I had issues with Wanikani in that the memory associations are arbitrary and unrelated to the meanings. Not an issue for most radicals, but it felt like I was making all theses conceptual connections that didn't actually exist. I would see a radical and my brain would go "Pitchfork! War radical!" When the kanji had no relationship with war at all.

For me I had a much less confusing time with rote memorization of the kanji, and then getting familiar with the conjugation as early as possible so I could read quickly. In that way, learning one kanji was like learning ten words, and you also now have the real meaning of the kanji which often does translate across multiple kanji words. Now you are getting lots of meaningful associations which ultimate make up the web of understanding required to put it all together.