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Japan

Why I Hate Anime Dubs

I hate anime dubs.  I mean I really can’t stand them.  I’ve tried to watch one or two, and I always end up dropping it after a few episodes.  Subtitles are far better in my opinion. Is this because I’m an elitist who thinks that the anime is only good in its native language? Well… that’s true, but that’s not why I hate anime dubs.  It’s close, but not really. Is it because I’m upset at the localizers for fucking up the dubs? Well, I am, but that’s not why… Read More »Why I Hate Anime Dubs

Nijigasaki

This morning I wrote a post in Japanese. It’s probably not very good and odds are I’ll hide or delete it at some point.  But it’s really the only way I’m going to be able to practice, well, one of the few anyway.  So I’ll probably do that a lot more frequently.  Turns out my vocabulary is a little bigger than I thought, I guess. The post was about “Love Live, Nijigasaki school idol club”. As I mentioned, I really like the “Love, Live” franchise.  I’m a large part of… Read More »Nijigasaki

Sadness, Depression, and Hope

Anime sometimes makes me think. Most of the time, I don’t think it’s supposed to, being honest.  I think it’s generally supposed to be light entertainment, or tell a story, or basically fill the same role that live-action TV does in the west.  I think it may be a character flaw of mine that I think as hard on it as I do, and I’m pretty sure that most of the time, this makes me something of an outlier at best, and a pariah at worst. Nonetheless, it does.  It… Read More »Sadness, Depression, and Hope

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

Abe Shinzo: Why Gun Control Fails

Today (or yesterday, depending), Abe Shinzo was assassinated.  Abe Shinzo, for those who don’t know, was a fairly beloved prime minister of Japan for quite a long time.  To be honest, that, apart from his name, is the only thing I know about him, so I’ll leave memorialization and mourning for those who knew him better.  All murders are awful, of course, but I don’t virtue signal by mourning when I’m not at all affected. But for me, it is interesting to note that the person who committed the act made… Read More »Abe Shinzo: Why Gun Control Fails

Japanese: a Failed Experiment – Part Deux

I attempted to write this post previously but it took on a tone I didn’t like, so I’m going to try to redo it.  Last time I talked about why I consider learning Japanese a personal failure.  Now I want to talk about why I don’t think it is. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I failed at Japanese.  But it did serve a very important purpose, and I may yet pursue it for other reasons or considerations. I remember when I first truly became interested in learning Japanese.  I don’t… Read More »Japanese: a Failed Experiment – Part Deux

Morning Musume, and the “Sealing” of Babymetal

So, today, I have been working on adding further reviews to Texihabara. There’s a bit of a technical issue I have to iron out where not all of the reviews are accessible, but I suppose that’s something that I can iron out with a bit of support and elbow grease. Anyway, the two songs I did so far were Koi no Dance Site, and Happy Summer Wedding. Now I’m not going to lie and tell you that I think they were great and wonderful songs, because I don’t. But I… Read More »Morning Musume, and the “Sealing” of Babymetal

Bushido: There Are No Answers

I think this is going to be another long post on the level of the series of posts I wrote on transactional love, earlier. So buckle up, here we go. I have mentioned before that I was raised in a religious cult. This gave me a lot of perspectives that are unusual, and not understood by most people. I have come to accept this, and just consider it a fact of life that I will not, ever, find any common ground with my readers. So instead, I come at blogging… Read More »Bushido: There Are No Answers

Kawaii

Kawaii may be the only real Japanese word many people know. And they really don’t know what it means. It’s usually translated as “cute”. And that’s one of the meanings, for sure. Maybe it’s even the primary meaning. But that’s not really what it means. They actually have another word for cute, “aikurushii” which seems to have a more pure meaning of “cute”. Not pure innocence-wise, but it seems to be more of a direct translation to our word “cute”. I think a better translation of kawaii is “childlike”. That’s… Read More »Kawaii

Morning Musume

I have been feeling a little ill today. I think maybe all of the stress and depression from the last few days have been getting to me. Or I’m just sick. I dunno. So I watched a few old episodes of Morning Musume variety shows. I’ve told the story before of how I started with my journey of learning Japanese – I saw their “English lesson”, saw all of the neat characters scrolling across the screen, and told myself I’d learn what they meant. Several years later, I largely have… Read More »Morning Musume