Dedicated to my favorite Japanese professors: 槙野先生, 為頼先生, 上の先生, 柴田先生, 徳増先生. I miss our classes and Tue 6pm Japanese tables… When I studied Japanese at Princeton and in Ishikawa, in addition to the class textbook I used two separate books to learn reading and drawing kanjis: ‘Remembering the Kanji’ (James Heisig) and Kanji Pict-O-Graphix (Michael Rowley). I found it hard (and boring) to do it with books and started the search for the best Kanji learning app in the App Store. None of the apps I tried created the daily habit and they weren’t fun to use. Fast forward 4 years. Kanji Ninja is our attempt to make learning Japanese characters fun and easy to maintain (as a daily habit). We still have a long way to get there, but wanted to share what our team built so far. CURRENT FEATURES - Learn 1,006 kanjis (教育漢字 - you will know what it means quite soon :)) which Japanese schoolchildren learn for 6 years. With Kanji Ninja you should be able to do it in just about 3 months by practicing for 30 minutes a day! - Learn kanji, the characters of written Japanese, on the go through engaging mini-sessions where you learn 3 characters at a time. Both stroke order and meaning. - The built-in optical character recognition (OCR) engine can check whether you drew characters correctly or not. - To help with memorization, we first show you the stroke order, then assist you when you’re drawing the kanji for the first time. Then we expect you can recall it on your own. The blank screen shouldn’t scare you 😉 Don’t worry if you get it wrong. We’ll hold your hands until you master them all! - All the kanjis are organized by grade. You can’t move on to the next grade until you finish the current one. - A ‘panikku’ (‘panic’) game where you have to recall & draw as many characters as possible in 40 seconds. - The adaptive engine tracks your progress and prompts you to review kanjis at just the right time. - Help your ninja pulse reach the new skies with every kanji learned and every ‘panikku' game played! - Compete against other learners around the world on the global leaderboard! NEAR FUTURE (a few exciting features we’re currently working on) - Gameplay so that you learn Japanese characters the true Fruit Ninja style. With different weapons (katana, swords, knives, etc.) and different materials (leather, paper, wood, skin, etc.) to draw on. - QuizUp style battles with friends to memorize the meaning of different kanjis - Badges, achievements, score multipliers in the ‘panic’ mode. Become the Kanji Ninja (漢字忍者)!