen everything there is to get a feel for what you think of it, really. Itās 57 more levels of that. All that you havenāt gotten to experience is how itāll stick with you longer term, but if you keep spending time with Japanese regularly, thatās nothing to worry about.
Since youāre getting mostly positive answers, Iāll just give the counterbalance as I see it. Absolutely, objectively, people have learned and remembered kanji through WK, itās all about if you like how it works (rigid structure and all) and can spare as much as it costs. WK works.
Just, what also works isā¦ pretty much anything else sensible. People have mentioned sites like Renshuu, or you could use an anki deck with kanji, or you could study words directly through any means without really specifically ālearning kanjiā and they come along with the words. What youāre getting from WK is the following:
Their spaced repetition system - Some people like how itās all done for you out of the box, but itās also very rigid. I preferred and generally recommend add ons to mark typos/synonyms correct manually, or even not type at all, etc, which is doable but you need to essentially mod the program to force it. The algorithm itself with its set time intervals is pretty much objectively inferior to what you could get somewhere like Anki thatād adjust to you, but Anki requires a little more setup. To be clear there are still some SRS principles being used broadly in the increasing intervals, but the room for improvement is immense over the one size fits all type specific time intervals.
The breakdowns and mnemonics - This was why I used WK when I did. Mnemonics are hit or miss and I think trend worse over time, but you can see how you feel about them. Having someone nicely break it into parts and hold your hand can take some pressure off and help you learn how to learn kanji. There are a few other places online thatāll give you their own spin on these sorts of radical breakdowns, though.
The interface - I mean, makes no difference to me personally, but Iāve seen people complain that anki is plain and minimalist without effort to change that so you might care.
Over time Iāve gotten kind of disillusioned with WK and decisions made that has soured me somewhat, but itās also true that I used and was helped by it. In a vacuum if someone asked me Iād probably lightly recommend against it in light of all the other options that exist. If someone told me they were using it, though, I wouldnāt discourage it, Iād just go āOh nice that really helped me,ā because it did. Ultimately if you stick with Japanese youāll be fine either way, so try to work out how youāre feeling about what the site is doing.
As a beginner, there is an overwhelming amount of kanji and vocabulary to learn, memorize, and review to be able to begin to grasp and learn japanese. Not to mention all the grammar and practice through immersion (reading, listening, speaking) that needs to be done. Wanikani essentially saves you some of the headache of trying to organize and structure a way for you to learn some of these things and sets up a routine for you to follow and keep you accountable for at least showing up everyday to study or review something.
However, to put it bluntly, wanikani is expensive and it is a subscription service that prevents and time gates your progress based on your accuracy and how often you do your reviews. You can potentially spend a tremendous amount of time and money being stuck on a level or trusting the system. This can ultimately impact the efficiency and quality of your overall learning, and it is something to be very mindful about.
While it is nice to think that just checking in and doing some kind of routine to get to an arbitrary level of 60 will cross a finish line of āI can now understand kanji and read everythingā, there is a substantial amount of other things you will need to do either at the same time or after to actually achieve the level of proficiency that you might be interested in.
Overall, I found Wanikani to be very useful and I got a lot out of it. But, I didnāt follow its intended structure(I used undo and kept unlocking content at a pace that would get me to see and practice everything within a year) and chose to get through it quickly while reinforcing my japanese through other methods that I found more valuable.
Iād say that Wanikani is a nice place to start and have your hand held for awhile, but there is a tremendous amount of other work that needs to be done outside of it and even simultaneously depending on what your overall goals are. So just be mindful about how much time, money, and trust you are putting into this rigid program.