Tanuki

Terms of use

Version 2026-10-13, effective October 13, 2026

In brief: these terms are the agreement between you and IOCODO LLC for using Tanuki, a course in Japanese that starts from hiragana and katakana.

Hiragana, katakana and the N5 level are free. Tanuki Pro opens the levels from N4 to N1. You buy it in the App Store or on Google Play, as a monthly or annual subscription that renews automatically until you cancel it in the store, or as the lifetime plan, a single payment that unlocks it for as long as we offer Tanuki.

Please read Disclaimer of warranties and Limitation of liability with care. If you live in the European Union, the European Economic Area, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or Brazil, the section for your country gives you extra protection and prevails over the rest.

1. These terms and how you accept them

These terms of use ("terms") are an agreement between you and IOCODO LLC ("we", "us"), the company that makes Tanuki. IOCODO LLC is a limited liability company registered in Wyoming, United States. Its address is under Contact.

By using Tanuki, you accept these terms. The Tanuki Pro screen links to them before you buy. If you do not agree, please do not use Tanuki.

Our privacy policy explains how we handle your data. It is information for you, not part of this agreement.

If you downloaded Tanuki from Apple's App Store, Apple's standard license agreement for apps (the Licensed Application End User License Agreement, or EULA) also applies to your license to use the app, and these terms do not replace it. Where it and these terms deal with the same point, the one that protects you more applies.

2. Who can use Tanuki

Tanuki is not meant for children under 13.

If you are under the age of majority where you live, a parent or guardian must accept these terms for you, and they are responsible for your use of the app.

An account is personal: do not share yours, and do not use someone else's.

3. What Tanuki is, and what it is not

Tanuki is a course for learning Japanese on your own. It starts with hiragana and katakana and goes on level by level, with lessons, spaced review, kanji, grammar and graded reading, explained in English or in another language you choose.

Tanuki names its levels after those of the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), from N5 to N1, to show how advanced the material is. Tanuki is a study aid, not a school or a teacher, and it does not issue certificates: finishing a level shows your progress in Tanuki, not a certified level of Japanese.

We do not promise that you will reach a level, pass the JLPT or learn Japanese in a set time. That depends on how you study.

We correct the course when we find a mistake, but it can still contain errors, for example in a reading, a translation or a pitch accent. If something looks wrong, tap Something looks wrong? in the app, or write to support@iocodo.com, and we will look into it.

4. Tanuki Pro: subscriptions and the lifetime plan

Hiragana, katakana and the N5 level are free. Tanuki Pro opens the levels from N4 to N1, and it comes in three plans:

Monthly: a subscription billed every month, which renews automatically until you cancel it
Annual: a subscription billed every year, which renews automatically until you cancel it
Lifetime: a single payment, with no renewals, that unlocks Tanuki Pro for as long as we offer Tanuki

On the Tanuki Pro screen, you choose a plan and confirm it with Get Tanuki Pro. Before you buy, the screen shows the price of each plan for your country, in your currency.

If a plan comes with a free trial or an introductory offer, the screen also says how long it lasts and what you pay after it. Unless you cancel before the trial ends, the subscription starts and then renews automatically. Where the store's rules provide for it, buying a subscription during a free trial ends the rest of the trial.

Payment and renewal

Apple or Google takes the payment from your Apple Account or Google account when you confirm the purchase. A subscription then renews for the same period, at the price of your plan, unless you cancel it in time:

on the App Store, at least 24 hours before the current period ends, because Apple charges the renewal in the last 24 hours of the period
on Google Play, before the renewal date

If the price of a subscription goes up, Apple or Google tell you before the new price applies, following their rules.

Canceling a subscription

You can cancel a subscription at any time:

on iPhone or iPad: open the Settings app, tap your name, then Subscriptions (Apple's instructions)
on Android: open the Google Play app, tap your profile picture, then Payments & subscriptions, then Subscriptions (Google's instructions)

Canceling stops the next renewal, and you keep Tanuki Pro until the end of the period you have paid for. Uninstalling Tanuki or deleting your account does not cancel a subscription.

Refunds

Purchases of Tanuki Pro are made through the App Store or Google Play and follow their terms. Apple and Google take the payment, and their refund rules apply: see how to ask Apple or Google Play for a refund. We do not receive your card details.

On the App Store, Apple's own terms and its standard license agreement for apps (see section 1) also apply to your purchase.

Your rights under consumer law, including any right to withdraw from a purchase, are not affected.

Restoring a purchase

A purchase belongs to the Apple Account or Google account you made it with. On a new device, or after reinstalling Tanuki, tap Restore purchases on the Tanuki Pro screen. A purchase made on the App Store does not unlock Tanuki Pro on Android, or the other way round.

5. Your account

The first time Tanuki connects to the internet, it creates a guest account for you, with a random user ID, and uses it to back up your progress. You can sign in with Apple or Google to use your progress on other devices. Their own terms apply to that sign-in.

Keep your sign-in details to yourself. You are responsible for what happens in your account, unless it happens through no fault of yours.

You can delete your account at any time in the app (Settings, then Delete account). Deleting it also deletes your data, as our privacy policy describes. It does not cancel a subscription: cancel that in the store, as described in section 4.

6. Tanuki's content and your license

Tanuki and its content, including its lessons, texts, translations, audio, images, design and name, belong to IOCODO LLC or to those who licensed them to us. Some of the Japanese data comes from open sources under their own licenses, which the Tanuki page on iocodo.com names.

We give you a personal, non-exclusive and non-transferable license to use Tanuki on devices you own or control, for your own learning and not for commercial purposes, under these terms. These terms give you no other right to Tanuki or its content.

7. Using Tanuki fairly

When you use Tanuki, do not:

break the law, or use Tanuki to harm, harass or deceive anyone
publish, sell or give away Tanuki's lessons, texts, audio or images, or use them to build another product or to train an AI model, except where the law or the license of an open source allows it
copy, change, sell or rent the app, or try to extract its source code, except where the law allows it
interfere with the app or our servers, get around their security or the line between the free and the paid levels, or use bots or scripts to collect content from them
send us reports or emails that are abusive, or that contain other people's personal details

If you break these rules, we may act as described in Suspension and ending.

8. Reports and emails you send us

What you write in a report or an email stays yours. You let us use it to look into what you tell us, correct the course and answer you, also through the service providers named in our privacy policy.

If you suggest a correction or an idea, we may use it in Tanuki without paying you for it.

9. Services of other companies

Tanuki works with services of other companies, such as the App Store, Google Play and sign-in with Apple or Google, and links to some of their pages. We do not control them, and their own terms apply to them. A link is not an endorsement.

10. Changes to the app

We keep working on Tanuki, so the course and the app change over time: we add and correct content, and we change features. We change, suspend or remove a feature only for a valid reason:

to keep the app secure
to comply with the law or a decision of an authority
because a service of another company that the feature depends on changes or ends
to fix a defect or a mistake in the course
to improve the app without making it worse for you

Some features can be switched off from our servers without an update, for example to stop an error from reaching more people while we fix it. The same rules apply to that.

These changes cost you nothing extra, and we tell you in the app about the ones that change how you use it. We provide the updates, including security updates, that keep the app working as described.

An update is required only when an older version is no longer safe to use, no longer works with our servers, or must change to comply with the law. Other updates are optional: the app may suggest them, and you decide.

If a change makes a feature you paid for worse for you in more than a minor way, we tell you in advance what changes, when, and what you can then do. We tell you in the app, in a notice you can keep a copy of, and by email if we have your address. You can then cancel that purchase or subscription free of charge within 30 days of the change, and we refund what you paid for the time in which you can no longer use it as before. You do not have this right to cancel, or the refund, if we let you keep the previous version at no extra cost and that version keeps working as these terms and the law require.

11. Changes to these terms

We change these terms only for one of these reasons:

a change in the law or in a decision of an authority
a change in Tanuki or in how we provide it
a change in the services of other companies that we depend on
to make the terms clearer

We publish each new version on this page with the date it takes effect. If a change affects your rights, we tell you in the app, and by email if we have your address, at least 30 days before it takes effect.

If you do not agree with a new version, you can stop using Tanuki at any time, cancel any subscription without a penalty, and delete your account as our privacy policy describes.

A change never applies to a dispute that started before it took effect.

The version and the date it took effect are at the top of this page. To receive an earlier version, write to us.

12. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES

Tanuki is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, IOCODO LLC disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, quiet enjoyment and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the app will work without interruption or errors, or that its content will be complete, correct or current at all times.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the exclusions above may not apply to you. They apply to you only as far as the law where you live allows.

If you live in the European Union, the European Economic Area, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or Brazil, this section does not apply to you: the section for your country does.

13. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, IOCODO LLC is not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data or goodwill, arising from or related to Tanuki or these terms.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, our total liability for all claims arising from or related to Tanuki or these terms is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for Tanuki, including in-app purchases and subscriptions, in the 12 months before the event that gave rise to the claim, and 100 US dollars.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for gross negligence or willful misconduct, or any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded under the law that applies to you.

If you live in the European Union, the European Economic Area, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or Brazil, this section does not apply to you: the section for your country does.

14. If you break these terms

If you break these terms or the law, and someone makes a claim against us because of it, you will cover the reasonable losses and costs that this directly causes us. This does not apply to losses caused by our own fault.

15. Suspension and ending

You can stop using Tanuki at any time, and delete your account in the app.

We may suspend or close your account and your access to our online services, such as the backup of your progress, if you seriously or repeatedly break these terms, to prevent fraud or harm to others, or if the law or an authority requires it.

We tell you before we act and why, unless the law, a risk of harm or the security of the app prevents it, and you can reply to contest our decision.

If we stop offering Tanuki, we tell you at least 30 days before, in the app, and by email if we have your address.

If we close your access to something you paid for through no fault of yours, or stop offering Tanuki, we refund the part you paid for and can no longer use.

The sections on warranties, liability, breaking these terms, and law and disputes continue to apply after this agreement ends.

16. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which IOCODO LLC is established, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. This choice does not take away the protection of the mandatory consumer rules of the place where you live: where they give you stronger rights, those rights prevail.

If you have a problem with Tanuki, please write to us first at support@iocodo.com. We will try to solve it within 30 days. This does not limit your right to go to court.

You can always bring a claim in the small claims court where you live, if your claim qualifies. Otherwise, you can bring it in the courts of the place where IOCODO LLC is established, or in the courts where you live when the law of your place gives you that right. We will bring any claim against you in the courts where you live.

Nothing in these terms takes away a right you have under consumer protection law.

17. Consumers in the EU, the EEA, Switzerland, the UK and Brazil

If you are a consumer and live in the European Union, the European Economic Area, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or Brazil, this section applies to you and prevails over anything else in these terms.

Your law. The mandatory consumer protection rules of the country where you live apply to you, whatever law governs these terms. If you live in Switzerland, Swiss law governs these terms.

Your courts. You can bring a claim in the courts of the place where you live, and we will bring any claim against you only there.

Our liability. The sections Disclaimer of warranties and Limitation of liability do not apply to you. Instead, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or of our failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss or damage that is not foreseeable, or that is caused by events outside our reasonable control.

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, for willful misconduct or gross negligence (in Italy, dolo o colpa grave), or any other liability that cannot be limited by law.

Your statutory rights. Your legal rights for digital content and digital services apply in full, and these terms do not limit them.

In the United Kingdom, your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 are not affected, including your right to a repair or compensation if digital content we supply damages your device or other digital content because we did not use reasonable care and skill.

If you break these terms. The section with that title applies to you only as far as the law of your country allows, and only for loss that you caused by breaking these terms or the law.

Brazil. Nothing in these terms limits your rights under the Código de Defesa do Consumidor (Lei 8.078/1990). The clauses that limit rights are highlighted on this page, and you can bring a claim where you live.

18. General

If a court finds part of these terms invalid, the rest still applies.

If we do not enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later.

We may transfer this agreement to another company, for example if Tanuki is sold, as long as your rights are not reduced, and we will tell you if that happens. You may not transfer your rights under these terms to someone else without our agreement.

These terms are written in English. If we publish them in another language and the versions differ, the version more favorable to you applies.

19. Contact

IOCODO LLC
Postal address, also for legal notices: 30 N Gould St Ste N, Sheridan, WY 82801-6317, United States
Email: support@iocodo.com
Phone: +1 307 800 7271
Website: iocodo.com

Version 2026-10-13, effective October 13, 2026.