A few days ago I stumbled across (via AnimeYume) AJATT [All Japanese, All The Time]. I've been trying unsuccessfully to teach myself Japanese for a while now, and have no results to show. (Sure, I can read kana; I even know some grammar! Doesn't mean a damn thing for actually using the language to do more than fill in blanks.) AJATT -- and Khatz's fun-based methodology -- looks like a much better approach. Not just to learning Japanese, but to learning in general. (And job-hunting. And guitar practice...)
So, naturally, I started to implement it; I already listen to almost exclusively Japanese music -- not because it's Japanese, but because it's good. I watch anime (subbed and raw.) I don't actively watch English TV. My main exposure to the English language is written; and I'm waiting on Japanizing my reading until I'm done with at least most of RTK1.
I decided to share this discovery with my parents. "So, I found this really cool blog..."
Quoth my father: "What's with the fascination with Japanese?"
I couldn't give a good answer; settling with "I dunno, it's just... interesting." Which is bullshit, there are very good reasons that I know very well. Maybe it was the way the question was phrased, maybe it's my lingering doubts that I should even bother when I have other stuff to be doing. (What's some white dude in Virginia without a drop of Asian blood doing learning this anyway? Do you think you're Japanese or something? Pfft, weeaboo. [FWIW, Khatz-sempai suggests the second answer should be a resounding "yes."]) Or maybe I'm just spineless in social situations that do not involve a modem.
Screw. That.
So I'm going to list my reasons -- both as a post to point people towards and to confirm for myself that, yes, I do have business learning this language.
- Media/Pop Culture
This is the big one; the primary reasoning. I love Japanese rock music; J-rock is far more complex than your average American rock song. Lots of jazz changes, hell, lots of changes that are advanced for jazz -- they love the I-III-vi-IV-V progression. Some English bands do this: see Radiohead, Porcupine Tree, Rush, etc... but generally American pop music struggles to rise above the I-IV-V. (This could just be selection bias -- the best music leaves the country. What J-pop I've heard on FujiTV supports this. (Japan's currently at the mid-90's music-wise -- boy bands and girl-pop groups, eww.) Dunno, don't really care.)
I like anime. Mostly this is a genre thing -- show me an American TV show that relates to a beginning guitarist as well as BECK or K-On does. (No, seriously. If it exists I want to watch it.) Or a really well done slice-of-life mindscrew like Haruhi. Or Angel Beats, or... you get the picture.
There's more: Japanese comedy skits are pretty funny. Visual Novels are awesome (honestly, I want to learn to read so that I can get through all of Key's VNs. Clannad was amazing.) Manga... (I haven't read Negima since OneManga got C&D'd... all I can find are raws.) My best friend currently lives in Okinawa. I fully intend to visit her when I have work and can afford to. I'd rather the culture shock be a gentle buzz rather than complete alienation when I can't read anything.
- Kanji
A universal writing system for three languages? Completely eliminating the (written) barriers of technical jargon? Yeah, once you look past the whole (incorrect) notion of "Complex = Hard", kanji make a hell of a lot of sense. I want to learn a language that is this awesome. English has it's merits; logic is not one of them.
- Aesthetics
Japanese is a beautiful language. Seriously. Not just in writing, but it sounds pretty. I think it's the vowels. It's very rhythmic and bright. (On the other hand, spoken Chinese grates on me. Hard.)
Are any of these reason to learn Japanese, specifically? Not really, no. There's almost certainly good pop culture media to find in any language. There are plenty of interesting writing systems -- Cyrillic, Arabic. Other languages are pretty in their own way -- Russian, for example, is basically the diametric opposite of Japanese, very dark and moody-sounding.
Fact is, I could choose to learn any language (or not to, as it were.) But I've been exposed to Japanese the most. I'm a geek who spends time on the Internet; Japan is very prolific at exporting media -- whether they want to or not. It was inevitable I'd stumble across it. I've already picked up words and pieces of phrases by raw exposure. I enjoy it. It has potential to be useful to me in a variety of ways. Why wouldn't I learn the rest?
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Post-Mortem: K-On
There seems to be a popular opinion on the internet (held, apparently, by both fans and critics) that K-On is nothing but moe fanservice. This is false, but it's an understandable misconception, especially after Season Two. This isn't to say that moe doesn't play a huge part in the series. KyoAni did the smart thing from the get-go, targeting two audiences: music fans and moe otaku. This is nothing new; it just makes sense from a business standpoint to target as wide an audience as possible.
However, somewhere between the first season and the second, KyoAni's approach to this changed. S1;Ep3 - Yui's studying for her exam; glances at her guitar case, shakes head and goes back to studying. Cut to her sitting on the bed strumming away. Anyone who has ever played guitar (if they didn't give it up after fifteen minutes) knows this is 100% accurate. But the gag still works for non-musicians as "hurr, Yui's a ditz"; both music geeks and moe geeks are satisfied. Similarly, almost every episode makes sure to balance the music/band and slice-of-life antics. (The only notable exceptions are Ep7 and Ep13.)
On the other hand, Season Two focuses a lot more on the slice-of-life side of the story. (See: Kyoto trip, Azusa's acid trip in EP13.) Which is fine -- the girls are sufficiently rounded characters that this works well. But it detracts from the multiple-audience appeal. As a musician, and someone who mainly likes the series for the music, it's a bit tedious. The Kyoto trip, for example, bored me, but the follow-up episode focusing on Azusa was fine, what with the jazz club practice and Azusa, Jun, and Ui's jam session. The opposite problem's here too: I doubt many non-guitarists really understood most of the jokes in Ep6.
Why the difference? I'm pretty sure there are a few different reasons.
First, Season One has a lot more content in much fewer episodes. This makes sense; until the anime aired, K-On was way below the radar (to be fair, a manga about music will inevitably be missing something.) So, KyoAni made a short season to cover the manga storyline to that point (two years in-universe). There's absolutely no room for filler when you're compressing a series. (And KyoAni is remarkably good at this -- probably learned from adapting Key's VNs.)
When the series was a hit, this left them with a problem; the girls have only one year of high school left, but to make as much of an impact with Season Two as they can, KyoAni wanted to go with a full 26 episode season. Twice the season length, half the content, it makes sense that there would be an increased focus on the slice-of-life part of the series.
The music aspect of the series is more difficult and expensive than slice-of-life. Animating the girls playing their instruments is pretty involved. The music must be written and recorded -- regardless of whether it's a full song or someone practicing acoustically. (See: the second training camp in Season One, where Yui and Azusa practice Fude Pen Boru Pen. Some sound engineer somewhere had to deal with a recording headache there.)
Finally, with the increased popularity, KyoAni wanted to cash in. There's no point overlooking it; merchandise is massive business. And moe sells. From a business standpoint, figurines and pillows and god-knows-what-else will have a lot more return on investment than, say, releasing a signature guitar. (Granted, there are some cheapo guitars knocking off the girl's instruments but cheapo guitars are usually shit as actual guitars (which the music otaku watching the show will know.))
The final bit of evidence is the music: purely looking at insert songs (ignoring B-sides, image songs, etc.) Season One has three inserts (Fuwa Fuwa Time, Koi wa Hotchkiss, Fude Pen Boru Pen) while Season Two has four (Pure Pure Heart, LOVE, Gohan, U&I, Tenshi). Two extra insert songs despite the season being twice as long.
My point, after wandering a bit: K-On is by no means purely a moe slice-of-life series. However, parts of Season Two are; and I think this is partly responsible for the misconception. (Amplified, of course, by trolls complaining about shows they don't watch.)
It will be interesting to see which route the Movie takes.
However, somewhere between the first season and the second, KyoAni's approach to this changed. S1;Ep3 - Yui's studying for her exam; glances at her guitar case, shakes head and goes back to studying. Cut to her sitting on the bed strumming away. Anyone who has ever played guitar (if they didn't give it up after fifteen minutes) knows this is 100% accurate. But the gag still works for non-musicians as "hurr, Yui's a ditz"; both music geeks and moe geeks are satisfied. Similarly, almost every episode makes sure to balance the music/band and slice-of-life antics. (The only notable exceptions are Ep7 and Ep13.)
On the other hand, Season Two focuses a lot more on the slice-of-life side of the story. (See: Kyoto trip, Azusa's acid trip in EP13.) Which is fine -- the girls are sufficiently rounded characters that this works well. But it detracts from the multiple-audience appeal. As a musician, and someone who mainly likes the series for the music, it's a bit tedious. The Kyoto trip, for example, bored me, but the follow-up episode focusing on Azusa was fine, what with the jazz club practice and Azusa, Jun, and Ui's jam session. The opposite problem's here too: I doubt many non-guitarists really understood most of the jokes in Ep6.
Why the difference? I'm pretty sure there are a few different reasons.
First, Season One has a lot more content in much fewer episodes. This makes sense; until the anime aired, K-On was way below the radar (to be fair, a manga about music will inevitably be missing something.) So, KyoAni made a short season to cover the manga storyline to that point (two years in-universe). There's absolutely no room for filler when you're compressing a series. (And KyoAni is remarkably good at this -- probably learned from adapting Key's VNs.)
When the series was a hit, this left them with a problem; the girls have only one year of high school left, but to make as much of an impact with Season Two as they can, KyoAni wanted to go with a full 26 episode season. Twice the season length, half the content, it makes sense that there would be an increased focus on the slice-of-life part of the series.
The music aspect of the series is more difficult and expensive than slice-of-life. Animating the girls playing their instruments is pretty involved. The music must be written and recorded -- regardless of whether it's a full song or someone practicing acoustically. (See: the second training camp in Season One, where Yui and Azusa practice Fude Pen Boru Pen. Some sound engineer somewhere had to deal with a recording headache there.)
Finally, with the increased popularity, KyoAni wanted to cash in. There's no point overlooking it; merchandise is massive business. And moe sells. From a business standpoint, figurines and pillows and god-knows-what-else will have a lot more return on investment than, say, releasing a signature guitar. (Granted, there are some cheapo guitars knocking off the girl's instruments but cheapo guitars are usually shit as actual guitars (which the music otaku watching the show will know.))
The final bit of evidence is the music: purely looking at insert songs (ignoring B-sides, image songs, etc.) Season One has three inserts (Fuwa Fuwa Time, Koi wa Hotchkiss, Fude Pen Boru Pen) while Season Two has four (Pure Pure Heart, LOVE, Gohan, U&I, Tenshi). Two extra insert songs despite the season being twice as long.
My point, after wandering a bit: K-On is by no means purely a moe slice-of-life series. However, parts of Season Two are; and I think this is partly responsible for the misconception. (Amplified, of course, by trolls complaining about shows they don't watch.)
It will be interesting to see which route the Movie takes.
Fall 2010 Anime - Initial Thoughts
Not much good out this season. This is not all that surprising after the quality of the last few seasons. At the moment I'm following Ore no Imouto and Index II.
Ore no Imouto - Best show this season by far. Seiyuu casting is brilliant -- Kirino especially. Ayana Taketatsu is probably my favorite seiyuu in the business right now; that raspy voice is very endearing without being as annoying as, say, Aya Hirano's Konata voice. And the characters themselves seem fairly well done at first glance.
Moreover, the setup here is pretty genius. It feels pretty realistic to me. (Yes, "my little sister is into siscon eroge" is a stretch, but not as much of one as you'd think.) Kirino and Kyousuke act more or less like actual siblings; this is pretty rare in anime unless one of the siblings is plot-irrelevent (see Kyon's sister in Haruhi). It helps that the anime did not follow the manga in building an implied relationship between them. Leave that to the doujin artists, please.
Index II - Seriously disappoints. OP/ED music this season is nowhere near par for the series. Every character seems to be getting more and more Flanderized. ('Cept Mikoto, cause it's not like you can make her any more tsundere than she already is.) Honestly has yet to match the quality of Railgun, much less the first season of Index.
First episode was tolerable, if only because dere-dere Mikoto is hilarious. Episode two, not so much -- no coherent plot, but let's throw in some loli-nun fanservice and no one will be the wiser. (Granted, Index has always had trouble being coherent, but it hasn't been this bad before.) And they didn't even do a good job making it funny.
Hopefully this will be a quick arc and then we can get back to the interesting parts of the series like the Misaka network or Last Order and Accelerator.
Otherwise, there are some OVAs coming up that look good, specifically Koe de Oshigoto. I really do not understand why this isn't a TV series; going by the manga it's not visually explicit, and if B Gata H Kei can get a series on the premise of "jerkass highschool chick wants to get laid a lot" then I don't see why this can't. Whatever, maybe the OVA will pave the way for a full series?
Overall this season looks fairly uneventful. Really hope something nice pops up for the winter season. KyoAni, at least, ought to have something -- Haruhi Season 3, maybe another Key anime?
Ore no Imouto - Best show this season by far. Seiyuu casting is brilliant -- Kirino especially. Ayana Taketatsu is probably my favorite seiyuu in the business right now; that raspy voice is very endearing without being as annoying as, say, Aya Hirano's Konata voice. And the characters themselves seem fairly well done at first glance.
Moreover, the setup here is pretty genius. It feels pretty realistic to me. (Yes, "my little sister is into siscon eroge" is a stretch, but not as much of one as you'd think.) Kirino and Kyousuke act more or less like actual siblings; this is pretty rare in anime unless one of the siblings is plot-irrelevent (see Kyon's sister in Haruhi). It helps that the anime did not follow the manga in building an implied relationship between them. Leave that to the doujin artists, please.
Index II - Seriously disappoints. OP/ED music this season is nowhere near par for the series. Every character seems to be getting more and more Flanderized. ('Cept Mikoto, cause it's not like you can make her any more tsundere than she already is.) Honestly has yet to match the quality of Railgun, much less the first season of Index.
First episode was tolerable, if only because dere-dere Mikoto is hilarious. Episode two, not so much -- no coherent plot, but let's throw in some loli-nun fanservice and no one will be the wiser. (Granted, Index has always had trouble being coherent, but it hasn't been this bad before.) And they didn't even do a good job making it funny.
Hopefully this will be a quick arc and then we can get back to the interesting parts of the series like the Misaka network or Last Order and Accelerator.
Otherwise, there are some OVAs coming up that look good, specifically Koe de Oshigoto. I really do not understand why this isn't a TV series; going by the manga it's not visually explicit, and if B Gata H Kei can get a series on the premise of "jerkass highschool chick wants to get laid a lot" then I don't see why this can't. Whatever, maybe the OVA will pave the way for a full series?
Overall this season looks fairly uneventful. Really hope something nice pops up for the winter season. KyoAni, at least, ought to have something -- Haruhi Season 3, maybe another Key anime?
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