Disclaimer: It is the responsibility of the user to check links for safety and exercise common sense. The following websites are ones that I use personally, but I can't personally assure that every site I ever link will be 100% safe. I assume no responsibility for any damage or harm that comes to the user or user's device from interacting with these websites.
Useful Sites
- A -
Aegisub
Open source tool used for subtitling videos. Can be used in conjunction with ffmpeg to burn subtitles directly onto video files
Alice Books
WARNING: INCLUDES 18+ CONTENT
Online book store for buying Japanese doujinshi and games. Offers international shipping
Avatar Cropper
Website that allows you to crop pictures and preview what they will look like as avatars on various websties such as Discord and Twitter
- B -
BEIZ
Japanese royalty free image website. Comparatively small library to some other sites, but all the resources are high quality
Blink GIFMAKER
Website that allows you to generate a GIF of a character blinking. You can control the amount of time in between blinks as well
- C -
...- D -
Danbooru
WARNING: INCLUDES 18+ CONTENT
Art repository site with an anime focus. See also Safebooru, its SFW cousin
DLsite
WARNING: INCLUDES 18+ CONTENT
Online book store for buying Japanese doujinshi and games. Supports PayPal via their points system, which is rare for Japanese websites
Dova Syndrome
Conglomeration of Japanese artists that upload royalty free music. Large library and high quality
Drawabox.com
100% free(!!!) art course that drills the fundamentals. It can be rather Spartan in its regimens, but it's definitely effective
DriveThruRPG
A one-stop shop for tabletop games. Mainly sells rulebook PDFs
- E -
...- F -
Flowey's Time Machine
Generates save files for the game Undertale. Can change almost any variable in the game
Fontspace
Large library of free fonts. There is a mixture of "free for personal use" and "free for commercial use" fonts, so be careful when downloading
Free Japanese Fonts
Library of free for commercial use Japanese fonts. The amount of kanji supported varies from font to font. The logo of this website was made using a font from here, Pigmo01
- G -
...- H -
...- I -
Image Color Palette
Derives a color palette based on the image fed to it
IMGonline
Website that allows you to apply various effects to pictures. My personal recommendation is the making a seamless texture feature
Incompetech
Composer that uploads a large library of royalty free music
- J -
Japanese Grammar Checker
Like Grammarly but for Japanese and free
- K -
Kujouten Kanji Finder
Chinese website that allows you to search for kujouten style kanji. For more information, see my page on seal engravings
- L -
Lorenzi's Homepage
A solo dev that has created a variety of apps and games. I personally recommend his Japanese Jisho
- M -
Max Packs
Sets of brush packs sold by a professional artist that mimic various physical media brushes. Very high quality for the price point. Procreate only
myNoise
Noise generator website with lots of high quality generators for various situations, including environment noise, ambient noise, etc. Most features are available for free, and for a one time donation of any amount you get a lifetime premium membership
- N -
...- O -
...- P -
Pinkuboa's RPGMaker 2000/2003 Masterpost
Resource list of development advice and guides for using RPGMaker 2000/2003, with a focus on Yume Nikki fangames
Pixel-perfect image scaling tool
Exactly what it says on the tin
Posemaniacs
Site that includes a 3D model designed for artists to draw from various angles as a reference point or for practice. New poses are uploaded every day
Print All Over Me (PAOM)
Allows you to upload your designs to be printed onto clothing. To my knowledge it is the only English website that allows you to make full-body designs, including the back of clothing
- Q -
...- R -
Rainmeter
Open source software that allows you to add widgets to Windows machines such as clocks, calendars, etc.
Roadkil.net
Solo developer that has made lots of niche use Windows applications, including some that are otherwise hard to find such as data recovery tools
- S -
Simulation Corner: Sebastian Macke's Website
Eclectic collection of programs created by a solo dev. Particularly noteworthy is S.A.M., a recreation of speech synthesis software from the 80s
SONNISS
Royalty free sound effects. Useful for game development, animation, or movie projects
SpaceSniffer
Free software that scans your computer and displays your files in boxes proportional to their size. Useful for sniffing out hidden files if you're tight on space. Tested for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, and 8 (and should work on 10)
- T -
Toptal's Subtle Patterns
Talent hiring site that for some reason has free to download patterns
- U -
Unanimated's Aegisub Scripts
Set of plugins for the free subtitling program Aegisub
- V -
vgperson's Stuff
Professional translator that has helped translate various songs and games, as well as short stories, articles, and social media posts
- W -
Waifu2x
AI-based image upscaling website. Has existed since at least 2013
Wallhaven
Collection of high resolution desktop wallpapers
- X -
...- Y -
...- Z -
ZenMarket
Shipping proxy service for products that are exclusive to Japan. As far as I know they are by far the cheapest in most situations, only charging a 500JPY service charge per item (plus shipping costs). Also allow you to participate in Japanese Yahoo auctions
Zerochan
WARNING: INCLUDES 18+ CONTENT
Art repository website with an anime focus