About Bento Japanese
We're building the Japanese learning platform we wish existed.
Tired of boring textbooks and kiddie sentences like “This is a pen”? Bento helps you actually understand Japanese the way it’s used in real life.
We use graded readers with native-level topics — think food, anime, memes, culture, relationships — written in real Japanese, for your level. Whether you're a total beginner or aiming for JLPT N1, Bento helps you move from passive watching to actually learning.
Why Bento?
We’re a team of designers and language learners who believe learning a language should feel natural, fun, and motivating.
We wanted to read manga, games, or news in Japanese without having to sift through boring beginner content or memorize grammar drills with no context. There was no clear bridge between absolute beginner and fluent consumption of native content. So we’re building one.
Bento Japanese helps you build Japanese fluency through leveled reading of interesting, relevant content. We start with what you can understand, and guide you toward reading and using real Japanese in real life.
Who we are
🎮 Built JLRPG (Japanese Language RPG)
👾 Still fights with kanji, but leveling up daily
I studied Japanese for 2 years in college on a whim and moved to Japan 15 years later barely remembering hiragana. Over 5 years later in Tokyo, my Japanese has barely improved due to Tokyo’s English-speaking tech world and lack of motivation to improve.
So I started building tools to fix that. I made JLRPG to learn through a game and immersion. It took off, and I realized I wasn’t the only one who needed more engaging ways to study. Now with Bento, I'm using my Design and Development background to build a language learning tool for people like me that struggle to learn by traditional methods that are too boring.
📚 Learned from anime, manga, and games
💼 Passed JLPT N1 & worked in a Japanese office
Japanese was my first language, but English was always my primary one. My parents spoke basic Japanese at home, and I didn’t take formal classes until college. My first real learning came from reading the Fullmetal Alchemist manga (no furigana!) and playing the visual novel Hiiro no Kakera, using an electronic dictionary to work through kanji and vocabulary.
I eventually passed the N1 and worked in a Japanese-speaking office, where I found real-life Japanese differs greatly from classroom lessons. I learned more by copying colleagues’ emails and repeating what they said in meetings than from textbooks. Immersion and real-world context made all the difference, and I believe that should be central to language learning.
Building fluency—one bento at a time.
