ema
Tie your wish to the world.
ema (絵馬) is the wooden votive plaque you write a wish on at a Japanese shrine and hang up. This app is the same act, in a browser — but for yourself.
Write a wish. It becomes a 3D wooden tablet. You get a URL and a QR code. Print the QR, stick it on your desk, your notebook, your fridge — anywhere you’ll see it many times a day.
Then, every time you do something toward the wish, scan the QR. Each scan counts as a visit — a “prayer” — and the count climbs on the tablet page.
What you log isn’t progress in someone else’s eyes. It’s the number of times you moved toward the wish. The tablet quietly records it.
How it’s meant to be used
- Write a wish and hang it
- Print the QR and put it where you’ll see it every day
- Every time you act toward the wish, scan the QR with your phone
- Watch the visit count climb on your tablet’s page
For example: write “pass the certification” — scan every time you open the textbook, finish a practice problem, sit a mock exam. Write “get better at drawing” — scan every day you pick up the pen.
The visit count isn’t validation from anyone. It’s a private counter you keep for yourself. Nobody cheers, but the feel of your own actions stacking up on the tablet starts to matter, slowly.
Philosophy — presence, not posting
Most web apps want you to post, get reactions, and post again. ema deliberately removes that loop.
- Presence, not posting — your wish isn’t on a feed. It’s a wooden tablet that exists at one URL, held by you
- Uneditable — once hung, it can’t be touched. Like a real ema, your hand leaves the moment you finish writing
- Forgotten things fade — after long enough with no visits, the wish disappears completely
- No accounts, URL = ownership — there’s no login. Whoever holds the URL is the owner
- A ritual interface — write, look at it, hang it, visit it. Each step on purpose
No streaks, no progress bars, no coaching, no notifications. Just the count of times you came back, written on the tablet.
A wish you stop acting on, fades
ema has one gentle pressure on you.
If no one visits the tablet for long enough, it disappears. Forget to scan, and the wish you stopped acting on quietly vanishes. The URL still exists, but a visit to it returns one line:
いまはもう、ここにはありません。 It’s not here anymore.
This is your promise to yourself, kindly enforced. Keep acting, the tablet stays. Stop, and it leaves on its own.
Strict to create, gentle to visit
ema has one asymmetry on purpose:
- Creating wishes is rate-limited
- Visiting wishes is uncapped
The visit is the action log. Capping visits would mean capping how much of your own life you can record. So: no cap, ever.
You can share it, if you want
The primary use is for yourself, but the URL and QR are just web links — you can hand them to anyone.
A family pointing at a shared goal might hang one tablet together and stick the QR on the fridge. Someone supporting another’s journey might be handed a URL and visit it now and then.
There’s no listing, no search. Only people you hand the URL to can find the tablet. Sharing happens in a small, deliberate circle.
Try it
Feel free to bookmark the app directly.