English Words the Japanese Use

The Japanese use a great number of English words in their daily speech, often changing their nuances to fit a slightly different meaning. If you mention you've met a pretty girl, A Japanese person might tell you to "attack" her, since this English word always means "to try hard to win someone's love," which might cause some confusion. In the Macross Frontier movie, Sheryl Nome's concert is interrupted by an invasion of aliens known as Vajra, so a week later she plans a "revenge" concert, since this word means "a second chance to make up for a previous failure" and not its wider meaning of vengeance. The English word "tension" means something like "happy and excited" in Japanese rather than stressed or nervous, so when Kanako sings "High tension!" in the opening credits to the Maria Holic anime, she's talking about having a great time, not expressing her shock at discovering that the prettiest girl in the school is really a guy (e.g. a "trap").

Maria Holic is a Zetsubou Sensei + Maria is Watching Us + nosebleeds + GOD OH GOD.

Jonny Quest, Censorship and Lame-ification

The other day I was reading through random Wikipedia articles and I happened across the entry on Jonny Quest. For our younger readers, this was an animated adventure series broadcast in 1964-'65 that followed the adventures of 11-year-old Jonny, his government scientist father, bodyguard/tutor Race Bannon and Hadji from India. The show was incredibly bad-ass considering it was made by Hanna-Barbera, with hardcore sci-fi themes and plenty of international espionage, and in the pre-anime era it was just about the coolest thing on. I was surprised to read that when the show (which originally ran during prime time) was moved to the Saturday morning time slot, it was decried by parents' groups as "the epitome of what's wrong with cartoons" because it showed on-screen deaths, murder attempts and dangerous situations, and the violence was removed. I had to laugh at that, since to me, Jonny Quest was everything that was right with animation at the time, with stories that engaged and excited me without insulting my intelligence just because I was a kid. What would those critics say today if they knew we'd be watching awesome shows like Code Geass or Fullmetal Alchemist, which use violence as a tool to tell compelling stories that can be appreciated by a wider range of viewers, including many who would have watched Jonny Quest. A large part of the reason anime has been embraced so totally by young people over the last two decades is busy-body adults insisting that everything we watch be be sterilized -- the idea that someone's kids right now are sewing Gothic Lolita outfits and reading Touhou doujinshi becuase they didn't do enough to resist the lame-ification of American animation is very ironic to me.

Jonny Quest was a show that was ahead of its time, whose villains included a Nazi war criminal.

Happy Sarin Gas Attack Anniversary

Saturday marks the 15th anniversary of the sarin nerve gas attacks in Tokyo, one of the most bizarre and tragic domestic terrorist attacks ever. A dangerous religious cult called Aum Shinrikyo (usually translated as "Supreme Truth"), which combined elements of Christianity, Buddhism, yoga meditation and (surprisingly) the Foundation Trilogy of science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov, released sarin gas into Tokyo's subways causing twelve deaths and 54 serious injuries. Cult founder Shoko Asahara (the long-hared scary dude) and his fellow leaders assigned themselves lofty titles like "Prime Minister of Japan" and "Minister of Defense" and actively plotted the overthrow of the Japanese government. The events highlighted just how ineffectual Japan's police can be when they try. When a lawyer named Sakamoto who'd been investigating the cult mysteriously disappeared with his family in 1989, they investigated but couldn't find any verifiable link between the cult and the murder, despite the massive motive. In 1994, the Aum cult did a "test run" of the sarin nerve gas in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, killing eight and injuring 200. The police accused the husband of one of the women who'd been put in a coma by the gas because he happened to have a little knowledge of chemistry, rather than find the actual culprits before more people could be killed.

 

The Aum cult even made an anime to brainwash its followers. This is a Doraemon parody of it that I like better.

Featured stuff: Various Random Products

J-List has so many fun products from Japan, it can be a challenge for me to pick items to highlight in this space. Some favorites of mine include the Traditional Food Drops candies, especially the new line with beautiful ukiyoe art on the packaging. If you're ever looking for a really cute sponge, we recommend the Kawaii Onigiri Sponge, which our customers just love. J-List sells Pocky (at least until chocolate is removed in preparation for the summer -- have you ordered what you need?), and we also sell awesome Pocky Chopsticks that look like the real thing. Finally, if you haven't browsed our fine Hello Kitty products in a while, check out some of our top sellers like the Silicone Muffin Maker.

Thoughts on Competition in Education, and Kit Kat

Since Japan has very little in the way of natural resources, education becomes one of the most important factors in pushing the country forward. While I'm not always happy with the educational system here in Japan, I can say that the Japanese people pour a lot of passion into educating their kids, at least more than I observed growing up in California. One way Japan gets better results is by getting students to be competitive about their studies. In most junior high and high schools, the ranking for the top 10-20 students in a class are displayed for all to see, and I've seen my son put in extra effort specifically because he wanted to get a higher rank than his rival in the class. I made use of competition when preparing for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, too: I was studying with a Chinese friend of mine, and I made up my mind that I was going to get a higher score on the test than her, which is no small task for a "white boy" gaijin. (Chinese people can read all Japanese kanji for "free" even though the pronunciations for kanji and the meanings of English loan words confuse them.) My rivalry as motivational tool worked great, and I beat her score by ten points.

Another way Japan gets kids to be more serious about their studies is the juken or "entrance exam" system, which requires students to prepare for a year or more for a single test that will determine what university they go to...or what high school. Yes, since high school is not compulsory in Japan, the high school system acts like a miniature version of the university system, with students competing to get into different high schools depending on their academic level and personal goals. My son has set his sights on a science-centric high school which is quite difficult for him, which means he'll be studying his butt off to prepare for the test next February. It's actually quite a big change for our family, as I almost never get to see my son (who is just 14) any more, plus we have to drive 30 km to the neighboring city to pick him up. While I'm proud of him for setting a goal for himself and working towards it, I'm kind of sad that I can't do fun stuff with my son as much. When students go off to take their important tests, mothers will give them a box of Kit Kat, which sounds similar to kitto katsu, which means "you will surely win" in Japanese.

Nestle's Kit Kat has become the official snack of test-takers in Japan, which the company is all too happy to exploit.

Wabi and Sabi is not a Sushi Condiment

One way to make sense of Japan is by understanding the concepts of wabi and sabi, two words which sum up much of what makes Japan special to outsiders. These ideas -- which are closely tied to the Japanese tea ceremony -- are a bit hard to pin down in English. Wabi essentially means sober refinement or the beauty that can be found in simplicity and imperfection, while sabi is the austere serenity that comes with the passage of time, allowing us to appreciate how an object has aged. Although they sound like concepts only Zen Buddhist monks would concern themselves with, they come up in daily speech surprisingly often, like when Yasu and I were admiring the outside of an old abandoned house built during the Showa Period, and he said, "Isn't this house cool? It's really wabi-sabi!" The Japanese fascination with haikyo, or the ruins of our supposedly modern age, is definitely linked to this. I often see a tendency for stories in Japanese film and anime to follow this simpler "less is more" aesthetic view, like Eve no Jikan, an anime about a coffee shop where humans and robots can interact as equals, which has no plot to speak of other than the interesting characters we meet there. Another example might be the "Endless Eight" arc in season two of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, in which Haruhi (who is a God) wishes summer would never end, and so the last week of summer repeats over and over again...for a total of 15,532 times (although we only see eight of these repetitions). While many fans outside of Japan were angry about having to watch the same events eight times, albeit with entirely new animation and visual design for each episode, the avante-garde concept was somewhat better received by fans here in Japan.

Poor Yuki had to relive the same week 15,532 times -- I feel so sorry for her..

Cool Traditional Stuff @ J-List

J-List considers ourselves a "Wonderful Toybox of Things from Japan" that mirrors everything that's cool about Japan, and in addition to toys, anime figures, magazines, artbooks and other products, we carry plenty of traditional Japanese items. Like our extensive lineup of bento boxes, which feature many beautiful examples of Japanese design like the Blue Rabbit x Moon Bento Set, or the many Hello Kitty bento products we stock. We have a lot of Lucky Cat products...and even some Lucky Frog ones, which really add something new to your home or office. Finally, there are the products you might not have known existed until you stumbled across them on our site, like the custom kanji hanko stamps that we sell, making it possible to get your own name in kanji.

Okay, the blog move is done

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Update about blog move...

Just a quick note by the way -- sometime soon we'll move the site from our server to Blogger's system, which may cause the site to go down for a period, or for something else to go wrong that we can't anticipate. I'd be surprised if there was a single blog larger than mine on their system -- I hope they kept this site in mind when making their conversion tool. Anyway, apologies of anything goes away for a while.

Fashion Trends in Japanese Society

It's interesting how Japanese society divides itself into different tribes, or zoku, which always seem to come with interesting and well-defined labels attached. Like the trend in "herbivore men" who are more laid back and less assertive in life, and the matching rise in "carnivore women" who openly show ambition and pursue relationships with men they're attracted to. In the Tokyo fashion world, the big trend is Ageha (ah-geh-ha) girls with big, fluffed up hair known as mori hair, with mori meaning "piled up" like spaghetti on a plate. A counter-movement has begun, however, called mori girls, written with the kanji for "forest" and describing girls who like simple fashions and all natural fabrics. According to AnAn magazine, the new fashion trend to watch for is bosatsu danshi or "Buddha Boys," which describes slender, fashion-conscious males who aspire to a form of personal beauty that approaches the perfection of a Buddha statue. You should take these terms with a grain of salt, however, as they are often invented by Japanese magazines who want the credit for popularizing a new trend and may not all be valid, perhaps like the "skirt boys" who are supposedly wearing ladies skirts around Tokyo, which I've never seen. Many of the terms we use today, such as yaoi/bara, yuri and even otaku were popularized by various magazines who were attuned to changes in popular culture. (You can see our great selection of Japanese fashion magazines for both guys and girls on our Fashion Magazine & More page.)

The Japanese media loves to attach labels to new trends, like the new "Forest Girls."

Can You Name these "Japanese English" Words?

When I arrived in Japan, I had to get used to many new things, like being the only gaijin at a concert attended by thousands of Japanese fans, which can really make a person feel self-conscious. I also had to learn to be at peace with not understanding some of the "English" words that were entering my ear. My first ESL job was at the Michigan English School, and I taught lessons to students who were headed to Michigan to attend university despite the fact that I've never been to the state. One day my boss told me, "This school used to be a 'fancy shop,'" and I had no idea what this might mean, although I later learned that it was a wasei eigo ("made in Japan English") word for a shop that sells kawaii character goods like Hello Kitty. While some words used in Japan sound odd to my American ear because they've been imported from British English -- "saloon" (sedan) and "lemon squash" (a lemon flavored drink) are two examples -- other words are just plain difficult to puzzle out. How many of these "English" words can you identify? (Answers below)

viking	American dog	guts pose
recycle shop	roadshow	cool biz
don't mind	free size	open price
NG	skinship	virgin road
shutter chance	soft cream	handle keeper
paper driver	plus/minus driver	pipe cut

Happy Goatse-kun says, "If you go drinking, be sure to choose a 'handle keeper.'

Here are the answers to the above wasei eigo words. For some reason the English word "viking" has come to mean an all-you-can-eat buffet in Japan, and an "American dog" is what a corn dog is called here. A man showing off his muscles is said to be doing a "guts pose," and a recycle shop is what a store selling used goods is called -- what a creative use of language. A movie release in theatres is known as a "roadshow" for some reason, and "cool biz" is the official policy of banning neckties for government employees in summer so air conditioning can be run at a lower level. "Don't Mind" is a simplification of "nevermind" or "don't worry about it" that's used quite frequently, especially in sports. "Free size" is Japanese for "one size fits all," and if a product has no manufacturer's suggested retail price it is "open price." "NG" is short for "no good" and refers to any failed attempt at doing something, as well as "bloopers" on television, while "skinship" is the awesome image of a parent putting their baby in the bath. Walking down the aisle to get married is walking the "virgin road," and the picture of a new married couple kissing for the first time will be a good "shutter chance," or an opportunity to take a nice photograph. If you go drinking with friends, be sure to designate a "handle keeper" who will be responsible for driving home. A "paper driver" is someone who has a driver's license but no longer drives regularly, and a "plus" or "minus" driver just means screwdriver with a Phillips or regular head (very logical). Finally, when a man decides he no longer needs children he might go to the doctor and ask for a "pipe cut."

Awesome Japanese Study Supplies from J-List

When I was studying Japanese back in the 1980s, I had a real problem finding tools to help me learn, so now I make sure that J-List always offers great products to help you reach your nihongo study goals. Like the popular Genki texbook series or the Reading and Writing Japanese guidebooks, and helpful Nintendo DS tools like Dora Gana for learning hiragana and katakana with Doraemon or the Kanji DS Dictionary, most likely the only electronic dictionary you'll ever need. Also: we're happy to announce a new sale on the super kanji study products of White Rabbit, from the Kanji Cards (all levels) to the outstanding Kanji Wall Poster which presents every kanji you'll ever need to learn. Click here to view all Japanese study products, or here to see the top 50 on the site right now.

450 Words on Why Japan is Pretty Good

I recently came across a blog post by an American who'd lived in Japan for several years, but who'd suddenly decided that he hated it here. Reading through his post in which he listed everything he disliked about Japan, I found myself nodding at some of the frustrations a foreigner can encounter here, from having more smokers around you than you may be used to (especially if you're from California like me) to the odd tendency of Japanese city planners to never put trash cans where you expect them to be. As great a country as Japan is, the fact that 90% of the people here are often on the same wavelength about things can present challenges to "outsiders" (what the word gaijin actually means), which is why you can find six brands of 4.3% milkfat milk at the store but sometimes no lowfat and never any skim milk -- the Japanese just love their milk as creamy as possible. So while my first response to his diatribe was to say "if he doesn't like Japan he should probably go home," I found could sympathize with some of his points.

On the other hand, living in a foreign country will always involve trade-offs, a fact I learned at the tender age of six when my family went to live in New Zealand for a year. For cultural reasons, the Japanese just aren't into the vegetarian lifestyle, and it can be hard to try to live completely free of animal products unless you're prepared to cook it all yourself. The writer mentioned that he felt pressured to drink alcohol at company parties, but in my experience ordering "oolong tea" is all the signal others need that you don't want them to pour beer for you. Sometimes the little cultural differences can seem irreconcilable, though: when I worked for my city in the role of Coordinator for International Relations (cool job title, eh?), I was taking over for a foreigner who'd left suddenly. One of his reasons for going home, I was told, was frustration that all the tea here contained caffeine, which his religion forbade, so he couldn't even have a cup of green tea while he worked. These days, any possible inconvenience one might feel about living in a homogenous country like Japan is totally countered by the vast store of convenience that is...the Internet. The ability to order English books from Amazon or keep my home stocked with American foods I may want to order through the Foreign Buyers' Club make Japan almost the perfect country, for me.

(The rant in question can be seen here. Warning, it's a long read.)

So what do you think?

Japan can seem "culturally inflexible" to outsiders. Would you like more tea?

Names in Japanese

Just about any aspect of Japan can provide an interesting cultural lesson, even names. In Japan, everyone has a family name and a given name, always listed with the family name first, although this doesn't apply for non-Japanese (e.g. I am still pii-taa pein in Japanese). Japanese never have middle names, but they understand the Western concept and sometimes choose exotic-sounding names for anime characters just for fun, like Louise Françoise De La Bamue Le Blanc De La Vallièr from Zero no Tsukaima. Japanese names may be written in hiragana or katakana, but the vast majority use kanji, and just as there are alternate spellings for English names, Japanese parents can choose between different kanji characters to capture just the right nuance they want for their baby. Names follow trends just like in the West, and sometimes names that sound strange to the ear will become popular. In case you're wondering, the top three names for boys this year are Hiroto, Shota and Ren; for girls, it's Rin, Sakura, and Hina.

(Another interesting note...the names Ren (Len) and Rin could be said to be Vocaloid-derived, although those characters use katakana and not kanji, and of course Shota has a special meaning in fandom. Japanese wouldn't think of this at all by the way, as the vowel is longer and the kanji is different. )

Studying how names work in Japanese is interesting.

Hello Kitty From Japan

J-List always has something kawaii from Japan for you, like the hard-to-find Hello Kitty products we carry. There are a lot of really nice "traditional" Hello Kitty items, like the chirimen tote bags we restocked today, and I really like the style of the Wagara Hello Kitty Bento Box, our most popular ever. We also stock fun bento related items, like a Hello Kitty furikake bottle and the popular Hello Kitty Training Chopsticks. You can browse all Hello Kitty items via this link, or click here to see the top 50 items ranked by popularity.

The Academy Show, As Viewed from Japan

The Academy Awards ceremony is closely followed in Japan, where it's kind of a combination of the Kohaku Red-and-White music pageant held each New Year's Eve and the most important English lesson ever, as Japanese fans try to understand the words of their favorite stars directly. While my wife and I were watching this year's show, she remarked, "Everyone is saying such nice things about everyone else. Japanese people could never do that. We're not good at praising others." Her observation seemed to be an accurate one: for some reason in Japan, no matter how respected an individual might be in his community, there'll be a tendency for some people to want to tear him down, perhaps for the crime of rising above everyone else. You see this most acutely in politics -- the moment a new Prime Minister arrives on the scene, everyone starts actively working for his downfall -- but even in less visible situations, there's an odd tradition of Japanese refusing to unanimously unite behind a single individual, even if it's just for one night.

Jeff Bridges receives the Best Acceptance Speech Performed While Drunk Award.

Anime Thoughts: Yuri > Yaoi?

Getting into anime means exposing yourself to a world of new ideas, some of which might be potentially confusing at first. Like the tendency for animators to create stories about characters whose gender is not entirely set in stone, such as female characters pretending to be male for some reason, Ranma-esque characters who actually change their gender, and even classical examples like Lady Oscar from The Rose of Versailles, raised as a swordsman although she's a girl. One of hallmarks of 90s anime series like Evangelion or Gundam Wing was adding a strong yaoi element to the story, creating tension between male characters and exploiting the drama and comedy generated from that tension to bring in more fans. These days, it seems that anime with strong themes of yuri -- stories about girls infatuated with other girls -- have really taken over, with just about every mainstream show featuring these themes on some level. It's hard to say when the "yuri tipping point" was -- Maria is Watching Over Us, perhaps? -- but the seeds were planted back when fans started noticing something funny about Haruka and Michiru from Sailor Moon.

"Yuri" themes are increasingly present in anime these days. Which is fine with me.

Spotlight: the Queen's Blade Series

J-List carries dozens of fun products for fans of Queen's Blade, the popular anime series which started out as a book-based RPG called the Lost Worlds battle system. In addition to the awesome Queen's Blade artbooks -- and the sister publication Queen's Gate, with female fighters from other games, we carry dozens of figures from the series, including some with clothes that can be *ahem* "cast off." Another product I like a lot is the Queen's Blade Spiral Chaos game for PSP, a superb fighting game with all characters as well as the patented patented "Armor Damage System" which causes their clothes to fly off when they take damage. Stay classy, Japan!

The Great Tokyo Air Raid

Today is the 65th anniversary of the Great Tokyo Air Raid. On this day, 300 B-29 Superfortresses flying out of Guam dropped 2,000 tons of incendararies over the most densely-packed residential parts of Tokyo, causing 100,000 deaths, greater than from the individual atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nakasaki. It was a very sad event, the tragedy of which can be appreciated by watching the excellent Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies, which I plan to watch with my kids tonight as part of their dual American/Japanese heritage. Note that the Touhou character in the picture below is saying, "Lucky Strike!!" This is related to an odd Japanese urban legend that the iconic Lucky Strike cigarette logo is supposed to represent the mushroom cloud of Hiroshima as seen from above. (The logo actually dates from 1917.) Interestingly, this common belief doesn't stop Japanese smokers from reaching for the brand, nor do Japanese artists consider it odd to draw cute moe art of the B-29 Superfortress, which presumably caused so much pain to the Japanese. (This kind of reminds me of Astro Boy's Japanese name of Tstsuwan Atom and his sister Uran, e.g. Uraniam.)

It speaks volumes that Japanese artists can create moe art like this.

Conscription for Japan?

I saw a blog post that said the out-of-favor Liberal Democratic Party was considering issuing a bill to create military conscription for 18-20 year olds along the lines of European countries or South Korea. It's a total fantasy, of course -- Japan's pacifist constitution (which America wrote) wouldn't allow it, and no one here would support such a suggestion -- but it was interesting to hear the idea being discussed. I've often thought that Japanese young people could do with two years of mandatory public service of some kind, for a couple of reasons. First, the country has an extreme lack of basic, reasonable patriotism that other countries take for granted, and even something as simple as singing the National Anthem becomes a major issue, with some teachers refusing to sing it at official events. Also, Japan suffers from what's known as heiwa-boke (hei-WA boh-keh), literally meaning "stupid from too much peace," which is what happens when you live in an extremely safe island country. Performing some kind of required public service -- perhaps a Peace Corps-like organization where individuals went overseas to help poorer countries -- would teach Japan's spoiled young people about the rest of the world, and they'd probably realize what a great country they live in.

Artist's impression of a Japanese person in a military uniform.