How should I be learning Kanji and Vocab, having already learnt some with one method and wanting to switch?

I understand this is an overused question title, but having searched the Subreddit for some time now, I have not found the consolation I need. I have been learning Japanese for a few months, and have got this far in the KanjiDamage deck:

Young – 22%

Mature – 7%

New – 71%

… out of 3642 / 2 (recognition + production) = 1821

I actually enjoy the crude jokes made in the KanjiDamage deck, but sometimes it has really annoying faults with the radicals and just ignores some of them for the sake of the mnemonic. I have tried a bunch of other resources: other Anki decks, jpdb.com, Wani Kani, etc. My main problem is that KanjiDamage often uses radical names which are nowhere to be found in other systems. For instance, “Moocow” – ム is called (I think) “elbow” in RTK. This means that switching from one to another is a big hustle. I have also tried just learning with vocab, using the Migaku addon, etc. I have some programming experience, conveniently a lot of it is in python, so I have spent some time contemplating just creating my own deck building off of Koohii (I really like the community mnemonics on there). Should I just buckle down and keep going with KanjiDamage until I can immerse easier, or should I just give up and switch, if so, what to? I’m happy to spend time researching different solutions, but I don’t want to do it to the point where I feel like I was just wasting time, which is why I thought I’d ask here: to grasp others’ solutions. I should also mention that for most of the Kanji I am absolutely hopeless with on’yomi and kun’yomi. My understanding was I should do that when learning vocab…

1 comment
  1. Do a core deck. I recommend starting with core2.3k and then mining your own vocab. Isolated kanji studies are optional.

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