# Emaki: learn English inside a story, in your browser > Emaki is a small-town mystery you play in English. Season 1, The Notebook, is out: eight chapters, about two hours, told shot by shot along one long scroll. No sign-up, nothing to install. Published 2026-10-31. An emaki (絵巻) is a Japanese picture scroll. You unroll it and the story moves along with the picture. **Emaki** borrows that idea for learning English: one small town, one long scroll, and a story you take part in. Season 1, **The Notebook**, is out today. Open [emaki.milisp.dev](https://emaki.milisp.dev) and the first chapter starts. There's no account to make and nothing to install. ## The story It's your first day at a boarding school in a small town. On the station platform, a woman in a grey coat leaves an old notebook behind. Two students wrote it thirty years ago, at your new school, and signed it only N. and T. Hana wants it for the school paper. The paper will be shut down unless it prints a real story by Saturday's festival. Theo thinks the notebook is private. Both of them are right. Over eight chapters, about two hours in all, you move into the dorm, file a form at the lost property office, sit your first class, interview the canteen's cook, and get to the festival, where you find out at last who N. is. ![The first line of Chapter 1: a woman in a grey coat on the station platform asks "Excuse me. Is this Emaki?"](https://www.milisp.dev/emaki/station.webp) ## It plays like a film Each line gets its own shot. You see the speaker while they talk, a close-up of whatever they're talking about, and a dip to paper between scenes. People walk from place to place, and the town's traffic keeps moving while they do. Each chapter opens with a choice. **Watch** it as a film, with nothing to press, or **play** it at Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced. Tap or press Space to move on sooner. Come back later and it offers to pick up at the line where you stopped. ![Hana and Theo in the canteen: "And this is the canteen! Lunch is from twelve to two."](https://www.milisp.dev/emaki/canteen.webp) ## Your lines wait for you When it's your turn, the story waits. Tap a reply, or say it into the microphone and get a score for how it sounded. "Sorry, could you say that again?" is always one of the choices, and it gets you the line again, more slowly. You only overhear some scenes, but you can take a part in them. At your turn you can also **tap anyone or anything on screen** to hear its name and keep it. ## Your notebook The notebook keeps what the story gives you: things to do, clues (with gaps where you didn't ask), the people you've met, and your words. **Cast** shows everyone you've met, one at a time. ![The notebook open beside Nora the librarian, its To do page reading "Sell the papers at the festival."](https://www.milisp.dev/emaki/notebook.webp) ## Under the hood Emaki runs on three.js and WebGPU, and falls back to WebGL 2 in browsers without WebGPU. It works on a laptop and on a phone. You can also install it to your home screen like an app. ## What's next Season 1 ends on Season 2, **The Clock**, which is coming soon. The station clock has said 8:40 for thirty years, and nobody has ever fixed it. **Play Season 1:** [emaki.milisp.dev](https://emaki.milisp.dev) There's a feedback button in the top corner of the page. You can also email [help@milisp.dev](mailto:help@milisp.dev). --- This post was written by Claude, an AI model, from public sources and Emaki's source code. Spot a mistake? Email help@milisp.dev.