WaniKani for the JLPT (N5 through N1)
At WaniKani level 10 you have seen 98.7% of the N5 kanji and 9.8% of the kanji that are new at N2. That lopsidedness is by design: WaniKani orders kanji so each level's radicals feed that level's mnemonics, and it never consulted a JLPT list.
There is nothing to consult. The JLPT stopped publishing content specifications with the 2010 revision, on the stated reasoning that the goal of studying Japanese is communication rather than memorising lists. So every JLPT kanji list in circulation is reverse-engineered from old papers, and they disagree: one widely used list counts 1,504 kanji for N1, the dataset behind our JLPT kanji lists counts 1,232. The numbers below are exact about our list. The list itself is a guess, like everyone else's.
Kanji coverage by WK level
For each JLPT level's own bucket of new kanji: the left dot marks the WK level where 90% of the bucket is covered, the right dot where all of it is. N1 never reaches either mark, so its dot at level 60 is the ceiling, 78.8% of the estimated bucket.
What an N2 paper can draw on
The estimate lists come in buckets of new kanji: 79 at N5, 166 at N4, 367 each at N3 and N2, 1,232 at N1. The exam ignores the buckets. An N2 paper draws on everything through N2, which is 979 kanji in our dataset, so the "about 750 kanji at N2" figure in circulation undercounts the pool by roughly 230.
Counted cumulatively, the milestones land earlier than the chart's per-bucket dots: 90% of everything through N4 by level 12, through N3 by level 28, through N2 by level 36. Full coverage of both the N3 and N2 buckets arrives at level 51.
Book N2 at level 30 and you sit the paper having seen 60.5% of the N2 bucket and 81.0% of the full pool through N2, so roughly one kanji in five on the estimated list is still unknown. Level 36, the 90% cumulative mark, is the earliest defensible date; level 45, where the N2 bucket itself crosses 90%, is the comfortable one. Your own percentages, per bucket and with the unknown kanji highlighted, are on the JLPT coverage page, which runs on the same dataset as this article.
A third of the score is out of reach
The JLPT stopped publishing lists but still publishes how it scores. N1 through N3 run three sections of 0 to 60: Language Knowledge (vocabulary and grammar together), Reading, and Listening. N4 and N5 merge Language Knowledge and Reading into one 0-120 section and keep Listening at 60. So listening is exactly one third of the total at every level, and it carries its own pass mark of 19 out of 60, meaning a bad enough listening day fails an otherwise passing paper. WaniKani has audio on its vocabulary. It has no listening practice.
Grammar gets no standalone score, being bundled into Language Knowledge and running through the reading passages anyway, and WaniKani teaches none of it. Start a grammar resource on day one in parallel: Genki or Tae Kim through N5-N4, Tobira around N3, Shin Kanzen Master for N2 and N1 drilling, or Bunpro if you want grammar in the same SRS shape as your reviews.
What WaniKani does cover, it covers in the shape this test wants: over 2,000 kanji and 6,000+ vocabulary words trained as recognition, and the JLPT is a recognition test with no speaking or writing section at any level. (The per-level vocabulary counts that circulate, 800 for N5 up to 10,000+ for N1, come from the pre-2010 specifications of the old four-level test. Folklore as well.)
N1 is a vocabulary problem
At level 60 WaniKani has taught 971 of the 1,232 kanji in the estimated N1 bucket, 78.8%, the one JLPT level it never finishes. Against the cumulative 2,211-kanji pool the figure is 88.2%. The 261 missing kanji are less alarming than they look: 204 are non-Joyo, mostly name kanji the unofficial lists sweep in because names show up on past papers.
People who took N1 from level 60 agree the kanji were not the problem. The bottleneck is vocabulary volume and reading speed: one reader keeps more than 13,000 vocabulary items in SRS rotation and still meets new words, and another runs daily into words built from kanji WaniKani taught but never taught as words, like 目上 and 挨拶. The year after level 60 is a reading-volume year, not a second kanji list.
Which test to sit, and when
WaniKani level does not predict JLPT level. Ask a room of learners to post both side by side and the scatter is total: N2 passed at WaniKani level 11, N4 attempted at level 26, N1 at 60. Kanji coverage sets a ceiling on the reading section; grammar and listening decide the rest. There is no standard first test either, with first attempts landing anywhere from N5 to N2. Pick yours by grammar readiness, and use the level 36 and 45 waypoints above so kanji is not what sinks it.
In the last three months, spare hours go to practice papers and listening drills, and WaniKani shifts to maintenance: keep the reviews going, slow the lessons. A level of brand-new kanji that close to the exam earns fewer points than one full timed paper.