John Erickson

Anki: The Backbone of 9to5 Japanese

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TL;DR: Anki is the engine that makes 9to5 Japanese work, but only if it stays lean. The goal is not to cram. The goal is steady progress with low stress. Most people should start around 10 new cards per day and adjust weekly based on what they mined. Aim for about 50 retained words per week over the long run. That pace keeps retention high, keeps reviews manageable, and makes it easier to stay consistent.

Anki is the engine that drives this system.
It’s how you review mined words, track vocabulary, and make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

But Anki does not work out of the box.
You need the right settings and the right add ons, or you will drown in reviews and burn out.

This guide pulls from Tatsumoto’s setup guide and his add on list, adapted specifically for the 9to5 Japanese routine.

✅ Why Setup Matters

Bad settings means wasted time, review floods, and burnout.
Good settings means lean decks, smooth reviews, and vocabulary that sticks.

Anki should feel invisible. With the right setup, it becomes a quiet, steady force that pushes you toward fluency. No micromanaging required.

🛠 Step 1: Install Anki

Download the latest stable version from apps.ankiweb.net.
Create an AnkiWeb account and enable sync.
- This keeps your cards safe and lets you review on phone or tablet.
Install the desktop version first, then sync your mobile device afterward.
Bookmark your Anki add ons folder:
- Windows: %APPDATA%\Anki2\addons21
- Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Anki2/addons21
- Linux: ~/.local/share/Anki2/addons21

⚙️ Step 2: Core Settings

Create a new options group just for Japanese.

Setting	Value	Why It Helps
New cards per day	Start at 10 (Monday through Friday). Adjust weekly (see below).	Matches the retention first pace of 9to5 Japanese.
Review cap	Very high (9999)	Always clear reviews daily, no hidden backlog.
Learning steps	`1 10` (minutes)	Enough spacing to reinforce without overwhelm.
Graduating interval	2 days	Keeps day two reviews lighter and avoids overexposure.
Leech threshold	3 (reviews) and 5 (new)	Catches sticky words quickly.
Leech action	Suspend and tag (Mortician handles deletion later)	Keeps your deck lean.
Ease and starting ease	130 to 140 percent	Helps avoid ease hell where intervals shrink too fast.

📊 Daily New Cards Rule

Each Saturday you will mine one full episode. Do not chase a perfect number. Prioritize good sentences and long term retention.

Typical target: mine about 50 solid cards for the week.
Daily rule: divide your mined cards by 5 and use that as your new cards per day for Monday through Friday.

Example: you mine 55 cards, then 55 ÷ 5 = 11. Set new cards per day to 11 next week.

This way your workload adjusts naturally. Over time, your reviews stay manageable, which frees more time for raw immersion and makes it easier to stay consistent.

🔌 Step 3: Must Have Plugins

The full list is on Tatsumoto’s site: Useful Anki Add ons.
Here are the essentials for 9to5 Japanese:

Core Deck Management

Anki Mortician keeps the deck clean by deleting junk you repeatedly fail.
Customize Keyboard Shortcuts lets you set up Vim style hotkeys, for example h for Again and k for Good.
Advanced Browser improves search, filtering, and batch editing.
Frozen Fields prevents overwriting fields when editing mined cards.

Card Creation and Mining

AJT Japanese or Migaku Dictionary for fast lookups and auto filling fields.
AJT Furigana for automatic furigana generation.
Auto MorphMan (optional) to sort cards by difficulty.

Productivity and Review

Review Heatmap for visual streak tracking.
True Retention to measure how much vocabulary actually sticks.
Speed Focus Mode to keep reviews moving.

Install add ons like this: Tools > Add ons > Get Add ons, then paste the code from each link. Restart Anki to activate.

📆 Step 4: The Sunday Adjustment

By default, Anki releases new cards daily. In 9to5 Japanese, Sunday is review only.

Workflow:

Saturday night, Deck Options, set New cards per day to 0.
Monday morning, reset New cards per day to your weekly number divided by 5.

Quick and simple. Keeps Sunday clear for reinforcement.

🥊 Step 5: Fighting Backlogs

Backlogs kill motivation.
Here is how to handle them:

What is a backlog?

Cards pile up past their due date.
Anki prioritizes the oldest cards, so you waste time hammering old failures.

Filtered Deck Solution

Press F, or go to Tools, then Create Filtered Deck.
Use this search:

deck:Japanese is:due -prop:due>-1 -rated:1 -is:learn

deck:Japanese is your deck name
is:due is due cards only
-prop:due>-1 excludes today’s cards
-rated:1 excludes cards already reviewed today
-is:learn excludes learning cards

Do today’s reviews first.
Then chip away at backlog in small sessions.

Alternative: suspend is:due -prop:due=0 and unsuspend in batches later.

Rule: Backlog lives in its own deck. Today stays clean.

🧩 Workflow Rules

Clear reviews before new cards.
Do not chase perfection. Chase momentum.
Mortician deletes junk, Sunday keeps the week balanced, and filtered decks keep stress away.

🚀 Next Steps

Now that Anki is fully set up:

Kana Bootcamp, hiragana and katakana in one month
The Starter Deck, 1,000 words before mining
The Weekly Hub Overview, your long term routine

Set it up once. Review daily. Let the math handle the rest.

That is Anki, 9to5 style.