# Satori Reader — user reviews > 173 indexed App Store user reviews of Satori Reader by Brak Software, Inc., rated 4.80/5 from 215 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/satori-reader/id1382950847/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/satori-reader/id1382950847.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 192 · 4★ 12 · 3★ 5 · 2★ 1 · 1★ 5 ## What do users think of Satori Reader? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Excellent for improving reading and listening skills - 👍 Detailed grammar and vocabulary explanations - 🎨 Customizable display settings for kanji/furigana - 💡 Integrated spaced repetition flashcard system - 🎧 High-quality voice acting and audio - 📚 Wide range of interesting stories and content - 🤝 Responsive and helpful customer support **Cons** - 🐛 Occasional app crashes or sync issues - 🕰️ Lack of speed control for audio playback - 💰 Subscription-based model can be expensive - 🔍 Limited search/navigation functionality **Commonly reported bugs** - Login issues and account creation problems - Syncing and loading delays on some devices **Most requested features** - Dark mode option - Ability to loop audio playback - Kanji lookup/learning tools integration - More advanced/diverse content selection ## Newest reviews (16 of 173) ### 4/5 — Great Support *2026-05-25* There is all the support you need in the Satori Reader app to improve your reading in terms of speed and comprehension. I am deliberately reading below my level to increase reading speed … the Satori Reader app helps me to do that with ease. ### 5/5 — One of my go-to Japanese resources *2025-12-02* This app is invaluable for practicing actual reading while learning Japanese. Even as a total beginner who has to go through the easiest stories sentence by sentence and look words/kanji up, I already feel I’m learning a lot and priming my brain to sight-read Japanese just a bit easier. The team behind this deserves a huge shoutout as well. The discussions are full of helpful responses to questions from team members, and there are knowledge base articles for everything. I’m only on my second story so far, but I can’t wait to keep reading and hopefully keep improving. ### 5/5 — Simply the BEST *2025-09-27, version 1.5.5* You can feel the genuine care of these developers in helping Japanese learners to learn the language with engaged interest. Not that I am encouraging them to increase the subscription pride, but this is the best app (and I paid for a lot of much lesser apps) your language-learning money can buy. ### 5/5 — Outstanding *2025-07-31* The amount of care and thoughtfulness that went into curating this app is astounding. Great voice over; clear, concise grammar explanations, and a built in flash card system. This is the most powerful Japanese learning tool available. ### 5/5 — Words can’t suffice *2025-07-26, version 1.5.5* This is simply my favorite app ever. It’s been invaluable for my Japanese learning and the stories are genuinely enjoyable ### 5/5 — Great app with insightful explanations *2025-07-25* This app is great for practicing and learning Japanese, with so many useful features. The core is mini stories broken up into short chapters that you can read and listen to (you can even choose the speed of the reading). You can also choose your level of kanji, and furigana will be provided for characters you don’t know yet. Within the story, grammar and occasionally cultural points can be viewed as pop ups - the explanations are clear and often enlightening. Maybe best of all, at the bottom of each chapter, you can ask questions and see questions that other people have asked. Like the grammar explanations, the answers are usually very helpful - I’ve gotten answers to great questions that I hadn’t even thought to ask. Don’t know a word in the story? Add it to your review flash cards. You can then review them in context (the sentence where you learned the word). The timing on how often the cards repeat depends on whether you say missed the answer or it was hard/medium/easy to remember. It’s a pretty effective way to learn new words. You can also choose to review the words you said were hard to remember, or that you’ve already learned. There are so many great features, I’m sure I’ve missed some, but you get the idea. The developers have clearly put a lot of time, thought, and effort into this app, and it shows! ### 5/5 — Fantastic resource *2025-06-28, version 1.5.5* Satori Reader is a great resource for people who want to improve their written Japanese via stories and other materials that are WAY more interesting than regular textbook material. The app also provides great personalization to your own knowledge level. ### 5/5 — Incredibly helpful *2025-05-23, version 1.5.5* Satori provides a great way to get into reading content that doesn’t feel like another robotic story from a textbook. Reading the stories really makes me feel like I have made progress while also greatly improving my skills. ### 5/5 — SO GOOD *2025-04-19, version 1.5.5* Amazing ### 5/5 — great app *2025-04-11* super app mit vielen geschichten zum lernen. ### 5/5 — The depth of this app is underestimated *2025-03-20* Not only it has a vast amount of stories to read with inline translation and attached audio, it has detailed grammar explanations linked in popups. This is one of the best learning experiences that I've seen. ### 5/5 — Brilliant app, one piece of feedback *2025-02-25, version 1.5.5* Really like this app. Has been instrumental in learning Japanese. Only feedback is to allow loop function (repeat function) in playback, so that we can keep listening to the same audio on loop if we want to. I listen at the gym so it would be helpful if I didn’t have to hit play over and over again. Otherwise it is brilliant. ### 4/5 — Came back and I am pleasantly surprised *2025-02-24* I am an advanced learner. Years ago satori didn’t have enough advance content, now there is plenty! The Audio during the reading is superior to most other apps. My only issue is, there is no audio during flash card practice, if the word is testing for definition. There should also be just sound as a testing option. I’m learning these words because while I listen I can’t recognize them. The audio if you click the word is robotic. That is my only complaint. I plan to stick with this app long term so I hope they continue with advance content. ### 5/5 — Hands down the best *2025-01-17, version 1.5.5* This has the best audio, transcriptions, and tooling of the ~10 apps I’ve used so far. Satori and Wanikani are the cornerstones of my study routine and I don’t know what I would do without them! ### 5/5 — What a great find *2025-01-11, version 1.5.5* I’m very happy to have found this. Podcast, reader, click on dictionary entries and explanations … it’s a blast. ### 5/5 — Exactly what I was looking for *2025-01-02* When first trying the app, I was put off, as I did not understand why everything was written in English. When clicking on an exercise, I did not see Japanese, but the app is just not the best UX. After using it now for a month as a paying customer you get a lot of value. You can have daily japanese with furigana, great grammar explained and can shadow everthing. I LOVE it! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — I hate it *2026-07-18* That App is trash I can’t Even log in I tried it Like 10 times and it doesn’t work! **Developer response:** Hello, Lara. Sorry to hear you had trouble signing in! We would love to help you with this issue. Please drop us a line at support@satorireader.com and we'll help you right away. ### 1/5 — human japanese is gone *2026-01-17* i paid for human japanese now i’m force to subscribe? **Developer response:** Hello, SssSloth. Satori Reader is a different product from Human Japanese. Whereas Human Japanese teaches the Japanese language from square one, Satori Reader provides reading and listening practice for people who already know the basics and are stretching to the next level. Regarding Human Japanese, we did indeed recently retire our legacy apps and consolidate them into a single web product in order to ensure we could maintain the app properly going forward. Every Satori Reader subscription provides full access to Human Japanese, but you can also subscribe to Human Japanese separately if you prefer, for a lower cost. Please write to us at support@humanjapanese.com if you have any additional concerns and we'll do our best to help! ### 1/5 — Meh *2025-01-04* Barely contains any resources unless you’re willing to pay. They also seem to use AI generated images in the newer stories, which is something I will never financially support. It also raises the question of whether they’re using ai in other ways, such as generating the text… **Developer response:** Hello there! Thank you for your message. I understand the reluctance to pay a subscription. We decided to go that route so that we could provide a distraction-free space (no ads) where you can focus on your Japanese. We are a small team and the subscription revenue is what allows us to continue improving the app and service! Regarding AI, we did indeed experiment for a short period with AI-generated images, which we considered a very peripheral part of the product, and we received a lot of feedback like yours. It was a gut-punch to realize that this could call into question the thousands of human hours we pour into the stories themselves. All our content is built by human hands. We have NEVER used AI for any substantive part of Satori Reader, and we no longer do so for images. You can read more on our stance here: https://www.satorireader.com/ai ### 1/5 — Can’t use it *2024-03-27, version 1.5.5* Downloaded the app, immediately forced to make an account to continue. Tried making an account and got a “we don’t allow spam” message so I can’t continue. It says I would need to contact their customer support to try and resolve it which is kinda a hassle when I’m not even sure if I would like the app yet since I haven’t been able to try it due to the account signup issue. ### 1/5 — Login doesn’t work *2023-05-29* Requires an email to login, which is already weak, doesn’t seem send the confirmation mail making this app useless. ### 1/5 — Buggy app not worth the subscription price *2022-05-08, version 1.4.0* Much like the Human Japanese apps, this app is plagued by bugs that make using it aggravating to use. For example if you’re in a lesson and switch apps, Satori will no longer function until you force quit the app. ### 1/5 — Needs another account *2021-08-10* ^ ### 1/5 — Hard to use no content *2020-01-22, version 1.2.5* This app does not work very well and there is so little content it’s not worth getting. ### 1/5 — Broken *2018-12-27, version 1.0.9* Login, tries to sync data, fails, tells me to try again or sign out. Rebooted the device, checked my 4g signal, attempt to login 3+ hours after the first time and still broken. ### 2/5 — Fantastic but difficult to cancel *2025-03-26* This is an amazing app, truly. The stories, the audio, all of the features it’s definitely an amazing tool for learning Japanese. However I cannot overlook how difficult it is to cancel. You can’t cancel your membership in the app. They make it as difficult as possible. I sadly need to cancel my subscription as I can’t afford it atm. However the hoops I am having to jump through just to do that is truly disheartening and manipulative imo. It feels like a way to keep you subscribed. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Extremely Useful and Fun *2026-07-11* This app is very useful. When I first started out I was skeptical. I didn’t know many words and so I thought I wouldn’t use this. After I got through most of N5 I wanted to practice more. I downloaded it again and read stories like “The Bartender”. I also used their review feature. I found myself learning the vocabulary so much easier and being able to listen helped a lot with pronunciation. I am in a more confident position and can see more progress. I would recommend coming back to the app if you initially turned it away after you learn more words and grammar for N5. It’s a fantastic tool that’s so unique. ### 5/5 — The best app! *2026-04-25, version 1.5.5* This is the number one most helpful resource that I’ve used for learning and the team is so responsive in the comments of the stories too! I think I’ll be moving on to native content now but I started from basically 0, highly recommend ### 5/5 — Great app *2026-04-22* Best app to engage in content with in-depth explanation ### 5/5 — Amazing, amazing gift to Japanese learners! *2026-03-29, version 1.5.5* I want to come back and take the time to write a longer review. But for now all i can say is i am floored by the effort, care, and support put in by the team at Satori reader. For me, this has been perhaps THE most helpful tool in acquiring the japanese language. The stories scale in difficulty absolutely perfectly, but perhaps even more importantly, they are ENGAGING. This is not typical graded content. Moreover, the voice acting is phenomenal and the team responds to any questions. I would highly recommend ANY learner of the japanese language to give Satori a try, and consider paying for the full version, from the bottom of my heart. ### 5/5 — The quality of the content is worth the subscription fee. *2026-03-22, version 1.5.5* Every chapter of the story has audio, dictionary, translation, and extended grammar notes, so I usually end up going back through the same chapter several times. Once for reading then again for listening. I'm familiar with N4 grammar but haven't mastered it, so the easier level stories are perfect for me. ### 5/5 — Guilt-free Addiction *2026-03-14, version 1.5.5* The Satori team has transformed learning to read Japanese from painful drudgery into an enticing challenge. Satori Reader inspires me and brings me daily delight. ### 5/5 — The most useful app for learning Japanese *2026-03-02* In context vocab and grammar explanations are so amazing. Also, the explanations convey difficult and subtle nuance so clearly. Brilliant. ### 5/5 — Increase Font Size Option *2026-02-23* The app is amazing, just needs an option to increase the font size on IOS. Thanks! ### 5/5 — Best app for learning Japanese *2026-01-10, version 1.5.5* This app is the best intro to immersion in Japanese out there. I’ve been trying everything from playing video games in Japanese to watching YouTubers explain things, but the way this app is set up makes even advanced authentic Japanese accessible. That is the hardest thing about immersion and Satori just gets it. Thank you developers! ### 5/5 — Gold for Learners *2025-12-25* This is clearly an incredibly thoughtful app that helps learners of a daunting language like Japanese find a much needed toehold when starting out. I started using this app very early on in my Japanese learning journey - basically right after I learned the Kana and basic grammar. Even with all the provided tooling and explanations — reading is still very hard! It takes me 30 to 60 minutes to read a chapter of the easier stories. But keeping at it, I can find my reading speed and comprehension increasing. Revisiting some of the first chapters I read, I already feel much more solid on grammar and vocabulary I was struggling through. Big thanks to the Satori Reader team for all the time and effort to write, voice, and annotate this stories! --- *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 2026-08-29.*