The Japanese you will actually hear is not in your textbook.

A feed of real anime scenes with their original Japanese audio. The full transcript under the clip, romaji and a translation over every word, one tap on anything you don't know.

Every line of the scene, under the video
Romaji above every word, a translation over it — the spoken one boxed
Tap a word for the meaning, tap again to keep it

Get lifetime access $19 ~~$79.99~~ in the app after launch. $19 today, one payment, yours for life.
First 100 people.

iPhone first, this autumn. Android after. Refund on request, no questions.

Open the demo

This is the working prototype, not a video of one. Scroll on the clip for the next one, tap any word in the transcript. Here it plays itself; the swipe belongs to the page, so open it full screen to swipe and tap.

Open the demo full screen

Easier to swipe there than inside this page.

Same thought. Only one of them gets said out loud.

People finish a course knowing the grammar and not the feel of the language. Every sentence they were taught is correct, and almost nobody speaks that way. Lilu starts from the other end: real speech at real speed first, with the grammar arriving while you are busy watching something you actually wanted to watch.

In the lesson

oお genki元気 desuです kaか ?

How are you? (the line from your textbook)

In a real conversation

genki元気 shiteruしてる ?

Doing okay? — what a friend actually asks, no です needed

What one clip gives you.

Everything below is in the demo above, working. It is the same four clips a real feed would hand you, with the same transcript, the same word cards and the same search.

genki元気

The whole transcript, not two lines of subtitle

Every line of the scene sits under the video with its translation. Scroll back to the line you missed while the clip keeps playing.

issho一緒

The word that is playing is boxed

A green box tracks the audio word by word, so you always know where in the sentence the speaker is. Too fast is a solved problem: drop to 0.6x and it stays in sync.

shinobi忍び

Romaji sits right above every word

You do not need to read kana or kanji to start — romaji is right there over every word from clip one. Turn it off once you stop needing it.

jishin自信

A translation over every word

Not one line under the sentence. Over the word it belongs to, so your eyes learn which sound is which word. Turn it off when you stop needing it.

aishiteru愛してる

Tap a word, get the meaning

Meaning in this sentence, JLPT level badge, and one tap to keep it. No leaving the clip, no dictionary in another app.

yurusa許さ

Your vocabulary is what you met

Not a list of five hundred words somebody picked for you. The words you ran into, in the scene you ran into them in, with the line attached.

Early access. One hundred people.

$19 once, for life

$79.99 is what the same lifetime access costs in the app for everyone who arrives after launch.

100 seats at this price. When they are gone, the price is gone.

The first version, first. As soon as the build is worth testing, before it is public.
A say in what comes next. I read every message, and the roadmap moves when early buyers push it.
This price forever. When it becomes $79.99 in the app, you are already inside, including everything added later.

The first version ships this autumn, iPhone first. You are buying an app that does not exist yet, from one person, which is a real risk. So the deal is deliberately simple.

If it is not what you hoped for, write to me and I will send the money back. No form, no window, no questions. That is the whole refund policy.

Get lifetime access $19

Payment opens in a new tab. You will get an email from me with the install link when the build is ready.

Not ready to buy? Get launch updates

One email when it launches. Nothing else, ever.

Cards from most countries go through. If yours is refused, write to me and we will find another way. One person selling to a hundred people can afford to solve payments by hand.

Where the videos come from.

Real clips by real Japanese creators, played through the official YouTube player. Lilu does not host, download or re-upload anything. Every clip carries the creator's name and a link to the original, the views count for them, and if they take a video down it disappears here too.

What you pay for is what is built on top: the transcript, the word-by-word translation, the word cards, your vocabulary, the search. Never the video itself.

Straight answer about the demo above: the four clips are real, and so are their transcripts. Each one is machine-transcribed from the clip's own audio and then read through by hand, so a line the model could not make out is left out rather than invented.

Why I am building this.

I am Ilya. I am 20, and I am building this myself.

I am a polyglot — I speak Spanish, English, Russian and Indonesian, and I am learning Chinese. I want to know a lot of languages, and every time I pick up a new one I run into the same wall: the material made for learners is not the material native speakers actually watch.

So I set out to build myself an easy system for learning languages and growing my own vocabulary — one clip at a time, with the transcript and the meaning right there, instead of a textbook sentence nobody says out loud.

No team, no investors, which is exactly why I am asking a hundred people to pay for it early instead of waiting for someone to fund it.

Ilya, designer and the whole team

Why not just a course app?

Duolingo, WaniKani, a textbook: they are good at what they are good at. Grammar, the first thousand words, the discipline of showing up daily. Lilu is not trying to replace that. It is the part they leave out.

A course

Lilu

Sentences written to fit a lesson.

Sentences said to a camera by someone who is not teaching you anything.

Studio audio, recorded slowly and clearly.

Street noise, accents, people talking over each other. The real difficulty, from day one.

A fixed list of words in a fixed order.

The words you actually ran into, saved in the sentence you met them in.

You finish the course and freeze in a real conversation.

Your first hour is already spent on speech at full speed, with a safety net.

Read this far? The same app costs ~~$79.99~~ in the store after launch. Right now it is $19, one payment, yours for life — for the first hundred people.

Get lifetime access $19

What works today, what comes next.

Written down so you can hold me to it. If a date moves, you will hear it from me before you notice it yourself.

Working now

The demo at the top of this page

Feed of real clips, full transcript with the karaoke box, word-by-word translation and level badges, your own vocabulary, search across every clip, 0.6x speed. Running in a browser, on four clips.

This autumn · first release

The iPhone app

A real clip library instead of four, with the same transcription running across all of it, saved words that survive a restart, and the daily goal that actually tracks you.

After that

Spaced repetition, offline, Android

Words you saved coming back at the right moment, clips that keep working on a plane, and the Android build. Order decided with the people who bought early.

Questions.

Anything not answered here, write to me before you pay. I would rather answer than refund.

When does it come out?

The first version ships this autumn. Early buyers get it before it is public.

iPhone or Android?

iPhone first, through TestFlight. Android comes after the first release.

What if you miss the autumn?

If a date moves I write to everyone with what is actually going on.

Where do the videos come from?

Real scenes from anime, played through the official YouTube player, with the channel credited on every clip.

Do I need to know some Japanese already?

No. Zero is a fine starting point: romaji and a translation sit over every word.

How is this different from other scroll apps?

Lilu puts the entire transcript on screen, word by word, with romaji and a box that follows the audio.

Is this a subscription?

No. $19 once, for the app and everything added to it.