Anyone who’s seen at least a few anime that take place in a modern day high school, or even middle school, have probably noticed something different about the appearance (besides the school uniforms) of the students there compared to those in America and perhaps other Western countries – specifically what I had in mind was a lack of physical beautifying such as make-up, hair dying, jewelry, and tattoos…

We all know that high schoolers in anime are quite numerous, especially girls. But how many of those girls can you think of that regularly wear make-up and earrings or paint their nails? Some of course, but very few compared to how many high school anime girls there are out there. And how many anime high school boys can you think of that have unusual colored hair (whether dyed or natural) and haven’t been called a “delinquent” at some point?

School-aged anime characters don’t typically do anything unnatural to their appearance simply because that’s the norm in Japan. This may seem strange to those of us in America where even little girls nowadays come to school with painted nails and jewelry by age six. But the lack of minors wearing make-up and body accessories in Japan is a cultural thing.

Japanese schools, especially high schools, have a very strict code of conduct for students to follow both at school and outside of school. This covers many things, including hairstyles and accessories deemed inappropriate for the studious, responsible spirit schools try to convey through their students. So in a sense, students aren’t only required to wear a uniform but to keep their overall appearance a certain way as well. Flashy make-up and jewelry, dyed hair, and wild hairstyles are typically considered inappropriate for students in Japan.

Things do change after high school however. Japanese colleges and universities don’t require uniforms and students are given a lot of freedom in how they want to dress, beautify, and conduct themselves. It’s not until they get a job and become a “社会人shakaijin” (person of society) that they’ll have to revert back to the clean-cut appearance depending on their job. There are, however, some physical accessorizing that remains taboo. Tattoos have a very negative connotation in Japan and I’ve heard cases where people with tattoos are not allowed in certain places like public baths. I’m not sure about beards and mustaches, but considering the huge lack of them among Japanese people and anime characters I’ve seen, I’m assuming they’re not typically considered attractive, especially for young guys.

To conclude, the lack of anime school girls wearing make-up and jewelry may seem strange from a Western perspective, but it’s perfectly normal in Japan. There’s a strict divide between student and working adult in Japan, and students having a clean appearance is part that custom.

There’s certainly no shortage of cats in anime, whether as major or minor characters. Disregarding the ever popular cat-girl, I can list quite a few anime cats off the top of my head. When it comes to anime dogs however…I have more trouble thinking of some. I wonder why that is since, according to a recent Japan Times article, both cats and dogs seem to be equally popular in Japan as pets, with dogs outnumbering cats in some cases…

For a starting exercise, let’s see how many anime cats I can think of versus how many dogs. I’m only counting actual cats and dogs and not wild relatives like tigers or wolves. I’m also not counting any human+animal hybrids nor any cat/dog pokemon, digimon, or other “collectible monsters.”

Cats
Aria, Hime, Maa (Aria)
Mayaa, Kami-neko (Azumanga Daioh)
Chi (Chi’s Sweet Home)
Arthur (Code Geass)
Tama (Fushigi Yuugi)
Shiranui (Hayate no Gotoku!!)
Kirara (Inuyasha)
Luna, Artemis, Diana (Sailor Moon)
Piro (Kanon)
Shamisen (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)
Jiji (Kiki’s Delivery Service)
A lot of cats in Nyan Koi!
Sphinx (To Aru Majitsu no Index)
Kuroneko (Trigun)

Dogs
Potato (Air)
Tadakichi-san (Azumanga Daioh)
Ein (Cowboy Bebop)
Mameshiba (Eden of the East)
Den, Black Hayate (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Pakkun, Akamaru (Naruto)
All characters in Ginga Densetsu Weed
A lot of dogs in Massugu Ni Ikou!
Satake (Ichigo Mashimaro)
Puni Puni (Kurokami)

According to my lists, while cats do outnumber dogs in terms of number of titles, it’s only by a small amount, at least in the anime I’ve seen. So maybe the reason I have an easier time thinking of anime cats is because the roles that the cats play in their respective series tend to be more memorable. When I think of dogs, usually it’s just Ein and a couple others that pop into my head, whereas I can remember most of the cats I listed pretty quickly. Even though I’ve never had a dog for a pet and have only had cats, I like cats and dogs equally. So I’m really curious if anyone else finds anime cats more numerous, or at least more memorable, than anime dogs. Please let me know! =D

Humorous pic of anime cats (couldn’t find a dog equivalent)

Moving on, both dogs and cats have had their fair share of involvement in Japanese history and culture, from the legend of the “Beckoning Cat“(Maneki Neko) to the story of Hachiko the dog. For folklore, domestic dogs many not have an equivalent to the bakeneko legend, but they do have the nine-tailed fox (Kyuubi) legend for their wild cousin. So when it comes to anime, it’s hard to say which animal is more influential. But as far as cats and dogs in Japanese pop culture, I tend to see more cats, from famous felines like Tama the Station Master and Maru to Japan’s many cat cafés.

Something else I found interesting is why cat-girls are so popular in anime yet we don’t see any dog-girls. Horo from Spice and Wolf is the closest dog-girl I can think of, though she’s a wolf and not a dog (there’s also Inuyasha but he would be a “dog-boy”). I think there may actually be a reason for this. If you look back at old works of literature and poetry, cats are usually depicted as feminine creatures while dogs tend to be masculine. I’ll go out on a limb and say that perhaps the femininity of cats in literary history has somehow led to the cat-girl in anime being more acceptable than a dog-girl.

Horo, the only anime dog-girl?

Another thing I find interesting is that the idea of cats and dogs not getting along isn’t prevalent in Japan (can’t think of any anime examples either) while it’s very prevalent in the West, especially in animation. As a matter of fact in Japan, dogs are known to not get along with monkeys rather than cats. There’s even a Japanese expression called “ken’en no naka”(犬猿の仲) to describe people who don’t get along, literally translated as a “dog and monkey relationship.” What I’ve also found is that Western movies and TV shows tend to portray cats as villainous creatures more often than not (even TV Tropes agrees). There’s your typical Tom & Jerry and Sylvester & Tweety cartoons where the cat is always the bad guy for going after the mouse/bird, all the way down to the evil villain stroking his devious-looking cat. Even Snoopy has to contend with the mean “cat next door” and Garfield is always abusing Odie. And if you’ve ever seen the movie Cats & Dogs, it always bothered me that all the cats were villains while the dogs were good.

I think this beef many people have with cats as opposed to dogs comes from not understanding their natures. Dogs are naturally pack animals so they look up to human owners as their pack leader and want to do everything to please them, such as doing tricks or following them everywhere. Cats, however, are naturally solitary creatures so they’re simply accustomed to pleasing themselves first. Cats like to spend some time alone and some time with their owners while dogs rarely want to be alone. So people tend to take it as a personal insult if a cat runs away from them or ignores them, which is probably what lead to cats being depicted as “bad guys” because they don’t constantly give affection the way dogs do. But the way I see it, this makes it a lot more rewarding to win the friendship of a cat, since needing love from others in not in their nature yet they can learn to yearn for it the same as a dog.

Couldn’t resist posting this pic – Nyan cats!

To conclude, both cats and dogs have their place in anime and Japan. I don’t usually have this many links in a post so I hope you found them helpful. Whether my idea that cats play a slightly more prominent role in Japanese pop culture and anime is valid or not, I’m still not sure. Any thoughts, please share ^^

As some of you probably know, for the past couple of months I’ve been part of a translation group that’s been working on providing an English release of the latest Haruhi novels (volumes 10 and 11). We finally completed the project earlier this week. Baka-Tsuki, the group that had provided fan translations for the previous nine novels, could no longer work on the series, so myself and a few other dedicated individuals took on the task. I translated and edited one chapter myself (72 pages) and edited two that were translated by someone else (222 pages). Since this was the first major translation project I’ve worked on, I’d like to share what I’ve learned about the experience…

Translating is exhausting work even if you’re 100% fluent in the language. So it’s doubly exhausting if you’re not completely fluent, as is the case with me and Japanese. Though I majored in Japan/Japanese in college, visited the country twice, and have been studying it formally and informally since 2004, I still have quite a lot to learn.

As has been the case for a while, I more or less have a firm grasp on all the major grammar points in Japanese – verb conjugation, particles, sentence structure, etc., – I just need to memorize vocabulary, kanji, and the myriad of unique idioms, slang, expressions, and nuances that exist in every language. Besides this, working on the translation project has reaffirmed and taught me other things…

Japanese sentences are ‘backwards’: Unlike English, Japanese is a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) language – meaning that the subject, object, and verb of its sentences usually go in that order. Because of this, the verb in Japanese sentences is at the end, while in English it’s directly after the subject. So a sentence like “I went to school yesterday” would be literally translated in Japanese as “yesterday I school to went – 昨日私は学校に行きました” In addition to this, phrases describing a noun occur after the noun in English while they occur before it in Japanese. For example, the phrase “the movie (I) saw last week” would be “last week saw movie – 先週見た映画” in Japanese. With these two major attributes of the language that are practically the opposite of English, I found it much more effective to translate Japanese sentences starting from the end rather than the beginning. Many times I would start translating a sentence from the beginning only to scrap it and start over with the end of the sentence, especially for the very complex ones (which Haruhi novels have a lot of).

Lack of pronouns: Again unlike English, pronouns aren’t typically used in Japanese if the noun that they’re describing is understood. This is actually a pretty easy thing to get used to, though a couple of times I wasn’t clear on who was saying/doing what was described. I wonder if Japanese people occasionally have misunderstandings due to lack of pronouns?

Electronic dictionaries are your friends: Rikaichan and my DS Kanji Dictionary were my constant companions during translation work. My friend and partner in the project, Ultimatemegax (who I would say did the most work) has a program that takes scanned images of the novel pages and converts them into actual text files (though its accuracy in certain kana/kanji isn’t the best). With that, I was able to upload the Japanese text of the novels online and then use Rikaichan to help me translate. If Rikaichan wasn’t clear enough or the kanji didn’t come out right in text form and I had to rewrite it, I would then turn to my DS Kanji Dictionary for more thorough explanations and sample sentences. I can’t imagine how much longer the whole project would have taken without these helpful tools!

I enjoy translating dialogue the most: Out of everything I worked on, I enjoyed translating characters’ spoken dialogue the most. Well, technically all of the Haruhi novels are made up of spoken dialogue because Kyon is the narrator. But I meant dialogue besides his narration. It’s fun picking up on the nuances in Japanese colloquialisms that can tell you more about a character than external descriptions alone can. I also enjoyed figuring out how to properly convey their dialogue in English, as a lot of it can’t be accurately translated (polite vs casual speech for example). And except for characters that speak in long, complex sentences (like Itsuki and Sasaki), translating dialogue is usually easier than regular prose. After all, conversation is often used as the first step in learning Japanese and it’s mostly what we hear when watching anime ;) Hmm, maybe I should translate manga since that’s just dialogue XD

Editing can be harder than translating: I was translator and editor for one chapter of the novels, which took a lot more time than if I had someone else edit it. But the compromise is that I could freely tweak the translation to my full satisfaction. Editing someone else’s work, however, can be more straining because you want it to be the best it can be but you don’t want to impose your personal idea of what the best translation is for a given sentence on the other person’s work. You just have to set limits for yourself and remember that it’s a fan translation and isn’t supposed to be of professional quality.

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It’s difficult, tedious, and time-consuming to translate any substantial work, especially novels as opposed to manga or game dialogue. But I feel the rewards of self-accomplishment and being able to bring joy to your fellow fans makes it worth it, especially if what you’re translating is a portion of your favorite series =) The six members of our make-shift group finished translating roughly 600 pages in approximately 70 days – not bad for a bunch of amateurs =D I can’t say when I’ll take up a big project like this again, but I’m sure this isn’t the end of my fan translating ^_^V

Something that’s always fascinated me since I’ve been able to follow Japan’s anime fandom in real time thanks to the advancement of the Internet, is the proliferation of “cuteness” in the country – not just in all genres of anime, but in real life Japanese society as well. And what’s even more interesting to me is how this acceptance of cuteness can’t help but carry on to American anime fans…

I discussed Japan’s culture of cuteness briefly in my defense of moe post that I wrote many months ago. To quickly summarize, I mentioned that one reason for the popularity of “moe” characters in anime is simply Japan’s overall acceptance of cuteness for all ages and genders.

The above photo is of a typical Japanese bus ticket. To an American, the cute little bus character would probably make them think it’s a ticket for kids. Certainly they wouldn’t think an adult man should have a bus ticket like that. But while having such a ticket would probably be embarrassing for a typical American man, it’s the norm for Japanese men.

The photo above is another example. To an American, the cute cartoon-style bunnies would mean something for kids. But no, this is just a run-of-the-mill road construction site in Japan.

Even Japanese singers and actresses are more often marketed as “cute” rather than “sexy” or “beautiful.” They may purposely use a high-pitched voice and childish mannerisms to appear as such. To an American, this seems strange and almost demeaning, but such traits are desirable in Japanese society. In fact, calling someone “cute” in Japanese, especially a girl, is practically like calling them “attractive,” “beautiful,” or even “sexy.”

While cuteness is considered a strictly childish or feminine thing in American society, that’s not the case in Japan. As these and other examples show, it’s mainstreamed in society in some form or other for men, women, and children. Of course cute things are more common for children and teenagers, but a Japanese businessman in his 40s wouldn’t feel any qualms about having a cute little bus character on his ticket, or being served in a restaurant by a waitress purposely acting “cutesy,” while an American man probably would. As for why cuteness has become so common in Japan – from what I’ve learned about the country’s history and culture, I think much of it has to do with Japan’s embracing of peace and harmony after it was stricken of its military power after World War II. The emphasis on peace going on in the country during his time fostered things that resembled peace – beauty and cuteness (which can be equated with innocence and harmony). Still a very peaceful country to this day, with ideals of politeness and respect permeating society, something unoffensive like cuteness continues to hold appeal.

So…since cuteness is widespread in real life Japanese society, it’s only natural that it’s a staple theme of anime (which is mostly targeted towards kids and young adults anyway). With the hundreds of cute “moe” girls and bubbly animal mascot characters, cuteness can be found in many forms in all genres of anime.

Macross Frontier is ultimately an action/sci-fi series targeted towards mecha fan boys who love the high-tech atmosphere and “robots versus aliens” battles. But even with such a masculine sounding show targeted at male viewers, cuteness abounds with one of the main characters, Ranka. Is she out of place in such a show? For anime, no. But if this was an American-made sci-fi show, probably yes. An American seeing a Macross F product with Ranka on it would probably think it’s a show for little girls, while a Japanese person might not jump to that conclusion.

The prime moe anime, K-ON, has actually won the hearts of a wider audience in Japan outside of hardcore otaku. Again, cuteness in Japan is considered an acceptable form of entertainment for all ages, and K-ON’s popularity outside otaku fandom can attest to that. Of course there are a handful of very serious, adult-aimed anime that are devoid of cuteness, but for the most part it’s something that can be found in all genres.

So, with anime’s growing popularity in America, especially among American males, I wonder if it’s helping to develop a new mentality for them that says “it’s alright for guys to like cute things rather than strictly masculine things.” I’d like to think that anime, with its many ways of depicting cuteness, beauty, and emotions, is promoting the idea that guys in America don’t have to feel weird or embarrassed for enjoying shows like K-ON and Clannad over more masculine things. In America, cuteness has always been considered something that only kids and girls should like. But I wonder if being into anime is changing this idea for male fans. Will a time ever come where a guy can laugh at K-ON and cry at Clannad without being called “gay,” “wussy,” or any other disrespectful term by those outside the fandom? I doubt the majority of American men will ever find it normal for one of them to enjoy slice-of-life anime over sports and action movies, but I want to believe that the ones who like anime have come to grips with the idea that it’s okay for guys to like cute, at least among their fellow fans ;)

I’ve never seen Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 but I know it’s appropriate right now

I rarely do news posts since I can’t get them out promptly and there are many others far more skilled at gathering up-to-date information and links than I am. But since the recent disaster in Japan hit so close to home (in my heart I mean), I just couldn’t ignore it…

As I’m sure you’re all aware of by now, on the afternoon of March 11th (JST), Japan was struck by the largest earthquake ever since records began 140 years ago. It was an 8.9, now the fifth largest earthquake in history, and it was followed swiftly by a devastating 10-meter tsunami along the northeastern coast that swept away everything in its path. Currently the death toll is expected to exceed 1,000 and who knows how many injured or missing.

This video gives a good idea of the extent of the devastation. You can also see a playlist of raw footage of the earthquake submitted by citizens on YouTube’s CitizenTube here. The anime side of things doesn’t seem to be affected too badly, with only some episode delays and event cancellations.

Like every other major disaster that happens in the world, this is absolutely horrible and saddening. After hearing about the terrible floods in Australia and overall catastrophic weather in the world right now, I can’t help but feel guilty that I’m sitting here in summer clothing in lovely southern California, with the sun out and a cool breeze blowing through my window carrying the scent of the orange blossoms that are blooming around my house.

Not that I can’t relate somewhat to natural disasters, though not even close to this extreme. Any mention of earthquakes makes me remember the 1994 Northridge earthquake that happened right here in LA county. I was 9 years old at the time and I remember cowering under my bed covers when the earthquake struck in the middle of the night. Thankfully our house didn’t receive much damage – just a few broken glass items, messed up shelves, cracks, and a dislodged cabinet. We were without electricity for a good amount of time but ours was the only house in the immediate area that had running water. Other buildings and roads in the neighborhood didn’t fare so well though.

The Northridge earthquake is really the only natural disaster I’ve been caught up in (thank goodness and knock on wood), and being a kid at the time, once the initial fear was over I was more fascinated by it than upset. Other than that, all we have to deal with in southern California is mildly bad wind or rain once in a while and merciless heat in the summertime. In the big scheme of things, nothing that bad (I’ve never even seen snow). Hearing news like this from other places makes me feel ashamed whenever I feel like complaining because the weather is a chilly 50 degrees F (which is SoCalifornians’ idea of cold) or if I have to get a little wet from the rain or have to scrape a bit of frost off my car windshield.

Anyway, I’m relieved to hear that 2DT and other people I know currently in Japan are okay. My sympathy goes out to everyone whose life has been damaged by the earthquake and/or tsunami. But I am glad that the technology nowadays makes it quick and easy for people around the world to know about and donate to disasters like this via Twitter, text messaging, and cable TV, whereas fifty years ago maybe a few people might hear news like this via one or two newspaper ads a day or so later. The fact that the death toll is relatively low, and many of Tokyo’s tall buildings were built in such a way that all they did was wobble rather collapse, shows that Japan was built well in preparation for such disasters. So “ganbatte” Japan! I believe in you~

I’ve been studying Japanese at college, abroad, and on my own since mid-2004. The most common reaction I get from people whom I talk to about it, or who are beginning to learn themselves, is that it must be an extremely difficult language. But over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that Japanese is actually a relatively easy language, and there are in fact numerous ways in which it’s easier to learn than English…

To any English speaker interested in why Japanese is not as “scary” as it seems, I’m going to point out a number of reasons on this post, especially compared to a Japanese person learning English.

Vowels:

English may have five vowels (sometimes six if you include “y”), but it actually has around 15-20 vowel sounds, since each of the vowels could have more than one pronunciation (for example, the “e” in “net” versus “neat” or the “a” in “apple” versus “father”). Japanese only has five vowel sounds, one for each vowel. Thus, unlike English, whenever you come across a Japanese vowel (A I U E O/あいうえお) there can only be one way to pronounce it. With the exception of the lone consonant “n” (ん), every possible syllable in the Japanese language is either a vowel or consonant+vowel. Therefore, once you know how to pronounce the five vowels correctly, you should have no trouble saying any Japanese word.

Pronunciation:

Following the simplicity of Japanese vowels, pronunciation is probably the easiest part of the language. In addition to only five vowel sounds, there are less than twenty consonant sounds in Japanese, and they’re always pronounced the same no matter what word they’re in. For example, the “g” in the Japanese syllable “ge” (げ) is always pronounced like the “g” in “go” and never like in “age.” In fact, the entire Japanese language is comprised of only 102 possible syllables! If you can pronounce all the syllables on this hiragana chart, you can pronounce any Japanese word.

So how does English compare? With all the silent letters and various ways of pronouncing vowels and consonants depending on the word they’re in, knowing the individual sounds of the 26 English letters doesn’t guarantee that you’ll know the correct pronunciations within certain words. For example, the “e” in “elephant” is pronounced different than the “e” in “screen,” and there’s a silent “e” at the end of many words. Or what about certain groups of English letters that can only be pronounced correctly through memorization, such as “-ough” in the words “rough,” “through,” and “bough”? And how about “read” (present tense) versus “read” (past tense) or “convict” (verb) versus “convict” (noun)?

It seems to me that English speakers should have an easy time learning to pronounce Japanese, while English pronunciation for Japanese speakers is a nightmare. English is a language comprised of borrowed sounds from numerous languages – Latin, French, Italian, etc – so all of the relatively few sounds that exist in Japanese are already present in English. But Japanese people can go through life without ever having to pronounce the many consonant clusters that exist in English. Thus, sounds such as “th,” “-ing,” “-ough,” and “-ched” are extremely difficult for them to say correctly. They just don’t feel comfortable without vowels in between consonants, so they’ll often pronounce words with a consonant cluster such as “drink” like the more Japanese-sounding “dorinku.”

Grammar:

Japanese grammar is so much easier than English grammar because 99% of its words will actually follow the rules! English has grammar rules, for example, to make a verb past tense, you add “-ed,” and to make a noun plural, you add “s.” But the number of exceptions to these rules is ridiculous – words like “felt,” “ran,” “slept” and many others don’t follow the add “-ed” rule, just as words like “deer,” “cacti,” and “feet” don’t follow the plural “s” rule. In Japanese however, there are literally only like, five words in the entire language that are exceptions to the grammar rules.

Verb conjugation is one of the most difficult parts of any language, but it’s relatively easy in Japanese because there are only two irregular verbs and only a handful of irregular conjugations in others verbs. Just a few conjugation drills can prepare you for even the most obscure Japanese verbs. Japanese verbs always occur at the end of the sentence and they do not change for person, number, gender, or whatever the subject may be. Other easy things about Japanese grammar is that, to make a sentence a question, all you do is add “ka” (か) at the end, and there’s also no pluralization grammar rule. Pluralization is derived solely from context or occasionally adding a suffix.

The only hard part of Japanese…

Besides the basic difficulties of learning ANY language – memorizing vocabulary and idioms, recognizing colloquialisms and nuances, etc – there is only one major part of Japanese that I feel is more difficult than English. As many of you know, that would be kanji. Having to memorize over 2,000 kanji (plus a couple hundred kana characters) in order to be fluent is quite a leap from only 26 letters. But I will say that kanji gets easier as you learn more because they use the same radicals. Also, since kanji is borrowed from Chinese, a Chinese speaker learning Japanese has it that much easier when it comes to writing.

Another part of Japanese that people think is difficult is the counters. But honestly, I would rather have that than the tons of English words that are exceptions to grammar rules and can only be pronounced through memorization.

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At first glance, an English speaker learning Japanese from scratch may seem like a daunting task. But I hope this post has shown that, with the exception of kanji, everything else about Japanese is actually quite easy and structured, especially compared to English. I’ve also pointed out why it’s actually more difficult for a Japanese speaker to learn English…and they’re forced to learn English in school ;)

Now that I’ve had some years of experience studying and being immersed in Japanese culture, one particular thing that’s always fascinated me about Japan when compared to America is the sense of communality that permeates many aspects of the country. Japan’s emphasis on the communal is quite contrasting to America’s emphasis on individuality…

During the two times I’ve stayed in Japan while living in a dorm or going to camp with many Japanese people, Japan’s communality was quite noticeable – there would be welcome parties and farewell parties for me and my group, every morning the residents of the dorm would meet and do chores together, and my group at camp would always eat meals and bathe together in the communal bathhouse (separated by gender of course).

The Japanese people I’ve met here in southern California have also demonstrated this communality. On a number of occasions, Japanese people have given me rides to various events, often miles out of their way, quite enthusiastically and without asking anything in return. I’m usually left feeling surprised at these acts of kindness – perhaps that communal feeling makes it easier for them to want to go out of their way to help others at these group events.

Japan’s communality is more commonly recognized by their politeness, family ties, and strong work ethic. Acting polite, whether they truly feel that way or not (honne and tatemae), keeps the communality from being disturbed. A staggering number of communal family events as well as all the extra dedication employees are expected to put into their job, from going out with the boss and coworkers for a drink, to always putting in extra hours without complaint, adds up to a permeating communal sense in the country. Shame could be another aspect, with the idea of not causing trouble for others or being looked upon badly by your peers being another strongly emphasized Japanese trait.

Since coming to recognize Japan’s emphasis on the communal, I’ve also come to realize how starkly contrasting it is with America’s sense of individuality. An example is how different typical Japanese and American parties are since I’ve been to a few of both. American parties, especially for young people, often have obnoxiously loud music, with people inviting their friends, friends of friends, etc., who are constantly coming in and out, and getting drunk enough to do idiotic things. On the other hand, there’s never been loud music at Japanese parties I’ve been to – they mostly consist of the people there eating and drinking, without getting too out of hand when they get drunk, and usually only people who are part of the group (family, dorm, company, etc) come.

Japan’s communality can also be related to how most anime is presented. America, being individualistic, places emphasis on an engaging, concrete story centering around individuals proactively achieving their desired goals. Japan, being communal, has anime stories containing small pieces of a whole story, emphasizing how each character plays an integral part in the communal whole. Or, some stories simply convey a communal group of characters without any plot or significant individual action. This is one of the reasons why anime like Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note are popular in mainstream America while anime like Lucky Star and Ouran are niche titles. The stories of the former present characters actively working towards individual goals, while the stories of the latter simply present communal groups of characters interacting with each other.

This difference in culture could probably be traced back hundreds of years in history. Americans had to stand up and fight for their individual freedom against the British, while Japan, spending much of its history isolated from other countries, developed a strong group mentality. I’m not saying that Japan’s communality is better than America’s individuality or vice versa. Like many things in life, both have their good and bad points. Unfortunately, many Americans go overboard with the individualistic ideal and develop an “I can do whatever I want” attitude, partaking in obnoxious parties like I mentioned above and doing all manner of insincere, irresponsible things without caring if they’re disturbing or hurting others (just watch a few episodes of Judge Judy and The People’s Court to see how so many Americans are like this). It’s quite contrasting to Japan’s sense of the communal and being extra careful not to disturb others or cause trouble for those around you. This could also be a contributor to Japan’s cleanliness and how Japanese children are so responsible – from an early age, they’re made to clean their classrooms and taught that it’s more important to be responsible and respectable in society than to pursue individual desires.

But then again, Japan’s communality is so overbearing that, as I mentioned, so many people are forced to act polite and agreeing even though they’re angry and protesting inside. If an employee doesn’t partake in drinking with the boss or always saying “good morning” to everyone, they’re immediately looked down upon. If you don’t buy trivial gifts for certain people at certain times, you risk shame. Compared to this, Americans have an openness and freedom that Japan is sorely lacking. Individuality makes them much more accepting of change, expressing themselves, and becoming who they want without worrying about what tradition dictates.

Too much communality creates pressure and hypocrisy while too much individuality creates selfishness and irresponsibility. I think a proper balance of both would be ideal. Perhaps as Japan and America become more interested in each other’s cultures, they will take in the good aspects and become better for themselves.

I have now gone half a year without any formal Japanese study after taking it up to advanced level at my university. Although I don’t feel like I’ve forgotten too much yet, what with my daily exposure to anime and my sheer willpower to keep it in my head, I wonder how long I’ll be able to keep it up…

Technically my formal Japanese study ended when I graduated college in June 2009, however I attended a 3-week sightseeing program in Japan in late July/early August 2009. In that short amount of time, I was forced to put all my previous years of Japanese study to the test and it was an excellent experience for me. Unfortunately, since then the only way I’ve been able to keep up my Japanese is by self-study and watching anime.

I’ve been studying Japanese since late 2004 – one and a half years at community college, a month of studying abroad in Kyoto, then a year with no Japanese until I started university, then about two years there, followed by the aforementioned 3-week sightseeing trip. The current job I have requires me to use a little Japanese, but nothing beyond some beginner level vocabulary. I did apply for this year’s JET program but was never selected. AEON and other similar programs have been on my mind but I’ve been having second thoughts about whether living in Japan for that length of time would be good for me right now. I’ve been offering Japanese tutoring services on a few web sites but haven’t gotten any clients. I’ll have to try hanging up fliers at local colleges.

Since graduation, what I’ve been doing is making up my own Japanese review sessions. I’ve been re-studying the intermediate and advance level textbooks I used in college, i.e., I go through each chapter and try to re-memorize all the vocabulary and grammar.

I’ve also been going through one of my kanji dictionaries, page by page, reviewing kanji I know and learning ones I don’t know (the kanji are listed in the order that they’re taught in Japanese schools).

I know the kanji is gonna be a long process, but I think it would be useful for me since I have a pretty good grasp of Japanese grammar and all I really need to focus on is building vocabulary and kanji. My DS kanji dictionary has been indispensable to my studies as well.

And of course, watching anime has always helped me retain an ear for Japanese, although anime is easier to understand than the faster, unrehearsed speech of real life Japan. I occasionally read manga or other anime-related books in Japanese, but one thing I like to do is sing along with anime songs while reading the kanji lyrics on AnimeLyrics.com. The vocabulary of anime songs is limited, but it’s fun anyway.

While all this self-study sounds great, unfortunately in these past six months I’ve had relatively few study sessions. Usually when I’m not working, I get lazy and want to use what free time I have to relax with blog work, games, etc., rather than hit the books. I guess after being a student for the past 20 years, I’m reluctant to start studying again when I don’t have to.

I don’t know any Japanese people to practice my conversation skills with and I’m totally unable mentally and financially to continue my schooling anytime soon, if at all. So it looks like self-study is the only way for me to keep it up. I don’t want to lose my Japanese and waste all those years of college study, so I gotta psyche myself to get back into study mode when I have days off! XD

If anyone wants to offer Japanese self-study tips, I’m all ears.

Anyone remember the controversy from a while ago when a petition went out in Japan to legalize 2-D marriage? It was started by a man who wanted to marry Mikuru Asahina, but it didn’t pass. However, a few days ago, another Japanese otaku actually went through with a 2-D marriage, regardless…

This man (anybody know his name?) went to a church in Guam (though he intends to celebrate the marriage in Japan) and, with Nintendo DS in hand, “married” Nene Anegasaki, a girl from the dating sim game Love Plus.

Here’s the link to where Nico Nico Douga has posted a video of the wedding (you need to sign up in order to access their videos).

The video starts with the man discussing how he was dating Nene, such as taking her (in the DS) to a carousel or the beach. The rest of the video is the actual wedding in the church, with music, people giving speeches, and the man kissing his bride (well, kissing the DS screen). One of the hosts even read some of the video comments to the audience.

I’m still not really sure what I think of the whole 2-D marriage thing. I can’t understand how it could ever work out since 1) there are so many people who would want to marry the same character, and 2) the character can’t say which one they’d rather marry, so who would decide who could marry the character of their dreams? Would it be the original creator of the character? Would the suitors have to compete in some way? Since it’s Japan we’re talking about, I don’t know how far 2-D marriage will go, but it certainly is amusing to follow =P

Sources: Ani-Gamers, Tiny Cartridge, AAA Anime, moetron

UPDATE: YouTube videos of the wedding posted.

UPDATE: YouTube video of CNN coverage:

For want of a better post to write today, here are some cute, funny, and/or disturbing Japan videos that I’ve come across on YouTube over the years…

This a Japanese game show where a group of people sit in a library and perform random uncomfortable and often downright painful actions on each other while trying to be as quiet as possible. You’ll either think such a game show is really funny or really disturbing (for me, it’s a little of both). At times the contenders look like they’re having a blast while at other times they look like they’re clearly suffering. Only Japan would come up with such a crazy game, and I doubt such a contest would be allowed in America.
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There is no end to the variety of outrageous game shows that Japan has so I’m not going to share too many. But here’s another one – the name says it all. I wonder if doing such a game repeatedly could permanently damage your nose.
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Probably the most disturbing game show of all. Something like this would never be allowed in America.
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Not all Japanese game shows are so unbelievably painful. Here’s another unique one that’s not nearly as torturous as the previous ones. In this game, contenders must quickly maneuver their bodies to slip through an oncoming panel with a large tetris shape on it.
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Another, more tame game show. It actually looks like fun as long as the pins aren’t too hard.
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Tama is an amazing cat who lives at Kishikawa station and has been officially dubbed “Station Master”; she greets commuters and has attracted a wealth of public attention and prosperity for the little town. She even got featured on CNN =D

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Maru is another adorable Japan cat. His owner has taken videos of him doing a variety of cute and funny things. I believe he even has his own DVDs. This is one of my favorite Maru videos; he does a pretty impressive leap into a cardboard box.

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Hyouta is an extremely tame and extremely cute pet squirrel. Like Maru, he has his own blog and collection of videos.

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As the name implies, this video shows contests where people gather together to form giant images with their bodies. In this one, thousands of students form an image of the Mona Lisa.

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Unbelievable crowds on Japanese trains during rush hour. I believe something like this has at least a little to do with the suicide rate in Japan.

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The crosswalk in front of Shibuya station is rightly called “the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing.” I walked on this crosswalk when I was in Japan and it is quite intense. This video shows the crosswalk on a typical Saturday afternoon.

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A wave pool in Tokyo. Crowded would be an understatement – you can’t even see the water 0_o

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I just love this video. Some foreigners put a camera on the conveyor belt in a kaiten-zushi (rotating sushi) restaurant. For some reason watching the various customers’ reactions to the camera is just so entertaining. It’s especially funny when the camera ends up in the kitchen. If it was anywhere but Japan, someone would probably swipe that camera XD

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