Jun Togawa's Radar Man

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Claytonian at the gmails.

『妖怪ハンター ヒルコ』（1991） PANDORATV

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Share good posts with good goblins.
Claytonian at the gmails.

Yamasa Soy Sauce: What's in a logo?

So, 屋号 (yagou) are symbols that some companies have. There are a few common elements floating around. The most common is probably the rooflike element, such as can be seen in this Yamasa soy sauce logo. Like many yagou, it can be read even without the name appended. Or at least, it could, if there wasn't the 上 (ue, above) kanji appended to it. That was confusing me. So I looked it up. Turns out that that symbol has been used since the Edo era to show that they were officially recognized as a superior brand by the government.

The more you know♪...

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Upside down luck at Chinese restaurants

There are lots of Chinese restraunts here in Japan. Of course, the food is different than what is passed off in other countries ( I prefer American Chinese fare), but I wanted to point out that there is often an upside down 福 (fuku, luck) symbol on the wall. The logic is this:
Upside down symbol is falling. In Chinese, to fall is literally to arrive at the ground. Thus, arriving luck, or 倒福.
Have a look for this symbol on the wall the next time you go out.

Planet of the Apes Hachimaki

I and my girlfriend laughed a lot at this episode of MST3K, which I remember watching as a teen, but the funniest part for us was seeing a monkey boy running around town with a hachimaki. Hachimakis are what the working class used to wear as sweatbands. I'm not sure I've ever seen one in the wild, outside of a festival.

You can watch it yourself:

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Who drew Howard and Nester? Shuji Imai did.

If you're a child of the Nintendo Power generation and a manga aficionado to boot, you might have occasionally wondered who drew Howard and Nester (the good ones, before a new artist took over).

Recently Howard ebayed off an unpublished comic from the series, as well as the first ever episode's proof. I scoured it for the Japanese information. Does that say Tamura? I thought to myself. Tamura searches were just bringing me a baseball star. But someone on Tumblr said Shuji Imai, and the wikipedia for 今井修司 seems to check out. Unfortunately, he doesn't draw in his classic style anymore.

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Karate will see you through this disaster

Sign says:

女性 women

中高生 middle and highschoolers

病弱者 weak and sickly dudes

かんげい welcome

gloss: We welcome, women, children, and the infirm!

大地震 big quakes

大津波 massive tsunamis

大不況 great depressions

にまけるな！don't lose to 'em!

gloss: Overcome all the hardships that nature and the economy can throw at you!

カラテ教室 Karate class
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If you are having problems getting that precious byoujyaku karate teacher sympathy, here is a makeup guide.

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Anyways, Just Try It Once

Thought this an interesting way of using 兎に角 (tonikaku, anyway) that we probably wouldn't do in an English ad. It translates pretty much as per this post's title. It seems like the nuance of the Japanese "anyway" is slightly different.

You might note that sometimes I write anyway with an s. It's not really fixed in my idiolect.

MOTHER OF MERCY I DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE! Japanese Game Show (SNL)

I remember watching this one as a kid. I had no idea they were trying to speak actual Japanese. They fall far from the mark on pronunciation, but good effort. If I remember correctly, SNL has a Japanese cameraman or producer that helps out with this kind of stuff and occasionally appeared on camera (as fat Sulu, once, for instance). This was fun to confuse the girlfriend with.


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GReeeeN - 愛し君へ

I've been known to sing a GReeeeeN song or two at karaoke. Anyways, this video will tickle nostalgia bones, and has a very funny cameo by Black Jack.

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Karaoke: Charisma.com 『GEORGE』

Level: Hard. Charaismadotcom is a new favorite duo for me. I guess they are rappers?

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Yoda Rakugo

This is an image that happens to please me a lot: Yoda as a Rakugo storyteller. GF made out the name paper as saying maybe Taitei Yoda-yu. This comes from the Daikon 4 imagery. I've not yet seen a high-resolution version...

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