
Dialogue changes from English to Japanese as you learn and progress in this comedic RPG backed by professional Japanese voice acting. This is a full 18+ hour introductory Japanese course and adventure all in one. Master hiragana, 136+ kanji, basic grammar, 240 common words used in anime.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
About

If you like the free demo, buy the full game and continue from your last save point!
Dialogue changes from English to Japanese as you learn and progress in this comedic RPG backed by professional Japanese voice acting.
Learn Japanese RPG: Hiragana Forbidden Speech is aimed at anime fans with little to no Japanese ability, but any beginner may enjoy and benefit, even those who have studied Japanese and hiragana before. This is a full introductory Japanese course and adventure all in one. We've made the game we wanted to play when we were first learning Japanese.
Cheaper than popular beginner textbooks
Features that textbooks and other learning resources can't match
Conversations with pro voice acting and full context
System that adjusts dialogue to your level
Story with colorful characters, comedy, and music
Battle system drills on hiragana and words + kanji
Focus on content relevant to anime fans
Probably! There's still 136+ kanji to practice!
Can you quickly read and comprehend the following sentences easily? If not, the game should offer you great value.
でも、それはちょっと変だった
この小さい雄鶏は誰だ?
もうこの船が必要じゃない
ここは面白くないだろ?
またあの馬じゃないか!
もう危なくないよ
俺はお前が本当に嫌い
まだ終わりじゃねえ!
お前らはだめな奴だ
あいつの名前は何?
いいえ、だめな猫だよ!
Mild Immersion
Our frustration with other Japanese learning games is that while they teach hiragana and words, they rarely (if ever) use these learnings in actual conversations. Almost everything is out of context. A random character, word, or sentence here or there. On the other hand, trying to learn Japanese by watching anime or reading manga is overwhelming (for a beginner).
We try to strike a balance between these two worlds. This game strives for “Mild Immersion.” We want to immerse you in Japanese as much as possible, but only beginner Japanese. We want you to feel confident that any Japanese that comes your way is something you’ve been taught and are capable of understanding at a basic level.
Small Step Immersion
This game also strives for “Small Step Immersion.” We want to immerse you in Japanese one small step at a time. After learning a new hiragana, you will soon learn words spelled with that hiragana and immediately start seeing and hearing those words in dialogue and battle. Slowly, but surely, your vocabulary and reading ability will grow as the game gently immerses you, more and more.
We believe context, immersion, and fun are key to effective learning. This game isn't just an RPG with Japanese flashcard-type battles. It is much more.
How to read, write, and pronounce hiragana
Hiragana is a set of characters used to write Japanese words.
Over 240 common Japanese words used in anime
136+ kanji used in the Japanese words
Grammar to understand basic Japanese sentences (50+ tutorials)
Listening skills with over 4000 lines of dialogue by pro Japanese voice actors
行 怖 可 愛 君 美 味 熱 痛 強 助 待 本 当 分 違 元 気 母 生 徒 先 遅 小 忙 下 猫 酷 人 間 船 男 頑 張 危 動 物 残 念 早 良 名 前 女 何 山 羊 豚 馬 鼠 寒 見 大 丈 夫 島 秘 密 面 白 友 達 犬 楽 彼 化 煩 誰 私 奴 変 皆 夢 無 理 持 別 日 陰 性 心 霊 水 僕 俺 冗 談 手 紙 悪 息 子 今 好 魚 来 不 音 蜂 必 要 鶏 庭 綺 麗 嫌 蜜 久 姫 天 使 蛇 蛙 配 疲 野 郎 次 雄 貴 様 弱 所 明 部 屋 花 落 着 砂 漠 終 鍵 敵 町 姉 事
The Adaptive Dialogue System helps you learn by doing. It determines whether to show dialogue in Japanese or English based on your current knowledge. The more Japanese words and grammar you learn, the more dialogue will appear in Japanese!
For example, consider the following sentence: "doko iku?" (Where are we going?)
If you don't know one of the words "doko" (where) or "iku" (go, going), then this sentence will be shown in English. This is to avoid frustrating you with content you haven't yet learned.

However, if you know both words, it will be written in Japanese hiragana.
Pressing a button displays the "roumaji" of the sentence. Roumaji uses the English alphabet to describe Japanese sounds. A second press displays the English translation.

Professional Japanese voice acting (Over 4000 lines of spoken dialogue)
Teaches Japanese starting from zero
Teaches all the most common hiragana
Teaches over 240+ Japanese words commonly used in anime
Practice 136+ kanji
Teaches word usage and Japanese grammar (over 50 tutorials)
Adaptive Dialogue System gets you reading Japanese fast without being overwhelmed
Real-time battles and humorous dialogue make learning fast and fun
Gradual Reveal Dialogue System lets you conveniently check your reading comprehension
All Hiragana Mode lets advanced adventurers immerse themselves instantly in a deeper Japanese experience
Battle drills can be disabled at any time
Level up controls allow you to adjust the pace of your learning
Disable automatic voice over to practice reading comprehension easily
18+ hours of gameplay
Tremendous replay value. Game adjusts Japanese content to your level from the very beginning
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English
Engagement
Reviews
Themes across 46 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
The game has such an interesting story! It kept me playing even when I was tired. I already knew hiragana and some beginner japanese grammar so I was glad that u could skip lessons on the kana and that u could turn on kanji mode from the start. Fighting is easy and fun too. U can make random "fights" more frequent or turn them off completely. I got really invested into characters too. The only downside for me is that the ending feels abrupt and left open to the continuation. I wish there were more. I would definitely buy a sequel if it's ever released just bc I enjoyed making Kai loose to Lenoa and laugh at his many excuses why he lost. One of my most favorite parts of the game. And Augusto sama. Kinda was more interested in Red than Sachiko tho. Literally couldn't care about saving her but oh well.
While I have a few complaints, overall I enjoyed this game and despite having some existing Japanese knowledge was able to learn some things too. In particular, the gradual transition to more use of Japanese in the dialogue seemed very effective. The content is also pretty focused on the parts of the language that are commonly used in anime and manga which made it a more useful companion to other language learning resources. Resources focused on real-life usage are all well and good, but let's be real. If you're looking for a Japanese learning game on Steam, you're probably mostly interested in learning the language to better consume Japanese media. As an RPG, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The story and dialogue are interesting enough. Combat is effective as an educational tool, but not especially RPG-like. Your character does get stronger as the game progresses, but mostly by acquiring more hitpoints. More complicated words introduced later in the game do more damage, but you don't really have control over which words you use in combat. Still, it's fun enough that it didn't feel like the game dragged at the default encounter rate. My biggest complaint, is that it felt like new words were being added too quickly at times. I'd be struggling with a particular word (mostly because of unfamiliar kanji since I was playing in that mode) and still getting new word unlocks at the end of combat. I ended up running out of words that could be unlocked in combat well short of the end of the game as a result. There are some settings around learning rate that maybe would have helped here, but it wasn't really clear how they worked. I have some additional complaints with kanji mode, but since the game is called Hiragana Forbidden Speech and not Kanji Forbidden Speech it feels a little unfair to be too upset about them. Still, I'll note them here in case it helps anyone make a purchase decision. The biggest problem with it, is the game isn't really built to teach you kanji. Kanji mode replaces hiragana with kanji where appropriate and you can see the reading used when the word is first introduced (or in the vocab page), but that's largely the extent of it. This is fine as a way to practice reading kanji you already know, but I don't think it's enough for learning unfamiliar kanji. The other problem is that the way kanji are rendered in battle mode makes it difficult to make out all the strokes in more complex characters like 鍵 (key) or 鶏 (chicken) despite them being rendered at a fairly large size. This was especially annoying for the latter since I knew 鳥 (bird) and it being present as a radical in 鶏 is a hint that the character is bird related if you could actually make it out.
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Price dynamics, follower growth, revenue and sales trajectories with interactive tooltips
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Hours played at review time, across 46 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
いいです!Finished one playthrough so far and it helped me a lot, much faster than just Anki card memorization.
So far this game has been great! The way it makes you think fast somewhat with the "fights" seems to really help solidify your learning more... I think at least. Its slow to start but it wasnt kidding that it will increase the japanese depending on how fast you seem to pick it up... I really like it as someone that tends to prefer a fast pace that's more engaging. The story is not bad but overall the method of learning just seems to work so much better than I had anticipated! Worth every penny... And quite helpful for someone going to Japan soon too haha I feel I may play this one a few times to be sure but in 3 hours Ive got 20 hiragana and 24 words... not including some I already knew. Not bad at all as someone who couldnt read a single character only understood some roumaji prior!
I wasn't sure how much use this game would be or if it'd be fun. But it's really really good! A super fun game, fun story and I'm learning quite a lot quite fast, I'm shocked honestly. Amazing work dev team!
すげえ! A fun and good asset to learn Japanese basics. It's combat constantly train you in Hiragana and vocabulary (there is 250 words). The game teaches a bunch of grammar with examples as well but just through long dialogues and occassional quizzes. Sometimes the game feels unnecessarily verbose. I finished the basic playthrough which was quite fun. The game offers a second one and multiple difficulty modes, assuring some replay value - haven't tried yet but if I'll ever get serious about learning Japanese, I'll likely will.
Players by region
Where this game's players are, estimated from review languages.
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