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Read your games in Japanese.

Kimochi reads the Japanese text on your screen, draws it over the game and puts every word a hover away from its meaning. This guide covers installing it, setting it up and everything it can do.

Install KimochiQuick start
A visual novel with Kimochi's overlay: every word of the dialogue boxed, and a dictionary pop-up for 容赦なく under the cursor.A visual novel with Kimochi's overlay: every word of the dialogue boxed, and a dictionary pop-up for 容赦なく under the cursor.
Kimochi's main window: the chosen game in the sidebar with its live preview, Auto OCR and Show overlay switches, and the Log of Japanese lines on the right.Kimochi's main window: the chosen game in the sidebar with its live preview, Auto OCR and Show overlay switches, and the Log of Japanese lines on the right.

What Kimochi does

Section titled “What Kimochi does”

Capture and OCR

Pick a game window or a whole screen, crop it to the dialogue, and press Scan or turn on Auto OCR. Choose from online and on-device OCR engines. Sources · OCR engines

The overlay

Kimochi can draw the recognised text back over the game, so you can hover any word right where it is. The overlay

Pop-up dictionaries

Built-in Yomitan, Hachidori or 10ten, downloaded from their official releases, or the Yomitan in your browser. Dictionaries

The Log

Every line lands in a Log you can scroll back through, with a session and reading stats per game, translation and explanations. The Log

Notebook

Keep the characters, places and things of a story. Names you add light up in the Log as you read; import a cast from VNDB. Notebook

Anki

Make cards through AnkiConnect, from the dictionary pop-up. Anki

Controller and Steam Deck

A radial menu and word-by-word reading on a gamepad, including Steam Deck Gaming Mode (experimental). Controller

Texthookers

Already hooking text out of a visual novel? Feed Kimochi over WebSocket or the clipboard. Texthookers and clipboard

Kimochi Cloud

Optional: cloud OCR, read aloud, translation, AI explanations and sync between computers. Accounts and plans

How it fits together

Section titled “How it fits together”
  1. Pick the game. Choose a window or screen in the sidebar, and add a crop area if you like.
  2. Scan. Press Scan now (⇧⌘8 on a Mac, Ctrl+Shift+8 elsewhere), or turn on Auto OCR.
  3. Read. The text shows up in the Log, and over the game when the overlay is on.
  4. Look it up. Hover a word to see its meaning, hear it, save it to Anki, and keep going.
The sidebar with callouts: live preview, crop, scan, Auto OCR, the overlay, the OCR engine and the pop-up dictionary.The sidebar with callouts: live preview, crop, scan, Auto OCR, the overlay, the OCR engine and the pop-up dictionary.

Where to next

Section titled “Where to next”
InstallmacOS, Windows, Linux and Steam Deck.
Quick startFrom a fresh install to your first lookup in a few minutes.
Keyboard shortcutsEvery shortcut, in one table.
TroubleshootingCapture permission, the overlay, dictionaries and more.

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