Japanese Lyrics Language Learning Portfolio

Other than the 10+ language learning books on my bookshelf...

The start.

I tried different ways of learning. I made flashcards, watched Youtube tutorials, and took Japanese classes my univerisity offered me.

I also conducted some online research.

“Global Anime Market size was valued at USD 35.2 Billion in 2025 and the total Anime revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.56% from 2026 to 2032, reaching nearly USD 66.7 Billion”
https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/anime-market/124527/?ref=hmc.chartmetric.com

“Content is the most successful export industry in Japan," noted Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui in his opening remarks. "As of a year ago, Japan’s content has become a 43 billion USD industry, surpassing many of Japan’s traditionally successful industries, except for automobiles.”
https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/global-influence-japanese-content-creativity-innovation-and-cross-cultural-exchange

“On Spotify, global streams of anime music have surged by 395% since 2019, and there are 6.7 million user-generated anime playlists—proving that listeners enjoy being fully immersed in the audio of their favorite series and movies.”
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-08-19/spotify-and-crunchyroll-present-the-sounds-of-anime/

“While more than half of fans say that streaming platforms play an important role in helping them discover anime—and nearly as many credit friends and family—40% discover new anime series, at least in part, by fan edits on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.”
https://view.ceros.com/nrgmr/crunchyroll-global-state-of-anime/p/1

“Once the preserve of die-hard enthusiasts, anime is now a global entertainment force. While it hasn’t reached mainstream ubiquity in all markets, it’s already outpacing other global powerhouses like K-dramas and Bollywood in scale and engagement.”
https://view.ceros.com/nrgmr/crunchyroll-global-state-of-anime/p/1

TLDR: I wanted to combine language learning with a perpetual dictionary that grows with the user. How would we reward the user? Through gambl- through opening bunny photo-card packs that you can collect!

scroll down for prototype planning/execution

let’s start with a cute little flowchart!

I first visualized what I wanted my app to look like.

plus color...

Song Translation & Gemini API Multithreading Architecture:

• Bottom up approach: Line (with words) → Stanza → Full Song.

• Line Prompts: Direct translation, cultural translation, Romaji, word splitting, morpho-syntactic tags (particles, nouns, transitive/intransitive verbs, exceptions), contextual meaning, Kanji extraction, Kun-Yomi, On-Yomi, Nanori.

• Stanza Prompts: Direct stanza translation, cultural translation for full stanza, stanza summary, line splitting.

• Song Prompts: Overall cultural summary, song breakdown, stanza splitting.

• Perpetual Dictionary Export: Automatically extracts unique Word and Kanji objects into a persistent JSON dictionary, auto-updating definitions with Gemini deduplication.

then planning in words...

visualizing error cases...

making assets...

it flips!

A snapshot of our tech stack!

Done!