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I wanted to write a post about the quirks of the way the Japanese
language is presented in anime, but a written article just couldn't
convey what I wanted to share. So, I made a quick video instead. Enjoy!
Anime Music Videos (AMVs) are a cool fusion of two things I like - anime and music. AMVs are quite popular among anime enthusiasts. You can find a lot of them on YouTube and similar sites. AMV contests are rather popular at anime conventions, and my cousin even won a prize last year at a convention for an AMV she made. For no particular reason, I want to share some of the AMVs that have really touched me.
WARNING: These are very sad, at least to me. If you're not in the mood to cry I suggest you skip this video feature.
The first one is an AMV done with the anime 5 Centimeters per Second and the song From Where You Are by Lifehouse. I think it really captures very well the theme of the movie. This is a great joining of a beautiful song with a beautiful anime (one of my favorites, in fact).
This next one is done with the anime The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (another favorite) and the song She is the Sunlight by Trading Yesterday.
This last one uses an anime called Rumbling Hearts and the song Goodbye to You by Michelle Branch. I've never seen this anime, but the AMV makes me curious to watch it. This video also made me realize just how much more dramatic impact the word "sayonara" has than "goodbye". The Japanese language is awesome. ^_^
I hope you enjoyed them, even if they did make you a little sad. Personally, I think they're beautifully done. If you've got an AMV you really enjoy, post a link in a comment to this article. Thanks!
Here’s a review of some of the things I’ve been learning while studying Japanese. I’m writing about them here as a refresher to me, and to share with anyone who might be interested in the language.
Mostly, I’ve been learning about Japanese grammar, starting with verbs. There are three kinds of verbs. Ichidan verbs all end in “ru”, and you conjugate them all the same way. Yodan verbs may end in different ways, including with “ru”, and you conjugate them differently depending on how they end. If a verb ends in “ru” it might be ichidan or yodan, and you just have to learn which it is through experience. The third kind of verb is irregular verbs. There are only a handful of them and they’re conjugated in ways that defy the normal laws of Japanese grammar. Sounds like English, huh?
To make an ichidan verb past-tense simply remove the “ru” at the end of it and add “ta”. For example, the word taberu, which means “to eat”, would become tabeta, which means “did eat”.
To make a yodan verb past-tense you remove the last syllable of the word to get the root, and then add a different ending depending on how the word originally ended. For example, with the word kiku, which means “to listen”, you remove the “ku” and add “ita”. This makes the word kiita, which means “did listen”. There is a handy chart in my Japanese grammar book that tells you how to change each ending for a yodan verb. I’ll transcribe it here:
“u” becomes “tta” “tsu” becomes “tta” “ru” becomes “tta”
“mu” becomes “nda” “nu” becomes “nda” “bu” becomes “nda”
“ku” becomes “ita” “gu” becomes “ida” “su” becomes “shita”
Fun fact: All ordinary present-tense verbs end with u.
Japanese also has a more formal version of verbs. To make an ichidan verb formal you remove the “ru” at the end and add “masu”. So the formal version of taberu would be tabemasu. To make a formal ichidan verb past-tense you remove the “su” at the end of “masu”, and add “shita” as if it were a yodan verb being made past-tense. So tabemasu would become tabemashita.
To make a yodan verb formal, you simply remove the last vowel from the word and add “imasu”. So kiku would become kikimasu. As with the ichidan formal, to make a yodan formal into a past-tense, you turn the last “su” into “shita”. So kikimasu becomes kikimashita.
Next, I’ve learned a little bit about particles. No indicates possession. O indicates that something is being acted upon. Example:
Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda
Literal English: I belonging to water was acted upon did drink
-or-
Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda
English: I drank my water.
Ka at the end of a statement makes it a question. Example:
Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda ka
English: I drank my water?
You can change any verb into a negative form by changing the ending as well. With an ichidan verb you drop the “ru” and add “nai”. So taberu (to eat) would become tabenai (not eat). With a yodan verb you drop the last vowel and add “anai”. So kiku (to listen) would become kikanai (not listen).
Now, to make an ichidan verb negative and past-tense you drop the “ru” and add “nakatta”. So taberu becomes tabenakatta. To make a yodan verb negative and past-tense you replace the last vowel with “anakatta”. For example, kiku becomes kikanakatta.
Making things a bit more complicated once again is the formal version of verbs. To make an ichidan verb formal and negative you drop the “ru” and add “masen”. So taberu becomes tabemasen. To make it formal, negative, and past-tense, you simply add “deshita” to the end of that. To say in a formal way that you didn’t eat would be tabemasen deshita.
To make a yodan verb formal and negative you drop the last vowel and add “imasen”. So kiku becomes kikimasen. Like ichidan, to make it formal, negative, and past-tense, you add “deshita”, making it kikimasen deshita.
Next is the gerund or –te form of a verb. This is easy to get and is used for a couple of things. To get the gerund form of a verb simply make it a normal past-tense verb, but change the last “a” to an “e”. So because taberu in past-tense would be tabeta, the gerund form is tabete. Because kiku in past-tense would be kiita, the gerund form is kiite.
One use of the gerund form is to make a polite request or command. For example:
Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonde
English: Drink my water.
Another use of the gerund form is to list a sequence of actions in natural order. For example:
Japanese: Watashi wa shokuji o tabete deta
English: I ate a meal and left.
Changing the verb taberu (to eat) to its gerund form indicates that the following verb, deru (leave), is an action that follows.
The last thing I learned about in my lessons was a couple of irregular verbs and how to conjugate them.
One is suru which means “to do”. When changing this verb, for some reason the “ru” gets dropped and ignored completely, and the “su” is changed instead. Again, my grammar book has a nice chart to summarize how this verb changes, and I’ll transcribe some of that here.
Another irregular verb is kuru which means “to come”. Below is a similar chart as the one for suru, also copied from my grammar book.
Well, that’s pretty much everything I’ve covered so far. I’m looking forward to my next lesson.
On March 14th, a week before yesterday, I met with some brothers and sisters to preach to Japanese speaking people in the Orlando area. The nearest Japanese language group is in Atlanta, Georgia and their territory covers a vast area including all of Florida. Of course, that's quite a distance to travel, so people in the Atlanta group asked some friends from the local area to cover the territory as they could down here.
There were 8 of us in service: Kelly, Jimmy, Nico, two couples (can't recall any of their names, sorry), and myself. Unfortunately, most of the group had prior obligations in the afternoon, so we were only out for a couple of hours in the morning. Because we only call at homes where we know there are Japanese speaking householders, the territory is very spread out. I think that between the two car groups we were only able to visit 4 or 5 houses. In general, it wasn't a very successful morning, but at least we tried. I'd love to do it again, but hopefully next time we could be out longer.
After service we had lunch at a genuine Japanese restaurant on International Drive. That was only the second time I've had Japanese food. This time I passed on the sushi and enjoyed the steak tariyaki.
Yesterday afternoon I had my first official lesson in the Japanese language. Kelly is pretty fluent in the language and he's teaching a couple of other brothers and myself. I'm looking forward to learning the language. I've tried to pick up a little on my own over the last couple of years, but I haven't made much progress. Hopefully having actual lessons will help. I'm going to post updates on my progress here. They say that sharing what you learn is a good way to reiterate it to yourself. More updates will be coming in the future.
I recently bought the album Koi Tegami (translation: “Love Letter”) by Oku Hanako, a singer, songwriter, and pianist famous in her native Japan for her piano ballads. My first introduction to Oku Hanako was through her song “Garnet” which was written and produced for the anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. After seeing the film I was interested in hearing some more of her music, so I picked up Koi Tegami on Amazon.com.
Oku Hanako has a beautiful singing voice, and her music is very pretty. It’s easy listening and makes pleasant background music for writing, drawing, etc. without being obtrusive. The only problem is that there isn’t a lot of variety in the sound, and not being able to understand the lyrics I have a hard time telling one song from the next. I’m sure if I knew the language better I would enjoy her songs even more.
Here is a sample of her music. This song is from Koi Tegami.
I enjoyed the soundtrack to the anime Noir so much that I bought both volumes of it on CD. The musical score was composed mostly by Yuki Kajiura and is very unique in my experience with anime soundtracks. The music has a very international flavor that fits the style of the show. It features some interesting choices of instruments including woodwinds, accordions, Spanish guitar, and bagpipes. Some of the tracks are accompanied with lyrics which are sung in several languages including Japanese, English, Italian, and Latin. The musical score blends elements of techno, opera, and Paris street music to produce a unique sound.
The most recognizable tracks are on the first volume, including the songs Canta Per Me and Salva Nos, which are heard in one form or another in nearly every episode of the show. Another notable track from the first volume is Mélodie, which starts out with the simple tune of the music box stopwatch that is important to the show, and then expands the tune into a fast-paced techno track. Two noteworthy tracks from the second volume are Salva Nos II and Beautiful Emotions. The first is a foreboding reprise of the popular theme with an industrial sound, and the second is a piano version of the song from the ending credits without the lyrics.
Click on the links above to hear these tracks on YouTube.
Hear any good music lately? Please share!
I recently bought the anime movie The Girl Who Leapt Through Time because I enjoyed it so much. The story is a lighthearted drama about a teenage girl named Makoto who discovers that she has the ability to leap through time. At first it seems great, as she can go back and correct any little mistakes she makes over the course of the day, but eventually she realizes that her good times are causing other people misfortune, and she only has a limited number of time leaps left with which to fix all of the problems she's caused.
I like that this movie shows how an ordinary kid would likely use time travel. She isn't using it to save the world or rewrite history, just to go back and correct little mistakes or avoid slightly embarrassing situations. How many youths haven't wished they could go back and do something over? The story is more about relationships and accepting responsibility for your actions than it actually is about time travel.
The movie features quite a few laughs. Some of this comes from the fact that Makoto must literally leap to travel through time. Because of this she's always crashing through doors and such as she recovers from her leaps, leaving people asking, "What in the world are you doing?" The movie grows more serious though as it progresses, with some very dramatic moments towards the end, and a rather unpredictable plot throughout.
The character designs seem a little bland at first, but they grow on you as it goes, and the backgrounds are very nicely illustrated. The writing is very well thought out and executed. The music score fits the movie nicely, and the theme song is very nice. (The DVD features a music video of the movie's theme song and the singer is really cute in a very nerdy kind of way. ^_^)
By the way, most anime I watch with Japanese audio and English subtitles. I've seen this movie now both that way and with English voice dubs, and I have to say that the English dub was well done.
Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to watch most movies and shows with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Here are some ideas from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Play Narrativist Games: The theme of taking responsibility and facing the consequences of our actions is strong in this movie. Narrativist play could facilitate roleplaying where your characters are similarly forced to face up to the consequences that they reap from their choices and actions. The key here would be to give players real opportunities to make meaningful choices, and then make sure that they felt the repercussions of those choices for better or worse.
Time Travel as a Rewind Mechanic: Play a game where all of the player characters have the power to leap backwards in time, perhaps a limited number of times per game session. Each time they leap the story is "rewound" a number of scenes and play continues from there again. You could add an element of unpredictability by incorporating a randomizing mechanic to how many scenes back characters jump, representing an imperfect technique and adding an element of risk. Characters might not jump back far enough, or they might go back farther than they planned.
Normally I would be making another post about my weekly time log for last week. However, it seems that my activities have pretty much stabilized. Over the last month I've drastically improved my study habits and field service so that theocratic activities are solidly in third place, right under sleep and work, which is right where they need to be. I've adjusted my other activities to accommodate a better spiritual routine, and now I'm just trying to maintain that.
This week I plan to introduce a new activity to my weekly routine. That will be language study. I want to start learning Japanese again. Also, I'll probably be doing more writing now that things are beginning to slow down around here.
Other than that, I don't see my activities changing much, so while I'll still be logging my time, I probably won't be posting updates of those activities on my blog. I might post a summary once a month, like I did here, but not every week.