From baseball teams to giant corporations to even tiny towns, it seems that Japan has a mascot for everything. People claim that Kobe alone has 42 different mascots for everything from the city itself to recycling campaigns. In Japan, these mascots are called yuru kyara, or “gentle characters.” The costumes that yuru kyara wear are [...]
Goroawase means “wordplay” but I think it’s quite a bit more interesting than that. In English, when I think of “wordplay” I think of comedy’s highest and most elegant form of humor: Puns. In Japanese when I think of wordplay I think almost purely of mnemonics (wordplay that helps you to remember things better). If [...]
During Japan’s economic bubble during the late 80s and early 90s, lots of big corporations proposed outlandish, futuristic buildings. These corporations did this for two reasons: one, to plan for a future with a huge population density; and two, to be awesome.
The Japanese YouTube scene is more sparsely populated than its American counterpart. However, there is definitely a rising J-vlogging scene. But as with all things up and coming, sometimes it’s hard to tell where to start and find out what’s worth your time. Fortunately, I’ve found several awesome Japanese YouTubers for you. You’re welcome.
Like books? Like free things? Like your books free and in Japanese? I’ve got some great news for all you mousy nerds looking to get your book fix: there’s a Japanese site dedicated to making books free and available to the public to download and it’s all legal!
One of the biggest accomplishments in sports in the last hundred years was the 4 minute mile. Running a mile in under 4 minutes was a huge barrier in sports and once it was broken by one person, led the way for lots of athletes to break it too. So, what on earth does this [...]
If you’ve studied Japanese for a little time or a long time, you’ve probably run across rendaku. You might not know what it is, just based off the name, but surely it’s confused you once or twice. Rendaku means “sequential voicing” – to put things more simply, these are the words that either repeat (ひとびと) [...]
