Are these Japanese games free?
Yes. Every game runs in your browser with no sign-up, no download, and no account.
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Free Japanese games, sorted by JLPT level
Pick your level and play in the browser. Each game covers the whole kanji list for that level, so it keeps working long after the novelty wears off.
JLPT N5
N5: 79 kanji
The first JLPT level. Numbers, days, directions, and the characters behind most beginner vocabulary.
JLPT N4
N4: 166 kanji
Where kanji stops being a short list. These carry most everyday compounds.
Questions
Frequently asked
Which JLPT levels are covered?
N5 (79 kanji) and N4 (166 kanji), each with a meaning game and a reading game. N3 to N1 are not covered yet.
Is this the official JLPT kanji list?
There is no official list. The Japan Foundation stopped publishing kanji and vocabulary lists after the 2010 revision, so every JLPT list online is a reconstruction. These follow the widely used levels compiled by Jonathan Waller, with kanji data from KANJIDIC.
Do I need to know hiragana first?
For the reading games, yes: readings are shown in kana rather than romaji. The meaning games only ask you to match a kanji to an English meaning, so they work without kana.
Kanji data from KANJIDIC (Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, CC BY-SA), with JLPT levels from Jonathan Waller's JLPT Resources. The JLPT has published no official kanji list since 2010, so these levels are the community reconstruction.
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