SubMiner/docs-site/character-dictionary.md

Character Dictionary

SubMiner can build a Yomitan-compatible character dictionary from AniList metadata so that character names in subtitles are recognized, highlighted, and enrichable with context — portraits, roles, voice actors, and biographical detail — without leaving the overlay.

The dictionary is generated per-media, merged across your recently-watched titles, and auto-imported into Yomitan. When a character name appears in a subtitle line, it gets highlighted and becomes available for hover-driven Yomitan profile lookup.

How It Works

The feature has three stages: snapshot, merge, and match.

1. Snapshot — When you start watching a new title, SubMiner queries the AniList GraphQL API for the media's character list. Each character's names, reading, role, description, birthday, voice actors, and portrait are fetched and saved as a local JSON snapshot in character-dictionaries/snapshots/anilist-{mediaId}.json. Images are downloaded and base64-encoded into the snapshot.

2. Merge — SubMiner maintains a most-recently-used list of media IDs (default: 3). Snapshots from those titles are merged into a single Yomitan ZIP — character-dictionaries/merged.zip — which is always named "SubMiner Character Dictionary" so Yomitan treats it as a single stable dictionary across rebuilds.

3. Match — During subtitle rendering, Yomitan scans subtitle text against all loaded dictionaries including the character dictionary. Tokens that match a character entry are flagged with isNameMatch and highlighted in the overlay with a distinct color.

Enabling the Feature

Character dictionary sync is disabled by default. To turn it on:

1. Authenticate with AniList (see AniList Integration).
2. Set anilist.characterDictionary.enabled to true in your config.
3. Start watching — SubMiner will generate a snapshot for the current media and import the merged dictionary into Yomitan automatically.

{
  "anilist": {
    "enabled": true,
    "accessToken": "your-token",
    "characterDictionary": {
      "enabled": true,
    },
  },
}

::: tip The first sync for a media title takes a few seconds while character data and portraits are fetched from AniList. Subsequent launches reuse the cached snapshot. :::

::: warning If yomitan.externalProfilePath is set, SubMiner switches to read-only external-profile mode. In that mode SubMiner can reuse another app's installed Yomitan dictionaries/settings, but SubMiner's own character-dictionary features are fully disabled. :::

Name Generation

A single character produces many searchable terms so that names are recognized regardless of how they appear in dialogue. SubMiner generates variants for:

Spacing and combination:

• Full name with space: 須々木 心一
• Combined form: 須々木心一
• Family name alone: 須々木
• Given name alone: 心一

Middle-dot removal (common in katakana foreign names):

• ア・リ・ス → アリス (combined), plus individual segments

Honorific suffixes — each base name is expanded with 15 common suffixes:

Honorific	Reading
さん	さん
様	さま
先生	せんせい
先輩	せんぱい
後輩	こうはい
氏	し
君	くん
くん	くん
ちゃん	ちゃん
たん	たん
坊	ぼう
殿	どの
博士	はかせ
社長	しゃちょう
部長	ぶちょう

Romanized names — names stored in romaji on AniList are converted to kana aliases so they can match against Japanese subtitle text.

This means a character like "太郎" generates entries for 太郎, 太郎さん, 太郎先生, 太郎君, 太郎ちゃん, and so on — all with correct readings.

Name Matching

Name matching runs inside Yomitan's scanning pipeline during subtitle tokenization.

1. Yomitan receives subtitle text and scans for dictionary matches.
2. Entries from "SubMiner Character Dictionary" are checked with exact primary-source matching — the token must match the entry's originalText with isPrimary: true and matchType: 'exact'.
3. Matched tokens are flagged isNameMatch: true and forwarded to the renderer.
4. The renderer applies the name-match highlight color (default: #f5bde6).

Name matches are visually distinct from N+1 targeting, frequency highlighting, and JLPT tags so you can tell at a glance whether a highlighted word is a character name or a vocabulary target.

Key settings:

Option	Default	Description
subtitleStyle.nameMatchEnabled	true	Toggle character-name highlighting
subtitleStyle.nameMatchColor	#f5bde6	Highlight color for matched names

Dictionary Entries

Each character entry in the Yomitan dictionary includes structured content:

• Name — native (Japanese) and romanized forms
• Role badge — color-coded by role: main (score 100), supporting (90), side (80), background (70)
• Portrait — character image from AniList, embedded in the ZIP
• Description — biography text from AniList (collapsible)
• Character information — age, birthday, gender, blood type (collapsible)
• Voiced by — voice actor name and portrait (collapsible)

The three collapsible sections can be configured to start open or closed:

{
  "anilist": {
    "characterDictionary": {
      "collapsibleSections": {
        "description": false,
        "characterInformation": false,
        "voicedBy": false,
      },
    },
  },
}

Auto-Sync Lifecycle

When characterDictionary.enabled is true, SubMiner runs an auto-sync routine whenever the active media changes.

Phases:

1. checking — Is there already a cached snapshot for this media ID?
2. generating — No cache hit: fetch characters from AniList GraphQL, download portraits (250ms throttle between image requests), save snapshot JSON.
3. syncing — Add the media ID to the most-recently-used list. Evict old entries beyond maxLoaded.
4. building — Merge active snapshots into a single Yomitan ZIP. A SHA-1 revision hash is computed from the media set — if it matches the previously imported revision, the import is skipped.
5. importing — Push the ZIP into Yomitan. Waits for Yomitan mutation readiness (7-second timeout per operation).
6. ready — Dictionary is live. Character names will match on the next subtitle line.

State tracking is persisted in character-dictionaries/auto-sync-state.json:

{
  "activeMediaIds": [170942, 163134, 154587],
  "mergedRevision": "a1b2c3d4e5f6",
  "mergedDictionaryTitle": "SubMiner Character Dictionary",
}

The maxLoaded setting (default: 3) controls how many media snapshots stay in the active set. When you start a 4th title, the oldest is evicted and the merged dictionary is rebuilt without it.

Manual Generation

You can generate a character dictionary from the command line without auto-sync:

# Generate for a file or directory
subminer dictionary /path/to/media

# Generate for current anime (AppImage)
SubMiner.AppImage --dictionary

This creates a standalone dictionary ZIP for the target media and saves it alongside the snapshots.

Correcting AniList Matches

SubMiner uses guessit to infer the anime title from the active filename, then searches AniList. Some filenames can still resolve to the wrong title. For example, Re - ZERO, Starting Life in Another World (2016) can be misread as a different Re... series.

Use the in-app selector or CLI to pin the correct AniList media for the whole series:

# List candidate AniList matches for a file
subminer dictionary --candidates "/path/to/episode.mkv"

# Save the correct AniList media ID for that series
subminer dictionary --select 21355 "/path/to/episode.mkv"

# Equivalent direct app flags
SubMiner.AppImage --dictionary-candidates --dictionary-target "/path/to/episode.mkv"
SubMiner.AppImage --dictionary-select --dictionary-anilist-id 21355 --dictionary-target "/path/to/episode.mkv"

# Open the in-app selector from the running app
subminer app --open-character-dictionary

Manual selections are stored in character-dictionaries/anilist-overrides.json using a series key derived from the filename guess. Later episodes with the same series key use the selected AniList ID automatically. When the override replaces a previous wrong match, SubMiner removes that stale media ID from the merged dictionary's active set and rebuilds/imports the merged character dictionary.

File Structure

All character dictionary data lives under {userData}/character-dictionaries/:

character-dictionaries/
  snapshots/
    anilist-170942.json       # Per-media character snapshot
    anilist-163134.json
  merged.zip                  # Active merged dictionary (imported into Yomitan)
  auto-sync-state.json        # Tracks active media IDs and revision
  anilist-overrides.json      # Manual series-to-AniList overrides
  img/
    m170942-c12345.jpg        # Character portrait
    m170942-va67890.jpg       # Voice actor portrait

Snapshot format (v15): each snapshot contains the media ID, title, entry count, timestamp, an array of Yomitan term entries, and base64-encoded images.

ZIP structure follows the Yomitan dictionary format:

merged.zip
  index.json                  # { title, revision, format: 3, author: "SubMiner" }
  tag_bank_1.json             # Tag definitions
  term_bank_1.json            # Up to 10,000 terms per bank
  term_bank_2.json
  img/                        # Embedded character and VA portraits

Configuration Reference

Option	Default	Description
anilist.characterDictionary.enabled	false	Enable auto-sync of character dictionary from AniList
anilist.characterDictionary.maxLoaded	3	Number of recent media snapshots kept in the merged dictionary
anilist.characterDictionary.profileScope	"all"	Apply dictionary to "all" Yomitan profiles or "active" only
anilist.characterDictionary.collapsibleSections.description	false	Start Description section expanded
anilist.characterDictionary.collapsibleSections.characterInformation	false	Start Character Information section expanded
anilist.characterDictionary.collapsibleSections.voicedBy	false	Start Voiced By section expanded
subtitleStyle.nameMatchEnabled	true	Toggle character-name highlighting in subtitles
subtitleStyle.nameMatchColor	#f5bde6	Highlight color for character-name matches

Reference Implementation

SubMiner's character dictionary builder is inspired by the Japanese Character Name Dictionary project — a standalone Rust web service that generates Yomitan character dictionaries from AniList and VNDB data.

The reference implementation covers similar ground — name variant generation, honorific expansion, structured Yomitan content, portrait embedding — and additionally supports VNDB as a data source for visual novel characters. Key differences:

	SubMiner	Reference Implementation
Runtime	TypeScript, runs inside Electron	Rust, standalone web service
Data sources	AniList only	AniList + VNDB
Delivery	Auto-synced into bundled Yomitan	ZIP download via web UI
Honorific strategy	Eager generation at build time	Lazy generation during ZIP export
Caching	File-based snapshots	Multi-tier (memory + disk + SQLite)
Updates	Revision-hashed; skips reimport if unchanged	URL-encoded settings for auto-refresh

If you work with visual novels or want a standalone dictionary generator independent of SubMiner, the reference implementation is worth checking out.

Troubleshooting

• Names not highlighting: Confirm anilist.characterDictionary.enabled is true and subtitleStyle.nameMatchEnabled is true. Check that the current media has an AniList entry — SubMiner needs a media ID to fetch characters.
• Sync seems stuck: The auto-sync debounces for 800ms after media changes and throttles image downloads at 250ms per image. Large casts (50+ characters) take longer. Check the status bar for the current sync phase.
• Wrong characters showing: Open the in-app character dictionary selector (--open-character-dictionary) or run --dictionary-candidates, then save the correct media with --dictionary-select --dictionary-anilist-id <id>. This replaces stale wrong-title entries for that series. If names are only from an older unrelated show, they'll rotate out once you watch enough new titles to push it past maxLoaded.
• Yomitan import fails: SubMiner waits up to 7 seconds for Yomitan to be ready for mutations. If Yomitan is still loading dictionaries or performing another import, the operation may time out. Restarting the overlay typically resolves this.
• Portraits missing: Images are downloaded from AniList CDN during snapshot generation. If the network was unavailable during the initial sync, delete the snapshot file from character-dictionaries/snapshots/ and let it regenerate.

Related

• Subtitle Annotations — how name matches interact with N+1, frequency, and JLPT layers
• AniList Integration — authentication, episode tracking, and AniList settings
• Configuration Reference — full config options