It's really not sensationalizing. I'm level 50 on WaniKani at 2 years in, and had a couple 2-3 month lapses (with 2000+ review queues - I'm currently working on

It's really not sensationalizing. I'm level 50 on WaniKani at 2 years in, and had a couple 2-3 month lapses (with 2000+ review queues - I'm currently working one of those off). If I wouldn't have had the lapses I'd have finished a few months ago at my normal pace. WaniKani works because of the spaced repetition. I think it's easier to learn through level 60 in 2 years, rather than 4+ years because it's paced for that, and that helps you actually memorize them. Note that I also went to a language school full time for a year, which helped with vocabulary, which obviously makes memorizing the vocab kanji easier. I also moved to Japan when I started learning, so I'm forced to read Japanese all the time. Also worth noting that I do 200-300 reviews per day. If I'm on-top of my reviews, it's possible to do 300 reviews in about an hour and a half. When I stopped for a couple months, it would take me 3+ hours to do 300 reviews, because my correct percentage is 20-30% rather than being 85-95%. That alone shows me that keeping a proper review cycle helps me memorize.