I have an important update to share about the future of Comprehensible Japanese (CIJ).
In case you don’t know me, hello I’m Ben Maerkle. I’ve been Yuki’s business partner helping grow CIJ since 2023, and I built the website that’s currently on cijapanese.com.
Yuki and I are ending our business partnership. As part of this transition, Yuki will no longer be involved in CIJ, and I will be continuing the site going forward.
Your account, membership, watch history, and access will continue as usual, and no action is required from you at this time.
As part of this transition, the site will be rebranded to Natural Japanese, with NIJ as the abbreviation. You may still see CIJ and Comprehensible Japanese for a while as the site transitions to the new name. The new web address will be nijapanese.com, and links to cijapanese.com will automatically redirect to the new site once it is ready.
Yuki’s videos (the videos Yuki made, not the ones the other teachers made) will remain on the site as members-only content during a two-year transition period. They will not disappear all at once, but will be gradually retired during this period. In the meantime, I will be working closely with the teachers and investing more resources into content production overall. You can expect to see more videos on the site over time, with growing contributions from current, returning, and new teachers, along with continued improvements to the learning experience overall.
If you would like to support Yuki in her new project, you can follow her here: Nihongo no Jikan
I’m very thankful for everything Yuki has created and contributed over the years. Her videos, teaching style, and care for learners are a huge part of what made CIJ special. I will carry that spirit forward while continuing to build and improve the learning experience for everyone.
I’m also very grateful to the teachers for their support during this transition. This project would not be possible without them.
Thank you for your support and understanding during this transition and over the years. I’m excited to continue building Natural Japanese, and I’m grateful to have you with us.
Sorry to see Teacher Yuki leaving, and we understand that her new videos will no longer be published here after the agreed date. However for members who paid for lifetime access to CIJ, isn’t having access to all Teacher Yuki’s old videos part of the deal? That was my understanding when I made the purchase. Should CIJ continue to provide members who purchased lifetime deal with access to all Yuki teacher’s old videos? Thank you.
While I understand these things happen, this is very disappointing news regarding Yuki’s videos disappearing from the site, especially if they aren’t all staying during the whole 2 year period. As others have said, I hope you can provide more clarity on that.
This is all happening so suddenly, and without a real explanation.
I have a hard time seeing that Yuki would be leaving CIJ just like that, after all she has worked extremly hard on this i mean as others has said Yuki has over half of the videos on the website (867 / 1711). AND on top on that she litteraly is the “face” of CIJ.
My gut feeling is telling me it’s not her fault/decision entirely for leaving.
Whit that said, you better start pump out some videos, and give some further explanation for the people that has paid for lifetime, they have purschased something that they cant use.
More information was given in the discord. The full background behind the split was not given and we are not really owed that. What we do know is that the split was to some degree a mutual agreement and Ben went into debt to buy Yuki out of her half. The video agreement was for the benefit of both parties. 1/24th of the videos will be removed each month and he is going to attempt to make it clear which ones are going on any given month well ahead of time. It sounds like they will all be made available by Yuki herself on her new website and youtube channel. The rebranding is also a requirement since both parties decided it was best to retire the original branding to make the change clear.
Ben plans to make an FAQ to attempt to answer as many questions as he can, but I wanted to drop this here so people are less in the dark in the meantime. If you want to dig for more info, the discord from yesterday basically became a giant Q&A after the email went out. Ben has always been very active on the discord and extremely responsive with issues, requests for website changes, etc. I know that without seeing him on the discord, it is easy to see him as some mysterious person mentioned in a few videos that is relatively hands off who suddenly snatched the company, but that is not the case. This also wasn’t a snap decision. This has been in discussion since the beginning of the year.
Did you think of putting out a joint statement? I looked at the Discord and saw that users were speculating about the motive behind the split. A joint statement from NIJ and Yuki announcing the breakup would have seemed less suspicious I think.
The first announcement I received was from the NIJ side. Did you consider that it went out at a time that was in the middle of the night in Japan (3:29 am JST)? That seems somewhat inconsiderate for Yuki.
Hi everyone, thank you for the questions. Here’s replies~
As part of our purchase agreement, Yuki requested that her videos are removed from the site, but she kindly allowed me to display them on the site while removing them over time to give users the opportunity to watch her videos before they’re removed from the site.
The first videos will be removed on June 30th. They’re being removed at a rate of 1/24th every month, such that they will all be retired after 24 months.
As a suggestion from people on Discord, I’m going to add a topic for “Videos being retired soon” to the site, so that users can filter for them and watch them before they are removed. I’ll update this list every month.
As videos are removed, I’ll make sure the historical study activity is not affected, so your study history won’t disappear or show broken thumbnails.
It’s worth mentioning that Yuki’s videos will actually all be available for free on her YouTube channel. If Yuki allows it, I will also have links to each of her channel’s videos on from her videos on the CIJ/NIJ site, and also on the historical study activity.
I’m sorry, but unfortunately that’s not possible under the agreement Yuki and I ended up with. For what it’s worth, you can access her videos for free on her YouTube channel. Also, if you purchased a lifetime subscription and aren’t happy with the transition, you can request a refund here. It would help to have you stick around, though… refunds are expensive and I want to invest more in content creation… but I understand the frustration and am honoring all refunds at this time.
I’m sorry to see Yuki leave, too. For members who paid lifetime access to the site, they will still have lifetime access to the site, just not with Yuki’s content. If you’re not happy with that, you can request a refund. If you decide to stay, though, you would be helping grow the site as I pay teachers more, ask them to make more videos, and hire additional teachers.
Yes, that’s correct. They will be removed at a rate of 1/24th every month for 24 months. The removals will happen at the end of the month. I will be adding a topic for “videos that are being removed soon”, and I’ll update that at the start of each month to give you the opportunity to watch videos before they are removed.
And yeah, over half of the videos on the website are Yuki’s. I am investing significantly more money into content production to make up for the difference. My goal is to have the level of content on the site increase over time, even as Yuki’s videos are removed.
Yes, they’re being removed at a rate of 1/24th of the set every month for 24 months. I will add a “videos that are being removed soon” topic with that month’s videos so you have the opportunity to watch those videos before they go. Please let me know if I can answer anything else.
Yes, you’re welcome to follow Yuki on her sites. Please give her the support she needs to grow as she is starting from 0 right now and her style of teaching is very valuable to learners. It’s important for her to feel motivated to continue making content.
Yuki and I were 50/50 business partners to grow the site since 2023. Some time ago, she expressed interest in dissolving our partnership, and I offered to buy her half of the company from her. She agreed with that idea, and we negotiated until we came to an agreement that we were both happy with. This wasn’t a forced exit.
I’m sorry about the confusion. I’m available to answer any questions
I am planning on drastically increasing the rate at which content is added to the site to make up for Yuki’s content disappearing. I need some time to settle in (things are very chaotic right now and there’s a lot of business/financial-related stuff to take care of) but we will be ramping up soon.
Thank you for adding this context. All of it is accurate. And thank you for the kind words
To add to the comment about the branding, the CIJ branding is very often closely associated with Yuki as an individual, and she understandably doesn’t want that to continue, so neither of us are going to use the CIJ branding moving forward.
\> FAQ
Yes, please give me some time on this . I am still working through replies.
A joint statement would have been a good idea, but unfortunately we didn’t think of that…
I understand the speculation about the motive. We split amicably, and neither side was forced.
I let Yuki know in advance when my message would be sent. I wasn’t intending on being inconsiderate. I wanted to make sure I was sending the message at a time where I would be available to reply to questions
I want to continue my sub because this is the first time I have actually made real progress in learning this language in my off and on attempts over more than 7 years, but I’m finding it incredibly difficult from a moral stand point right now.
After seeing her pour her heart and soul into this site and program and the way this announcement went down without hearing from the creator and face of the company, and the apparent scrubbing of all traces of her from the site that is going to happen - something just feels off.
A statement directly from Yuki would do a lot to ease my concerns, and I can’t imagine I’m the only one feeling this right now…
I take accountability of jumping to my own conclusion and acting on emotion to quickly (everything seemed so wierd and sudden) ofcourse this was not something that happened just sudden “behind the scenes” , Long story short i have decided to keep using this site, the others teachers as well as Ben are amazing people, people leaving this site would be only punish the amazing teachers aswell as Ben and thas is ofcourse nothing i want to be a part of doing.
Looking forward to what the future of this site has to offer, and i have faith in Ben and the teachers that they will continue to improve this site and give us more fun and entertaining content!
The CIJ branding is often very closely associated to Yuki as an individual, and she wishes for that association to not continue with NIJ, which is understandable. I would have rather had Yuki stay on as a teacher and still be involved, but she understandably wanted to start a new project. (To be clear, though, the separation didn’t start from Yuki wanting to leave; she wanted to end our partnership, and I offered to purchase her half of the company and keep it running, and she was open to that idea.)
I agree that a direct statement from Yuki would be helpful, but she’s her own person and we should respect her desire for privacy and separation.
I’m Ben Maerkle. I’ve been Yuki’s business partner helping grow CIJ since 2023, and I built the website that’s currently on cijapanese.com.
