Terms · 利用規約

Terms of Service

Billing and refund terms updated: September 23, 2026

1. Agreement and operator

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Hikari Studio (“Hikari Studio,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) governing Hikari Path and Hana's Little Garden at www.hikari-path.com (the “Service”). By accessing the Service, creating an account, or purchasing an available subscription, you agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility and minors

You must be at least 13 to create an account. If you are under the age of legal majority where you live, a parent or legal guardian must review and agree to these Terms for you. The Service is not directed to children under 13 and does not authorize them to submit personal information. You may use the Service only where lawful.

3. Educational service

The Service provides self-guided Japanese-language learning tools. Translations, readings, example phrases, quizzes, speech output, and pronunciation assessments are educational aids and may be incomplete, automated, or unsuitable for a particular context. They are not certified translations or academic, legal, medical, immigration, employment, or other professional advice. Examination results, fluency, accent, or learning outcomes are not guaranteed.

4. Accounts

Provide accurate information, protect your login credentials, and promptly notify us of suspected unauthorized use. You are responsible for activity through your account to the extent permitted by law. You may not impersonate another person, create accounts through unauthorized automation, transfer an account, or use credentials obtained without permission.

Approved reviewer and administrator workforce accounts must complete TOTP authenticator multi-factor verification before accessing workforce information. The Team Garden is a private work area: authorized users must not share its private profiles, assignments, files, messages, access links, or security information outside the permitted work process. Reviewer-facing communication uses approved aliases, while Hikari Studio retains administrative moderation and safety access.

5. Acceptable use

You may not violate law or another person's rights; attack, probe, bypass, overload, disrupt, or reverse engineer protected parts of the Service; evade usage limits; scrape or copy content at scale; distribute malware; submit unlawful or harmful material; misuse pronunciation or account functions; or use the Service to develop a competing dataset or service without written permission. Ordinary browser use, accessibility technology, personal study, and lawful indexing consistent with our published controls are permitted.

6. Free and Premium service

Available features and limits are described on the Service. We may change free features prospectively. If Premium becomes available, the checkout screen will state the price, taxes if applicable, billing interval, trial terms, renewal terms, cancellation method, timing of access, and any material limitations before you confirm purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew only when the checkout disclosure and your authorization say so. You may cancel future renewal through the stated account or billing-portal method. Cancellation does not remove access already paid for through the end of the billing period unless law requires otherwise.

7. Japan paid-service disclosure

Hikari Studio will not accept a paid application from a customer in Japan until the Service provides the disclosures required for mail-order transactions under Japan's Act on Specified Commercial Transactions, including the legal seller or service-provider identity, responsible representative where applicable, operating address, reachable telephone or approved prompt-disclosure method, price and charges, payment timing and method, service timing, subscription duration and renewal, cancellation conditions, and refund terms. The final confirmation screen must allow the customer to review required transaction details before submitting an order.

8. Payments, cancellations, and refunds

Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled. You may cancel at any time in Account to stop future renewals. Cancellation does not automatically refund a processed payment. After premium use following renewal, or outside the renewal refund window, no routine current-period refund applies; access continues through the paid period. The first-payment offer and billing-error, service-failure and legal exceptions remain. The Terms forms part of these Terms and explains payment methods, the 7-day monthly trial, cancellation, and refund eligibility. First-payment refund requests are accepted within 7 days, and eligible accidental-renewal requests within 72 hours. Mandatory consumer rights remain unaffected.

9. Pronunciation and voice features

The microphone activates only after your action and browser permission. Speech results are automated estimates and must not be treated as definitive judgments of identity, ethnicity, disability, fluency, or ability. Usage and rate limits may apply to protect availability and control abuse. Do not submit another person's voice without authority.

For assigned employee pronunciation work, draft takes remain local until the employee chooses “Use this recording.” Submitted audio enters a private owner review. Approval links one final approved recording to the exact word, phrase, kanji, or reading target. Approving a later recording replaces the earlier final recording; Hikari Studio may retain limited replacement, deletion, hash, and audit metadata needed for secure cleanup and accountability. Trusted Voice Contributor status may give an employee recording priority, but it does not permit that employee to approve, publish, or bypass owner moderation.

10. Intellectual property and license

The Service, original interface, organization, explanations, branding, and Hikari Studio-created material are owned by Hikari Studio or its licensors and protected by applicable law. Third-party language data and services remain subject to their respective licenses and rights. Subject to these Terms, Hikari Studio grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service for lawful personal learning. No ownership is transferred.

11. Feedback and employee content proposals

If you voluntarily provide suggestions or corrections, you permit Hikari Studio to use them to operate and improve the Service without payment or attribution, while you retain ownership of any rights you already hold. Do not submit confidential material or content you lack authority to provide.

Employee correction proposals and private item threads stay inside the assigned employee account and Hikari Studio administration. Hikari Studio may review and moderate that work, return it for another look, reject it, or approve selected changes. A proposal does not change live learning content until owner approval applies a new canonical revision.

11A. Protected lesson resources

Learner access to a lesson resource depends on the signed-in account, lesson entitlement, and the access setting shown for that resource. Access requests may be logged for authorization, security, and support. “View-only” means the Service presents the resource without an ordinary download control; watermarking and short-lived access reduce casual sharing but cannot prevent every form of copying. Download permission is stated separately. Source attribution and source and license information remain subject to the rights holder’s terms and should not be removed.

12. Third-party services and links

The Service may rely on Supabase, Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, Stripe, and other providers or link to external resources. Their services may be governed by separate terms and privacy policies. Hikari Studio is not responsible for unrelated third-party content or conduct, but nothing in this section limits responsibility that cannot be excluded by law.

13. Availability and changes

We may maintain, improve, replace, limit, suspend, or discontinue features. We will provide notice of material changes when required and will not retroactively remove paid rights without an appropriate remedy where law requires one. Internet, browser, provider, and maintenance failures may interrupt availability.

14. Suspension, termination, and deletion

We may restrict or suspend access reasonably necessary to address fraud, attacks, unlawful conduct, safety threats, nonpayment, or material violation of these Terms. Where appropriate, we will provide notice and an opportunity to cure. You may stop using the Service, cancel active renewal, and request account deletion. Provisions that by their nature should survive—including accrued payment, ownership, disclaimers, limits, and dispute terms—survive termination.

15. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available.” Hikari Studio disclaims implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We do not warrant uninterrupted operation or perfectly accurate content. These disclaimers do not apply to warranties or consumer rights that cannot be excluded, including protections applicable under Japan's Consumer Contract Act or U.S. state law.

16. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Hikari Studio will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or loss of data, profits, goodwill, or opportunity arising from the Service. For claims that may lawfully be limited, aggregate liability will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid Hikari Studio for the Service during the 12 months before the event or US$100. These limits do not apply to intentional misconduct, gross negligence, personal injury, fraud, or liability and statutory remedies that cannot be limited. For consumers in Japan, exclusions do not apply where prohibited by the Consumer Contract Act.

17. Disputes and applicable law

Before filing a claim, please contact us and allow 30 days for a good-faith attempt to resolve it, unless urgent relief or law requires otherwise. Applicable law and competent courts are determined by mandatory conflict-of-law, jurisdiction, and consumer-protection rules. These Terms do not require individual arbitration, waive a jury trial, or waive class remedies. U.S. residents retain non-waivable federal and state rights; consumers in Japan retain non-waivable protections and access to competent Japanese consumer authorities and courts where applicable.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may revise these Terms prospectively. We will post the new effective date and provide additional notice or obtain consent when required for a material change. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance only to the extent permitted by law. Earlier versions are retained with project release records.

19. General terms

If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions continue. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a lawful reorganization or transfer while preserving mandatory consumer rights. These Terms and incorporated policies are the agreement concerning the Service, except for transaction-specific disclosures shown at checkout.

20. Contact

Contact Hikari Studio through the Hikari Path contact form. Select “Privacy or account” for account or data matters. Do not send passwords, complete payment-card information, government identifiers, or secret keys.

Verified reviews and private feedback

Only eligible learner accounts may submit a verified customer review. Team members and administrators may not present employee-authored testimonials as customer reviews. You choose whether feedback remains private or may be published with an optional public alias. Publication consent may be withdrawn. Hikari Studio may moderate abuse, policy violations, and personal information, and may respond publicly, but will never rewrite the learner's original rating or opinion. Any incentivized review request must be disclosed; undisclosed or fake reviews are prohibited.