Japan Is Doomed » Culture

Japanese Dictionaries say the Strangest Things…

Mike — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:17:26 +0000

Alright so I promised you my ‘hilarious Japanese kid comments’ but I’m still in the process of collecting them (I had a great one today!) so that post won’t come for a little while.

However I do have a great collection of hilarious example sentences taken from the iPod/iPhone app Japanese (by codefromtokyo) so I made a Youtube video listing my top 10 favourite strange sentences. So click the image below to watch! I won’t even charge you!

Well I hope you enjoyed it. As mentioned, more updates on the way! Until then, happy March, everyone!

Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Edition Unboxing & First Thoughts

Mike — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:32:24 +0000

The alternative title for this update is ‘Mike’s inner geek runs wild!’ Don’t worry, I won’t put a single spoiler on this update so please feel free to read it even if you’re saving the story for yourself. I know you want the pretty pictures so here they are!

I also put huge versions of these photos here on Flickr if you really want to get a good look at it.

OK, here come my thoughts on the game. I’ve played it for about two hours so far, so these are very preliminary ideas, but they might help you decide if you want to import it or wait for the translation. (Which I think is coming in around March).

The game, even on the old TV I’m running it on, looks unbelievable. My friend is playing it on his HDTV and the level of detail you can see in things that are miles away from any action is crazy. If you blew a load of cash on a fancy TV you will get your money’s worth here. However, speaking of TVs:
The Japanese writing used in the tutorial sections of the game (white on blue) are illegible on old TVs. At least in my experience – apparently everyone in Japan has a super TV so people like me stuck in the past get lumped with a series of white blurry boxes to read. I would imagine in the next few days a guide on what is going on will appear, and subtitles in the actual game are fine, but this game is complicated and it’s making it hard for me to play. If you can, I would advise hooking it up to a PC/laptop monitor as they are usually better than old TVs.
The soundtrack is jaw dropping. It’s a shame it didn’t come with the lightning edition, more than once I’ve found myself pausing the game and just listening.
The Japanese in the game is pretty tough. This game was aimed at teenagers plus, so it’s all pretty deep. Lots of odd words and colloquial stuff. Very useful for language learners, but I’d steer clear if you’re a beginner. The tutorials in particular are just huge paragraphs of complicated terminology.
But despite all this, I’m having a hell of a lot of fun. I’m actually going to try to restrain myself over the next few days until I can borrow a friend’s monitor to play it on, but it’s going to be tough. It’s just such a pleasure to play.

I hope I haven’t sent too many die hard fans into a white hot rage! Thanks for reading!

Christmas Immersion

Mike — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:20:52 +0000

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!

Exploring Like It’s ‘06

Mike — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:57:01 +0000

This weekend went from being a recuperation weekend from the midterm exams (which I got a B in, by some lucky fluke!) to a very impromptu but really interesting few days. The whole time I’ve really been reminded of my gap year quite a few times, and that warm feeling of nostalgia was really welcome. It sure beats the bitter, bitter cold of winter in Tokyo, anyway.

On Saturday I was invited along to the Hosei University Symphony Orchestra performance. My friend Haruka, who was an exchange student at Sheffield university back in 2007 generously gave me two tickets so I went along with a friend from Sophia university. I can’t say I know a huge amount about orchestral music, but the quality was fantastic. I was amazed, really. The hall was huge, the orchestra was top quality. Sadly I couldn’t take any photos, so you will have to trust me that I went. I don’t think it was a drunken dream, anyway.

On Sunday I had originally planned to go to Kamakura (my first visit was way back in December 2006) with the volunteers but it was too cold and too late in the day by the time we got our lazy selves out of bed, so we opted to visit Meiji Shrine and then wander around Tokyo a bit. Here’s a few of my favourite photos (the rest are all here on Flickr)

This photo was taken under the canopy of the trees inside the shrine courtyard. It’s a pretty big tree, and gives you a great vantage of the whole place. Also, if you look carefully you can see a procession with a red umbrella, way off in the right of the shot. Well, that’s a traditional Japanese wedding! I felt it was a bit rude to take photos, but since everyone including the Japanese were, I figured I might as well.

The bride is wearing the white circle thing on her head. (Wow, traditional Japanese vocabulary fail!) The two girls in front of her are I think bridesmaids, someone might have to correct me on that. They made their way across the courtyard and back. It was a bit strange as none of them looked around at the people photographing them, I assume looking forward is part of the ceremony. (I guess ignoring all the cameras is probably easier, too).

Finally, these are 絵馬 (ema, or votive tablets) on which you write your hopes, dreams and wishes and leave them under the tree in the shrine, and they come true! A pretty great deal I think!

It really was kind of refreshing to do this sort of thing again. I think I’ve been so caught up with learning and university recently, I couldn’t just cut loose, grab my camera and some friends and take things at my own pace. So thanks to Ralph and Andy (the current vols) for putting up with this old man’s trip down memory lane!

As I mentioned previously the photos from today are on Flickr.

Sumo – The September Tournament @ Kokugikan

Mike — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:47:57 +0000

I got a message the other day from my friend and ex-Sheffield senior Joseph Tame asking me if I’d be interested in going to watch one day’s worth of the sumo tournament, which is held in the Kokugikan, an indoor arena in the Ryogoku area of Tokyo. As I’d never, in my 15 months worth of time in Japan, been to see the sumo I jumped at the chance, especially as it was really cheap. When we got there we realized the reason the price was so relatively low was because we were sitting so far back we might as well have watched from the train, but it was great nonetheless.

Now I don’t really know how sumo works. I mean, the first person to touch the ground with anything but their feet or be shoved out of the ring loses, that much I can follow. But each bout involves both wrestlers sizing each other up and getting into the fighting position at least twice, then leaving the ring and re-entering. I’m sure this has some highly significant traditional reason, but from what I could see it was all about winding up the crowd. It really worked – even way back at the top of the arena people were cheering and yelling, and I have to admit more than once I got caught up in the excitement and cheered my favourite. My favourite being whichever sumo wrestler had the coolest mawashi on.

So here are my photos! Please click one and then use the left and right arrows on each photo to view them all. I took some video, but we were so far away it’s really blurry and not worth posting. My apologies.

Now I have to admit, a lot of the time I was watching I didn’t understand what was going on. As it may have become clear, I didn’t know who any of the wrestlers were (aside from Asashoryu, who’s amazing career is really worth reading about) and we were a long way from the action. But still I found myself really drawn in and loving every moment of this amazing spectacle of human strength and speed. I’d go again at the drop of a hat, and who knows, maybe next time I’ll fork out for better seats. Or maybe I’ll fight!

…nah, Asashoryu might get hurt.

Read Joseph’s post about the day here.

How Not To Stay At A Love Hotel

Mike — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:38:02 +0000

Yesterday, an online paper called World Hum published an article called ‘How To Stay At A Love Hotel in Japan‘ in which they looked at the unique service’s popularity phenomenon and offered valuable tips on how to use the facility properly. (I’m aware of how creepy ‘use the facility’ sounds but it’s hard to word this!) Today I’m going to evaluate the article and perhaps offer a few tips for those still unsure. I mean, how can that possibly be creepy?

When I was reading the article, I first thought it might be good for a few chuckles – maybe the author had written about their misadventures or something. The prose was funny and well written – looks like we’re onto a winner here! Unfortunately, less than two paragraphs in we already have some seriously doubtful material;

In a country famous for schoolgirl-inspired porn and “chikan” subway gropers, the existence of love hotels might seem as natural as prayers to the local shrine.

Good to know that’s what Japan is remembered for, rather than continued technical innovation, highly successful business practices, a rich and unique culture or most importantly inventing Mothra. But that’s not important right now! What matters is what tips and advice the article has given. So let’s put aside this bizarre introduction, lean back, reassuringly pat your ‘MOTHRA RULES!’ tattoo (which I assume you have) and let’s get started.

1. Choosing A Love Hotel Experience

Whether you’re looking for love straight out of a Jane Austen novel or a glittering Studio 54-esque romp, Japan’s got a theme to fulfill your erotic dreams—and others that are the stuff of nightmares. While many love hotels retain a faux-European romanticism that was big in the ’80s, the zany creativity of others is enough to put Motel 6 and Super 8 to shame. If recycled “Sense and Sensibility” props aren’t your thing, pop down to Osaka’s Hotel Loire for 3-for-1 theme room #306—a doctor’s office, a subway car for would-be gropers and a black-lit underwater aquarium are all here. If that room is taken, you can always console yourself in the alien abduction room.

That’s right! You’re going to have a huge selection of… er… ‘themes’ to go with! But there are a few pitfalls to beware. Whilst the themes mentioned here seem limitless in their ‘uniqueness’, the chances of your particular dream romance room existing may be somewhat low. Please consult the following table to check if even asking for your ideal fantasy is worth it;

Quite simple, I think. So asking for a ‘fun and simple’ room is a great idea, whilst asking for a public space full of meat grinders will get you nothing more than some furious butchers.

2. Choosing A Love Hotel

Love hotels are not shy about their trade, and with fleets of large billboards screaming out names like “Happy Mickey Cookie,” they are easy to spot. These hotels are found in every Japanese city, but brash, gaudy Osaka is the undisputed king of love hotels. The best districts in Osaka are Namba (not so coincidentally a famous pick-up place) and Ikuteramachi. Tokyo’s love hotels are more sedate, but a good collection is found on the aptly named “Love Hotel Hill” in Shibuya, just beyond the “109” department store and at infamous gaijin “foreigner” hangout Roppongi.

Happy Mickey Cookie may be a great hotel (I assume from it’s excellent name) and it is your duty as a fun lovin’ hipster to find a hotel with a hilarious name. Submit your greatest finds in the comments section of this blog post. Bonus points will be awarded for hotels with any of the following words in their name; ‘Battenburg’, ‘Amphibian’, ‘Waffles’ or any from the blue section of the chart from part one.

3. Getting A Room

For non-Japanese speakers, the lack of a front desk makes love hotels an easy check-in. The system works like—what else?—a vending machine. Open rooms are ordered from a screen in the lobby; simply press the button on the screen of the room that appeals to you most. There are two prices, one for “rest” (休憩) that usually charges by the hour, and another for “stay” (宿泊). You pay using the change machine in your room; press 会計 to see the damage to your wallet. Some older love hotels retain anonymous staff up front—in this case, just fork over the amount of cash listed on the screen before heading to your room.

A few essential tips here – don’t try to order ice-cream from the vending machine. Don’t try to chat up the vending machine – they’re just doing a job. And don’t try to sneak out without paying, otherwise you might wake up trapped inside a Love Hotel vending machine, doomed to forever serve giggling teenagers and adulterers. Not to mention idiots who keep trying to buy ice-cream.

4. In Conclusion

Going to a Love Hotel is an exciting time for all involved for obvious reasons, but there are a few things to bear in mind. Hopefully this article has made those clear without making you feel incredibly uncomfortable or uncertain about the whole thing. Just go with the flow, don’t cause any madness, and whatever you do, don’t high-five other people using the hotel. I don’t think they’ll appreciate it.

BBC Manba Kids Manba Megamix

Mike — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:58:17 +0000

So the BBC decided to interview two British teenagers about their hobby of dressing up in ‘Manba‘ style. Needless to say the videos are hilarious and well worth watching. I guess everyone needs a hobby. Anyway, I took it upon myself to remix the comments in the videos and the videos themselves to create an audiovisual extravaganza. I’ve also included a link to allow you to leave your own commentary on the video, if you don’t just end your life upon hearing my awful, awful music…

The Video – Prepare yourself.

The Video & Subtitle Editor – Go here to embed your thoughts into my video! (Requires a free Youtube account)

The Manba MP3 – If for some bizarre reason you want to listen to the song again (and if you do, seek medical help), you can download it.

So yeah, enjoy it. If ‘enjoy’ is really the word for it…

Hachiko The Film – Which plot to use?

Mike — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:07:11 +0000

So the Japan Times are reporting that a new film about the life of the brave dog Hachiko is to be made. A Hollywood blockbuster, no less, and starring Richard Gere! (No really!) But the real question is will Hollywood, famous for totally ignoring (or as they call it ’selectively using’) historical facts, tell a story accurate to the real life of Japan’s favourite little hound, or will they go off the rails? Because I am a big fan of dogs big and small, today I will look at some of the potential plots for the film. Don’t worry after those I will make some sense.

Hachiko: The Historical Documentary
In this heartwarming tale of devotion, Richard Gere plays Hidesaburo Ueno, a professor at Tokyo Imperial Ward. The year is 1924, and Ueno receives a puppy that he names Hachi (adding ko as a sweet suffix) except he then goes on to die. So the dog gets handed around but it keeps coming back to wait for Ueno because it won’t accept he’s dead, like Elvis or Lord Lucan. Eventually, in the saddest scene since that one in Futurama, the dog dies but lives on as a reminder of the ideas of loyalty and not pooping on the carpet, to be passed down through generations.

A number one blockbuster, surely! It’s not overly unlikely, either. The press releases seem to agree that the film ‘will follow the tale of the dog’. (Hilarious tail/tale joke there, good work free media!) However the film going public are a fickle bunch, perhaps we’ll see something like this, instead?

Hachiko: Dog Of Danger
It was just an ordinary day. Super spy inventor Hidesaburo Ueno leant out of his sweet car and flicked away a cigarette. Next to him, laying across the seat, lay his supermodel/spy/professional sunbather girlfriend. Behind them sat Hachiko, the operative dog. The three were speeding towards the center of Shibuya. Suddenly an almighty explosion ripped through the car. Now Ueno’s dead, and Hachiko only has one thing left – revenge.
This summer, in a world where right and wrong mean the same thing and everyone’s out for themselves, can G. I. Hachiko avenge his owner’s death? A Michael Bay film.

Yeah alright so I went with a Michael Bay joke. The only real complication I can see is managing to shoehorn in being made into a statue. I dunno, they could go with a sad ending and have the dog fall into the bad boss’ secret volcano lair, then someone fish him out or something. That also sets up for Hachiko 2, because some mad scientist could engineer the technology to bring him back.

Hearts Filled With Debris: A Hachiko Love Tale
Ueno is a joke. A loser. With just his dog for company, he’s doomed to a single life. No girl will go out with him, even his mother has accepted he’s a total dork. That is until Janice comes into his life. A girl with a fresh outlook and even fresher breath, he’s gotta get her! But he’s just so clumsy! So who’s going to train him to be smooth with the ladies?!
You guessed it, it’s his wacky pal Hachiko! Laugh out loud as they go to buy clothes for the date! (Remember dogs don’t wear clothes! Things are gonna get crazy!) Giggle as Hachiko trains his young apprentice in the ways of love! You’ll roll about laughing! A tale for the whole family! (Except families that own cats).

This would be pretty boring but it would sell. Actually saying that, watching an Akita dog manage a relationship would be hilarious.

I admit I’m not taking this whole Hachiko thing very seriously, but I am quite worried the story will be mangled in translation. I’m not necessarily saying it’s a bad thing, but a dog statue doesn’t need publicity, and it definitely doesn’t need more tourists. Still it’s nice that the story of the little dog is getting internationally recognized. Plus the photos from the film that have been released so far are a cute explosion.

So say what you like, I hate myself for it but I will be giving this film a try. I’ll review it on here so you can get a good laugh out of it if it’s terrible, or we can all bask in the cuteness of Akita dogs if it isn’t. For those really interested, there already was a film made, Hachiko Monogatari, information about which is here.

So yes, very cute film incoming!

Green Tea Coke & Pepsi Shiso – Where Next?

Mike — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:36:14 +0000

From Daily Contributor:

Coca-Cola Japan has announced that it will be launching a green tea-flavored Coke for the Japanese market next week. The drink contains antioxidants called catechins, making the new Coke a good choice for health-conscious younger women.

That’s right, Coke have turned to saving women of the world from drinking Coke that’s actually bad for you! Today I’m going to try to guess where Pepsi are going next with these awful sounding drinks.

Ok, those of you who have been reading this blog since last year may realise this update holds great personal interest to me, as I put myself through not one, not two but three horrific drinks tests for your perverse enjoyment. I looked at Pepsi Blue Hawaii (yuck!), Real Gold (which everyone seems to like but it’s gross), then in a triple review I did Ramune (yum!), Curry Ramune (suprisingly good!) and Wasabi Ramune (oh god make the taste stop).

So we have Pepsi going for both a herb and a traditional drink, both of which are very good for you. It sounds like they’re trying to get away from the ‘Pepsi will melt your insides’ reputation they’ve had in the past. So if there’s one thing everyone needs to be healthy, Pepsi should bottle it! Oh, I know…

Ok so it’s not overly likely to happen but surely you can see the logic! (Or not…) Everyone needs cow’s blood to live, so why not bottle it? It could be mixed with the original Pepsi and possibly even out the damage done. Or just turn into a dark red gloopy mess. Just stick Britney on the advert, kids will drink it anyway.

Of course, Pepsi don’t have to stick with drinks. What’s to stop them going into the world of Ice Cream? Or meat? Both viable options, although some people don’t eat Ice Cream, and there are vegetarians. I wonder if there’s anything Pepsi could sell that most people consume…

That’s right! Focus in one one of the most important parts of the staple diets of most of Europe and America! Good work Pepsi! Although I don’t think I fancy a sandwich made with PEPSIBREAD, I imagine after making it it would leap up and attack me.

Now both these ideas are good, they’d sell a good amount of stuff, but they aren’t very Japan related. Japan stuff is popular as ever, just look at the obscene success of anime across the world. So if there was a way we could combine the poisonous disgusting delicious taste of Pepsi with anime, well we’d have the greatest product ever…

Mmm! Delicious! I can feel my heart starting to implode and the squeaking of nearby consumers melting my ear drums already!

On a serious note, it’ll be interesting to see where Pepsi go next. It’s nice to see them branching out and trying new angles, even if the result is somewhat bizarre. Any predictions for where they’ll go next? My prediction is Sushi Pepsi. Alright not really, but how about Sakura Pepsi? They already make cherry flavour, it wouldn’t take much to draw a few petals on the bottle.

Spotify needs more Japanese music!

Mike — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:10:29 +0000

For those not in the know, Spotify is an amazing service which allows you to stream music through the net for free, in exchange for listening to a 30 second advert every 30 mins or so. It’s a fantastic program which is pretty much flawless, and it’s allowed me to discover and enjoy new music a lot quicker than navigating horrible band Myspace pages to listen to a grainy 30 second sample. But why is there no Japanese music on it?

Not only that, but the program has a huge database of music – in it’s most recent update at time of writing,
nearly 69,000 tracks were added. I keep testing it with more obscure bands, and so far it hasn’t failed to impress me. Ok, you’re going to be disappointed if you’re looking for electro-death-hip-trance-core from the Bermuda Triangle.

The Spotify Client

But something the system is sorely lacking in is Japanese music. Now I know I’ve made jokes about Japanese music before, but it’s a real shame people can’t really get hold of it via Spotify. I did a search using Last.FM’s top listed Japanese artists to see who was or wasn’t represented. The results weren’t great;

Dir En Grey – Two most recent albums, most recent single. Good!
Asian Kung-Fu Generation – Nothing
L’Arc~En~Ciel – Most recent album.
Ayumi Hamasaki – Nothing
The Pillows – Nothing
Gackt – Nothing
Hikaru Utada – 6+ Albums & Singles! Hurrah!
BoA – Nothing
Namie Amuro – Nothing
YUI – Nothing

Ok, so maybe it’s not as bad as I made out, but you can see we’re still missing a huge amount of music – so my plea to the Spotify team is to solve whatever record label issues are going on and get these bands onto the system. As I said before, I am totally and utterly impressed with everything – but my joy will triple if I can finally listen to screeching j-Pop. Wait, what?!