Visual Novel Media in Enhancing Intermediate Japanese Reading
Comprehension
Nuria Haristiani, Herniwati Herniwati and Aditya Muhammad Jauhar Azhar
Japanese Language Education Department,Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jl. Dr. Setiabudhi No. 229, Bandung,
Indonesia
Keywords: Visual Novel, Media, Japanese Reading Comprehension.
Abstract: This study aims to create a new media for learning and improving reading comprehension using a computer
software called Ren’Py. This media is called ‘Visual Novel’, a story game-like media that originated from
Japan. Visual novel consists of stories, characters, audio, and other game-like features. The stories that used
in this study were taken from Japan’s Folk. The purpose of this research is to determine the effectiveness of
the media in improving student’s Japanese language reading comprehension skill, and to find out response
of this media. This research used true experiment method, with Randomized Control Group Post-test-only
experiment design. Sample of this research including 40 intermediate level Japanese students in Universitas
Pendidikan Indonesia. Reading comprehension lesson in experiment class conducted by using visual novel
media, while in control class, lesson conducted by using normal text. Post-test result showed that visual
novel media were effective in enhancing student’s reading comprehension skill. The result from
questionnaire was also very positive. The students answer that the visual novel media is user friendly,
entertaining, gave a very positive impact on motivation to learn.
1 INTRODUCTION
In an ever changing technological world, computer
and technology seem to be at the forefront of
education (Granito and Chernobilsky, 2012). Along
with the advance of these modernization in
education field, there are new various facilities and
equipment that support the learning process, one of
which is media (Williams and Sawyer, 2007).
However, the exact impact of using technology for
instruction in education is still unknown, and some
questioned the role of technology in student’s
willingness to learn and how it affects their retention
of information to them (Granito and Chernobilsky,
2012).
According to dailymail in 2015, average persons
now spends more time on their phone and laptop
than sleeping. The average person spends 8 hours
and 41 mins on electronic devices. This means that
technology device can not be separated from
everyday life, including in students life in general.
To answer to this phenomenon, in Japanese
language learning and teaching, some lecturers and
researchers tried to combine technology in
developing learning medias such as image picture
(Sasadhara and Sasanti, 2013), Smart Card
(Primayanti et al., 2014), and Interactive Media
(Haristiani et al, 2015) to improve the quality of
learning and to help Japanese language learners to
improve their Japanese language skill. However,
these medias development are mainly for learning
vocabularies or kanji characters, and there are still
limited media that created for enhancing Japanese
language learner’s reading comprehension.
Researches to improve reading comprehension
conducted were such as using supplemental reading
comprehension curricula (James-Burdumy et al.,
2012), or using graphic novels (Sabbah et al., 2013).
Despite using combined curricula and graphic novel
is effective in improving reading comprehensive,
these method is only can be conducted in class under
teachers’ guidance. Thus, providing media that can
help students to improve their reading
comprehension skill independently using technology
is still necessary.
To answer to this problem, this study proposed to
create a user friendly media using information
710
Haristiani, N., Herniwati, H. and Azhar, A.
Visual Novel Media in Enhancing Inter mediate Japanese Reading Comprehension.
DOI: 10.5220/0007173707100715
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 710-715
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

technology that can enhance Japanese languages
learners’s reading comprehension. This study also
aimed to examined the effectivity of the media by
conducting experiments to Japanese language
learners. A quistionairre also held to find out the
student’s impression of the media.
2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
2.1 Application Development
2.1.1 Ren’py as Visual Novel’s Media
Development Software
A new technology media that will be created in this
study is a Visual Novel media. Technology in this
context is often said as Information Technology
(IT), which is a combination of computer technology
(hardware and software) to proceed and save the
information (Clemons, 1993), while Visual novel is
a digital-based interactive fiction work featuring
novel stories in the form of pictures (Cavallaro,
2010). Using visual novel media in teaching reading
comprehension is considered more comprehensive
than using normal text because in addition to text,
the media is also able to display images, featuring
music and sound effect, and even featuring a video.
Visual novel also has other advantages as we can
enter commands into it to run special features such
as providing options that can change the story path.
Another feature that can be used is the feature to
provide various explanations in a practical and easy
way. However, the most important things in creating
this media is that the media should be user friendly,
and must run on all devices such as smartphone and
laptops. Therefore, to create this media as projected,
we use a free visual novel-making software called
Ren’Py.
Ren’Py is a free cross platform engine for digital
storytelling. Using Ren’py makes it easy to combine
words, images, and sounds to create visual novels
and life simulation games. This program also can
run on many platform engines including Android
smartphone and IOS. Ren’Py are developed in Java
programming language although on the making of
this media we mostly used python scripting
language. Ren'Py is an open source, which means
that everyone is allowed to change and use this
software. Ren’Py is cross platform for Computer and
Mobile, meaning the media could be created and
offered on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Ren'Py is
not dependent on any other software on these
platforms. Therefore, there is no need for users to
download runtimes, drivers, codecs, etc. Ren'Py runs
on many devices, but have to be developed on the
computer platforms. Ren’Py’s main menu is as seen
on Figure 1.
Figure 1: The display of Ren’Py’s Main Menu.
2.1.2 Visual Novel Media Development
The first things to do to develop a visual novel
media is to make a new project by clicking on
“+Create New Project” on the Main Menu, and
follow the next instruction. After a ‘Project’ made,
the name of the project will be shown on ‘Projects
Menu’.
Visual novel media created in this study includes
three Japanese traditional folktales, which are
Momotarou, Urashimatarou and Kaguyahime.
Developing the story for the media conducted in
three months, since the story has to be made in
Japanese and needed a thorough checking by
Japanese native speaker. The reason why
Momotarou, Urashimatarou and Kaguyahime stories
were selected for this research is because these
stories considered suitable as reading materials for
intermediate level JLL. Furthermore, these stories do
not use difficult words, easy to understand and
interesting to read.
After developing the stories for the media, the
next thing to do was to make characters for each
story. The characters of these stories all came from
Japanese folktales, so there are no real pictures. But
since the folktales are popular, there are many
pictures of characters which can be used as reference
to draw the characters for media in this study. The
image of main characters created for each story that
will be used in this study is as shown in figure 2.
Figure 2 shows only the main characters of each
story, which are Momotarou, Urashimatarou, and
Visual Novel Media in Enhancing Intermediate Japanese Reading Comprehension
711

Kaguyahime. The names of the main characters are
the same with each story they represents. There are
many other characters used in the stories besides
characters in figure 2.
Figure 2: The character image of visual novel stories,
which are Momotarou (a), Urashimatarou (b), and
Kaguyahime (c).
After the image of all characters including main
characters is made, the next thing to do is gathering
all contents such as background, back sound and
music to complete the media. After all of the
contents are ready, everything was inputted into a
script so it can be opened in the media. The coding
process in inputting the script is as shown on figure
3. After all of the steps are completed, the next thing
to do is to input all of the menu on Ren’Py, so the
media will be ready to use on many platforms.
Figure 3: Coding process of inputting the script for visual
novel media.
2.2 Visual Novel Media Experiments
2.2.1 Experiment Method
To find out the effectiveness of Visual Novel media,
some experiments had been conducted. The
experiment method used in this study is true
experimental method, control group and experiment
group post-test design, and questionnaires. Post-test
design is generally used to measure the change from
experimental treatments in order to assess its impact
(Dimitrov and Rumrill, 2003). Post-test test is
performed after the researcher provides treatment for
each group, and consists of 20 questions for each
story. Meanwhile, questionnaire is given only to
experiments group after they used visual novel
media, which consists of 10 questions.
2.2.2 Subjects and Material
The sample of this experiment was the intermediate
level Japanese students in Universitas Pendidikan
Indonesia, which includes 20 students for the
experimental group and 20 students for the control
group.
The material of this study is Japanese traditional
folktales which are Momotarou, Urashimatarou and
Kaguyahime stories which presented using visual
novel media for the experiment group, and normal
text on the control group.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Visual Novel Media
Visual novel is a very-easy-to-play game like media.
Basically, it is a story with some pictures and
additional effects such as sound or even videos. This
media is user friendly and can be played on PC and
smartphones, either IOS or Android. The icon of
each story also made in this media to represents
what the story is about. These icons are ‘Peach’ for
Momotarou, ‘Turtle shell’ for Urashimatarou, and
‘Moon’ for Kaguyahime (see figure 4).
Figure 4: The icon image for each story.
In the main menu, there are various menus as
shown in figure 5. ‘Start’ menu is used to start the
story from the beginning, ‘Load’ is to continue the
story from the saved save point, ‘Preferences’ is to
set the settings or option, ‘About’ is to find
information about the game, ‘Help’ is to see the play
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
712

instruction, and ‘Quit’ is used to exit the application.
The display of the ‘Preferences’ menu is as seen on
figure 6.
Figure 5: ‘Main Menu’ display of Momotarou story.
Figure 6: ‘Preferences’ menu display.
In the ‘Preferences’ menu there are various
settings such as screen size, text settings and also
volume settings as seen on figure 6.
Figure 7: Text of the story’s display.
After user pressed the ‘Start’ button, the story
will appear gradually at the bottom display, and the
character image will pop at the top of the display. If
it is played on a computer, there also will be a
character displayed on the bottom left of the screen.
Unfortunately, this feature cannot be viewed on a
smartphone. Meanwhile, at bottom right of the
screen there are menu containing ‘History’ to view
text that has been read before (see figure 8), and
‘Auto’ to run automatic mode, so the text will run by
itself according to our settings. ‘Save’ and ‘Quick
Save’ is also available to save the wanted reading
section (see figure 9), while ‘Quick Load’ is to load
the game faster from menu. Lastly, ‘Prefs’ is used
for open the ‘Preferences’ menu (see figure 10).
Figure 8: ‘History’ menu display.
Figure 9: ‘Save’ menu display.
One feature that will be used by user the most in
this media, is the ‘Explanation’ feature. Throughout
the story there will be red text. Inside the story user
will find some red texts. The red texts are difficult
words that considered too difficult for intermediate
level learners. When the user pressed the red text,
the translation of the words will appear at the top left
of the screen in Indonesian language. This feature
designed to assist the students to find out the
meaning of difficult words or new Japanese
vocabularies used in the stories.
Figure 10: ‘Explanation’ feature containing Indonesian
translation of difficult words or new vocabularies.
Above are the tutorials to use this visual novel
media. Basically, this media is very user friendly,
since the user only need to click on the screen to
read the stories, and selecting a menu when
necessary. Moreover, this media also fun to use,
since it has sounds and interesting characters.
Visual Novel Media in Enhancing Intermediate Japanese Reading Comprehension
713

3.2 The Effectiveness of Visual Novel
Media to Enhance Reading
Comprehension Skill
To prove effectiveness of Visual Novel media
created in this study, some experiments including
post-test and questionnaires were conducted. In this
section, the results from both post experiments test
(post-test) and questionnaires will be explained.
Post-test data are including results from experiment
group and control group. The overall result from
post-test is as shown on table 1.
Table 1: Post-test results from Experiment Class and
Control Class
Object No.
Experiment Class
(score)
Control Class
(score)
N1
92.38
90.48
N2
90.48
87.62
N3
89.52
87.62
N4
88.57
84.76
N5
88.57
80
N6
86.67
78.1
N7
86.67
76.19
N8
84.76
73.33
N9
84.76
71.43
N10
83.81
71.43
N11
83.81
69.52
N12
82.86
65.71
N13
82.86
64.76
N14
81.9
58.57
N15
80.95
58.1
N16
79.05
55.71
N17
78.1
54.29
N18
74.29
53.33
N19
70
52.86
N20
66.67
51.43
Σ
1659
1385
M
83
69
Table 1 shows result scores from each
respondent, and the scores total and its average is
shown on the bottom of the table. From the total
score and average, it is seen that Experiment group
have a higher average score than control group.
Highest scores from both group showed only slight
difference, while lower scores showed much more
on the control group.
Table 2: Scoring Standard for Post-test
Scores
Information
86-100
Very Good
76-86
Good
66-75
Enough
56-65
Not Enough
46-55
Highly Not Enough
36-45
Fail
Scoring standard used in this experiment is as
shown in table 2. By referring both table 1 and table
2, we can see that the average score for Experiment
group is 83, which can be classified into ‘Good’. 80
% students from Experiments group student passed
the test with scores above 80, which means passed
with ‘Good’ standard. Meanwhile, average score
from Control group are lower, and only 30%
students passed the test with score above 80 and
classified into ‘Good’ standard. Based on these
results, it can be concluded that using visual novel
media improved student’s reading comprehension.
Furthermore, questionnaire about Visual Novel
media also had been conducted to all students from
experiment group. The result from questionnaires
overall were very positive, and the most interesting
findings from the answers were selected as seen on
table 3.
Table 3: The Results of Questionnaire
Question
Answer
Visual novel media is easy
to use for learning reading
comprehension.
Highly Agree 22,5 %
Agree 75 %
Less Agree 2,5 %
Learning using visual novel
media increase motivation
in learning.
Highly Agree 35 %
Agree 60 %
Less Agree 5 %
I want reading
comprehension learning
using visual novel media
more often.
Highly Agree 47,5 %
Agree 47,5 %
Less Agree 5 %
Table 3 shows that results from questionnaires
were very positive. Almost every student chooses
‘Agree’ and ‘Highly agree’ for using visual novel.
Moreover, 97.5% students answered that visual
novel media is easy to use for learning reading
comprehension. Also, 95% students agreed that
using visual novel media can increase their
motivation in learning. Motivation is a fundamental
concern among teachers, and motivating students is
a continual problem throughout education
(Linnenbrink and Pintrich, 2003). Furthermore,
constructing meaning during reading is not only a
cognitive endeavour but also a motivated act, and
motivation is the key of students’ reading success
(Guthrie and Wigfield 1999; Taboada and Buehl,
2012). In order to motivate, teachers must encourage
and challenge their students (Sanacore, 2008). From
questionnaire result, using Visual Novel media
considered succeeded in challenging and improving
students’ motivation to learn reading comprehension.
Lastly, 95% students also agreed that they want to
study reading comprehension using visual novel
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
714

media more often. Based on these results, it can be
concluded that visual novel media have a positive
effect in increasing student’s motivation in learning
reading comprehension, and almost all students want
to use it more often.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This study aimed to create a Visual Novel media to
enhance intermediate level Japanese Language
Learner’s reading comprehension skill. The media
successfully developed by using Ren’Py software to
make it user friendly and can be used in any
platforms. The stories included in the media are well
known Japanese traditional folktales which are
Momotarou, Urashimatarou and Kaguyahime. The
media also consists of many user friendly features
including Indonesian translation for difficult words
or new vocabularies. Experiment and questionnaires
also conducted in this study to prove the
effectiveness of created Visual Novel media, and to
examine student’s impression of the media. The
results from experiment showed that the students in
Experiment group that used Visual Novel media get
better scores than students that did not used Visual
Novel media. Furthermore, questionnaires results
showed that the student’s response in the using of
Visual Novel media is very positive overall. The
students answered that Visual Novel media user
friendly, entertaining, effective and improve their
reading comprehension skill.
REFERENCES
Cavallaro, D., 2010. Anime and the visual novel: narrative
structure, design and play at the crossroads of
animation and computer games. McFarland &
Company.
Clemons, E, K., Reddi, S. P., Row, M. C., 1993. The
impact of information technology on the organization
of economic activity: The “move to the middle”
hyphotesis. Journal of management information
systems, 10(2).
Dimitrov, D. M., Rumrill, P.D., 2003. Pretest-Postest
Design and Measurement of Change Work, 20,
pp.159-165.
Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., 1999. How motivation fits
into a science of reading. Scientific Studies of Reading,
3 (3), pp. 199-205.
Haristiani, N., Rahmawati, R. S., Sofiani, D., Nandiyanto,
A. B. D., 2015. Interactive Media in Learning
Japanese Language Vocabulary for Vocational School.
1
st
International Conference on Innovation in
Engineering and Vocational Education Proceeding.
Atlantis Press.
James-Burdumy, S., Deke, J., Gersten, R., Lugo-Gil, J.,
Newman-Gonchar, R., Dimino, J., Haymond, K. Liu,
A. Y. H., 2012. Effectiveness of four supplemental
reading comprehension interventions. Journal of
Research on Educational Effectiveness. 5(4), pp.345-
383.
Granito, M., Chernobilsky, E., 2012. The Effect on
Technology on a Student’s Motivation and Knowledge
Retention. 17
th
Northeastern Educational Research
Association (NERA) Annual Conference Proceedings,
University of Connecticut.
Linnebrink, E. A., Pintrich, P. R., 2003. The role of self-
efficacy beliefs in student engagement and learning in
the classroom. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 19.
Primayanti, P. M., Saputra, I. N. P. H., Pramesti, P.D.M.Y,
2014. Development of Learning Media Japanese
Vocabulary Smart Card for Beginner Class. Online
Journal of Pendidikan Bahasa Jepang Universitas
Pendidikan Ganesha, 11.
Sabbah, M., Masood, M., Iranmanesh, M., 2012. Effects
of graphic novels on reading comprehension in
Malaysian year 5 students. Journal of Graphic Novels
and Comic, 4(1), pp. 146-160.
Sanacore, J., 2008. Turning Reluctant Learners into
Inspired Learners. Clearing House: A Journal of
Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 82(1), pp.
40-44.
Sasadhara A., Sasanti N. S., 2013. Media Picture and
Picture for The Mastery of Japanese Language
Vocabulary. HIKARI,11.
Taboada, A., Buehl, M. M., 2012. Teachers’ conceptions
of reading comprehension and motivation to read.
Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 18(1),
pp. 101-122.
Williams/Sawyer, 2007. Using Information Technology
(Indonesian translate). Retrieved on Sept 3
rd
2017
from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-
2989952/How-technology-taking-lives-spend-time-
phones-laptops-SLEEPING.html
https://www.renpy.org/
Visual Novel Media in Enhancing Intermediate Japanese Reading Comprehension
715