I stole the picture from Zero’s coverage of the AFA preview Thanks to AFA’s gracious love, I am able to get into AFA for free with VIP access to interviews. That said, I pity all of you who have to pay in order to get into AFA. In fact, I applied for the pass not knowing [...]
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At the beginning of the Nodame Cantabile story, Chiaki Shinichi started off as a piano major in a Japanese conservatory, only managing to become the conducting student of a Maestro through a combination of hard work and luck. Much has happened since then, and in that time, Chiaki has come very far indeed….or has he? [...]
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This post is so long overdue. It has been a busy week. Better late than never. I told you so. Gundam 00 is now an R rated mecha anime. Some people like it on top. Bear with it Allelujah, it will be over in a few moments. Got a high. No comment. Gunslinger Boy. Allelujah is glad that his beautiful hands are not [...]
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A preview look of the upcoming 1/8 scale figure of “Sakurai Kanade” from Candy Boy by Good Smile Company. Figure is standing at 21cm. Price and release are still undecided. Scan is from the latest issue of Hobby Japan magazine. From Figure/GK. The other girl is Sakurai Yukino. Most likely she will get the figure treatment also [...]
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Young GanGan December issue has announced that Saki, originally a seinen manga by Kobayashi Ritsu, will be getting an important announcement in its next issue. It will most likely announce a TV anime adaptation, a rumor that is strengthened by the newly Pony Canyon-claimed website domain saki-anime.com. MOON PHASE decided to list it as an [...]
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Summary: つづく...
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Just so you know, Shikabane Hime: Aka episode four is basically Full Moon wo Sagashite: Worst-Case Scenario.
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Yoshika’s newest album entitled “World” will have one track composed by Yoko Kanno, entitled “Kimi no Naka de (trans: Inside You)“. Details: CD Title: World Catalog No.: GTCA21 Online Release Date: November 26, 2008 Online Release Price: Y150 per song download / Y1500 for whole album of 12 songs CD Release Date: December 24, 2008 CD Release Price: Y2400 Download from Yoshika’s Official [...]
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Well, well, dare I curse us by saying that the experiment earlier in the week went well. We got some good comments and interesting feedback. A social experiment like this, and all experiments, can have surprising outcomes or they can turn out exactly as you hypothesized. I think the most important thing was that we [...]
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To think that my hunch is right ^^ A preview look of the upcoming 1/7 scale figure of “Aoba Tsugumi” from Kannagi by Kotobukiya. The figure is scheduled for April 2009 release at 6,300 Yen retail price. With Tsugumi, I guess the set is complete ^^ Scan is from the latest issue of Hobby japan magazine. From Figure/GK.        [...]
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Charming Rock Boy (Nousatsu Rock Shounen) is the sequel to the oneshot Charming Rock Star (Nousatsu Rock Star) by Kikuchi Kamaro. The story tells about the unique story of Fujisaki Maki, who once had a peaceful life, until where she decided to help Nobitani, who is the target of bullying. Now everyone’s bullying her because [...]
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A preview look of the upcoming 1/8 scale figure of “Miyafuji Yoshika” from Strike Witches by AmiAmi. The figure is scheduled for May 2009 release at 7,980 Yen retail price. I can’t seems to find the name of the company that collaborate with AmiAmi (my hunch said is Good Smile Company), but either way, by looking [...]
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ICv2 summarizes the facts of the Broccoli USA dissolution, including a mention of their yaoi line, Boysenberry Books, which they introduced in 2007, just as the yaoi market began to level off. Meanwhile, operations manager Shizuki Yamashita is starting to shut things down: All of the book licenses revert back to the Japanese publishers at the [...]
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Another preview look of the upcoming 1/8 scale figure of “Excellent Model CORE P-9 Ancient Princess Menace” from Queen’s Blade series by MegaHouse. Looks like price and date are still undecided, can’t seems to find the info on her yet. We saw the Prototype of her last month, and finally the final coloured version is finished [...]
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A preview look of the upcoming 1/8 scale figure of “Zero” from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 by MegaHouse. Figure is standing at 24.5cm in height. Release date and price still undecided. Scan is from the latest issue of Hobby Japan magazine. From Figure/GK Looking at the Prototype, probably it could be the best looking [...]
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And he is gonna R-r-rape some Animebloggers for breakfast. Posted in Macross Frontier, Special   Tagged: AFA 08', ID Sojourner, Pedobear Alert   
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Write an amusing story of no less than 100 words using the images below as prompters. [100 marks]       
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There's no doubt about it: the most complex part of learning Japanese is kanji, unless you're fortunate enough to already be fluent in Chinese, and if you are, I envy you. An educated Japanese person generally uses around 2000 kanji, compared with 3500-5000 for the same person in China. Because the Chinese writing system was basically grafted onto the existing Japanese language in the 5th century, there are fundamentally two ways to read any character, the on (rhymes with bone) or Chinese reading, and the kun (rhymes with spoon) or Japanese reading, the latter being an existing Japanese word that's been assigned to a kanji based on the character's meaning. As a general rule, you use the Chinese reading for compound words made up of two kanji (for example, the word for "hibernation," toumin, written with the characters for winter + sleep), and there are quite a few Chinese and Korean words that are the same in Japanese for this reason. The Japanese reading is usually used for characters that appear by themselves (e.g. the character for winter written all by itself, fuyu), or in special cases like names of people or places. It's hard to believe, but it's easier to memorize Japanese vocabulary words through kanji than, say, learning from a book which prints Japanese in the Roman alphabet. For example, the character for "most" can be combined with a variety of other kanji to describe ideas like tallest, shortest, etc., like saikou (most + high = highest, also meaning the best), saitei (most + bottom = the lowest, meaning a real jerk when applied to a person), saisho (most + begin = the first), saigo (most + after = the last), and saishin (most + new = the newest). Memorizing these words in kanji only takes two "bytes" of your brain's memory once you've gotten used to the characters themselves, but memorizing the words in the Roman alphabet would be harder since they're just a jumble of letters.
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One of the themes of being an American living in Japan is discovering how much the country has taken various cues from Britain. It starts out with cars, getting used to "strange" car-related words, like the hood of the car being called a bonnet, or seeing your first Toyota Super Saloon, a car with a name that makes Americans think of the Old West until they learn that saloon is just the British word for sedan. Americans might make a visit to the bathroom or the restroom, but in England (I'm told) they are more likely to use the word "toilet," which is the same in Japan -- and I've gotten some funny looks in stores in the States asking the cashier where the "toilet" was. Then there are clothing-related words that the Japanese imported from Britain, like a jacket or sweater being called a "jumper," and of course the infamous word "pants," which refers to trousers, jeans or slacks in the U.S. but underwear in Britain and Japan. It seems that the Japanese have looked to Britain in other ways, too. For example, I can't think of a single situation where I'd call a friend or acquaintance by his last name, but it's common for classmates in Japanese schools to do this, for example saying, "Nagashima, let's go" instead of using the person's first name of Takeshi. When reading the Narnia books with my son, I saw characters referring to each other by last names, and it made me think that Japan and Britain were somehow closer than it seemed on the surface.
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A first preview look of the upcoming 1/8 scale figure of “Villetta Nu Swimsuit Cafe Ver.” from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 by Alpha x Omega. Figure is standing at 23.5cm in height. Release date and price are still undecided. Scan is from the latest issue of Hobby Japan magazine. From Figure/GK Looking good I [...]
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