Ok, the title of this post sounds like some dodgy festive hazing ritual, but what I meant really was ‘How am I replacing English with Japanese in my every day life?’ It sounds odd, saying I need to do that process when I’m in the country, but regardless of what people say;

• You can’t pick up a good level of Japanese just by ‘being around’ the language. You have to interact with it.
• It’s possible, in Tokyo, to get away with using basically no Japanese at all.
• You learn more if whatever you’re doing is fun. (This is also my ‘I ain’t readin’ no stinkin’ textbook!’ clause)

I honestly believe all of these things to be true, so as a result I have to fight my urge to buy awesome looking books in English, and stick to Japanese ones. So today’s update is ‘what I’m reading / watching / playing’ in Japanese. So let’s get started!

Battle Royale, Japanese Novel

Oh yes. I’ve read Battle Royale in English and watched the film. It’s safe to say it’s one of my favourite stories of all time. Yes there’s plenty of violence in every version, but there’s also love stories, some really memorable characters and backstabbing aplenty (in some cases, literally!). But today’s not the time to rant about how great it is. I’ve not read too much of the book, but my first thoughts are;

• Japanese names are horrible. There are 42 students, all with different names and thus different Kanji, to remember. I keep forgetting who is who and later on I’m wondering how someone who already got killed is now running away. Unless I accidentally bought ‘Zombie Royale’. Actually, that’s an awesome idea for a book, nobody steal it OK.
• The Japanese version of the book is ‘punchier’ than the translation. It’s told from the perspective of one of the students, and in the Japanese version he comes across as more opinionated. More realistic, I suppose. The English translation is good though, I’m not having a go at it!

It’s a great book though, although I already know what’s going to happen. My Japanese is at the point I can usually go a few sentences understanding everything, and most of the things I don’t know take not much time to ‘get’. (Usually symbols I’ve not come across before).

Liar Game Season 2, Japanese TV Drama

My TV quota is being filled nicely by the second season of Liar Game, a Japanese TV drama which averages 281 twists per episode and 194 cases of overreacting to frankly unsuprising revalations per episode minute. I reviewed the first season here. It’s helpfully boosting my strategic war game vocabularly to heights unknown!

Gyakuten Kenji / Ace Attorney Investigations, A Logic Puzzle Solving Game

Phoenix Wright, for those that don’t know, is a DS game where you solve crimes. I’m playing the new one, in which you play a prosecutor busting criminals left right and center. It’s hard, because they really love throwing legal vocab all over the shop, but it’s fun. After you get accused of murder for the 20th time, the word ‘situational evidence’ really starts to stick in your head!

Finally, something I’m buying on Thursday. If you are one of my parents please look away now.

Final Fantasy XIII, A Role Playing Game

Oh YES. It’s nearly here. 100+ hours of beautiful, fully voice acted awesomeness. There’s going to be complex words, fast moving Kanji characters and explosions all over the place. It’s like if Michael Bay got into a fight at the Scrabble world championships. Using grenades. I’m not going to write about it until I get some way into it, but needless to say I’m pretty excited. It’s not really that expensive, which is a bit of a suprise, and the console means I can finally start catching up on my Japanese films too. I got a membership to rent DVDs from a place called Tsutaya but my laptop goes mental at the very idea of a DVD being produced outside of England, so this will finally let me watch some mental films.

Alright so this concludes my ‘write loads to make up for not writing for weeks then hope the feeling of guilt goes away’ project that didn’t work. (I still feel guilty!) I’ll try to do at least one update a week, probably on Sundays, from now on. I’d like to do one per exciting thing I do though, so it should (hopefully!) be more frequent than that. This update was really wordy though, I’ll try to cut down next time. Later!

“Oh yeah, I have a blog!”

I hate writing things like this. I haven’t updated in 3 weeks or so and I apologise. Writing these ‘catch up’ blog posts just remind me how much I have neglected you, my beautiful readers. To make amends, if you send just £5 / ¥1,000 / the deeds to a hectare of land in North America, I will send you a personalized Christmas message! (It will be in the form of a letter that you can’t see or touch and that only I have knowledge of).

Anyway. I’ve been playing a lot of racquetball with my new circle. They’re all lovely people and it’s a great chance to practice totally natural Japanese. It’s especially nice in that none of the members really know how to ‘gear’ their Japanese to a foreign learner. This isn’t easy mode, folks. This is the real, complicated deal. I have also learned that sport vocabulary is surprisingly simple. Things like ナイスショット (naisu shotto!) and ナイスカッチュ (naisu kacchi!) get banded around a lot. I tried saying ‘Nice Shot’ and ‘Nice Catch’ in natural British English and everyone got confused and thought I was summoning a devil or something. Nevermind!

The racquetball circle had their Christmas Party on the 5th of November (only 20 days early!) which was fun, although it was a little on the tame side. Still, next weekend the 3rd year students, who make up the bulk of the circle, are all leaving because they have to focus on job hunting. I’ve heard this upcoming party is going to be massive. They warned me ‘it might get a little crazy’. Frankly, I’d be offended if it didn’t.

The other thing I’ve been doing a lot of, and it feels great to write this, is improving in Japanese. Since I’ve got here I’ve sort of felt I’m on the ‘plateau’ that people talk about a lot – it just feels like it’s all going nowhere. But yesterday I watched most of a whole TV show and understood everything. It surprised me a lot as I couldn’t do that when I got here, and I don’t feel like I’ve been working much. It’s like a Christmas gift come early!

Speaking of Christmas, we have a few weeks off starting December 23rd (yaaay!) I’m going to be spending Christmas day in Tokyo, then soon after I hope to head off somewhere. Possibly to Hakone, I’m not decided just yet.

Other than that, not much to report on. Look forward to a video. I’m going to shoot some material on Thursday for something special, I’m not sure when the video will appear but it will. If it doesn’t you may throw anything you like at me.