Tofugu.com – Wonky Japanese Language and Culture

I follow hundreds of Japan-related blogs, just so I can keep up with the Japan-news (and the blogging competition, too). It may seem really difficult to follow so many blogs (not to mention all the others I read), but with RSS, it’s super easy… Oh, and did I mention addictingly fun, too?

Tofugu is currently participating in DailyBlogTips’ “Blogging Idol 2,” which is a pretty big competition that has a lot to do with RSS. Right now, Tofugu is in 11th place (out of over a hundred), and would definitely love your help! You can make our dreams come true by voting for us (pretty please?), or just by subscribing to our RSS feed, which is what I’ll be telling you about after the break. Just so it’s not too much e-begging for you to handle, I’ll be spinning it in a way that makes things wonderful for you too: Read more…

This is just a small post to get you through ruin your weekend. Does everyone remember Goku’s Oozaru (big monkey) form? When he gets moonlight, he turns into a big monkey, thanks to his gland filled tail. Well, the image shown above isn’t necessarily a finished product (though honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if it is), but we do know that it’s real, since Fox has been asking people to take it down. Besides this, I only have a short video, which can be seen after the jump. It’s mostly a response to all those Dragonball movie fans I angered in my last video, hehe. Read more…

We’ve all been through it. We’ve all experienced it. Studying vocabulary can be a huge drag. There are tons of different resources for vocab studying, but none of them out there are really really good. Usually, you have to input all the information yourself (which takes longer than just studying without flashcards), or you just study and forget to go back. No vocabulary resource has been so streamlined and so well put together before iKnow.co.jp, which, of course, is what we’ll be looking at in pretty good detail today.

If you’ve ever had trouble with vocabulary, iKnow will change that. If you think you’ve been doing fine all this time, you’ll soon realize that it can only get better for you.

Here’s why iKnow is so good at pile driving kanji / vocabulary into the mat (is my WWF vocab okay?). Firstly, iKnow hits vocab from all angles. Hands on learner, visual learner, auditory learner… doesn’t matter. There’s something for everyone. In fact, if you use all these angles to your advantage, you’re only solidifying and remembering recently learned vocab more efficiently and better. I don’t know how often I forget vocab I’ve just learned. iKnow prevents this as much as possible. Read more…

The last part of this little series is the “Japanese Mascots” category. We’ve done Ronald McDonald / Colonel Sanders, Mickey / Hello Kitty, Food Mascots, and American Children Shows. Today, we focus on well known Japanese characters. There was a lot of Mario and Luigi out there, so I thought we’d start with that. Read more…

If you thought American children shows were safe from this series, I have no idea what you were thinking. We’ve hit Fast Food Mascots, Mickey & Hello Kitty, Food, and today we’re hitting Winnie The Pooh, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Sesame Street. Prepare for your childhood to be ruined. Read more…

Previously, we’ve covered Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders, Hello Kitty, and Mickey Mouse, but today we’re going to delve into food items being parodied. Things like the image above, which are just a little too sexy creepy to eat. Really, it looks like it should be called SM&M. Why do you think he’s showing his pinky like that? That’s the Japanese hand-symbol for boyfriend!

There’s a longstanding obsession and devotion to food in Japan, so it’s only natural that food gets some attention. Here we go! Read more…

In our previous post, we covered Ronald McDonald (i.e. “Donald”) and Colonel Sanders. This time, we’ll be looking at perhaps two of the most well known mascots in the world: Hello Kitty and Mickey Mouse.

Hello Kitty is owned by the company Sanrio, which has a bunch of other cute characters as well, and Mickey? Well, I should hope you know where he comes from.

Let’s start with the most disturbing image first and then work our way down (Sort of NSFW). Read more…

This is a 5ish part series covering parodies of well known characters by Japanese artists, which will include Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders, Sesame Street, Pooh, Hello Kitty, Thomas the Tank Engine, Mickey Mouse, and more.

When I was looking for an image for my Japanese McDonalds Menu article, I came across a ton Ronald McDonald images just like the one I used (i.e. ridiculous). Therefor, I thought Ronald McDonald would be a great place to start.

Read more…

A few days ago I did a live e-lecture about Japanese counters (and how suicidal they can make you). To go along with the presentation, I put together an e-book for you to use as a Japanese counter resource. Let’s take a closer look at counters, and then I’ll provide the link to the e-book which goes into a lot more detail and specifics! Read more…

I’m not sure why, but the city of Obama (Japan) is celebrating for some reason…did something happen recently that I’m not aware of? Who the heck is this guy in the picture anyways?

I kid, I kid. It’s no secret that Japan loves Obama (not to mention most of the modern world), but if the name of your city is Obama, then that means you’ve got to jump on this opportunity to make your city a little famous, and possibly get a few tourist dollars out of it as well (er…maybe not dollars. Nobody wants those anymore). Read more…