Flailing in Slow Motion (music video)

This video will make you feel so good. Stay for the sumo wrestler!



I don't usually see much point in re-posting something from Japan Probe, as most of my readers have probably already bookmarked it, but this find was too good.

Kyounshi (Hopping Vampire) Boom Classic Promo Vid

Had an interesting day today at the school. We held a barbecue and later I introduced the Chinese students to some videos of my favorite Kung-fu practitioner, Sammo Hung. This led into my favorite Kung-fu movie, Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind, which then led into discussion with a teacher of the Kyounshi Boom in the 80s.
So here is a video promo intended for Japanese people of some very odd Chinese flicks from that time and genre.


The Narrator's comments are pretty funny. "The Hong Kong Highlander!" "Can you read this character?" "They do ecchi too..." "A car comes at us!"

Now I must waste some time watching Mr. Vampire.

Biohazard 5 Japanese Commercial

Hey it's Chiaki Kuriyama (the girl that played Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill)! And she's playing with... whassisname from all those dramas... little help here? Anyways, as he gives a little assist, the CM says "ふたりでバイオ". Futari de Bio means "[Play] Bio together". Of course you may know Biohazard as Resident Evil if you are from an English-speaking background. But the Biohazard title sounds cooler with that creepy guy's voice (towards the end of the commercial--as far as I know, the say it in all the games at the title screen), which reminds me of a video I have to post soon...

Super Fast Mario

The Japanese narration is what sells this.


[via The Snow]
If you like this sort of thing, you may enjoy the series on the "green devil" at Nico Nico Douga even more; it had me laughing out loud, or LOLing, as the youngsters are reported to express. You have to be a member of the Nico Nico Douga to watch, but isn't about time you joined the age and LOLed as well?
Jeshii (of Yamato Damacy fame) has collected them all here.

Bunraku Puppet does an Exorcist Impression

Well this is creepy. More info and pics at Pinktentacle.

J commercials: Blood and Soda Edition

I loves me some strange Japanese commercials...

Pretty funny and odd. Is that Bob Sapp?
Next up, an funny Ramen add:

Finishing today, a pretty good Fanta commercial:

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Lecherous Bonus:
Speaking of the Beach, Okinawa, you are coming on a little strong there. And hip is not butt.
Non-lecherous Bonus: The Fanta school series with subtitles. I still love these.

Cute Little Nazis

Oh dear. I've blogged before about how Japanese people sometimes don't get that what they are doing is incredibly offensive, especially when it comes to the Nazi thing. I remember one time going into the "weird-cool foreign stuff" store and seeing a display of Mein Kampf complete with a flag that had a swastika, skull, and S.S. lightning bolts, as if it was just one more cool thing you could get into.
So the girls in this video, well they don't really surprise me when they show ignorance, or cheerfully do a Hitler impression at the end.
The hair pin was classic too; only a Japanese girl would think of making Hitler into another cute character.

[tanks to TokyoCooney]
EDIT: The girls had to appologize, or at least their company did.
ALSO EDIT: Here are some cute cosplay Nazi photos. What? Yeah.

The American Akira (Coming 2011)

This is what would happen indeed. I think this actually a reference to the upcoming live action movie
Oh yeah, You forgot CANADA!
[tanks to Brett]

The Scottish Play Becomes The Japanese Play

Note on the title:　It is bad luck for actors to mention the play MacBeth by name, so "The Scottish Play" is what they use instead. People who have perused my wishlist may have noticed that I like the Immortal Bard, and I have fond memories of seeing Romeo and Juliet adapted to an early American Spanish colony setting, so I was happy to hear that MacBeth has gotten the Japanese treatment:

All of the story and most of the original language are present, although John R. Briggs' adaptation throws in generous amounts of Japanese references that prove only occasionally jarring. (A handy glossary of words and place names is provided in the program.)

The three witches have thus become three "yojos," whose incantations are delivered in kabuki-like fashion. And when Shogun Macbeth (Kaipo Schwab) sends his assassins to murder Banquo (Ariel Estrada), they are, of course, samurai warriors.

Pretty cool. More info at the original article. Also, info on the theater/production group here.

[via One Big Japan]

Asobi Seksu

Everyone who is down with romaji probably thinks this is going to be a scandalous post, but let me assure you, Asobi Seksu is merely the name of a really great band whose singer does both English and Japanese lyrics. I thought I would introduce them to you, so here is a video to that effect (actually just a fan video, but the song is golden):

Super JLPT site

EDIT: Hmm, it looks like there may be a few mistakes on the site I recommend here, so proceed with caution. For instance, I just got:

(2)授業終了のラベルを聞くが＿＿＿、生徒たちは教室を飛び出して行った。
1.早くて
2.早いが
3.早くも
4.早ければ

Wherein the correct answer is listed as "早いが", but I am pretty sure they mean か, not が. Unless I am mistaken. Also, I think ラベル is supposed to be just ベル. I guess you get what you pay for. And now on with the post that is for some reason still offering the link to this site:
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If you are not subbed to my shared RSS bits, you may have missed this, but it's so impressive thus far that I could not just relegate it to there. Lucky you, Mr. too lazy to sub to my rss bits feed man. So I give those of us slaving away at JLPT studies this link. Seriously, click it.

So far, it serves as a grim confirmation of what I have been predicting. I am not ready. Last night I whittled my Anki deck down to just 1kyu terms (the others still exist somewhere). Anyways, I've improved it quite a bit from when it was simply a list I found on a website and converted it to an Anki deck. I will offer it for download here soon, as I have in the past. My advice to you is never be satisfied with fishy definitions, even from me.

I had more thoughts on the last post, and made a fancy picture-thingy to explain the ideas I had to help fix what I was rambling about, but forgot to bring it with me on the thumb drive. Perhaps next time as well. You might want to consider my RSS feed for this blog for your update needs. In fact, I have tons of RSS feeds for you. But putting the topic back to last post, someone was wondering agog about what the heck I was talking about. The problem is it would take a long time to describe it to you, and to study in the manner I outlined would take a textbook that only exists in my head as a book-amoeba. It may mitosisize soon too. Anyways, my advice at this stage, besides take all my advice with a grain of salt, is to buy (or torrent for the evil among us) the Remembering the Kanji books. Master the first two volumes. Well, actually, I think just getting familiar with volume 2 is enough at first, but master 1. Then read Tae Kim's guide all the way through. That's the best Claytonian system-substitution I can offer at this time. Anyways, I've revised my thoughts into a more holistic, staggered system-amoeba in my head zone. And there is always the approach that people mentioned in the comments last time: All Japanese All the Time. Thing is, there seem to be some gaps in his system I've never gotten to figure out. I am sure the problem lies with me. I just want to know where he got 10,000 example sentences, and how he made sure they are good and full of a variety of words. It sounds intriguing though. Maybe he should make a textbook.

Geeze, another long post about something only a few lingistics nerds care about. And my tone is odd; no doubt because I have been reading John Hodgeman's blog.

Couple Vids and my NPR Thing

A couple vids I found interesting. The first one is from Sayonara Zestubou Sensei (Farewell, Mr. Despair), done for some reason in Mike Mignola's idiosyncratic Hellboy style. Do Japanese people even know what Hellboy is?

Next is a somehow touching 思い出億千万 short. The original song is from Megaman. He is a bit of a meme in Japan.

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I will probably be interviewed by NPR soon. Come to think of it, this will earn me major cool points with myself. I will totally be my hero for a day. Anyways, it's about Japanese game shows. What shows do you watch? I've gotta compile a list of what I think is the most popular and impacting...

A few funny Japan/Asian pics

This picture is so perfectly melodramatic! "I can use it this much for free you say?! A moving English study site" I try to make jokes with this flavor all the time, but whooosh! Over their heads.

Someone, I beg you, tell me where in Japan this restaurant is.

I get the impression that everybody else considers her hat to be funny. Gotta zoom this one.

I know this is in Japan somewhere as well, but even I can't imagine the road being built so incompitently.

Degree of look-a-likeness: 100%. My 1st graders call me Mr. Satan instead of Mr. B. Or Mr. X or H.

I threatened the making of Japanese LOL cats a while ago, but these are all I got through.

I couldn't be bothered to find the originals or give credit.

And the child-speech I choose as a LOL-speak equivalent hurts my brain.

Enter the Fat Dragon

Sammo Hung is one of my heroes. This playlist is one of his innovative kung-fu comedies. It's always interesting when I recognize a word or kanji somehow due to it's adoption into Japanese.　If you want to use a Chinese word that will be understood and get you erai points with a Japanese person, I suggest 無問題 which is pronounced moumontai and means "no problem". I love it! People know it because it was a title of a rare (in the sense of collaborations) Hong Kong/Japanese comedy movie that just so happened to have a Sammo Hung cameo.

Keep an eye out for the crazy foreigners acting like Chinese villains and vice-versa in Enter the Fat Dragon.

How to Study Japanese: Japanese Tools Online

So here's the links for things mentioned in the videos (the sidebar I mentioned is to your right as we speak).

Get Rikaichan at this site. You will need to download its dictionary separately. I also use the names dictionary. Usually shift switches on the fly between dictionaries and kanji details.

You can join Lang-8 here.

Download Anki here.

You can download many kinds of Anki decks here.

The audio links I mentioned are here.

Firefox search engines can be found at Mycroft.

Bonus for ya: All the 1kyu grammar terms are explained in my own poor words here. A few 2kyu grammar explanations can be found here And my general advice for taking the JLPT can be seen here.

A great way to have Firefox with you wherever you go is to use the USB-drive version from Portableapps.
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Need to know where something is or have a suggestion for what else is good to use to study via computers and internet? Leave a comment.
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And finally, my only other video on studying Japanese: What Books to Read

Please spread this info if you found it useful!

I have ongoing Japanese-related themes on this very blog. Here they are:
# Sign/Ad J
# J Slang
# J News w/Pics
# J Vids
# Karaoke
# J Commercials
# Let's Yoji!

In case you used them...

Certain links are now gone from the sidebar, but here they are in this post, for posterity, or in case anyone was using them. I really do recommend the readings; you're not likely to find a link to the works of Clark Ashton Smith elsewhere on the web.


Occult Texts
Clark Ashton Smith
Edgar Allen Poe
Arthur Machen
H.P. Lovecraft
Lord Dunsany

Non-cthulhian stuff
Sacred Texts
"Koans"
Sci-fi

Entertainment
Daily Portal Z
Midnight Eye
Twitchfilms
Same Hat!
Ryuganji

ESL Teaching
JET Programme
Ohayo,Sensei!
Genki English◎
ESLKidsstuff
NATTO◎
ESLcafe

RSS options

・First, the basic feed for The Hopeless Romantic is here. Well, actually a few of them are, ready for the feed reader of your choice; just click on the one you use when you get there.

Okay, if you are wondering what RSS is and why it can make the internet better for you and how it will help you keep up with the blog, you need to watch the video in the middle of this post.


More RSS options after the video!

What is RSS?

I know a lot of people out there, particularly moms, that don't know about RSS yet.

Okay, RSS is basically a code sent out by participating webpages that lets you know when said webpages have updated. Just watch this video to see how it works (so easy!)
Once you've got that grokked, choose a RSS reader. The best one is probably Google Reader. If you have a google account, you already have google reader. I also recommend using Firefox because if a site has a feed, you know right away and can just click to add the feed to your reader or even bookmarks.

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Clear as mud? Well I hope you enjoy using this to explore not just my site, but also the whole web.
The following links are not part of this blog, but they are related to me...
・The feed for my world famous Youtube vlogs is here.
・My Twitter is here.
・I have a shared items feed, powered by Google Reader (see the "what is RSS?" section if you are confused by this), but basically, if I find something interesting on the web, I will share it through this, and maybe write a little commentary. The shared items page is here (ninjas!), and the feed is here.
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・There is a feed for all the Japan blogs I follow (but don't write myself) here.
・And all the Japanese language blogs I study can be subbed to here.

Making an MP3 into a SMAF (.mff) file on OS X for lulz

Did you understand that title?
I'm hoping someone out there sees this post and has a lot less trouble than I did. In case you don't know, this is about getting a ring tone onto your Japanese cell (I have a Vodafone phone (I know, the company name changed)). Anyways, I converted a file to .mff with this free application. That's all there was to it in the end, but it took me forever to find out. Just convert your song to an AIFF or WAV and you're good to use this. BTW, my phone only accepted 4Khz or whatever.

The good news is: I have a real chakushin ari ring tone! She's gonna call, right? Let's hope.

"Clay, nobody ever knows what the hell you are talking about." --Colin (paraphrased)

Cool little film

A short film that will stun you, guaranteed.
Part 1
Part 2
Eye animator's website

The Doctor totally got married

Classic commercial.