Is learning N1 and N2 even that helpful (for people not doing buisness Japanese)? In immersion I’ve never really felt like I’ve seen anything N1 or N2. I could be biased though as I’m getting shipped away to Japan for an exchange meaning I don’t really watch alot of buisness related things and more watch things for daily life so I don’t horribly perish socially and go down in the hall of fame as “that one weird gaijin who couldn’t speak Japanese”.
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You ask if N2 and N1 grammar is helpful? Yes it is.
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I personally believe, that you should learn all of N2 and the most common grammar points of N1. You might feel like they do not come up often, but they do sometimes and when they do, they often can not be inferred just by reading and thinking about them.
An example of this would be すら(there are a lot more though).
My recommendation is, as I said, to learn all of N2 and then just add grammar that you come across in your reviews but do not understand to your review queue.
I think you will end up learning about an additional 50-60 N1 grammar points.
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I am studying for N2, and the N2 grammar/expressions presented in Bunpro I absolutely heard and used in non-business conversations while in Japan. Examples, 一応、確かに、～得ない （as in ありえない)、つもりで.
And for reading + writing, getting up to N2 level will be a great help.
Kinda scared to look at what’s behind the N1 door 
One step at a time. And don’t worry, there are gaijin in Japan who cannot speak Japanese (well), and they are not considered weird.
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N2 grammar is still in the realm of common daily use stuff, for the most part. A lot of it is used in the spoken language and the vast majority is regular Japanese, not special literary terms. There is a little more contextually sensitive stuff in there than at N3 but it is still stuff that is needed to both understand and produce natural Japanese in daily life.
N1 grammar does start to get a bit more esoteric and there is stuff that you may only see in writing and which you’re unlikely to see much outside of quite specific contexts. Most of the points at N1 are more about understanding the appropriate contexts that something is used in. It is still needed to understand Japanese but some if it you may not see or hear often and, although you may need to be able to produce some of it, there are some things you may never need to output.
Both are still absolutely essential for understanding and producing Japanese well but it is more a question of where your own personal goals lie and what you want to do with the language. There are also other skills (vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency of production, conversational strategies like rephrasing, general social skills, etc) that go into speaking well, outside of grammar knowledge, so it is also valid to focus on those areas as well if they need attention. Can never hurt to understand more grammar and phrases though!
Hope that helps and I hope you enjoy your exchange. I’m sure you’ll work out pretty quickly what is and isn’t worth focusing on for your own situation once you get here!
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Personally, studying N2 on Bunpro helped me make a significant leap in my comprehension. However, N1 has been a more complex story. I was intimidated by the N1 as well, but when I started to study it, I realized that there are some (very) common expressions. More than once, I had a moment where I thought, “Oh, that’s how you say that in Japanese!”. Now I believe the way N1 groups grammar is bizarre because they mix literary expressions with common ones (is あくまでも really N1?!).
Another thing that surprised me was being able to understand old-fashioned and literary expressions in a humorous way during immersion or while discussing with friends. I really feel that this aspect of N1 is a little bit overlooked.
Lastly, I felt - and still feel - that N4 and N3 grammar is harder than N1.
I hope this helps you.
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At least from reading light novels, there are quite a few N2 grammar points that are used a lot… Some N1 too…
Maybe the most efficient approach would be to do N2 and the some of the common N1 grammar points…
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