#everything else tho is katakana

[orcelito]

i do love how i Can read the sound effects in trigun. bc even tho theyre untranslated, i can read katakana & hiragana lol. but also my eyes tend to just glaze over them bc theyre very japanese sound effects, so the sound transcriptions arent exactly what i'd attribute the sounds to (just by virtue of being an english speaker)

but like. here, from right to left, we have "don-don-don", "ga-gigi", and "ba-kan". which i can infer what those sounds are... but also it's simpler to just fill in myself based on what i See what sounds would be here. the only real reason the sound effects are useful (to me) are for knowing how many shots Vash fires (like the "don-don-don" showing that vash shoots 3 times)

other examples of sound effects:

"go go go go", "kyuru kyuru kyuru kyuru" (kyuru being the sound of wheels turning i guess, tho i got No Idea what the go go go go is)

"GAN", "do do do do" (a clang, then four shots fired by Vash)

"BA-BA-TSU", "ni-pa", "ba-tan!!" (sound of rolling??, sound of smile?? then a door shut)

see what i mean lol about the sounds being very Japanese? i can read them, but what they read to is still not very useful if you're not familiar with most Japanese depictions of sound effects (like me)

still nice to be able to supplement my reading with my katakana & hiragana knowledge tho

[alyss-kelly]

My opinion about Another Code : Recollection Part 1

First of all, I'm an old fan of the serie, so of course I compared the Switch compilation and the DS and Wii version.

I don't want to discourage people who are curious and want to play the game. If you're even a lil bit interested in them, play them, on DS, Wii or Switch, pick your poison and make your own opinion on it. Don't take my word as the absolute thing or whatever. It's not because I'm mixed about it that people shouldn't play it. Because I still think that a game that was, to me, very niche, from a studio that went bankrupt AND from 2005, is incredible. For a game like that to get a fully voiced remake almost twenty year after the release of its first installment, with most of the old crew working on them is to be celebrated ! Even if I didn't like everything, they still did an amazing job and I'm glad to see the franchise alive again in 2024.

I have strong feelings and I feel the need to share them to see if someone "relates" or not.

I may talk about spoilers but I'll try to limit them, be vague and put a warning before and after if I state it clearly.

Soo, now that this "introduction is over ~

In this essay I will

I have a LOT to say about Another Code Recollection. Good and Bad. Sadly, I have more things to say about the bad than the good. I have mixed feeling about it. I was very VERY excited when Recollection was first announced, I cried even, because I care about "Another Code Two Memories" and "Another Code R" A LOT, it's my childhood, they're in my top fav games list, they were very meaningful to me and I was sad it ended with Cing and with no hope of seeing the conclusion of Matthew's story. Even tho I was happy, I was still a bit scared about how they would adapt some of the puzzle on the switch. And I think I was right to have this fear. They did some cool things and others that I disliked.

I'll say my "+" and "-" and develop them further bellow each point.

+ Positive :

The graphism They're very nice, the characters's models are nicely done, the scenery and everything else is definitely a BIG glow up (mostly compared to the DS graphics)

The Redesign I like some of them a LOT, big glow up for almost everyone. I particularly love Charlotte and Janet. Charlotte finally looks her age! I kinda miss the old Matthew but his new version is also good.

Puzzles use the Switch motions thingy Just a few of them tho. I think that's cool, because they sadly don't use it very much in other games. And it's nice to see them try to replicate the same feeling you had with the DS and Wii games.

Confirmation of theories and new bits of story It's nice to see that after all these years. /!\SPOILER/!\ I'm thinking about Frannie's relative. /!\END OF SPOILER/!\

Musics They nailed the music; it still has that nostalgic and lonely vibe for Two Memories and the carefree with a hint of sadness vibe in R.

Voice Acting A very nice addition and very well done. I know there's English Dub but I played it with the Japanese voices. And being able to choose between them is nice.

Possibility to switch language That's maybe a very "me" + point, but the fact that I could change the game in every language available is cool. Even more for the jp, cause now if I want to I could try and practice my reading skills because there's an option to have katakana and hiragana on top of kanji. I just think that's neat.

Hint mode I just tried it in the tutorial but I think it's a nice touch for when you don't know where to go or how to resolve a puzzle.

Relationship between Ashley and D The way they would mimic each other poses was all I ever wanted. I love them a lot and seeing them being a little bit closer than I remember them to be in the DS version was great !

Art The new sprites are very pretty and it's nice to see the improvement the artist made. The endcredits was very pretty !

Flowchart & Map I like to see flowchart in any type of game, it's helpfull and pretty. I like that it was updated along with the story. And I also enjoy the map and the little commentary Ashley was "writing" on it.

End of Part 1

---

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

[rararazaquato]

i think that says garlic yeah! i'm too rusty about everything else tho

yeah the katakana is garlic and the hiragana is teriyaki. not sure abt the first kanji tho... much 2 learn.

[omentranslates]

Notes of ways I notice Albedo using Japanese in the dub bc I think it's interesting and says stuff abt his character

i also did one of this for Xiao, Paimon and a couple others

-has a polite cadence but his actual language is pretty casual

-sounds kinda fancy on first listen but he's actually one of the most laidback characters to listen to just like technically

-he uses some elements of written convention in his dialogue that kinda gives that illusion

-tends to end his questions with かい, which is very friendly and almost like coworkerly? I read it like lab-partner vibes it's smth you wouldn't use towards superiors it's for people equal to or below you socially and it sounds very eager to engage (it's a lot like 君 if you're familiar with that one)

-I don't get the impression he's using it in a talking down context tho esp his inflection just sounds like. Warm. Interested.

-to expand on before he uses a written form sentence connector (infinitive stem of verb to end sentence, doesn't really use て or any of the more common connectors, but he does use て to create conditions a lot)

-that makes it SOUND a lot like fancier or smarter? bc it's kind of weird to use in casual speech, it sounds either formal or sophisticated, but his actual word choices around it is like really normal

-overall he is just very friendly and calm and speaks to the traveler on equal terms

-definitely has one of the most calm deliveries, I'm used to male characters having their closeness to others shown via increasing roughness and rudeness of their dialogue with the closer relationship they have but Albedo doesn't really seem to do that

-I think his language fits his energy where he's like a little odd and you don't always understand why he does things (his kinda pick and choose structuring of his language)

-I've heard once or twice that people think his JP dub sounds etheral and detached, but I genuinely don't really get that? He's very sincere and doesn't speak coldly at all, maybe they're just responding to the lack of change in his tone? If anything it reminds me more of where it mentions his unfocused drawing style where he only fully details what he's interested in and leaves everything else as just bare sketches

-he also writes his own pronouns in katakana, which is Definitely not a trait of a like refined and perfect character it's like. Loud and slapdash. Maybe childish in the right context.

-"attentive to what he's interested in but careless how it fits in with the rest" is a good descriptor for both his character and how he uses the language I think, it's mismatch when you break it down and analyze it but sounds put together when he's actually speaking

-doesn't stand out nearly as much as other characters with his speech pattern

-like he would sound exceedingly odd in a real life casual conversation but as far as anime dialogue goes I probably wouldn't have thought it was that notable if I wasn't specially interested

[red-dyed-sarumane]

so we had aru sekai thats like the series summary and separated into parts that other songs expand off of

we have kyuuyaku the "past" part of it & therefore im inclined to think its the oldest existing loop of these events maybe not the beginning so to say but the oldest event recorded/remembered. expanding off of it we had marshall maximizer which seemed like an alternate view point of it , or a more recent loop of the same events

the next main point is shuuen touhikou the "end" part of it which unlike the others we really dont have a direct parallel to. i dont think touhikou is a present day type of song i think it's more recent than kyuuyaku but an old even compared to other songs.

then we have the "concave" oumen mokushiroku how the heavens have been stripped of their power to help even tho theyre trying and of course off of oumen we have unplanned apoptosis with our lovely unreliable narrator playing a victim card to outrun what they helped cause. these two happen at or around the same time, perhaps apoptosis a little later since the light in the windows already went out. after which im willing to say canon is most connected to oumen as well specifically bc of "line opens in the glass" & this song doesnt seem to be one point in time exactly. like the narrator exists in one point in time but the lyrics give the feel of it having happened many many times. its the same events as oumen and unplanned but im unsure if its the same timeline so to speak. i think its more likely its a different repetition. canon also has strong links to aru sekai itself and marmax as well tho i dont think its the same point of time the aru sekai chara is speaking from.

so that leaves us with tying in kugutsu ashura & its got a lot of the same piano and other elements from kyuuyaku. kugutsu is the first song coming from nowhere; its not one of the aru sekai sub headings and its not following the trend of the katakana songs of spelling the amakakeru fractals aru sekai speaks of. its also the first song to not clearly have the nami no ne wo motif from aru sekai (tho as ive said apoptosis kind of hid it, this one just doesnt really have it unless i stretch) kyuuyaku has the "burning our eyes on that asphalt/ bodies falling on the broken road" that both has a similar melody in kugutsu and also similar theme, kyuuyaku being the only song with fire instead of rain and kugutsu having both (technically with the urufu lyric). as to linking it to aru sekai itself beyind the uruoi/urufu, its the same repeating everything, everything is looped theme maybe with a slightly different context but its still the same. and then we have the scattered puppets on the ground similar to how the teddy bear and everything else is scattered in aru sekai. i also feel like theres a small link to shuuen touhikou in here somewhere something about how sono is written makes me feel like its in a similar time as well as towards the end the flutes just have a similar feeling and the "xxx you (ni)" while just a phrase is a main line in touhikou so that last line in kugutsu "mata, ibuku you ni" reminds me of "kaze wo kiru you" "kimi ga iu you" in touhikou i cant explain well rn but i think kugutsu might be a point between kyuuyaku and touhikou, like kyuuyaku's events happening in a different place with a different narrator maybe. ive seen people say it has similarities to oumen but thats definitely not the focus of this one the focus definitely seems to be on kyuuyaku

[wondersbeyondcompare]

PLEASE READ THROUGH THE WHOLE POST BEFORE WATCHING THE VIDEO ABOVE;;;;; I WANTED TO HAVE IT AT THE END, BUT APPARENTLY I CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS

THIS IS JUST A SAMPLE CLIP TOO;;; NOT THE WHOLE THING

OC Introduction Videos

So, y’know the voice claim hype got me thinking... “Hey, this reminds me a lot of the Twst character intro videos!”

like this

So then my next train of thought was... what if I made introduction videos featuring everyone’s Twst OCs! (・∀・) And before anyone says anything, don’t worry, I think I’ll be able to take care of most of the hard parts.

I already made templates for all the dorms! (Also, if anyone has a clear screenshot of the outside of Ignihyde, could you send that to me? (´；Д；`) I tried to sharpen the one I got from the video, and it doesn’t look too bad but...) 

So all you need to send me are:

1. A bust-up/waist-up sprite or drawing (something I can easily edit into a transparent png plz (´；ω；`)) of your OC(s)

(Don’t worry too much about the quality of your art! Or if the drawing is digital or traditional!)

2. Their name

3. Their name in katakana (there are some katakana charts online that could help you out with this)

4. Their year (1st year/2nd year/etc.)

5. Their birthday

6. Their height

7. Their age

8. A clip of their voice claim (about 5-8 seconds plz; it can be a little bit under or over, but not a full minute) AND THE NAME OF THEIR VOICE CLAIM

A translation of the clip would be helpful! But it’s not required!

9. Their dorm (All 7 dorms are included plus Ramshackle dorm; 🤲 please don’t hesitate to send me your MC OCs as well)

10. What blog you want tagged on the video post

PLEASE READ:

- If your OC has any “???” for things like their age/birthday or anything else, that’s fine 😆I have an OC that’s like that too.

- Each person can send up to 5 OCs; I can definitely be persuaded to do more than 5, but please don’t go into the double digits _(:3 」∠)_ I can only take so much...

- If you have an idea of a voice claim but you don’t have the voice clip, I can try to download it for you as long as you show me which video it appears in

- There can be characters with the same voice claim/twisted inspiration, but they must have different lines; I’ll check in on both users if this ever happens; don’t worry, I’ll try not to put characters w/ the same voice claim back to back in the videos

- If you don’t have a voice claim for your character but still want to be in the video 👍 That’s okay; just make sure to tell me

- If any of you already made the little intro card for your OCs, you can just send that to me along with the rest of the stuff I’ve requested! 🥺🙏 What a saving grace...

- I want to do fan dorms/schools too, but I also want to see how much attention this post gets 1st before jumping into that! I’ll make a separate post for that if this post does well!

- I’ll make a separate post for staff OCs too!

- If you’re sending me your stuff via reblog, plz don’t chain reblog! I don’t want to clog everyone’s feed, so just respond to this post, and don’t add on to someone else’s submission!

- And if you want to send your stuff through email or other social media, I can do that too; just DM me if that’s the case

- Or just DM me your stuff!

- Don’t worry if we’ve never interacted before (it’s probably my fault b/c I suck at interactions... 😢); I just want to showcase the many lovely OCs this fandom has made so far!

- Shoot me a message if you have any other questions!

- And please don’t yell at me if you see me posting stuff other than the videos (´；ω；`) I need a break sometimes, y’know?

- Don’t be rude to others or diss their OCs. I will drop kick you to the moon; I have no tolerance for that kind of negativity

- Reblogs just to boost this are appreciated!

I have a small clip of what I expect each part to look like (featuring my idiot boy Kodi)! 

yes you can scroll to the top now

Once all the students are introduced, it’ll end the way the Twst intro videos did! This clip was just abrupt b/c it’s just my tool of a son right now 😔

I’ll leave the submissions open until the end of June! Might close it a bit earlier if I get a lot of OCs (I’m a pretty small blog, tho, so Idk about that...), might extend it if I don’t get that many responses. If you need more time gathering everything/help, just tell me!

[rigelmejo]

Observations when I study multiple languages at the same time:

Hello so good morning all. 早上好大家，我就着急啊哈哈....

I awoke today and my brain SPUN because I can read some Chinese, but I forgot how to say I woke up and got out of bed in chinese. I also just?? I suppose my brain worried and was like? “Do you even remember how to read french? do you even know any Chinese? Or is the new Japanese just overwriting old stuff?!”

I rationally know japanese probably won’t overwrite the rest because like - the first 5 months I studied chinese it just blocked out my French active recall unless I purposely used French a bit. But I didn’t lose any French as far as reading ability, and I got my French active recall back once I used French for a few hours/days. So it would be quite normal if my Japanese is recalled easier than my chinese for a few months. But my brain is like “we worked So hard to get to read what we Can read and say what we Can say we will be SAD if we lose it!!”

反正早上好我床上来了。我已经醒了。我不忘记很多的词。我着急为了没有的意思。我就找到一个翻译词典为了检查对的词。我猜不错。幸好！还我就可以阅读在法语，很好啊。今天我早阅读法语书一下，很容易。我没事。

My chinese may be a mess grammatically I know.

Anyway. I am. Thrilled I didn’t forget that many actual words. Universe help me if Japanese grammar starts fucking up my Chinese grammar tho. I mean I hope not because French never got fucked up; but to be fair to French I DID forget a ton of the conjugations when actually speaking/listening ToT I can barely recall French conjugations anymore unless I actively look at some textbooks or Le Français Par Le Method Nature to refresh myself. Likewise, I studied Japanese probably over 1.5 years ago now and since then, I’ve forgotten nearly all the verb conjugation endings I used to know with the exception of: ます、ません、じゃない、です／だ、じゃありません、ありまう、います、i know te form exists still though I completely forget what it’s for? Giving orders/suggestions? I forgot how adjectives conjugate but I remember they do? And I certainly forgot how words change when connected to their verb endings - I think there’s i and ru verbs? And they conjugate slightly different? And maybe nakatta is past tense negative, and katta is past tense positive (though I can’t remember if it’s katta or something else tta)?

Basically I forgot a HUGE portion of Japanese grammar. I also forgot Word order, I nearly forgot particles (I still have vague recognition of は、が、を、に、の、か). And I remember でも means but because it’s one of the few words I hear constantly and still catch. Also daijoubu (I may be spelling it wrong) for ok (I remember hearing it in YouTube and shows way more than any learning material I had, and I remember I’ve heard a similar word in thai dramas). 大丈夫／だいじょうぶ - using imiwa dictionary app I’m fairly sure that’s the word I’m remembering. Anyway I forgot... so much of my Japanese it’s like I just am relearning from almost scratch but with a vague impression it’s all familiar. I relearned these words/phrases lately which all sound extremely familiar now that I’ve heard them again: そうです、ここ、そこ、あそこ、駅／えき、子園／こえん, お電気／おでんき、今／いま、今日/きょう、あおい／青い、人/じん、話します／はなします、分かります/わかります、どこ、じゃまた.

Among the good things, I do remember most kana upon seeing them again, I think it’s just a few katakana i don’t remember unless I’m reading katakana then I recognize the word and remember the sound - like my name ミジョ/みじょ MeJo “mi-jo.” I always forget specifically ミ、シ、lol. I also forgot the way to extend vowels in katakana versus hiragana until I saw it again. And I still don’t quite remember why cake isカアク, but something else might be ice cream with a - like アーカイブ?

Anyway. Like I mentioned, this morning I read some French to assuage my fear and remind myself i can Actually still read French. I have not actually forgotten, even though my active recall is shot to hell unless I practice. And I did read, and aside from a few words I distinctly remember always confusing me and never looking up, I read fine. I’m fairly sure I read that novel easier than I’d ever read it before, even, catching more details this time than any time previously. So clearly my French reading skills are still fine, have been maintained, and if anything then over the years they’ve still marginally improved a bit.

I suppose my biggest concern with chinese is just... that I want to absolutely ensure my reading skill hits that vague “specific tipping point” that my French reading skill did. The point at which, once reached, your reading skill does not slip below “capable of grasping the overall gist of main ideas” and if you read every few days or weeks then also may continue improve over time. I remember in French, BEFORE I hit that “specific tipping point,” if I stopped reading for a while, then when I came back to reading things were harder to comprehend again and it took a bit of extra work to re-establish the foundations. But after a certain tipping point was reached, even if I didn’t read French for a few weeks or months, when I came back I had a basis of understanding that never fell below “at least able to follow gist of main idea” and often picked up any forgotten words within a few hours, then picked up new words to learn. And so I could continue “picking up where I left off” with learning instead of fighting with my reading skills sliding backwards. They no longer slid backwards, they only got “rusty” and then once polished up in a few hours, would resume improving. It’s the stage I want my chinese reading to reach, because once it reaches that point I will no longer worry I’ll forget the foundational skills - it’s decently doable to re-familiarize yourself with specialized words as needed (we even do it in English if say we read a psychology book for a class 4 years ago then pickup a new psychology class, etc). But it’s difficult to build the original foundation skills everything leans on. In Japanese, I never finished building it - I think I was finally starting to at 2.5 years in, then I gave up. As a result, I lost a significant portion of that foundation I had not finished building. At first I retained some of it, but from years of no review AND no continuing to finish building it, that foundation crumbled. So now I remember pieces of Japanese, but not enough to rely on. Whereas my French had enough time devoted to finishing the foundation, that now even if I take a few months or a year away from it, if I go back to speaking/reading/listening to French then the foundation is remembered quickly and I can start learning mostly where I left off and just jump to improving again (instead of needing months to relearn). While I can relearn/strengthen the basic things in French, I can also jump into books or listening or convos and know enough to just learn from doing, and still remember enough that I’m Capable of interacting with those things and comprehending enough To do them.

I think of it like drawing - idk when it happens with a skill like drawing, I drew since I was able to hold things so I don’t know. But basically whether you draw everyday, or stop for a few months or a year then return to drawing, within a few hours of drawing again all your previous skill comes back to you. If you forgot something you’d learned, usually a few minutes or hours re-learning is enough to drag your skills up to where they were before. So you can quickly return to your former skill level last time you drew, and quickly start improving further. So each time you draw, you’ve retained your skill from before (mostly) and improve your skill, then that skill improvement carries over to the next time you draw. It’s great. In some ways, my French skill is like that - I quickly can get to the comprehension level I was at last time I engaged with French, can improve from there, and then the next time I engage with French I can pick up from the level to which I’d improved to. I may forget some specifics I didn’t use much or learn as well - specialized words, or ways to express myself I rarely use (so rarely reinforce), but if I re-study them it takes a few hours to get those back (instead of the months it took to learn the first time). I am so grateful my French is past that “specific tipping point” because it makes French way easier to retain a useful level in, and easier to pick it back up when i have time and improve it as needed in the areas needed and retain the improvements I make for the most part. In Japanese, I never reached that “specific tipping point” of having established enough of a foundation. So I lost a lot of what I knew.

With Chinese, I really want to ensure I’ve reached past that “specific tipping point” of enough of a foundation, before I give it less dedicated time. I don’t want to lose the chinese I’ve learned, since it’s a significant amount. And... even more than that, my chinese speaking and listening ability is in many ways BETTER than my French, because I worked on it, and I don’t want to lose those abilities either to the degree I’ve developed them. In French, i know I have very low levels of speaking/listening in comparison to my reading and they lag behind as a result - even once they reached the “specific tipping point” a year later than reading in French, they still lag a ton behind my reading (think A1-2 French speaking/listening skills, versus French B1-B2 reading skills). Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to make it so my listening/speaking skills only lag behind my chinese reading skills a little bit. And I’d like all of those skills to reach the “specific tipping point” where I am able to retain the majority of those skill levels, before I work on chinese less frequently.

I know myself. With Japanese, at 2.5 years in I was Just starting to hit the beginning of making that foundation I could retain later - I was just starting to read and comprehend the gist of the main plots in manga, to watch YouTube or play games and grasp the bare gist of what the main ideas was. In French, those skills started at about 5 months in, and I don’t think they hit “specific tipping point” of me being able to rely on keeping those skills perpetually, until 1.5 years in. With Japanese, as I said, i hit the beginning of building them around 2.5 years in, and just never solidified them enough to hit the “specific tipping point” unfortunately. With Chinese, at least in reading (since I’m only discussing reading skill in all 3 languages), I probably hit the beginning of building these skills at month 10-11. That was when I could start reading manhua without a dictionary, novels without a dictionary (and grasp the main ideas gist at minimum), and watch shows and do the same. Which again, is higher than Japanese even was at its beginning-foundation, as I couldn’t even Read novels or listen to Japanese audio on its own and follow the main idea. So I suppose, to compare the absolute beginnings of each foundation being built: in French it was month 3 (when I could start brute forcing through news/Wikipedia and comprehend some gist of main ideas), Japanese year 2.3ish (when I started brute forcing through manga and comprehending very roughly some main ideas), month 6-8 in chinese (when I started brute forcing shows and novels and comprehended honestly more than I can believe I managed to in retrospect, considering how much easier those still-challenging tasks feel now). Anyway... Chinese has seemed to take 2x as much time to improve compared to my French. I do suspect chinese normally takes native English speakers roughly the FSI recommended 4x as much time. I suspect my French learning plan was just not very optimal for my learning style, so it wasn’t as efficient. Likewise... I suspect Japanese should normally take roughly 4x to 5x longer to improve then French. I suspect mine took SO long last time particularly, because I did not even have a good study plan for myself until year 2 of Japanese study.

So... based on all that. I imagine my chinese will be very firmly where i want it’s minimum skill to reliably maintain the foundation of what I know, to be at.. year 2-3. Year 2, if I keep improving as well as I’ve been doing (and assuming if my French had been more consistent it would’ve been at the “specific tipping point” by year 1). And year 3 if I don’t always study as much, or it simply takes longer (so twice the 1.5 years French took). Which honestly... 3 years is still intensely fast as I see it. And, if I’m improving the way I think I have been, I can’t even imagine how ill be in year 3. Anyway... based on all of that... I think it would be a bad idea to pick up Japanese heavily until my chinese is past at least year 2. With my 1 year+ of French, at that point I was also studying Japanese, and they seemed to work fine as I studied both - the only thing was it slowed down my French progress. So I do think waiting to do anything heavy with japanese, until my chinese is a good play I’m ok to let it simply maintain for the most part, is probably a safer plan.

—-

Realistically... no reason I can’t lightly re-study Japanese though and Just like rebuild the beginnings of the foundation I had though, it was probably N4 starting into N3 when I gave up. So I could probably re-learn some old stuff without taking too much time from chinese. And then if my chinese is year 2 by then, that sure would be convenient. Lol this is all... me contemplating. When we all know the truth is, I’m going to do whatever I want to do in the moment, and see what happens o3o

I am gonna tentatively say though, I think as long as I don’t abandon Chinese for any length of time until at least 2-3 years in, it should probably be maintained at least though at where it’s at/gradually improve. I didn’t lose any French during the times I kept using it, even when studying Japanese and russian, the “specific tipping point” didn’t really matter until I stopped using French for months at a time. I am sure I will notice if another language study is slowing down my chinese study though, in which case I’ll pause the other language if I have a Chinese goal that needs more time for attention.

At the moment, my Chinese goals are going about as expected. I wish I could carve some more time for them, but I’m giving them as much time as they were getting throughout the fall - so it’s not like they’re getting any less time than usual. (I am just inpatient, and wish I was the kind of person with the time and focus to give them 4-6 hours a day lol).

[askshinachiku]

fanielshalean replied to your post “Little Bitty Problem With Fandom Recently”

I actually thought the Naruto explained video was cool tho. But yeah I wasn’t really keen on the narusaku name not being Shinachiku since he’s a collective name that most of the NaruSaku fandom aggreed with

The issue with the video is, it assumes every single event would play out exactly the same as it does in canon and I don’t think he credited all the Shinachiku art.

I suppose if you’re not deep in the NaruSaku fandom, you wouldn’t know how our story plays out, but so many things have changed making the canon scenario almost impossible.

For example, two small changes that would most likely completely change the course of whatever happened in canon should NaruSaku/Shinachiku be a thing:

We changed how academy works and how long it takes to graduate. No more child soldiers. Shinachiku might never be in a situation where he’s out and about open for attack until he’s a bit older and wiser.

Shinachiku’s sensei is not Konohamaru, it’s Lee. His teammates are a less set in stone, but they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. If the story called for it, of course one of them could stop whatever insta kill attack is headed their way. Who the hell knows.

But you know what? That’s whatever. He didn’t write about Shinachiku, he made up a random character to tell his story and that’s fine. Uninteresting, but fine. Afterall, Shinachiku is not the only NaruSaku kid.

At the end of the day, I had 2 issues:

He used art of Shinachiku, named him something else, and if I recall correctly, didn’t credit any of the artists for their work. Wanna make a hypothetical NaruSaku kid? Fine. Go ahead. Don’t steal other peoples work and relabel him how you see fit. If the artist drew Shinachiku, then he’s Shinachiku. If you don’t like the name, that’s cool too. If it’s the length that bothers you, then I assume you hate Shikamaru’s name too, which has the same amount of syllables and hiragana/katakana.

He didn’t at all consider how changes in relationships, dynamics and events, would effect the plot. An alternative universe with slightly different characters/relationships means different problems and different events. The writers of most AU stories, including Kishi who wrote Road to Ninja, understand this. It would’ve been nice to hear someone talk about how the plot would be different, but all he did was assume everything is the same except Hinata is now Sakura and nothing else changes. That’s just low effort.

Those are my grievances. I truly felt like I wasted my time even watching it. I don’t know why I haven’t learned my lesson yet, it happens over and over again. None of the Naruto youtubers give a shit about NaruSaku and will slap “NaruSaku” in the title for some views.

The day a youtuber actually sits down and considers a take on a NaruSaku future? That’s really worth a listen, I’d like to see what kind of ideas are floating around in their minds. When that day comes, It’ll be pretty sweet.

[otakween]

Cyborg 009 (Manga) - Undersea Pyramid Arc (Part 1)

Moving onto a super long, never adapted arc. I don’t think this one has ever been translated so here I go with my sub-par Japanese comprehension skills! 

Pandora’s Pyramid

-Ooh an undersea arc, that’s new. I guess that means it’s Pyunma’s time to shine? Although he’s barely in this chapter at all

-Didn’t expect Cyborg 009 to have a beach scene. 003 and 009 looked great in their swimsuits ;D (They were both showing so much skin!) 

-The bad “journalist” guy and amnesia dude look so similar that I confused them for each other 

-This is the second chapter in a row that strongly features 006! I guess Ishinomori was just in the mood lol

-005′s abs in this chapter look like he’s Mr.Potato Head and he has a pouch for his accessories lol (I don’t know if it’s worth calling the anatomy bad tho, since everything’s so stylized). 

-The monster’s silhouette is creepy af D: he looks like a giant version of ET (who’s already creepy enough) 

-So this is one of those “Curse of the Mummy” type horror plots. I like the deep sea twist tho. It’s kind of like a combo of The Mummy and Creature from the Black Lagoon 

-Kind of an interesting bait and switch where they introduce “Syndicate M” as the bad guy and then they all get wiped out by the monster. I’m sure Syndicate M will be back but it almost would be more interesting if that was it for them. 

Sugar Pyramid

-Damn, not only is this chapter really boring exposition and recap of what we’ve already seen but it’s like a million pages long! D: whyyyyy (edit: in retrospect, it’s not that long, I’m just slow at reading Japanese lol)

-Oh snap! Tripod aliens! :-0 Well, not really but that’s what the new monsters remind me of. We’re hitting all the classic monster-types here. 

-...and of course they reference War of the Worlds two pages later lol. Can you tell I’m typing this as I read? 

-What kind of Disney World Peter Pan nonsense is this!? That airship is cool and all but it’s design really goes against the usual scifi space look of everything else. The pea pod ship felt strangely fantasy/fairytale-esque as well (on the outside at least). The imagery is all over the place in this arc! 

Bermuda Pyramid

-Did Ishinomori make up the “Bermuda Pyramid”? I’ve heard of the Bermuda Triangle but I googled “Bermuda Pyramid” and didn’t find much

-I couldn’t find a translated version of this chapter so I have some questions. Number one being, is the ship named “Stupid Ivan”?? イワンのバカ

-Finally Pyunma gets to do something in this underwater themed arc! Took long enough...

-I’m a bit lost as to who the big bad is here. Who set up all those deep sea robot critters? Where did the Tripods come from?

-Found out that this arc is 13 chapters long RIP. So far the narrative feels very “make it up as you go” to me. I’m pretty sure it ends on a cliffhanger too according to the wiki :/ 

Green Hell Pyramid

-I honestly don’t have much to say about this chapter. The title reminds me of that horrible “Green Inferno” movie. The cyborgs get attacked by pyramids. Unclear if these pyramids are being piloted, remotely controlled or if they’re just sentient pyramids lol. 

Moon Pyramid

-”Heinrich” is spelled in katakana like “hainrihi” which is either a typo or just...doesn’t make any sense. (Unless the final “i” is silent?) 

-I’ve completely lost track of where we are but I’m guessing South America? The jungle art is really detailed and a nice change of pace

-I’ve learned all of my French pronunciations from anime lol. I love how Francoise sounds phoneticized (”Fu-ran-su-wa-zu”) 

-The little exchange where 009 asks Francoise if she’s alright and then she says “What are you saying? I’m 003!” and then he smiles at her was really cute. More moments like that please! (Way better than hundreds of “Joe, I’m scared.” moments) 

-I feel like bad guys keep showing up in this arc only to be killed by other bad guys. It’s kind of refreshing that it’s not your generic good vs. evil scenario like most modern shounen would go for. (Then again, I guess MHA has the League of Villains vs. Shie Hassaikai) 

-I’m not sure how so many plants grew on their airship in so little time. It makes it seem like they were there for months!

-I know he’s supposed to be stoic but 005 hasn’t said anything for a reeeeally long time. I miss him :’( 

Black Pyramid

-So this chapter begins with reflections on the mysteries of the moon. While I appreciate The level of depth and research Ishinomori’s bringing to the table. I only understood like 10% of it so :) -shrug- 

-Mermaid girl! I didn’t see that coming. I wonder if this will be another Heinrich love story since he’s the one who found her...

-Heinrich mentions an alien species called “garura” which I read as “Galra” lol. Sudden Voltron crossover!?

-There’s a split screen reaction at one point and everyone looks really intense and serious except for 008 and 006 who just look extremely bored lol. 

-I didn’t know I need to see 004 get all blushy and flustered about holding a girl’s hand until this chapter :3 <3 

-So first we get an exposition dump about the moon followed by mermaid girl’s exposition dump. I think that’s why this arc feels kind of clunky, there’s way too much that needs setting up.

-Mermaid girl can just magically walk somehow? Is it like Mermaid Melody logic where she transforms in water? 

[eshtarwind]

Tokyo 7th Sisters Character Commentary - Yamai Sawori

Other character commentary:

Seto Ferb - Mimori Matsuri - Kawasumi Sisala - Shiratori Tomoe - Yukuhashi Ei - Echizen Murasaki

Warning: May contain spoiler of:

Episode 1.5 (Sawori, Ferb) - Episode 2.5 (Sawori, Madoka, Kyouko, Chacha, Ei) - Episode 3.0 (Sawori) - Event Episode: Hip Hop dance - Event Episode: Snow and Maiden’s Heart is Still Far Away

Yamai Sawori

An orange haired girl with bandages around her head and numerous bandaids and other injuries almost 100% of the time, Yamai Sawori for some reason always attracts accidents. She is a member of 7 Members Unit Nanabana Otome. Just walking to Nanastar can get her being hit by a car, hit by a falling flower pot, or even hit by a falling electric pole-Almost all of her cards feature her on the brink of some kind of accident. Yet, even then, she keeps smiling. Thanks to that, Sawori garners fans from the first responders, who took a strong liking of her since no matter how injured she was, she’s always smiling. Her character development revolves around this aspect of her and how it affect the people around her. A kind and bright personality, Yamai Sawori does not back down from a broken bone or two.

Characters

Optimistic

“No matter what happen, I will go through it with smile!” is probably Sawori’s strongest personality. No matter what kind of bad luck happening, Sawori always faces them with smile and change whatever bad luck they are into smile. She also did not think of what happened to her as bad luck--just like what she said to Coney and Sawara during her 2.5. If she doesn’t think of it as something “bad“ and smile to it, everything will be alright. With this forward looking and optimistic view, Sawori survives her accident-prone life and supports people around her. This, too, is one of the cores of her character progression and also one of the most attractive parts of her personality.

Selfless

In Sawori’s episodes, it was said that Sawori perhaps attracts bad luck because she drew bad luck from others around her and made her the one who received those bad luck. Sawori said those words made her happy that if it were true, since that meant she had shield someone else from bad luck every time an accident happened to her, thus she would be able to accept what happen to her as something good. She was shown to very down if she could not help someone in her Episode 2.5, as she wish that she could help anyone to get over their pain with smile and turn those pain into smile as well. If it were of help, she would also take any kind of harsh words from others, if that would help them to vent out their frustration or sadness and turn it into smile. She also would rather go alone for her sport if she felt like going with anyone will end up with them hurting themselves as well. Sawori also would go out of her way to help someone, like what she did when Manon was crying.

Energetic

Even with her really accident-attracting luck, Sawori loves to move. She was shown to really enjoy snowboarding and usually she seems to prance around running or moving her body in one way or another--which sometimes make her friends freaked out in case she hurt herself, which she usually did. It seems this part of her personality also become one of the things that caused accidents somewhat, since during the time when she was super careful and not as energetic as usual, she appeared to not getting hurt as much.

Sensitive

Sawori reads situation pretty fast, and sensitive enough to act accordingly, as shown to how she did not say anything even if she understand from the very beginning what Ei and Xiao tried to do in her episode 3.0. Although there are times where she took on the “wrong” course of action such as what happened in her episode 2.5, she is sensitive enough to understand that it was more of a vent of anger than it was ill will.

Character Development

Throughout her episodes, Sawori’s character development focused on her optimistic outlook in the face of bad luck and how it affects the people around her. In her 1.5, the episode mostly focused on no matter how much bad luck she got, Sawori would always smile through it all, showing her determination to not bend down to bad luck. In her 2.5, Sawori was faced with “the limit of smile”, where there might be “bad luck” that she cannot cure with her smile directly or when her philosophy may clash with reality. She eventually learn that to smile, doesn’t always mean immediate smiling and that people might need time to smile and what she can do is to wait for that time where these people might need her to remind themselves how to smile again. In her 3.0, Sawori learned that, just like how she would like to take on the bad luck of people around her, there are also others who would be glad to take on hers, which made her cry and exclaiming that she was the world’s happiest person.

Relationship

Yukuhashi Ei

Sawori and Ei’s interaction happened mostly in Sawori’s 3.0, although they had been interacting since the Hip hop event where they were in the same unit (but it seemed Ei did not remember much thanks to being possessed most of the time) and also during Ei’s 2.5 where Sawori took on the role of a monster and one of those who persuaded Ei to be Magical Girl Mikora. Ei appears to be very careful with Sawori around so as to not be a trigger of Sawori hurting herself, warning Xiao whenever the later seems to move too fast or too much, in case accident happen. Ei seems to also understand Sawori’s selfless part of personality, as she would like to keep Sawori not knowing they deliberately be with her to protect her from bad luck so as not to make Sawori feel bad. Both of them appeared to develop a strong bond later on, as Ei was shown to be willing to take on Sawori’s bad luck as well, risking her own safety when Sawori was falling.

Xiao Fei Hung

Sawori and Xiao’s episode interaction only happened in Sawori 3.0 where she and Ei was assigned to the same PV as Sawori, even if Xiao appeared in some of Sawori’s card and vice versa. Xiao, being energetic and outspoken, was needed to reminded by Ei time and time again to be careful so that she doesn’t hurt Sawori in one way or another. Xiao appeared to care about Sawori very much and Sawori appeared to enjoy her company as well. Xiao also willing to take on Sawori’s bad luck and risked her safety for Sawori. She also the one who initiate them to hold hands together, brightening the atmosphere with her jubilant personality.

Futagawa Mimi

Sawori and Mimi’s interaction mostly happen during event episode where they talked of the time they went to a ski/snowboard resort together for a photoshoot. In the episode, Mimi was shown to care about Sawori very much, choosing her snowboarding outfit and encouraging her that Sawori has every right to look cute and wear cute clothes, that she should not mind about getting injured in it. Mimi also appeared to be willing to look after Sawori and go with her for snowboarding, regardless of the chance that she might get hurt while looking after her.

Kawasumi Sisala

Sawori and Sisala’s interaction happened during the Hip hop event. Although seems to be nonchalant, Sisala quickly identified that the last member of their unit was Sawori, just by hearing an ambulance siren stopping in front of their office.

Trivia

Yamai (夜舞) means “Night Dance”, which is also a pun since sickness or “病” can also be read “Yamai”. Since Sawori is written in Katakana, I don’t know the meaning tho.

Sawori has the habit to call herself in third person from time to time, and by her last name “Yamai”, instead of “Sawori”. She also likes to use expressions that tied with injury, such as “cracking ribs” or words with the kanji “bones” in it.

Sawori loves to ride a bus. She also seems to enjoy it the most with the company of others, even if they do practically nothing and just sit by the bus together.

Sawori is reluctant to buy cute clothes, because she believed she would ruin the clothes since she fell or get injured way too easily.

[toushindai]

2001 English Liveblog

Almost a full week after the book arrived, here’s my liveblog!

Oh, the cover colors online were greener than this! This is more in line with the Japanese one.

"For the first time in my life, I smiled in the presence of someone else" Don't lie you melodramatic little rat you were a happy child. Though I always thought that referred to smiling for Elmer specifically--which would still be a retcon, most likely, given that in 1709 Monica doesn't know the details of Elmer's past and thinks Huey doesn't either.

まあいいや. This is 2001, where everything gets retconned from.

Nothing special done with 拙者, though that doesn't surprise me.

I suppose I'm required to have an opinion on "Let me just say this," huh? I was going to say it's unwieldy, but it's actually fewer syllables than あえて言おう is, isn't it? Other than that, I think I'll wait to form an opinion. Like I've said before, my only impression of the phrase comes from his how Nile uses it, so I don't really know what it sounds like to a Japanese ear.

If I&M don't meet Elmer I'm going to go to Narita's house and sing badly at him until he explains himself.

OK but how does Feldt know about radar

Sylvie is described as 16 or 17 here but about the same age as Niki in 1711 and Niki is described as the trio's age in 1705...

まあいいや

And see, these two aren't "Let me say this" but they're not あえていおう either! They're both variations. 👍 the toushindai seal of cautious approval.

"I saw something interesting on my way out" could u be... more specific

Good translation of 共喰い, that it specifies both directions. I think--given the way the rest of the volume plays out--you're meant to believe here that Elmer chose to be exempted from eating until the epilogue clears that up.

Hm... I thought there was something here in the fan translation that I disagreed with, but whatever it is, it didn't make it into here because now I can't remember what it was.

I love Fil. I love her however you spell her name. If you want someone angry about that one you'll have to go elsewhere because Fil is how I spelled it when I first read it, before I started interacting with the fandom.

Maiza is very ace. Or just immune to the wiles of his dead brother's girlfriend. Or both!

Why do the AA alchemists make such a hobby of declaring which of them is worst in various ways? Or is that just Sylvie's hobby mostly...

I know I'm on the record as being in favor of adding dialogue tags when the English is not as clear as the Japanese about who's speaking, but let's talk about how "said" is not a bad word

WHAT A GOOD FONT for Elmer's...whatever you call it

I feel like... guy doesn't belong in narration

There it is. The Elmer Description. The single Elmer Description for use every time he appears

Gorgeous

Girl you were not an alchemist tho

まあいいや

"You know nothing works when Elmer gets like this." He was a fucking menace on the ship, wasn't he.

It's time! For the rooftop conversation!!

......that thing about tigers and butter doesn't make any more sense when someone else translates it for me, does it.

Ahh, no, leave that as badgers in the same burrow? Elmer is totally the type to translate idioms literally と思うけど

Oh th ank god, I had this horrible feeling for some reason that 嘘じゃない would end up as "I promise!" and that would have been hella inconvenient for Mad Religion

Ahhhh I was hoping it wouldn't be "I ate Fermet"... I know most of y'all pronounce it without the final T but technically it should be there so this rhymes awkwardly. But we haven't been using devour, have we. So here we are.

[extremely retconned voice] fermet would never

まあいいや

What a good

[conspicuous lack of Firo]

"glamorous bombshells with hourglass figures"...Lucrezia

"Elmer's lips warped cheerfully" is such a good way to describe... him

Spruce... it up a bit

I see you there, pun

You're definitely a resident of Liar Town

Do we have "eyes swam" in English? In the sense of looking back and forth, I mean, not with tears.

Fil is so incredibly precious

I mean honestly was Maiza ever happy three hundred years ago?

Right, about Bilt, I never knew why it was Bild in the first place because the katakana definitely have the t sound, not the d sound.

I just remembered we don't technically know Victor at this point in time. ...We'll meet him in 2018, won't we! If YP's current pace turns out to be sustainable.

"You say that like it's easy" I mean you can literally call him on the phone. You can do it right now. And Elmer's aware of it.

"Somewhere in there, I learned about those things" It's nice of you to not tattle on your counterfeiting best friend but I am so completely convinced that it was Huey who had to explain the economy to you. I will not allow this thought to be taken from me.

"Inwardly, he somehow understood that this was Elmer's true nature." Only took you three hundred years.

Let's stop kidnapping Sylvie! No more kidnapping the women. I've decided.

Love how "gave the water to his own son" is "the worst possible outcome" and then... *glares at Huey*

Ten billion? Ten billion, sir? Maybe not ten billion.

Mr. Narita yes we understand that this particular book is inspired by video games. You can stop calling attention to it now.

Nn, there's really no easy way to get the tone of 君が死んだら、俺は笑うよ？ right, is there? For the disconcerting casualness I wonder if it should be something like "Oh, I'll smile when you die!"...

Young husband?? I mean I guess that does say 青年... But he's like, 90 at this point.

Elmer, you should probably protect Fil from Huey tbh.

the Fils...

"How d'ya like them apples?!" oh my god I want Ronny to say this to Elmer please please please please I want it PLEASE

Yeah he's definitely thinking of Huey specifically. 苦笑だし。 I’m still so curious about whether Huey knows about this little deal, though, because like... yknow?

I’ve thought about that way too much.

"I took this chance to designate 'since I've got the opportunity' as a diabolical phrase." Oh my god... sir...

Didn't he say that about DRRR!!'s title actually...?

"In the future, I'll write more standalone volumes" You're a liar.

I forgot to say this when it first appeared but Nibiru is honestly a transliteration I don’t like. It looks very... fakey Japanese. The rest of the names, and “Let me just say this,” I’m relatively content with. Feldt I like a lot.

[jungwoobie]

170816 mx nagoya fan meeting

A bitch is tired but if I don’t write all this down now, I’ll forget everything and I didn’t pay the equivalent of $85 (sorry $90 because it was mandatory for me to pay 500 yen for a drink) to forget shit.

So, today was Monsta X’s fanmeeting in Nagoya and because ya girl don’t value her money, I went. To be honest, when I heard MX were having a world tour, I was hype because I’m in Kpop’s second home, Japan, but then got bitter af because their activities in Japan turned out to be fan meetings.

I was in the wayyyy back so anything that happened off screen I didn’t see. They started out with performances of Shine Forever and 넘사벽 (Incomparable). (I also want to point out that during the perfs, the cameras weren’t shooting (which was kinda strange to me) so every once in a while I maybeee saw one of the member’s heads and a bit of choreo but I pm missed all that shit visually. Audio was great tho)

They played 2 games. The first was a random play dance and bruh you’d think they’ve never done this before like they were Lost and Confused. The punishment for failing the game was a 2x speed dance of up to the end of the first chorus of All In. And Minhyuk was like ‘We do this all the time. Every day. In. Our. Sleep.’ They were perfect at it, it was inspirational. Then the MC said ‘the fans want to see it again’ and when I say Hyungwon looked like he was ready to Fight… so they did it again and it was just as inspirational a second time.

The second game was a drawing competition. 3 themes. 30 seconds to draw. The first theme was 'penguin’. Naturally, Minhyuk’s and Wonho’s were great (except Minhyuk's penguin's looked like a pair of pointy boobs??? and they joked about how Wonho’s looked like a crow). Kihyun’s was also good - definitely the most realistic. Hyungwon drew Pingu. IM’s was cute; it looked like a bird with a bad toupee on. Jooheon drew a sprinkled donut with a beak and one eye. And Shownu’s was also kind of realistic but less so than Kihyun’s. Kihyun won that round. (Whoever got the loudest applause won the round.)

The second theme was 'a place you want to go with monbebe’. I don’t know where exactly Hyungwon wanted to go (Japanese is my second language ok) but there was a river and he said he wanted to eat watermelon together. IM’s was a ferris wheel. Jooheon drew his music studio (in the form of what looked like a bunch of music stands in a circle). Minhyuk’s was super cute; he wanted to do a boat ride (and emphasized holding hands) but drew himself as Luffy from One Piece. Wonho wanted to go to space and we all made fun of his moon looking like a cookie but it was cute too. Kihyun also did space, but only drew the Earth and the moon whereas Wonho threw Saturn in there and left out the Earth. Shownu’s place was also lost on me but it was an island that kind of looked like an egg. Jooheon won that round.

The last theme was 'a self portrait’. Hyungwon emphasized his tiny ears, mouth, and earring. IM’s was super fucking small (read: a mess) and he didn’t have time to draw hair so he wrote 美男 (handsome man) at the top and then ごぬん on the side. I wanted to cry at his katakana misspelling (supposed to be ごめん for 'I'm sorry'); it was so precious. Minhyuk drew a super cute chibi version of himself. Jooheon drew himself with a beanie on. Wonho drew the shojo manga version of his face. Kihyun’s…I actually don’t remember wow. And Shownu’s drew a person with big lips and no hands or feet. The member’s complained it wasn’t realistic and Kihyun made his picture look more buff. Minhyuk’s won that round.

There was only supposed to be one winner overall but the MC decided Kihyun, Jooheon, and Minhyuk were joint winners because the applause was hard to differentiate and they were given famous (?) Nagoya snacks. As soon as they opened the boxes, IM slithered in and snatched some for him and Hyungwon. I think one of the snacks was a kind of mochi and Wonho was super into it. He ate like three of them. Shownu got the least amount of applause for his drawings so his punishment was to do aegyo until he got a good reaction from the audience. He’s so awkward. He tried it three times and tbh even the last attempt’s applause was kinda weak.

Then, Shownu, Wonho, and Hyungwon left the stage to get ready and with the rest, we taught them Nagoya dialect for 'really’ and then they tried it out. Kihyun said 'I really like you’ with extra grease. Jooheon said 'You’re really cute’ in his kukukaka voice. When the 3 who left came back and switched with the other 4, we did it again. Shownu, Wonho, and Hyungwon were all pretty tame in comparison.

Then the games part was over and I went back to not being able to see anything. They sang 하얀소녀, 백설탕 and Oi. There was a brief talk where they talked about Japanese words they knew. Hyungwon listed off a bunch of words as if he was reading the vocab list for the food chapter in his textbook. After that, they did Ready of Not (Japanese ver.), Hero (Japanese ver.), Be Quiet, Blind, Fighter, a remix of Trespass, a remix of Rush (which was honestly kind of odd), and Beautiful (Japanese ver.) Not necessarily in that order. There was some talking thrown in there every couple of songs.

The encore was 넌 어때 (during which the boys threw out bouncy balls with their names on them and I got one of Im’s) and the last song was 5:14 (Last Page). It was magical.

Before the fanmeeting, they had preorders of their next Japanese single and if you bought one you could possibly go to a meet and greet, a high-touch, and/or get a sticker. I bought 3 albums (because I hate myself) and got into the meet and greet. There were 100 participants and we were split into 10 person groups. When we walked in, we sat in a line of chairs. The boys walked in behind us. I gave Kihyun and Shownu (? I don’t really know actually because I have a complex about looking up at people) a high five. Minhyuk asked if we ate dinner. We took a picture. And then it was over. Kind of almost made me wish I pulled a ticket for the high touch cause I was kinda underwhelmed ngl. Shin Hoseok is fucking beautiful in person though.

And then I high-tailed it the fuck out of there so I hope the staff didn’t need anything else from me lmao.

And that’s my shitty Nagoya fanmeeting post.

[impostory]

Learning Japanese 「ひらがな」

So the first step to learning how to read and write (Not so much speak but it’s pretty useful for that) is to learn the かな, or Kana. The Kana is made up of 2 of the 3 Writing systems that is used in Japanese: Hiragana(ひらがな) and Katakana(カタカナ). Katakana is used for English Borrow Words, Names and like...sound effects typically if we’re talking manga. Hiragana is used for basically everything else. 

Hiragana looks like this

「すみません、あのお。。。」 Sumimasen, anō... Excuse me, ummm

It’s super common writing. Sometimes you can get away without knowing Kanji and Katakana depending on what you read(Not reccomended), but if you can’t read Hiragana, you can’t read. “Sumimasen, anō... “ Is something you will never ever ever ever see lol. No one writes japanese like that so it doesn’t even make sense to learn it like this. Enough background tho, onto how to learn it. 

First: find some practice writing sheets. You’re gonna feel like a kindergartner, but you’ll get over it. I used >these<  Second: Naturally you’re gonna write them all out! To learn how to write them properly honestly going through the sheets once wont be enough, but after you get the practice of writing them about 10-20 times you probably don’t need the guidelines anymore and can practice them on any old sheet of paper as long as you have the reference in front of you. Third: You’re gonna wanna spam recognition exercises. Writing alone isn’t enough to learn Hira, it just makes it easier for your brain to see a ち and recognize it as something that might not just be a 5 in a different font. Does nothing to help you memorize that ち sounds like chi. That’s where repetition comes in. Luckily there’s actually a lot of resources for repetition online for this. >Here’s one you can use< this does a good job of helping you cement the connection between the sound and the symbol a bit more. If you aren’t into this, you can make your own flash cards. Finally: Read. You can get pretty good at this with just the repetition, but reading is more or less the most effective way to internalize it. The second you think you’re at around a 70% rate of understanding, start trying to read stuff in hiragana. Raw manga, the subtitles during anime openings, dictionary definitions....whatever man. Just try reading. Reference back to the list if you hit a character you don’t know, or if what you read seems off. Eventually you wont need to look back anymore. Of course you’ll have no idea what you just read, but you’ll know the characters and that’s all I’m concerned with lol.

For reference, I did about 5~ a day and learned it all in a weekish. Frankly, if you care to put in the work, you can skip right into reading in like day probably and just slowly let your writing catch up to your reading. 

That’s it for this “Lesson”. Hope yall took something out of it. 

[kuroheishi]

Hi~ so how much education do you think Yuu has? He was reading "Notes on Nightwalkers", a pretty hefty book, in ch 1. But he failed his spells tests in high school, writing all in hiragana? And they said that his written English and Latin is better than his Japanese, if I'm not mkstaken? (It's been awhile so I'm asking more than anything else)

|| Heyo gray face and nah you’re never late to ask stuff about Yuu, I actually love replying to this kind of things so I woke up all hyped when I saw this ask and I started spamming Nia to discuss about this matter because ahhh I could talk about Yuu and Owari no Seraph all day honestly haha.

To understand better I gotta first say something about the Japanese language and education in general.

Japanese education is probably way harder than our in a sense and my professor said they learn their alphabets slower than we do at Uni actually. Elementary school goes to a period between 6 -12 yo and the first two years they focus mostly on the two main alphabets, Hiragana and Katakana. Every year has like an amount of kanji they gotta learn, I guess since Yuu was 8 when the world has ended he might probably have known if lucky around 80/100 kanji, focusing especially on how to actually write kanji because that’s hard too damn. However if that means anything, knowing that amount of kanji honestly is nothing haha because to read Japanese properly you gotta at least know around 2000 of them and super well even 3000 kanji. Kids at that age don’t even learn all of the meanings and ways to read a kanji, so he learnt literally the basics of his own language.

With that said, we know that in Sanguinem the children were not given any kind of education and since the older children were around their 12, so last year of elementary school, they couldn’t even give a so much better education to the younger kids even if they wanted to.

ABOUT THE TESTS THO LEMME SAY *JUMPS ON THE CHAIR*

As you said he failed completely his Japanese test, but he passed English and Latin with not even such a bad score.

The Japanese test is for sure because of the reasons I explained previously, Yuu only had the chance to know well the Hiragana alphabet; also he might have not learnt more in the four years after Guren has saved him because

education has never been Yuu’s priority.

Until he doesn’t need information he can get only with studying and here we go with your reference about the “Notes on Nightwalkers” book Yuu was reading in Sanguinem in the first chapter EVERYTHING IS LINKED I LOVE THIS.

If you think about it, probably all the vampires in Sanguinem are not Japanese

Do you remember that Ferid? Our fave damn vampire yeah, he allowed children to get into his mansion and library. I believe all of his books or anyways most of them are in English/Latin or who knows, maybe other European languages too.

It wasn’t even Mika who had to bring that book to Yuu honestly, it might even be anyone who got to enter in Ferid’s library and bring that to the city. 

The thing is, for what we know about Mika, his mother was a full old school Christian or occult weird person anyways.

I wonder, the Bible is usually in Latin or for anyone who might want to read it, in English it might be easier than Latin right? So perhaps, Mika had the chance to learn basics in Latin and English due to his mother’s belief or something. 

I guess that is how Mika might have helped Yuu to learn those, even if just a little; but after all, 4 years in Sanguinem were probably enough for Yuu to learn those two languages better, thanks to Ferid’s books and his determination on killing vampires to save everyone in there.

So in the end, I am so very sure that hah, not his fault but Yuu’s education level is very low, around the level of an elementary school child.

[rigelmejo]

6/28 I DID A LOT

WOOH

WOOH

I talked in chinese today! For around a half hour!! AHHHHHHHH

ANYWAY

AHHHHHHH

IM SO HAPPY I WAS UNDERSTANDABLE AHHGGHGSIUSJAJEJDJEEJIE

So first of all I practiced with Google translate today beforehand (lol yes machine translate isn’t perfect). I clicked the app, clicked transcribe, spoke in chinese then saw if the English translation it was producing was close enough to what I was trying to mean to say. (Also I learned chinese transcribe will need to process for a few moments if you play Chinese audio like from a podcast because at first it will give you a sucky transcription lol and then correct itself). Anyway so I did that and quickly learned: Google translate WILL fucking think I am speaking sentences when I’ve only said a couple words of my sentence because I pause “too long” so when I tried thinking of tones or grammar I spoke too fucking slow for the app so BAM I had to speak faster for the app just to comprehend me. So I did not practice Thinking about how the fuck to say things right much, just how to recall words on a fucking speed time limit lol. So uh that was an experience. I’ll definitely say that my 学习普通话 app is way better for me actually practicing pronunciation with any success, because Google just will NOT tolerate me speaking slowly goddamn.

Anyway so then tonight I spoke with my language partner. Well

WELL

good news: I was understood, I was told I sound pretty standard and they can tell I maybe imitate some peoples phrases and words from shows I watch (which in this case is a compliment since they said weeks ago when I asked how they improved their standard mandarin accent for a speech competition that’s what They did and the kind of shadowing they suggested I try doing more for accent work).

My grammar and word choice was understandable (I KNOW I wasn’t perfect and there were fucking mistakes Especially just notable spots where I forgot common words and tried to talk Circles around those words to describe them since I know Enough words to kind of “explain around” and come up with a more word description of a simple word I forgot sometimes but fuck is it probably awkward to listen to. Like I forgot “back then/at that time” so I said “the time when I was in high school” or “in high school I..” just because I couldn’t say “that time” on the spot, also fucking I forgot how to say “also” and “or” in certain ways and just had to figure out a different way to make my point like “this is like that” or “not the same” ToT).

Anyway regardless it’s a real big accomplishment to me. Reasons being: 1. I’ve never talked in chinese that long straight or to someone else communicating, or telling stories about my life and asking questions and actually testing my fucking communication abilities past small talk. Even talking alone to myself it’s just phrases or small situations where if I forget a word I just stop, so this was huge for me. 2. I did not have time to think about tones period while talking today with my language partner so like being comprehensible is!!!! GREAT. Considering I tried speaking to a language partner simple common word tone pair examples or very simple small talk at 5 months into learning and remember being incomprehensible like 50% of the time. Versus me now a little under 2 years in so being able to simply not be constantly thinking about tones and still know I might be understood (and in this specific case was understood) is nice to know. 3. I did better at winging vocabulary and talking my way around words I didn’t know than i thought I could. 4. REALLY simply tone and grammar being comprehensible is blowing my mind on its own - I know there were many mistakes (I personally could hear my 3rd tone not always sounding right to my own ear, and know I heard a few grammar mistakes I heard after I’d made my point lol). But just being comprehensible enough for someone understand my points even if I made those mistakes was really cool. 5. I’m hoping this means all the things I’ve been doing lately: the Listening Reading, the watching shows with English subs this month while repeating some of the Chinese lines to myself, listening to audiobooks and repeating many of the lines to myself, and the weekly language exchange I’ve been doing, have all been helping to some degree. Improving production skills is not something I’ve tried studying before and so basically all that I’m doing is flailing around trying stuff and hoping something is useful. It’s nice to see something must be if I’ve managed this.

Anyway it was just very very cool to be understandable. ;-; At this time last year I was absolutely assuming it would take years to get even a little understandable. Also for now idk this proved to me to maybe just stick to shadowing for a while and Not specifically thinking of tones While actively speaking. For a while I thought of them actively which made me clearer and I think was important and helped, at this point currently I think sometimes i overthink and trying to speak from memory/more shadowing practice might help it become a bit more automatic? And then I can go back to some corrective work where I’m messing up specifically or haven’t internalized certain words/phrases tones maybe.

—

IN OTHER NEWS

today I ALSO played 4 hours of Kingdom Hearts II in Japanese WHICH WAS AN EXPERIENCE

AN EXPERIENCE IVE NEVER HAD BEFORE LIKE FUCKING THIS

So 1. EONS easier than last time I studied Japanese. For context at 2-2.5 years into studying Japanese I played the opening of KH2. I remember it was brutal, I used my phone constantly to look up words, but I got through like the opening portion to the first save point after the haunted mansion (so like is that day 2? Basically what’s usually .5-1 hour of play or less that took me a few hours back then). It was doable, kinda brutal, but also I have kh2 near to my heart so I could play it without reading when I felt drained. Now?? I had over a year break from Japanese study (maybe 2-3 years break idk). I reviewed Japanese in I think March-April 2021 this year. April/May to June (now) I’ve been studying some new material. The biggest new material being some more Nukemarine memrise decks, and Clozemaster as of this month. So like... this Eons of improvement is after a long ass gap of no study, a cram review, and some just beyond last-times-progress kind of new study. It is a HUGE difference to me in how it feels.

I did not use a dictionary at all this time. I did not play slow either, I read at a speed much more bearable, I comprehended most sentences totally (understanding words because of a mix of knowing most words, knowing the context for the words since I know KH2 WELL, knowing Hanzi from chinese, and thanks to Clozemaster of all things feeling a lot better/quicker with Japanese grammar comprehension), and a few sentences I knew the overall gist because of recognizing the Hanzi (tho they were being used in words that aren’t similar to Chinese), the grammar overall (the rough intention of the sentence), and knowing KH2 well enough to remember the main idea of th English sentence. So it was overall a much more pleasant, easygoing experience this time around playing! It was something where I COULD play 50 hours of Japanese KH2 now.

This kind of showed me some things: first that knowing a basis in chinese (for me) makes a huge difference. Kanji now make words easier for me to learn and guess. I can now recognize when some pronunciations are somewhat similar to Chinese words. I can recognize when some kanji are used to mean Different things from Chinese (since I know the English context too). I can also now actually Like and Appreciate that KH2 specifically uses kanji in some speech bubbles and scenes then hiragana for the same words at other times - it gives me a chance to use context to see both versions of the word and learn both the pronunciation and kanji a bit more. Now I have katakana English like words and kanji (in the sense of their similarities to Hanzi) and my basic grammar grasp to rely on to parse sentences which makes all of it much easier. For me chinese was just easier, and that’s now paying off also in making Japanese easier in some ways than it was before.

I also appreciate now why “prior context” and “comprehensible input” are encouraged so much. My effort level is comfortable and NOT draining, so I could’ve kept my playing for hours and I did not need a dictionary for new words because I had TONS of context. Part of this is KH2 being a game I know super well (so even back at year 2 it was doable if draining when no other video game probably would’ve been doable at all). So it makes sense now it would be the first comfortable feeling one. It is VERY comprehensible input for me, especially now with some of the Japanese improvements I’ve made.

Whereas I tried to play crisis core a month ago (doable but DRAINING in part because I knew the game so comprehensible but I didn’t HAVE the game remembered by heart like KH2 so I had to slow down to read everything slowly and figure out words much slower with no prior meaning in my head for many parts), and persona 3 (which was doable but DRAINING in part because I have little prior context compared to cc or KH2 and in part because it has so much reading). Also KH2 is easier to read than cc or persona 3 - kh2 is obviously meant for age 10+ and so the amount of text I’m required to read is shorter, a lot of conversational stuff and not layered (cc had a lot of technical paragraphs of directions for missions and persona is aimed at older teens and has much more like “think about it more long term” conversations which I struggle more to parse). Also just persona 3 has so much dialogue I started speed reading just to get to a save point which felt Draining. Whereas KH2 the reading is comfortable so I don’t read too slow, and so it doesn’t feel as draining since it’s not slow nor do I have to rush at lower comprehension to get through it - I can just read and comprehend everything as much as I can at a reasonably non draining pace.

Also I DO think Clozemaster (so kudos to u app) is actually helping noticeably. I’m doing Clozemaster Japanese by common word tracks (still in the 100 most common words sentences and almost done). I’ve been doing listening mode and then reading sentences after. I can TELL it’s helped me already with the following. I’m doing better at recognizing some grammar structure particles/words/conjugations in various forms and levels of politeness. I now have much less issue telling how to separate sentences into word/grammar functions - it makes everything just much easier to start being able to segment my sentences as I read so I can just pinpoint WHAT parts I know versus don’t know and what their rough function is (and since in KH2 I know the English lines usually it makes it way easier to guess what words mean roughly what English translation). I also read some manga during this past month that’s also helped with this skill. I noticed Clozemaster also is just helping with it a lot since in Clozemaster the politeness level varies and stuff so I’m forced to practice guessing and figuring it out more with Clozemaster sentences over and over. The listening mode has helped because I can tell that some of the most common words I can hear more instinctively now and read aloud at a more normal pace now. I still CLEARLY read over listening when the subtitles in KH2 are there if I don’t know a word, so my listening has HUNDREDS or likely thousands of hours to go (my Chinese is much much better). But I can already notice the sheer fact Clozemaster listening question mode is forcing me to 1 HEAR Japanese more (and I need like what 2000 hours listening) and 2 start recognizing more easily at least recognizing words I’ve learned when I hear them (whereas before I would struggle to hear certain words even if I’d studied just because I’d read-studied a lot but not actually heard much of those words much). Now this all isn’t a huge help with new words in KH2 since I’m learning to read them from the game but my listening isn’t picking them up or Parsing them well. But as far as IN Clozemaster: yes the constant audio word drilling is helping me recognize words by sound which is great since thanks to Chinese kanji recognition is now not intensely difficult, it’s the sound recognition and match up to spelling that’s now the major confusion for me. I mean grammar is also confusing.. and will take years... I do think Clozemaster forcing me to practice interpreting the grammar somewhat with nothing to help me is helping me at least feel less drained by the grammar. I used Clozemaster before for french and chinese at the stage between graded readers and actual native speaker material, and I think for Japanese it’s also Good for this purpose. Clozemaster is good for a lot of immersion-like sentence reading practice, with tools to make it easier like a translation and mostly words you know in each sentence. Making it a bit easier than just diving into the deep end into a random novel. I do think it helps with preparing you for less learner-tailored materials a bit while still being easier than native speaker materials so you can practice without feeling youre drowning.

anyway ahh. WOOH I PLAYED KH2 in japanese today!!! I HAD FUN

gonna do it some more.

kh2 is maybe THE original reason i started trying to learn japanese. its really fun playing it now.

—-

And finally, while I’m at it: I am ALMOST done with the Sundial arc in Guardian Listening Reading wise. I’m on chapter 17. I have like 2 days left so who knows maybe I can manage to finish the sundial arc we’ll see.

What I mostly did this month was Redo L-R chapter 1-12 with a second audiobook, read the novel print version up to chapter 12, read chapter 1-2 in the traditional print version, also read maybe 4 chapters of other random things, listened to audiobook files of stuff overall idk 20+ times while repeating after a lot of lines, did a small amount of Clozemaster chinese (mostly just Radio mode), did 30 min - 1 hour writing or speaking language exchange sessions once a week, and watch a bunch of Chinese shows with English subs this month while repeating after a lot of lines.

As you can tell my reading Amount lowered significantly since the past couple months. However, I think I’ve pushed up my listening amounts a little.

[wondersbeyondcompare]

Fan Dorm Introduction Videos

AGAIN, PLEASE DON’T WATCH THE ABOVE VIDEO UNTIL I SAY SO IN THIS POST!! TUMBLR DESKTOP WON’T LET ME PUT IT ANYWHERE ELSE (;o;)

I said in a previous post that I would think about doing fan dorm introduction videos, and I think I’ve found all the apps I need to create them! (*^▽^*) 

I had to come up w/ a slightly alternate beginning tho 😅 I still have the smoke and the mirror, but I couldn’t find anything to replicate the mirror shine effect that wouldn’t: 

a) mess w/ the video quality

b) have the effect behind a subscription I wasn’t willing to pay for OTL

So, in the end I just went w/ a flickering image in a mirror 💁‍♀️It kiiind of fits the whole aesthetic of hidden dorms on campus tho??? Like lost footage??? Where after the main part of the film was over, there would be a glitch effect and suddenly BOOM there’s the hidden (possibly cursed) secret bonus reel!!!! 😮

(￣▽￣) Yeah... maybe that’s just me...

Anyway, I replicated the other parts of the intro videos (zooms, transitions, ending, etc.) best I could! I might make some slight changes in the future to make it look nicer (pls excuse the messy silhouettes; I’ll definitely make it neater in the actual videos), but overall, this is a pretty solid template! Ummm;;; I didn’t have a fan dorm of my own, so I had to work w/ what I had (￣▽￣;) Pls don’t take the video too seriously. I just wanted to have some fun while making it, so I added a special guest while I did so...

(・∀・) you can watch the video now

With this project, I’ll make each fan dorm a separate video post! (The only reason I combined all the dorms in my previous video was b/c sometimes I would have only 1 student in a dorm and it made me sad to leave them by themselves (´；Д；`)) 

What I’ll need for each submission is:

1. Dorm Name

2. Dorm Symbol/Insignia/Logo

3. Sprites of your Characters (full body would be nice!! but waist-up/bust shots of them would be cool too! just make sure to keep it consistent for each OC)

4. A Background you want your OCs to stand against

5. Basic Info for each character

Name/ Name in katakana/ Voice claim (if they have one)/ Grade/ Birthday/ Height/ Age

To make it easier, you can send me links to their profiles as long as all the info’s on there! Same goes for the character sprites!

6. Voice Clips of their Voice Claims (I can work off voice claim videos as long as you tell which line you want!; same thing goes for any other videos too! just send me a link!)

You don’t have to have a voice claim, btw! If it makes it less awkward, sending in lines that your OC might say that I could use as subtitles would be a fine alternative!

Also, please keep the clips about 5-8 seconds each! It can go a bit over, but no longer than half a minute! 

7. Names of their Voice Claims

8. Translations for Voice Clips (I can help find translations if the video you send me doesn’t have any! If you don’t want to include subtitles, we can go with that too)

9. What blog you want to tagged under

PLEASE READ:

- You can send me everything via DM if you want to! However, it would be nice if you could send me any images through reblog, Discord (tar0#3887), or email (I’ll give you one of my addresses; just message me about it). I ran into some problems when saving sprites from the Tumblr app’s DM system back then that I kinda want to avoid now;;; If there’s no other way, tho, then private messaging is fine! 

- Don’t chain reblog this post! I don’t want to make this post any longer than it needs to be, so if you’re sending anything to me via reblog just reblog the original.

- Submissions and asks would be a good way to send images/info too! (Dw, I won’t post your ask/submission; I’ll send a message to you as soon as I receive it) Just turn off anon/tell me your blog name so I know who you are!

- Again, please don’t be mad at me if I post other stuff while doing this :(；ﾞﾟ'ωﾟ'): I’ll try to work as efficiently as I can, but sometimes I need a break;;;;

- Submission deadline will be July 31! I’ll be posting the videos at different times, so I don’t flood the dash. I probably won’t get that many, tho, so maybe that won’t be a problem lol

- For any additional questions, too, DM me! (*^▽^*)

- Reblogs just to boost this are also appreciated!