Entry the sixth - July 24th, 2025
It’s a Thursday once again! Can you believe it?
Today marks a great review session. I did 6 reviews. Sadly, I did not time them, but I think I did them in record time. I wonder if the devs can put in an arbitrary speed run mode on this site? Who cares about learning anymore as it’s all about the sweet, sweet dopamine rush nowadays.
Speaking of dopamine rushes, let’s do a deep dive on a random part of Bunpro’s website for giggles. There’s usually another part to that expression. You know -REDACTED BY BUNPRO MODERATION GODS- and giggles. Whoa, how did that happen? Well, that’s because I did a line by line deep dive on the Terms of Service page!
Wow, that sounds as boring as watching paint dry…right? But let’s see what those little rascals at Bunpro added in that phonebook of a contract we all blindly agreed to when making our accounts.
Immediately, we’re greeted with a rather neutral but inviting page. What shall we discover? Whatever it may be, we are guaranteed it’s essential. Let’s carry on.
Now, I am not entirely sure about you, but this is about as fun as getting teeth pulled. I already am bad at remembering the laws in my area, but now we have to not only abide by the laws in our respective homes but in addition we have to abide by the rules of Bunpro. Can you remember all of this? In my humble opinion, I guess I can forget a few menial laws such as jaywalking.
But what I find curious is that if I do not agree with these terms, that’s it. No more Bunpro. I wonder if that extends to philosophically disagreeing to the terms but still following them anyway? I guess the lawyers at Bunpro HQ might need to add an addendum to this. Orwellian thoughtcrimes aside, we must move on.
Oh, boy! I had to read this sucker five times to kinda sorta understand it. So even if there is a warranty, there isn’t a warranty. If you see warranty, and feel warranty, it’s just an illusion, there really was never one to begin with.
Wait…does Bunpro have a return policy? I mean, there’s a free trial and you don’t need a credit card, plus they don’t sell merch. Hmm, maybe this isn’t as crazy as I think.
Also, Bunpro is an incorporation, and here I was naively thinking they were an LLC. They grow up so fast.
Before we move on, I noticed in addition to the lack of warranties, Bunpro also doesn’t provide a warrant on accuracy. Maybe I wasn’t really learning Japanese at all? Maybe I was just learning a language they made up the entire time. The plot thickens!
I am very curious what “damages” this is referring to? Do the Bunpro gods physically assault me whenever there’s an outage?
Also, how am I supposed to know if my jurisdiction allows for limitations on implied warranties or limitations of blah blah whatever that means? I want these limitations to apply to me! How can I get them to apply to me? Do we get a badge for it?
Well, maybe there will be one in the future. “Achieved - Moved to a jurisdiction that allows for limitations on blah blah blah whatever.” NEXT!
Hey, this looks familiar, doesn’t it? So Bunpro could be wildly inaccurate and we may never truly know. Maybe this whole site is a giant gaslighting operation and I am the only true person on this forum? Maybe the dead internet theory has been the case all along and the other users are just AI agents?
Uh, either way, I am curious what they mean by photographic errors. Have there been photographic errors? If so, I need to. know what they were.
But this is making me realize that maybe lawyers are probably not the best salesman. Can you imagine going up to a person and them frankly saying "Yup, our service may not work or even be accurate, but if you give us $5 a month, we may also not give you any recourse for a warranty…but there may be one for a refund (Spoilers).
Does this extend to the material posted on the forums, I wonder? If I am responsible, does that mean I own the materials posted as a deck or on the forum? But if I don’t own it wouldn’t that mean Bunpro would have responsibility over that? Checkmate, lawyers!
Also, textbook decks, eh? I saw a couple of decks made by the community that has words and even imagery from copyrighted materials. Oh, man that’s gonna be a legal oopsie daisy for some poor soul at some point in time. Maybe textbook decks don’t extend to community decks.
Also, the first highlighted text is here! It’s the first “threat” I have seen thus far. So far, I got the impression that agreeing to these terms allows us to receive a completely subpar experience and we will just have to deal with it under penalty of catapult to the sun. But now, the big guns are out.
Suspend or permanently ban any user (even us lifetime peeps) if we upload or share naughty things. Remember when my words were immediately destroyed by the Bunpro death satellite? This right here is why.
Is this to what the general audience feels is offensive or to what the Bunpro staff feels could be? I could say for example that I feel that possums and bunnies are a blight on humanity. Is that recourse for a permanent banning from the platform?
Good lord, how long is this? Kudos for sticking with it, if you actually read it without skipping. If you did skip, you do not get kudos.
Viewer beware, you’re in for a scare! Don’t trust links! If they send you to the fun --I mean the scary places on the internet, it’s possible and not their fault. Curious if that means that would result in a ban. Maybe offer a badge instead. “Achieved - Accidentally stumbled into a 2010s-era internet shock site from a random link on the forums.”
We all have made that mistake, wittingly or otherwise at some point.
At any point in time, Bunpro can be a blog about fishing techniques used during the BCE era. If the Japanese grammar thing doesn’t work out, maybe that could be the next venture, eh?
At any point we access this website, as a user, we are under lock and key to these terms. Even if we disagree, even philosophically, there’s no going back. It’s official, kids. This is the start of our downward spiral. I mean, if you read all of this nonsense, congratulations we’re in this together.
Oh, boy. This is a big boy section. So we provide the card, the payment info you may and WE have to warrant something to them now? At no point was anything ever warranted to us, now we have to warrant something? This is utter bonkers (yes, and so is doing a deep dive on terms of service).
Trust is a two way street, Bunpro lawyer. Wait, what’s the name of this Bunpro lawyer, anyway? Let’s call him Ben. Ben Goshi. There we go. Listen, Ben, if you want us to warrant something to you, you gotta give us something in return. All I am asking is for a badge. I am still on that dopamine rush from a dozen paragraphs ago.
Also, Ben, I noticed that Purchases are always capitalized. I get that lawyers love money, but what’s the philosophy behind that styling? Will you ban me if I think it’s silly?
Did you pay attention to the part where I made a comment about refunds? Well, here we are! This is actually the most human part of this boring document. Ben actually does have a heart…I guess. So for any reason whatsoever, I can get a refund as long as I am in the refund window.
Does that extend to me philosophically disagreeing with the terms of service? Also, the only time that we have a link for the terms of service. It’s not really a “link” but rather a fun fact I am sharing with you, the theoretical reader.
This one is spicy! So blah blah blah about shutting off the service at any point in time, but the second paragraph. Let’s take a look at that sucker as that seems interesting.
So if you don’t use your account within the span of two years, your account is space dust. That means no Japanese grammar learning. No daily blog entries. Just snapped out of existence.
This begs the question: what is a lifetime subscription, really? If you have access to the service for the life of the service, but as long as you log on at least once in the span of two years? Has there been instances of accounts being deleted after not being used for two years? Even lifetime memberships?
Boy, I wish the terms of service would answer that little hypothetical scenario. But if I asked Ben, he would blankly look at me dead in the eyes and delete my account with glee while asking that I purchase another lifetime subscription. I’m onto you, Mr. Goshi.
Aww, man. Not only do I have to know the laws of my own jurisdiction and the terms for Bunpro, I have to comply with Japanese law too? I might as well be a lawyer so I can understand anything in this day and age. Also, “Terms”, “Service”, “State”, and shudders “Japan” are all capitalized. I truly wonder why.
Is this the end? Are…are we done? Well, my intrepid truth seeker, NO. Because at the veeeery end we get this little nugget:
So…what was changed? This is the point where this no longer becomes a joke, but a quest for the truth. We’re hopping on the Internet Archive for the answers.
I found a snapshot from March 3rd, 2024 with the terms from that point in time. Let me do the boring work of carefully combing through the differences and see what I can find!
I should’ve been a lawyer, eh? So the first difference mentions the paths and that we have a legally obtained textbook, but it doesn’t mention the decks. Interesting little lore nugget, eh? I always wondered the legality on explicitly mentioning the name of written works and referencing them on the site. I guess this is legally okay!
Another, albeit minor difference! Look at that, the email address is visible. This is so much better than a link that opens my mail app. I hate that so much and I think this is better. Any email links are bad in my books.
And that’s all, folks that-- oh my god. No…we’re not done.
That’s right. There was another change. Do…do we really go down this rabbit hole? I mean, it was already dumb to do this idea in the first place and then even further look up an archived version. I mean, if you’re already reading this and you’re still here, we have to commit to the bit. Sooo…
I pulled up a February 17th version of the terms of service, and boy the look is…different.
So, once more, let’s see if I can find any difference!
Oh boy, I have two for you and it was hard to spot out!
This calls it Bunpro SRS, so they dropped the SRS from the company line. That is a lore drop.
And this is embarrassing, Ben. Did you see it? You made a typo! “You are soley responsible…” They really don’t guarantee accuracy of information, even in the terms of service. What a classic Ben Goshi move.
Scrolling right along and…and…oh…oh no.
Sigh…onwards to adventure! Hopefully this is the last time we do this. Maybe we are close to the end of the spiral?
Actually, the terms page isn’t archived that far back. Phew, I can skip this. But deep down, I know the truth is out there. So, I loaded up just the Bunpro homepage from August 30th, 2018 and decided to find me some terms of service.
Going to this 2018 page shows me a lovely “Terms & Conditions” link. Not a service, at least not yet!
But sadly, this is where our little journey ends. Clicking this link takes me to an archived version of the August 5th, 2020 Terms of Service page.
So, what did we learn? That there is official Bunpro lost media. The pre-December 17th, 2018 terms are gone. We may never know what wacky terms may have been in this at the very early stages. I mean, if there were typos, what else could there be?
That’s just what happens on the internet. The culture of ephemera. Maybe instead of just hoarding all the data as much as we can to cling on to the past, maybe we should just appreciate the beauty of the now?
Rest in peace, Bunpro Terms & Conditions page from 2018. Gone, but at least one person hasn’t forgotten.
Let this be a lesson that we should all learn to love what we have, please consider giving your parents or grandparents a call and tell them that you read one of the most unhinged posts on the Bunpro forums and that you love them. They will appreciate the gesture and probably ask what a Bunpro is.
See you star side, everyone.
Fukuoka” title. Now, I have never been to Fukuoka, and I’m ashamed to admit I chose it solely because my maturity level hasn’t surpassed that of a schoolboy, but man did saying “Fukuoka” put a smile on my face followed by a short chuckle.
So please keep it up! 
