# Hoshi Reader > Lightweight Japanese EPUB reader with pop-up dictionary and Anki integration. (iPhone/iPad app by Manh-Hao Steffen Pham.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hoshi-reader/id6758244332 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Manh-Hao Steffen Pham](https://appshunter.io/developer/1871502447) - Category: Books - Price: Free - Rating: 5.00/5 from 19 App Store ratings · 10 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 18.0 · 8 MB - Languages: American English, Chinese (Simplified, China) - Released: 2026-03-24 - Data updated: 2026-08-22 - Monetization: free - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hoshi-reader/id6758244332/reviews.md ## What is Hoshi Reader? Hoshi Reader is a lightweight Japanese EPUB reader with a built-in pop-up dictionary and Anki mining support, made for immersion learning. Main Features: - Vertical (縦書き) and horizontal (横書き) reading modes - Yomitan-like pop-up dictionary with proper deinflection support - Support for all Yomitan term, frequency and pitch dictionaries - Dictionary audio support - AnkiMobile mining support - Fully configurable Anki card format, with most handlebars targeting Lapis implemented - Sasayaki (Audiobooks): Sync audiobooks to book text to read along - Reading statistics - ッツ Reader sync - Bookshelves to organize your library - Customizable theme, font and layout ## Key features - Vertical and horizontal reading modes - Yomitan-like pop-up dictionary - Anki mining support - Customizable Anki card format - Reading statistics - Bookshelves for library organization - Customizable themes and fonts ## Recent user reviews (10 of 10) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hoshi-reader/id6758244332/reviews.md ### 5/5 — Perfect Reader *2026-06-08* Quite literally everything I wanted in an app for reading Japanese. Simple one tap to look up words without having to fiddle with highlighting. Love it. ### 5/5 — Phenomenal App *2026-05-25* It has everything you need. The mobile Anki integration is perfect. It's exactly what I would have built for myself, but better - and now I don't have to! Really can't recommend this app enough, seriously impressed. Great job. ### 5/5 — Comfiest Japanese reader *2026-05-08* It looks good, it feels good to use, and it has all functionality you could possibly want for reading novels in Japanese! Love this app, thanks for making this. The only thing that could make it even better for me would be manga support, but I understand if you want to keep this app very specific to novels (and it’s already so good at that) ### 5/5 — Gold Standard App *2026-04-22* Nothing much to say about this app other than this is how apps should be. This is gold standard when it comes to apps on iOS and it brings back a sort of simplicity and efficient minimalism we all need from apps these days. ### 5/5 — Ultimate reading app *2026-04-12* This app is perfect and effortlessly allows us to look up words and add them to anki. Thank you for making this app ### 5/5 — Extremely recommend *2026-04-07* Novels are the best way to immerse and gain quickly, and this app makes it extremely easy to do so, not to mention on mobile so you can do it anywhere. I’m developing a Japanese learning app of my own and hope it can be as useful and impactful as this app is ### 5/5 — Amazing reading tool *2026-04-05* I’ve long wanted a reading app with fast, accurate real-time word lookups, and finding yours is fantastic. I really admire the work you're doing on GitHub. I’ll be following your updates and will report any issues through GitHub ### 5/5 — 神アプリ *2026-04-02* Genuinely one of the best things to come out of TMW. I love you and I love TMW and it’s actually unreal that such an amazing resource is free and downloadable straight from the App Store. ### 5/5 — Crazy powerful immersion tool *2026-03-30* I got interested in reading novels because of this app and WOW did it completely blow me away. I don’t even need my computer anymore to read and mine? On iOS? With 99% of the same functionality? And everything still syncs to my computer? Just amazing… ### 5/5 — Woah! *2026-03-28* Absolutely amazing. Nothing like this currently exists on iOS, especially for free! A couple of things I’d love to see: 1. TTS support 2. Support for other languages out of the box Thank you SO much for making this app! ## Frequently asked questions about Hoshi Reader ### What is Hoshi Reader? Hoshi Reader is a free, lightweight Japanese EPUB reader designed for immersion learning. It offers a pop-up dictionary and Anki integration to help users build vocabulary. ### Does Hoshi Reader have ads? No, Hoshi Reader does not contain advertisements. It is a completely free application. ### What devices does Hoshi Reader support? Hoshi Reader is available for iPhone and iPad devices. ### How does the pop-up dictionary work in Hoshi Reader? The pop-up dictionary in Hoshi Reader is Yomitan-like, providing deinflection support and allowing you to look up words directly within your EPUBs. ### Can I use Hoshi Reader with Anki? Yes, Hoshi Reader fully supports AnkiMobile mining, allowing you to export vocabulary directly to Anki for spaced repetition learning. ### What reading modes does Hoshi Reader offer? Hoshi Reader supports both vertical (縦書き) and horizontal (横書き) reading modes, catering to different Japanese text conventions. ### How can I organize my books in Hoshi Reader? Hoshi Reader provides bookshelves to help you organize your EPUB library, making it easy to manage your collection. ### Is Hoshi Reader suitable for beginners? Hoshi Reader is designed for immersion learning, which can be beneficial for learners at various stages. Its dictionary and Anki features are particularly helpful for vocabulary acquisition. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.3.3 — 2026-06-29 - Fixed issues with syncing some books - Fixed sorting of lookup results in some cases ### 1.3.2 — 2026-06-22 - Fixed issues with toggling fullscreen ### 1.3.1 — 2026-06-19 - Fixed startup crashes - Bugfixes ### 1.3.0 — 2026-06-08 This update brings a lot of smaller improvements: - Updated the reader interface to increase the effective reading area. This also includes an option to always show progress at the bottom if you wish to keep it visible. - You can now sync book data from and to ッツ. A new shelf with your remotely stored books will automatically appear, simply tap on the book you'd like to download, and drag to refresh available books. - If you're migrating from ッツ there is now an option to directly import a backup - You can now tap on images to open a fullscreen viewer to freely zoom - Added an option to blur images, you can unblur images by tapping on them - Added seek controls for Sasayaki - Added auto-updates for dictionaries - Added support for custom fonts in pop-ups using css - Added option to configure the dictionaries you want to collapse - Added option to scale the popup content - Links in dictionary content are now properly redirected - You can now pull to clear the current search and open the keyboard in the dictionary tab - Added option to rename books, and an option to re-export epubs - Added Simplified Chinese localization - Fields for some popular Anki note types are now autofilled - Bug fixes and performance improvements ### 1.2.0 — 2026-04-29 New features: - Sasayaki (Audiobooks): Synchronize your audiobook to the book text to highlight as it gets read out loud. Supports exporting sentence audio to Anki. - Highlights: Mark passages in your book to revisit later Improvements: - Text is laid out more closely to physical books - Additional default fonts - 'Reading' bookshelf, automatically filters books you have started reading into their own shelf - Navigation buttons when jumping between chapters/highlights/links to quickly get back to your reading position - Home screen shortcuts to quickly navigate to Books or Dictionary - Autosync option for ッツ Sync - Options in the popup to show an average frequency and deduplicate pitch accents - Support for apkg backups in addition to colpkg backups - Many more small improvements and quality of life features - Bug/crash fixes and performance improvements ## Related topics [yomitan](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/yomitan) · [nhk reader](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/nhk-reader) · [anecdote bio](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/anecdote-bio) --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-22.*