About Us
Welcome to Tofugu! This website used to be english.koichiben.com, an English extension of the Japanese blog koichiben.com. Koichiben.com is a website that teaches Japanese people about American culture, and likewise, Tofugu is a website that teaches non-Japanese about Japan’s culture and its language.
So what makes us different from the Japanese blogging crowd? Well, for one thing, we try to make you laugh every once in a while. Most of our articles are original, and if possible, incorporate some video as well. You can check out our youtube channel by clicking here.
When reading our stuff you’ll notice how deeply we investigate things. None of this one paragraph one picture stuff. We hit all sorts of angles, find out more information, and give it all to you in an easy to read way. Lately we’ve been focusing a lot on the Japanese language and how to learn it, but we also do a lot of culture writing as well. Please subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up!
Meet Our Team
Koichi is our main writer, covering almost every (if not every) category found on this website. His specialties are language and culture, so expect to see a bulk of his posts covering those topics. Koichi has been studying Japanese for 8 years, and has been in Japan twice – once over a long “live-in” period, and another just for fun. His interests are kendo, baseball (Seattle Mariners being his favorite), filmmaking, writing, computers, and hanging out with friends. As the creator of this website, his dream is for it to become not necessarily the number one Japanese blog out there, but the most entertaining one. You can email him at koichi@tofugu.com.
Viet is our technology and ‘found on’ writer. He goes out on the web searching for those interesting internet things and brings them back to you, hopefully with a sarcastic spin (those are the best spins, right?). Viet has been to Japan once, and was particularly interested in the wacky vending machines, gadgets, and inexpensive spy camera equipment. His interests are computers, music, web development, web design, art, bowling, baseball, football, and poker. You can email him at viet@tofugu.com.
Erin writes about eclectic subjects, such as food, fashion, technology, pop culture, language, etc. Her interests are kendo, hula, swimming, chasing squirrels, reading, eating sweets, watching indie anime, and window shopping. She passionately dislikes germs, loud drunks, smoke, and speaking Japanese (she’s shy). She also makes the graphics for this very site. Check out the Tofugu up there—it’s boxy and covered in shoyu. You can email her at erin@tofugu.com and see her pictures of her life at her photo blog.
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