Post for Posterity

It's been a long while. In fact, this will be the first time I've posted something since I've been back from Japan. What brought about this? I was looking through some old papers and found a list of "Things to Accomplish in Japan". I no longer need the paper (or feel compelled to continue this list), as my tastes and experiences now will change this list drastically. But I thought it was amusing enough to put up here for everyone to see. Some of this is crazy (former) weeaboo-sounding stuff, but it was mainly all for the lulz.

 "List of things to accomplish in Japan" (circa 2006):
 1. Become better at listening and responding in the language.
2. Do well in my studies at Hakuoh. 
"Minigames!!" (not in particular order):
1. Take a picture of a panty-vending machine and put it on the web.
2. Meditate under a waterfall.
3. Sing "Ride on Shooting Star", "Sukiyaki", or "I am turning Japanese" at a karaoke booth.
4. Dress up as some random Japanese pop-culture related figure.
5. Blow $50+ at a gatcha gatcha [machine] place (like in DenDen Town in Osaka).
6. Meet the Pillows [I was obsessed with FLCL and the Pillows at this point in my life].
7. Meet former prime minister [Junichiro] Koizumi and talk about Elvis.
 8. Meet Shigeru Miyamoto and also catch him riding his bike into work in Kyoto.
9 Go to a Aya Hirano, [The] Pillows, or Do As Infinity Concert.
10. Go to a Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra performance.
11. Go to and take lots of pictures of Akibahara.
12. Invent new トレンデイー　[trendy; popular] Japanese slang and introduce it in Shinjuku.
 13. "Reenact scenes from [the movie] Lost in Translation
14. Create [a] 素晴らしい外人 [wonderful foreigner; a webseries I seriously wanted to make at the time] costume.
15. Go to a Con[vention] in Japan and film [an] episode of 素晴らしい外人.
16. DDR Hardcore; Taiko no Tatsujin.

Famitsu's Gamer's Dictionary Part 3!

Remember to have the page set to Japanese encoding (preferably Shift_JIS).

な　行

ナンバリング　Numbering (for sequels)

ニンテンドーWi-fiコネクション Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection

ネットワークゲーム Online Game/Network Game

ノンプレイヤーキャラクター Non-Playable Character (NPC)

は　行

バージョンアップ Version Update

バーチャルコンソール Virtual Console (Wii)

パーティー Party (as in an RPG)

ハードメーカー Hardware Producer/Maker/Company

ハイスコア Hi-Score

ハイデフ Hi-def (Hi-definition)

バグ Bug (as in programming error)

パスワード Password

バッドエンティング Bad Ending

波動コマンド Wavedashing command (The book uses the example of characters like Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter, however the first part translates to "moving wave". Considering I used to be an avid Melee player, I think this is what it could translate to.)

バトル Battle

パブリッシャー Publisher

ハメ　(技)　Update: This is slang in Japanese for 'rape'. If you ever get involved with Japanese porn at all, this word should be familiar to you. I wasn't sure what context it had when I translated this gaming dictionary a long while ago, but I later found the other meaning for this slang elsewhere and this is the first time I've been able to change this post in a long while. Yes, it has the same meaning for gaming in Japanese as it does in English. Basically an asshat all around.

美少女ゲーム Love Simulation Game (also see ギャルゲー）

ヒットポイント Hit Points

ピヨる To be knocked unconscious (used in fighting games after a character takes massive damage and the player loses control of the character for a few seconds)

ファーストパーソンシューティング First-Person Shooter (FPS)

フィールド Field

ふっかつのじゅもん During the days with storing saved games with passwords, games such like Dragon Quest I and II used them. Players had trouble remembering the passwords to go back to their games. This refers to a password system that is very difficult to recall or input correctly.

フラグ　Flag (or quest item). I am sure this can also mean "Frag" as they are spelled the same in katagana (the alphabet for foreign words).

パラットフォーム Platform

ブルーレイディスク Blu-ray Disc

フレーム Frame

プレイヤー Player

プレイステーション　ストアー Playstation Store

プレイステーション　ネットワーク Playstation Network

プルデューサー Producer

ボイスチャット Voice Chat

ポップ Random Encounter

ボブゲー Boys Love Simulation Game (where the main target is the female gamer)

ボム Bomb (Used in classic shoot 'em ups where one destroys all the enemies on screen at once)

ポリゴン Polygon

Famitsu's Gamer's Dictionary Part 2:

This is a continuation of part 1. Remember in order to read Japanese fonts correctly, you must have the character encoding set to a Japanese font (preferably Shift_JIS).

さ　行

サードポーティー Third-party

ザゴキャラ　Mini-boss

残機　（ざんき）　Remaining Lives

CPU (シーピーユー）　Computer Character

次世代機　（じせだいき）　Next-Generation Consoles

16連射　（１６れんしゃ）　Someone that can press a button 16 times in 1 second. Apparently according to Famitsu, someone in the eighties was famous for his fast button-pressing skills. This word doesn't relate to button mashing, which is random button presses versus this which is a skilled burst of pressing a button.

昇竜券コマンド　（しょうりゅうけんこまんど）　Linking Command/Combo (in fighting games, it is an extra combo that when used after another normal combo, deals more damage)

ジョブ　Job

ジョブチェンジ　Job Change

処理落ち　（しょりおち）　Lag (due to your computer)

据え置きゲーム機　Console

スキル　Skill

スコア　Score

スタンドアローン　Offline Mode/One-player Mode (Can mean either depending on the game mode/game)

ステージ　Stage

ステータス　Status

セーブ　Save

ソフトリセット　Soft Reset

た　行

ターン　Turn

タイムラグ　Lag (due to internet or server problems)

ダウンロードコンテンツ　Downloaded Content

高橋名人　Update: I have been watching a lot of Game Center CX  resently and it covers a majority of the slang encountered here. The name that refers to a man just known as Takahashi that could hit a button 16 times in one second. There is an episode of GCCX where he shows up and shows Arino his ability. Having seen it, it is pretty impressive. He uses the tip of his fingernail sideways as he goes and rapidly hits the button. Back in the day, he was famous with Hudson and made a lot of promotional material for them, including being the spokesman behind a rapid fire controller for the famicom. Among gamer nerds in Japan, this has been confirmed to be used among the older gamers and otakus in Japan. It is not just a 'famitsu' thing which I originally wrote here.

ダンジョン　Dungeon

チュートリアル　Tutorial Mode

中ボス　（ちゅうぶす）　Mid-way boss (In RPG's, it's the boss battle that takes place in the exact middle of the entire game)

ＤＳ　ステーション　DS Station (the wi-fi spots for the DS)

ディレくター　Director

テクスチャー　Texture

デベロッパー　Developer

デバッグ　Debug

ドラルエ　Dragon Quest

東京ゲームショー　Tokyo Game Show

ドット　Sprite (refers to 2D graphics)

Stay tuned for part 3 (of four!)

Famitsu's Gamer's Dictionary Part 1:

Always wanted to know what a certain word used in gaming is in Japanese, but don't have the necessary skills to yet read the character systems? Well look no further than this post.

I am going to translate a "Gamer's dictionary" that was found in Weekly Famitsu No. 1034 for the week of 10/10/08. I will only add the words at first, as most of the terms when translated an average American player knows, but the average player in Japan has to learn because it may not be a Japanese word that is used. A foreign word can be written in the alphabet in Japanese used for borrowed foreign words, but usually the meaning is sometimes changed to a completely different meaning, but that's for another topic altogether.

For the best results, make sure the character encoding to view this page is actually set to a Japanese style font. I am particularly fond of Shift_JIS, but that's because 80% or more of Japanese webpages are encoded in that format.

(The list is organized according to the Japanese character alphabet, not necessarily our own)

"Gamer's Dictionary"

"These words are used normally throughout the gaming industry and also used by us (famitsu). Have you never heard of some of these words before? Then, this dictionary should be suitable. We chose words with detailed descriptions that even the newbies would be able to understand. If you never heard any of these words, today is your lucky day! Please thoroughly exhaust this guide."

あ　行　
-アーケードゲーム　Arcade Game

-RPG (アーピージー） Role Playing Game

-アイテム　Item

ーアナログスティック　Analog Stick

-アビリティー　Ability

-安地　（あんち）　Camping Spot (literally, "safe spot" in Japanese)

-HP (エイチピー）　Hit Points

-ＦＦ　（えふえふ）　Final Fantasy

-ＦＰＳ　（エフピーエス）　First Person Shooter

-MP (エムピー）　Magic Points

ーＮＰＣ　（エヌピーシー）　Non-Playable Character

-エンカウント　Encounter

-音ゲー　（おんげー）　Music Game (like Rock Band and Guitar Hero)

-乙女ゲー (おとめげー）　Female Love Simulation Game (where the main character is a female trying to fall in love with a guy)

-オプション　Option

-オンライン　Online

ーお使い　(This doesn't have a clear translation in English gaming[or I forgot, which might be the case], but I'll explain from what I know. It's basically a type of event in a game [typically RPG] that if you have a certain item you can trigger something to happen that usually results in a reward. This word is typically negative in the Japanese gaming world, usually a game with too much of this type going on relies more on chance on what items you have than leveling up on the field.)

-落ちものパズル　（おちものぱずる）　Falling Block Puzzle (like Tetris, pyo pyo, and Meteos)

か　行

ーカーソル　Cancel (also used in Computer lingo)

ー会心一撃　（かいしんいちげき）　Lucky Blow (Used among fans of Dragon Quest, but has same meaning as a lucky critical strike against an opponent in battle)

-格ゲー　（かくげー）　Fighting Game

-隠しコマンド　（かくしこまんど）　Hidden Command/Secret Code (The article mentions the famous Contra Code)

-カセット　English word: Cassette; Gamer's Meaning in English: Carts (as in cartridges like DS games)

-家庭用ゲーム機　（かていようげーむき）　Console (and cellphone) games (the opposite of arcade games in Japanese Gamer speak)

-カンスト　 Interrupt/Counter interrupt (short for "counter stop" in Japanese)

-キーアイテム　Key Item (Item important for the story)

-ギャルゲー　Love simulation game (1 male char with many females). Also used in a game that isn't a love simulation that has many female chars.

-キラーソフト　Fan-Favorite game (Japanese: "Character software[game]") - A game that spans sequels based on characters from another very fan-base heavy game or a game where the game's storyline and/or characters are well-known (such as FFVII).

-グラフィック　Graphics

-クリエーター　Game Creator

-クレジット　Credits

-携帯ゲーム機 (けいたいげーむき）　Cell-Phone Game

ーコマンド　Command

-コンシューマーゲーム　Consumer Game/Home Consoles

-コンフィグ　Configuration

-コンボ　Combo

"Anime and You"

I have been browsing many things about Japan or dealing with Japan on the internet for the past few days(seeing how it's winter break, and I have nothing to do), but I found an amusing group on facebook dealing with Anime in general.

http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=2218249813&page=3&hash=34ebc0e6d010986cf91376b0587258e0#/group.php?gid=2218249813

"Anime is not a valid reason to learn Japanese"

Now, this group's title is misleading. Very misleading. After reading comments on the group's wall, I have come to find out that it doesn't mean that anime isn't a valid reason to learn Japanese, but that anime should not be the ONLY reason to learn Japanese (that, and to bitch and complain about all those American otaku that put "kawaii" and "sugoi" into every little sentence). My opinion is mainly with the group, but I want to comment on some of the comments and other things members have said myself.

When people start learning Japanese today, the majority have seen anime, read manga, or have played some type of video game (the last one being the most done). I admit, when I found out I could take Japanese before the freshman year of high school, I wanted to take it to be able to translate video games. At that time, I really wanted to work at Nintendo and translate games and such. But, as I further progressed into Japanese, there was much more to be found with the culture and history (history in general I like all around, unbeknown to me) which I became interested in. With most people that take and continue with Japanese, they realize this too. I found a lot of the people that took Japanese (especially in high school) where heavily into video games, anime, and manga. But, I felt because they didn't continue to press their ability in Japanese and learn to appreciate other parts of the Japanese culture, they soon come to realize that they just couldn't learn the language (and not surprisingly, all either dropped out of the class or failed it). You have to find many things to enjoy about the country's culture before you can enjoy learning the language that you're studying. This goes past Japanese and can be applied to any language.

It's not just American otakus (Ataku was the word that I gave them a while back, but never quite carried on) that see Japanese as only a way to understand Naruto or Bleach, but I think this also applies to the obsessive fans of J-Pop and J-rock singers too. But, Japanese songs in J-Pop and J-Rock deal more and more with mainstream Japan, so this group of people that want to study Japanese to be able to understand and translate the latest Hamazaki Ayumi or Gackt song actually are slightly different, but if they only study Japanese for that reason, then they are on the same boat as these Atakus. However, if both groups realize that there are more things about Japan and Japanese than their own interests and take an interest in other things, then there is no problem.

With Japanese, the way you study should be something you enjoy. The easiest way to probably to study like that is through either anime/manga, video games, or songs. Other ways include watching sumo matches, practicing Kendo, Judo, or Kyudo, watching Japanese dramas such as "Hana Yori Dango" and "Lost Friends". It is generally good that you should find something you enjoy about the language or something that uses the language and go with that when you are practing/studying. This does not counteract the previous argument that your hobby should not be the only reason for studying Japanese or wanting to go to Japan.

That being said, another comment comes from the fact that people thing Japan is full of anime/manga/video game stores and cat girls run the streets. Quite a misconception.

Truth behold that there are quite a bit of stores selling anime/manga and video games here (even outside of akibahara) and almost all bookstores I've been to sell manga. But, these things are like pop-culture to Japanese. The average Japanese young person has probably watched Dragonball when they were a kid, but outside of that (and saying things like "nazukashii" when something relating to that is brought up in conversation to them), they aren't obsessive or really into the series as some ataku are. They're used to it. There are Japanese people here that are really into TV sitcoms and American movies here, but to me I don't really think too much about them unless I really enjoy them too. Basically, if you're used to a culture and such, don't be expected to be shocked that people from another country like parts of your culture. The same thing is true with the Japanese culture. Don't expect everyone to be as obsessive or knowledgeable as you are with your anime/manga/video games. Or, don't expect everyone to care about your anime/manga/video games as much as you or even at all. Remember, everyone is different in Japan, and even if they have heard of something you might bring up in conversation, they might not know or care about it.

Anime is a great look into Japanese culture, but it shouldn't be your only window (dramas, music, movies, chatting online with a real Japanese person living in Japan, reading books are more alternatives as well). A lot of times, anime is also wrong on the culture it's portraying. Things that happen in anime DO NOT NECESSARILY HAPPEN in Japan. Catgirls are fiction.

Quick entry for tonight: Videogames

-It has come to me from the internets in America that Nintendo plans on releasing a new DS version with a camera, better WIFI, SD-card storage ability and dual touchscreens. Nothing is set in stone, but we should hear more news as time goes by. A note to Nintendo (if these rumors are indeed true), I call BS on a holiday release date in Japan. Your track record of releases is horrible.

- As you may or may not know, soon is fast approaching the date of the Tokyo Game Show which will take place in the second week of October. I'm skipping class going on Friday (10/10) Saturday (10/11) to go and I'll write a report of what to expect in the coming year from Japan (hopefully more information about the new DS lite will be present at the convention).

- I looked up the date for the official release of the new PSP (version 3000) here in Japan and it appears to be on Oct 16th. Wow, this is the second release I've experienced so far here that is behind the US release (the first was the new Kirby Super Star Ultimate that was released last week in the US). It looks spiffy and I was holding out buying a used 2000 model just because I already didn't have one and the improvements are worth paying the normal used price (around 160 dollars here) paying for a new one instead of an older one.

-I recently went to my local Bookoff and bought a first-generation Japanese PS2. And when I mean first-generation, I MEAN first-generation. It has a PC card slot instead of the drive bay the later "thick" ones have and requires you copy the DVD player software to the memory card because the DVD playback wasn't included in the original 1.00 OS. Bought some games (I can find titles like "Tales of" and FFVII over here for non-ridiculous prices) and have to say that there's nothing too entirely bad with owning this particular PS2 (it was half the price as the other "thick" model, the last model of the "thick" PS2s), but sometimes when I go to turn the power switch off on the back of the model, if I press down the power plug, it makes hissing noises. It's strange, and probably should avoid accidentally putting pressure on the plug connector. Other than that, nothing is particularly wrong with the system.

Anyway, that's all for tonight.

Aya Hirano's Bio Translation:

(The original can be found here: http://www.hiranoaya.com/html/biograhy.html).

Japanese (original):

00歳 生まれる。
02歳 アメリカに旅立つ、ディズニーワールドに行く。
　 　 ベッドから落ちて脱臼する。
03歳 アリスのコスチュームでハロウィン銀メダルをとる。
帰国。
04歳 初めて神輿を担ぐ。
05歳 東京に来る、猿蟹合戦で子蟹役をやる。
06歳 スーパーファミコンの初代セーラームーンを買ってもらう。
07歳 小学校入学。　近所の写真屋に無断で写真使われる。
08歳 歯磨き名人に選ばれる。
09歳 顔面からすっころぶ。その時の一言「こんな顔じゃお仕事いけなぁ～い」
10歳 音楽祭で一人着飾る。
演劇部に入る。
11歳 生徒会書記に選ばれる。
12歳 運動会で副団長をやる。
卒アルの将来の職業調査で「探偵になりそう」に選ばれる。
13歳 めちゃくちゃ優等生にする。あだ名は「綾波レイ」
14歳 文化祭で演じた役で感動の嵐。
15歳 初めてルーズソックスを履く。
16歳 高校入学　畑を耕す。⇒高校がものすごく広大な土地を持っており、畑を耕すことが日常的にある。
17歳 高校の礼拝のお祈りで演説することになり、愛について語る。感動の嵐。
番組制作で学年１位を取る。監督、音楽、脚本、主演全て自分でやる。
18歳 写真部で入選。
卒業式で泣く。
今！！

English Tranlation:
0 Years Old: I was born.
2 Years Old: I went to America and went to Disney World. I fell from my bed and dislocated a bone(it is unsaid/specified).
3 Years Old: My Alice costume from Halloween got a silver medal. I returned to Japan.
4 Years Old: My first time carrying a portable shrine (a mikoshi in Japanese).
5 Years Old: I went to Tokyo and participated on the side of the crab in the Monkey-Crab battle (I assume this was a festival, though I must look into it).
6 Years Old: I received for the first generation Super Famicom (known as the SNES in America) a Sailor Moon game.
7 Years Old: I entered Elementary School. A neighborhood photo store used my picture without permission.
8 Years Old: I chose my dentist.
9 Years Old: I fell on my face and at the time I said "With this face, I can't get a job!"
10 Years Old: For a music festival, I dressed up. I entered (my) theater production club.
11 Years Old: I was elected student council secretary.
12 Years Old: I was vice-captain at a athletic meet. In my school graduation album, I was voted most likely to become a detective in my future occupation.
13 Years Old: I was a crazy/nonsensical honors student and this led to my nickname being Ayanami Rei.
14 Years Old: I performed in the school's cultural festival and gave it my all (she literally uses the word 感動の嵐　or "A tempest of feelings". This basically means she felt pretty passionately I think to what she did.)
15 Years Old: I wore my loose socks for the first time. (A popular image tends that the sign to being a highschooler in Japan is wearing the mini-skirts and/or the loose socks. This seems to be a universal sign of a girl in high school and moving onto the future.)
16 Years Old: I entered High School. I also plowed fields. The school had extremely huge fields and one plowing them was an everyday thing. (Strangest thing on the list yet...)
17 Years Old: I gave an address about my feelings (love) at a school prayer service and I was deeply moved. (She uses "tempest of feelings" again here.) I took first place on a TV program. Direction, Music, Script, and the lead role I all did.
18 Years Old: The picture club chose my picture in an contest. I cried at my graduation ceremony from high school.
Now: ! (Nothing is stated here obviously, her role as a voice actress started making her busy right here.)

The translation sometimes is a little shaky, but hopefully it sheds some light into Aya Hirano's life.

Aya Hirano's Profile Translation:
http://www.hiranoaya.com/sozai-ori/jacket/riotgirl-jacket.jpg

(her latest CD cover for Riot Girl)

So, begins with this blog's first mini translation project. I am sure elsewhere this probably exists somewhere (like her Wikipedia page probably or something), but I am going to translate regardless (and I don't really check on other translations unless I want to check how close it was to a translator better than I (or more prolific than I, whichever comes first) and I rarely do that so I don't get contaminated ideas (i.e. that replace my own ideas for a particular translation).



As you probably don't know, I have really only two favorite singers/idols in Japan. They are YUI (more about her in a later article) and Hirano Aya. Hirano Aya is a prolific voice actress that has had lead roles in many anime (She was Misa Ayame in the Japanese version of Death Note and Konata Izumi in Lucky Star), but her main rocket to fame was that she was the main female lead in a series called 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱　(Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu) or the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This series is the ONLY series ever that has captured my attention by its music alone. The story of how I discovered this anime was that I went to a friend of a friend's myspace page and it had a youtube video of "God Knows..." which was sung by Hirano's character Haruhi Suzumiya in the 12th episode of the series. It kicked so much ass that I said that I had to find the name of this anime and watch it. It took me a while because no description was said for the video on the profile page and it took me a while to find a link back to the youtube page, but not much was had of the description on that page. So I finally used "God Knows" (took me a while to figure out the title of the song) and found exactly what I was looking for.

Anyway, the reason why I like Aya Hirano is that she has a unique ability to do many types of voices (her real voice is actually much higher than the saucy Haruhi's voice). She can't play the guitar that well (or not at all, as seen in many of her live performances of "God Knows" and "Lost My Music"; she has a guitar, but it is not plugged in and she's only air strumming to the beat of the songs), but that doesn't detract any value from my opinion of her. Her knew image (of her latest CD riot girl) seems to be of a Japanese version of Avril Lavigne, which is fitting, because in Hirano's profile (at http://www.hiranoaya.com/html/profile.html) she states her as her favorite artist.

Anyway, so here is the first translation project of the B-Side blog, her profile page on her website.

Japanese:
名前 平野 綾（ひらの　あや／Hirano Aya）
　 　 　
生年月日 1987年10月8日
　 　 　
血液型 O型
　 　 　
星座 てんびん座
　 　 　
出身地 愛知県
　 　 　
趣味 読書
　 　 　
特技 予知
　 　 　
声優的特徴 可愛い子供から、艶っぽい大人の女性まで幅広く対応可能。
性別問わず、男の子の演技も可能。
　 　 　
好きな色 赤、白、黒、ピンク、紫
　 　 　
好きな食べ物 オリーブ
　 　 　
好きな言葉 「存在するということは自分を創造することだ」
　 　 　
好きな作家 宮部みゆき
　 　 　
好きなアーティスト アヴリル・ラヴィーン
　 　 　
好きなブランド VIVIENNE WESTWOOD、Royal Order、patorick cox、CHROME HEARTS、KING BABY
　 　 　
嫌いな食べ物 無し
　 　 　
休日の過ごし方 寝る
　 　 　
好きな映画

SLEEPING BEAUTY、シザーハンズ、ナイトメアー・ビフォア・クリスマス
　 　 　
好きな本 蒲生邸事件
　 　 　
所属事務所 スペースクラフト・エンタテインメント（株）
　 　 　
レコード会社 （株）ランティス

English Translation:
Name: Hirano Aya
Date of Birth: 10/08/87
Blood Type: O
Astrological Sign: Libra
Hometown: Aichi Prefecture
Hobbies: Reading
Special Talent: Intuition/Precognition (either one seems to work with this tranlsation)
Voice Actress Special Talent: She can play cute kids, or the romantic lead female, but she can also do male roles.
Favorite Colors: Red, White, Black, Pink, Purple
Favorite Foods: Olives
Favorite Line/Phrase: "To exist is up to one's own creation" (Now checking, this differs SIGNIFICANTLY from the Wikipedia aricle's translation).
Favorite Writer: Miyamoto Miyuki
Favorite Artist (as in singer): Avril Lavigne
Favorite Brands (clothing I assume): VIVIENNE WESTWOOD、Royal Order、patorick cox、CHROME HEARTS、KING BABY.
Disliked Foods: None
How you like to spend vacation days: By Sleeping
Favorite movies: Sleeping Beauty, Edward Scissorhands (in Japanese it's just shortened to Scissorhands, so I can only assume it means this movie as it's the only one within the reach of the word), The Nightmare Before Christmas
Favorite Book: Gabunama-yashiki-Jiken
Company: Spacecraft Entertainment
Record Label: Lantis

For the next translation (probably later today) I'll translate something that hasn't been translated before by most of the mainstream online, her bio page. It's pretty strange, but has interesting points about events in her life. Anyway, here's to more ramblings from the B-Side Blog!

This is now the Side-B blog of http://samuraikurisu.blogspot.com.

Sorry it's been a while folks, but I decided to open up a new account to talk about my Japan experiences and leave this one open to other news, translation projects, and what not.

I don't update my Japan blog that much (writing a lot takes time and effort), and the same might be the same about this blog. But, I think this one will be for side adventures into my other hobbies.

Anyway, this blog will be for miscellaneous items and translation projects. Hopefully, the blog renders Japanese pretty well for it to be relevant. I would like to translate songs, but that being said, they are a pain in the ass because the Japanese language likes to shorten things and drop nouns, which leads to the "who did what?" situations or "whom is the singer talking to?" types of questions. I just don't like translating songs, but I can try my best (and by leaving up here, you can comment on them). Translating manga (where I can at least have a picture of the context of said words) is a whole lot easier than songs. At least for me.

Also, this will talk about other things than just daily life in Japan (perhaps political commentary?). So look forward to it.

Anyway, I am off to go change some items and come back with content. Welcome to the new B-Side (I assume this word is more or less associated with spin, or a different side than normal.

It's been a while folks.

As of now, I reopen this blog to all things Japan and such. My interview for the study abroad trip to Tochigi Prefecture in Japan is in a week, and the fellow two gals I am traveling with are meeting with me this week to discuss and practice for the interview which will not be in our first language(obviously in Japanese).

So, I wanted to let all you readers know that expect more news entries from me in the future! I might have a separate blog for writing entries in Japanese (Beth gave me the idea), but for the most part, I'll keep them here so all of my family (and potential viewers) might get to know what's happening behind the scenes and the around my daily life.

SutekiBakaGaijin is the official Youtube account for when I start production of "Subarashii Gaijin no Jikan" or simply known as "Subarashii Gaijin" or in English "Wonderful Foreigner (hour)". I'll also upload video blogs to show you a nice up to minute (well...not exactly, but you know what I mean) view of the area I am at in Japan.

Well...I got to get more stuff done and go off to bed, so see you all later!