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That Putin Interview

That Putin Interview

So as you know, there was an interview with Putin a couple of days ago.   Here are some thoughts. Couple things. First, I didn’t watch it, but I read most of the transcript. Secondly, I don’t have a dog in the fight.  To me, the ideal outcome is, Russia “wins”, but is so weakened they can’t do much with it other than lick their wounds and whine about how much everything sucks.  Well, more accurately, the ideal outcome is both Russia and Ukraine lose, but in practice, that’s unlikely.  Like… Read More »That Putin Interview

Liminal

This blog is nearly six years old now. And tonight I came very close to shutting it down.  I’ve talked about doing that before, and I talked myself out of it, and the primary reason is, I’d just end up spinning another one up anyway.  I can’t stop writing.  I’ve never been able to stop writing. I started learning Japanese in 2018.  The first post here is March, 2018.  It is almost March, 2024.  I started learning Japanese at around the time (give or take) that I started this blog,… Read More »Liminal

Japan

Before I work today, I have a post I need to make.  I’m making this post because I need to make it.  The only real choice I have, really, is whether I post it privately, or publicly, and for now I chose publicly. Japan hurts, and I don’t know why. When I first started learning Japanese, I did so because I felt a strong attraction to the language, country, and people.  I don’t have this feeling about any other country.  There are countries I absolutely loathe (Russia, North Korea), countries I… Read More »Japan

Why I Love Anime, But Not Anime Fans

I started learning Japanese in 2018, which is about six years ago.  I haven’t progressed nearly as far as I’d like, but I guess one could make the argument that the slow burn was helpful in making sure that what did stick, actually did.  So maybe it was the right pace for me, even though it’s really frustrating for me. I stayed away from anime for the longest times, because I didn’t like the “community”. Maybe a year or so ago, I started to watch anime for real, and found I… Read More »Why I Love Anime, But Not Anime Fans

Reductive Theming

I changed this site’s theme. Why?  Because I can. I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either.  At least everything matches for now.  It proved to be almost impossible to do what I really wanted to, but I’ll try again later. I picked a slightly reductive font for the header.  Why?  Because it’s fun.  After all, this blog is about Japan and Japanese stuff.  Right? Well, if you don’t like it, you know how I feel about that by now, I guess. Will I be posting more?  Probably,… Read More »Reductive Theming

Good Riddance to Bad Localizers

Or, I finally found a reason to learn Japanese. One thing I’ve noticed as I study Japanese is that the translators often aren’t very good.  They tend to make choices that seem designed to water down the message the mangaka is trying to send half the time. For example, one of the first animes I watched was “Sound! Euphonium” which was a great anime, one of the best.  At one point there was an interaction between Kumiko and Asuka.  Kumiko says something translated correctly as “Welcome back” or some such. … Read More »Good Riddance to Bad Localizers

I Love, and I Hate, Anime.

Over the past few months, as I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been watching a lot of anime.  I’ve been trying to be a little selective about what I watch – a lot of it is poorly animated trash, a lot of it is just mid, and some of it is truly a work of art.  The anime that’s a work of art has actually changed my life in many ways, and the rest of it has pretty much been a waste of time. Some anime has been a surprisingly emotional experience… Read More »I Love, and I Hate, Anime.

All sorts of updates and stuffs

I have a bunch of stuff to talk about, and some updates, too!  Let’s start with the updates. The first update is, I opened a new blog.  You can find it at animelife.blog.  This is actually a little bit similar to Texihabara (which I will be repurposing or closing soon, and I should have done that months ago), but this is stuff I actually want to talk about, instead of just trying to make content for the sake of making content, which is what Texihabara was.  I will be reviewing… Read More »All sorts of updates and stuffs

Why I Joined – and Left – Twitter (X)

Over the past year, I was experimenting with X.  I joined about the time when Elon bought it.  Almost to the day, actually.  I hated Twitter before and actively avoided it, but I really did appreciate what Elon was trying to do with it, at least according to his stated goals.  And, it really was a ride. Immediately, I started getting regaled with right-wing grifters and I found it to be really toxic, honestly.  I had to do a lot of muting and learned to stifle my first impulse, which was… Read More »Why I Joined – and Left – Twitter (X)

Anime Changed My Life

Hi. I haven’t posted here for about a year now – almost exactly a year, actually.  Has it been that long?  It doesn’t seem that long, and it almost seems longer.  I came very close to just deleting this entirely, and I’m probably going to go through shortly and hide many posts that I’m not proud of.  Some I’ll keep though.  I did move a lot of content over to hiddenjapanese.com (and I need to add more), and I have a few projects I’m working on. So, what happened to… Read More »Anime Changed My Life