It Was Almost a Bookstore?!

Do you know who this adorable little bird is?

... it's Kippy! The mascot of a past project that's no longer active.

Content creators always post the best versions of themselves and their content. But life doesn't always go the way things are planned. This blog will talk about some of the things that didn't work out and how we finally landed on creating games.

You’ve probably never heard of “Hondana” before, right? Of course you haven’t. That’s because Hondana was a project that never quite made it live. But before we jump into that, let’s start from the beginning.

Hitoki first started the popular YouTube channel Onomappu after becoming inspired by his friend who was on the platform. The Onomappu channel introduces Japanese Onomatopoeia to the world! Onomatopoeia are deeply rooted in Japanese society frequently used in anime, manga and in real-life conversations. These words convey vivid imagery to the listener due to their strong nuanced meanings related to the five senses.  However, they’re rarely taught in schools or textbooks as they’re considered very casual and less formal.

The interesting topic of Japanese Onomatopoeia coupled with Hitoki’s friendly, warm delivery delighted and boosted the studies of many Japanese learners. He was able to gain half a million subscribers and many unique interactions and experiences due to the support of these fans. With the most sincere gratitude for this, Hitoki decided to do even more to support Japanese learners - he decided to start an online Japanese school.

The school was called “Key Peace”, the missing piece to boost everyone’s learning. The school focused on quality, fun, active learning and was successful in that regard. But the balance of quality vs operational cost wasn’t sustainable and ultimately the school was forced to close. Learn more about this part of our history in the YouTube video HERE

After some well needed rest, determined not to give up the mission of supporting Japanese language learners, Hitoki accepted a contract from Ulysses Press to write the second edition of “Dirty Japanese” - a book that teaches words never taught in regular text books. Inspired from that experience, we thought “What if we made a place for creators to teach other Japanese not taught in books?” and begun creating “Hondana” - meaning “Bookshelf” in Japanese. This project proved to be ambitious, complex and perhaps missed the element of “fun” that made Onomappu so special. Thus, learning from our past, the Hondana idea was scrapped and we instead became a company that produces simple, effective, fun Japanese learning games… Onomappu Factory!

“Dirty Japanese 2nd Edition” is available for pre-order now! This book is authored by our very own Hitoki! Please check it out!Dirty Japanese 2 (on Amazon) Onomappu Live (Join us on 5/18)