So in today’s post, I’ll be revisiting manga tropes, with an emphasis on the tropes that are, shall we say, a bit fuzzier around the edges.

Trope #6 Shock lines

I mentioned shock lines only very briefly in my last post about manga tropes, so let’s start by taking another look at it.

Shock lines are vertical lines that, most commonly, cover the top half of a character’s face. Sometimes these lines cover just one eye, and occasionally appear even in the background. They’ve also got this bluish tint, although you usually don’t get to see this since most manga is in black and white.

Shock lines, of course, indicate shock – both the emotional sort as well as the physical, as demonstrated by Edward Elric having his new automail attached. Shock lines turn up in all sorts of other situations too, though. Just take a look at the following image, for example: there’s pure, unadulterated fear; hopeless despair; and even sheepish embarrassment.

Trope #7 Hurtful words

In the world of manga, sharp, hurtful words can literally cut you like a knife. You’ll usually see this trope in the form of an arrow that stabs someone right through the heart. So much for sticks and stones, right?

Manga artists have really had a field day with this one, and I’ve seen lots of variations of this particular trope. Hurtful words can take the form of a rock that appears out of nowhere and falls on someone’s head, for example… or, like the poor guy in the image below, each insult manifests as a bodily blow.

Trope #8 Giving up the ghost

Giving up the ghost means exactly that: someone is so close to death that his spirit has started to leave his body. It’s really common to see the bruised and bloodied loser of a fight giving up the ghost, although the cause could be anything from overwork to hypothermia. Also, as you’ll see in the following image, someone’s soul can be as detailed, or not, as the mangaka wants it to be.

The thing to note about this trope is that the person giving up the ghost is not dead. Not yet, at least – so sometimes you’ll see a character grab hold of the soul to prevent it from going into the light, as it were. In any case, by the next scene, the dying person is usually back to normal. Some manga artists take advantage of the temporariness of this trope to use it in a more figurative sense as well, like dying from disappointment.

Trope #9 Hitodama

Speaking of ghosts and spirits, manga artists rely on hitodama to indicate the presence of something… otherworldly. These floating balls of fire are, strictly speaking, actual human souls that have separated from the body, but manga artists just use them for anything supernatural. The demon wolves Hakubi and Madarao, for example, always seem to have one or two hitodama hanging around.

Hitodama aren’t just for ghosts and ghouls, though. They’re sometimes also used to play up how creepily ghost-like or witch-like someone is, which I guess isn’t too far a stretch from its original meaning. But I’m not really sure why they appear when someone is just feeling depressed or sad, like in the following image:

Trope #10 Tears

Now manga-style tears are pretty unambiguous and unmistakeable, but they appear so frequently I just have to mention them as well. When a manga character cries, these really huge pools of tears form in his eyes, or the tears stream down his face like a waterfall. Or, if a character is especially unhappy, he might even cry tears of blood.

The neat thing about manga-style tears is that they are actually possible in real life. I kid you not. You just have to be, you know, in outer space or something.

So, what’s your take on these ambiguous manga tropes? In what other situations have you seen them being used? And did you already know about the crying in space thing? Let us know in the comments!

All manga examples, once again, shamelessly lifted off manga aggregation sites.

Japan has China to thank for the Japanese language, which is also where ramen is from. Tempura, konpeito, and castella cake came by way of the Portuguese; likewise, curry was introduced by the British. The gakuran and the sailor uniform were modeled after European military and naval uniforms, and radio calisthenics is from the good old US of A.

So you can imagine my surprise when I found out the reverse has also happened: fortune cookies, that staple of Chinese restaurants in the US, is almost certainly Japanese.

Japanese Fortune Cookies…

In Japan, fortune cookies go by the names tsujiura senbei, o-mikuji senbei, and suzu senbei. They’re slightly bigger, and the addition of miso and sesame makes them browner and savory instead of sweet. Otherwise, though, Japanese fortune cookies are pretty much identical to the mass-produced stuff.

Left: Japanese fortune cookies; Right: “Chinese” fortune cookies, made in Hong Kong, from a Korean grocery store down the road

If old tales are anything to go by, Japanese fortune cookies have been around since at least the 19th century. The following illustration, for example, was found in a book of stories that dates all the way back to 1878. Check out the unmistakable C-shaped cookies on the grill – and even more tellingly, the noren at the top that reads tsujiura senbei.

The sign is really old school; read it from right to left.

The other name for fortune cookies, o-mikuji senbei, is also a clue. Those little paper fortunes that you can get for a small fee at shrines and temples? Yep, they’re called o-mikuji. Kyoto literally has thousands of shrines and temples – one of the more famous being the Fushimi Inari shrine. Now is it mere coincidence that there are several shops in the area that still make fortune cookies by hand? I think not.

Spooning batter into the mold, lifting out the cookie, tucking in the fortune, and folding up the still-warm cookie.

But this is only half the story.

… and How They Became “Chinese”

The person who invented the “Chinese” fortune cookie is up for debate. Several people have put their hand up, but I reckon only two claims are worth serious consideration: some people believe it was Kito Seiichi of the Fugetsu-do shop in LA, and others believe it was Hagiwara Makoto of SF’s Japanese Tea Garden.

Both men were Japanese immigrants and likely knew about fortune cookies and how to make them – but my money’s on Hagiwara Makoto. As the story goes, he first made and served it alongside green tea in 1914. This modified, sweetened version was so popular that Hagiwara decided to get them made on a commercial scale. In 1918, Benkyodo stepped in to become the Japanese Tea Garden’s exclusive supplier of fortune cookies. Descendants on both sides corroborate the other’s story, which I think is as good as it’ll get in terms of evidence.

Left: the tea house at the Japanese Tea Garden; Right: Benkyodo Candy Factory

Soon, several other bakeries began to make and sell fortune cookies; Umeya, for example, supplied them to both Japanese- and Chinese-owned restaurants. The bombing of Pearl Harbor really put a spanner in the works though. Japanese-Americans were sent away to internment camps, which basically meant the end of many Japanese businesses.

Now that the competition had been taken out, Chinese businesses experienced a huge boom. Chinese restaurants still served fortune cookies, of course, and people just began to think of them as a Chinese thing. There was a strong anti-Japanese sentiment at the time, so I really don’t blame the Chinese for keeping mum and letting their customers believe what they wanted to believe.

In any case, although several Japanese bakeries did make a comeback after WWII, by that point fortune cookies were irrevocably Chinese. They were still as popular as ever, though: it was only a matter of time before it spread all over the US, and then all over the globe. Well, except for China, anyway. “Too American,” apparently.

Oh delicious irony.

Fortune Cookies Remixed

Nowadays there really aren’t any rules when it comes to fortune cookies. Just look at some of the varieties I found:

Purists, look away.

Well… not my thing to be honest, although I suppose there must be a market for them.

So, did you already know that fortune cookies are actually Japanese? Have you tried both Japanese and “Chinese” fortune cookies? Which did you prefer? What was the last fortune you got? Let us know in the comments!

Art is highly subjective after all, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a complete plebeian when it comes to art. But someone much wiser than I once said that art is supposed to make the viewer feel something – and I certainly had a lot of feels when I discovered Katsuyo Aoki’s porcelain skulls.

Aoki is a Tokyo native, and completed an MFA in Ceramic Art from the prestigious Tama Art University in 2000. Since then, she has showcased her porcelain work in solo and group exhibitions all over the world – and she shows no signs of slowing down just yet.

Aoki’s Predictive Dream Series

Here are some of the porcelain skulls I mentioned earlier. Personally I think they’re quite disturbing; they remind me of the skulls of bone cancer patients. Despite that, they are highly detailed and even quite beautiful, and if nothing else I think Aoki’s skill in creating them is nothing short of impressive.

There are a few that seem to have been inspired by pointy helmets like the Pickelhaube. Check out the side-by-side comparison below, between one of her skulls and a photo of Otto von Bismark.

Likewise, other skulls seem to have been inspired by crowns. Have a look at the following skull. Don’t you think that central, oval-shaped jewel looks kind of like the centerpiece of the Russian Imperial Crown?

Some of Aoki’s skulls sprout curling, ram-like horns, like the ones below.

I don’t quite know what to make of the rest of her skulls. One, for example, seems almost cat-like. Another looks like the skull’s face is melting off – but that’s impossible, right, it hasn’t any flesh to melt off in the first place! Well, they still look pretty neat in any case.

Then there’s this one. I can’t help but think Aoki was just having a laugh when she made it. Is that a faceless kewpie doll standing at attention?

Aoki’s Other Works

Aoki’s quite prolific and she’s produced other porcelain pieces as well. If you liked her skulls and are raring for more with the same sort of flavor, check out her site. Notable mentions include her disembodied horse’s legs, or the strangely titled “Chicken Poet.”

So what do you guys think? Is it art? Would you consider having some of her skulls at home? Let us know in the comments!

Images of porcelain sculptures are from Katsuyo Aoki’s site.

When I first started self-studying Japanese, I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff there was to learn. I can even remember that panicky feeling like it was yesterday: in one hand I had the CD sleeve for MARS, Gackt’s sophomore album, in the other I had a dictionary – and I was stuck on the line 「何も言わないで」 because at the time I couldn’t even make the connection between the dictionary form 言う and its conjugated form 言わない.

Once I recovered from the fact that Oh my god I don’t even know how to look things up in the dictionary, I realized I had to change tack. I needed very specific, actionable techniques that I could start using straight away – and more importantly, they had to be effective.

These techniques have served me really well – and I hope they’ll work for you too!

Keep It Short and Sweet – But Not Too Short

I once had a lecturer that said the best programmers were so focused that they could sit in front of a computer until their bladders exploded. Er… yeah, that’s not me. When it comes to learning Japanese, my attention span is more around the 45-minute mark, and yours might be similar.

I’ve mentioned before that time is precious, and I’m sticking to my guns. By keeping your study sessions short, you get more bang for your buck: you’ll learn the most while you’re focused. Studying past the point where your mind starts to wander is just a waste of time. Simple, right? Of course, you must focus only on Japanese during a study session – that means checking Facebook is out.

The only tricky part about this technique is figuring out how long your study sessions should be. Suppose you’re in the middle of a blog post when the phone rings, and by the time you hang up you’ve lost your train of thought. It takes a few minutes of mentally retracing your steps before you recall what it was you were going to write. Humans are, basically, very bad at context-switching – making sure your study session is long enough gives your brain a chance to shift its focus to Japanese.

Take Time to Think About It

One problem I had with self-studying Japanese was that it was too easy to trick myself into thinking that I knew more than I actually did. There’s a lot that you can figure out just with context, after all. I’ll show you what I mean; have a look at this for example:

Even if you don’t know any Japanese, you could probably tell it’s an ad for a job placement agency. If you know some Japanese and recognize just the word バイト, you could safely assume that agency specializes in part-time job placements. That was sort of how I got by, but I found it really hard when it came to speaking and writing in Japanese myself – and no surprise, since I didn’t really know how to form sentences properly.

To understand how Japanese is put together, I’ve found it quite useful to pause and just think about why something is the way it is. This is really helpful when coming across new grammar, and can be a good way to solidify something you picked up in class with a “real” example. Using that same ad again as an example:

タウンワーク!タウンワーク!
バイトが君に見つけてもらう時を待っているよ。

That last sentence is pretty interesting grammar-wise:

• there’s よ, your garden-variety sentence-ending particle
• the ている indicates an enduring state – waiting, in this case
• the entire バイトが君に見つけてもらう verb clause modifies the noun 時 just like an adjective would

… and so on. This might just seem too much to take on, especially if you’re just starting out. The idea is not to analyze everything down to the last detail – just pick one or two things to mull over. Besides, as your Japanese improves, there’ll be less things you need to figure out.

Input/Output

As I implied previously, Japanese fluency relies just as much on output skills like speaking and writing, as it does on input skills like reading and listening. (This of course depends on what your goals are: if you just want to be able to read raw manga, clearly “fluency” for you means focusing more on input rather than output.)

Improving your speaking skills can be as simple as talking to yourself in the shower. Japanese sounds, most notoriously ら and ふ, can be very different from English sounds, and something you learn only by doing. Besides, like the Fugu Lord says, you’re making use of time that would normally be wasted anyway, so there’s really no excuse not to try this.

Another way of improving your Japanese output skills is to practice with someone who has native Japanese fluency. Lang-8 is really good for improving your writing, for example, and sites like Mixxer can help pair you up with a Japanese language partner. If you live in a university town, finding a Japanese international student to be a conversation partner can be as simple as leaving a note on a community notice board.

There are definitely resources out there, you just have to sign up for them.

Do Repeat Yourself

I believe learning Japanese isn’t just about what you learn when you’re actively studying, but how much you can retain. But memory is a funny thing. You might not remember what you had for dinner yesterday, but a whiff of vanilla can send you back to when you were five, helping your mother make a batch of cookies. What is it that makes something stick?

Well, if I needed a smack across the face each time I needed to remember something, I don’t think I’d have any teeth left in my head! A much less painful way is simple repetition – and I think we can all agree that repetition is absolutely necessary to be any good at anything, be it Japanese, piano, tennis… you get the idea.

Short study sessions really help with this one: you literally have more time available for more study sessions, and since you didn’t study to the point of boredom previously, the next session won’t feel like such a chore. Also, in between those study sessions, your brain gets a chance to go over what you’ve just learned and turn it into long-term memories.

Besides having regular schedule of short study sessions, I’ve also found it handy to use some form of spaced repetition system. This works really well for those hard-to-remember kanji, or kanji look-alikes, and there’s no reason why you can’t make flashcards with grammar points. As for which SRS system to use: there’s Wanikani, of course, but also other options out there; just pick one that works for you.

So, short of moving to Japan to immerse yourself in the language and culture, what other techniques have you used in your journey to Japanese fluency? Which techniques worked best for you? Which didn’t? Share them with us in the comments!

These days I’m nowhere near as hooked on comics as I used to be. I just outgrew them, I guess… plus high school exam hell happened. In any case, although I loved both American comics and Japanese manga equally, I found and still find the differences between them quite remarkable.

Marvel and DC Comics, for example, seem to deal exclusively with the superhero versus supervillain formula, whereas manga has almost too many genres to count. The art style is very different, and so is the humor, especially the many tropes used in manga – and god were they confusing at the start. Bloody noses? Snot bubbles? What?

Funny thing is, once you’ve seen a trope often enough, you’ll just “get” what it means – and that’s a great feeling, like being let in on an inside joke. So for those of you that haven’t “got” it yet, read on to find out more about some common manga tropes. For those that have already “got” it, well, do come along for the ride anyway.

Trope #1 Nosebleeds

A nosebleed, in the wonderful world of manga, equates to sexual arousal.

I saw this trope for the first time in Dragonball, when Bulma lifts her dress and the lecherous Master Roshi spurts blood from his nose. Although Bulma was commando at the time, nosebleeds can be triggered by seeing something as mild as a pair of panties. In the case of the boy in the following image, it seems his bloody nose was triggered more by a fetish for swimsuits rather than the girl wearing them:

Clearly, horn dogs don’t spontaneously get nosebleeds in real life. So why is it so in manga? I think it’s generally accepted that a rush of blood to the head and the resulting nosebleed is a visual metaphor for blood rushing to, er, somewhere else – which probably explains why I’ve only ever seen guys get nosebleeds, although I could be wrong about that.

Trope #2 Sweat drops

Sweat drops are usually an “Oh shit I’m in trouble!” reaction, although they can also appear when someone is embarrassed or frustrated. Someone might have one gigantic sweat drop or multiple smaller ones, and they almost always seem to be on or near the head.

Now this particular trope is fairly easy to understand, and I think translates into English pretty well. Breaking into a cold sweat is normal if you’re nervous about getting into trouble.

Trope #3 Snot bubble

Snot bubbles are a particular favorite of mine. They’re sort of cute if kind of gross, and are used to show when someone is sleeping.

The first time I saw a snot bubble was in Doraemon, in one of the many scenes where the lazy Nobita was asleep. Sometimes you’ll see snot bubbles in anime too, where they gently inflate and deflate as someone breathes, or disappear with a pop when that person wakes. Unlike nosebleeds, snot bubbles seem to happen to both guys and girls.

Of course, the link between an impossibly large snot bubble and sleep makes no sense at all. The Western equivalent “Zzzz” doesn’t really make any sense either. I guess it all boils down to the difficulty that comic artists have when trying to depict someone who’s asleep, versus someone who just has their eyes closed – they had to make something up, and Japanese mangakas just happened to settle on snot bubbles.

Trope #4 Popping veins

Ever been so mightily pissed off you could feel a vein in your temple throb? This trope basically takes that and makes it larger than life – just the right size for manga, in other words.

The accepted format for popping veins is a cross-shaped squiggle, and you’ll usually find it on someone’s forehead. However, since the squiggle just by itself is enough to indicate anger, they can be in any size and even appear almost anywhere. In the image below, for example, you’ll see some popping veins in Inuyasha’s hair and even in Watanuki’s speech bubble.

It’s also really common to combine the squiggle with another emotion. Do you want to show that a waitress, despite her polite smile, is annoyed at a customer? Give her a popping vein or two! Or, as in the image below, a character can be sad and angry at the same time:

Trope #5 Faceplant

The faceplant is usually in response to hearing so something unbelievably shocking or absurd that the character falls flat on his face, arms and legs in a flailing mess. Sometimes there’s even a puff of dust to exaggerate just how hard they hit the floor.

The mangaka may even just imply a faceplant. The girl in the image above, whose crush is transferring, is a particularly nice example. Just look at her hair blown back to show how fast she’s heading for the floor! Arms straight out and ready not to break her fall.

Now the faceplant just looks and sounds ridiculous at first glance, but I think it actually does sort of make sense. To me it seems like a natural evolution from facepalm to headdesk to faceplant, one more extreme than the other… like Pokemon! And of course in English you can be floored with shock.

Trope #6 to … ?

The tropes I’ve covered in some detail make up just a fraction of what’s out there. There are loads more, like shock lines, giving up the ghost, a robber with a headscarf tied under his nose… the list goes on and on.

The sheer number of manga tropes available means cataloguing them all is going to be darn near impossible, especially in just one blog post. I’ve covered what I think are the most common ones, but which other tropes do you think crop up frequently? Have you come across any that just boggled your mind? Are there any tropes you particularly like or dislike? Let us know in the comments!

※ All manga examples shamelessly lifted off manga aggregation sites.

To be more precise, this is a post about the food depicted in Studio Ghibli films – always mouthwateringly detailed and remarkably true to life. Grave of the Fireflies, for example, featured candies in a rectangular can: they’re Sakuma Drops, still manufactured to this day. Then there was all the fuss about eating a pineapple in Only Yesterday – because at the time, imported fruit was rare and expensive.

Yeah Studio Ghibli food appreciation for the win! How many do you recognize?

Although food is certainly a scene-stealer in so many Studio Ghibli films, in no other film does it play a more important role than in Spirited Away. Think about it: if Chihiro’s parents weren’t such gluttons, they wouldn’t have become pigs and there would have been no story.

The neat thing about Spirited Away is that much of the food shown is typical Japanese fare – and boy, is there a lot of it. This movie makes for perfect Introduction to Japanese Cuisine 101 stuff. So why not?

First the Savories…

Onigiri (おにぎり) are rice balls. They’ve been around since at least the Heian period, and nowadays are easily available from any convenience store. They’re often triangular with a filling of some kind and wrapped in nori seaweed, although there really aren’t any hard and fast rules when it comes to onigiri. They’re also considered comfort food, so it’s no surprise that Haku consoles Chihiro with them after she finds out her parents really were turned into pigs.

Of course, the most food-centric event in Spirited Away must be when the bathhouse workers are falling over themselves to serve No-Face. Check out the following scene:

Can you spot the sushi platter? Sushi (寿司) is another classic Japanese dish, made of vinegared rice and some sort of topping or filling. There are loads of different types of sushi, but the ones shown in the screencap are: nigirizushi, rice topped with prawn or tuna or something; and makizushi, a roll of rice wrapped around whatever fillings you fancy and then sliced to serve.

Next to the sushi platter we have ishi yaki-imo (石焼き芋), or sweet potato slow-roasted on hot stones. This is a typical autumn snack in Japan, sold by peddlers from food carts or small trucks. Apparently you can hear the peddlers coming from miles away thanks to the peculiar singsong announcements they make.

Ikameshi (イカ飯) also turns up in this scene. This is a Hokkaido dish of rice-stuffed squid simmered in soy sauce. Ikameshi was born out of necessity: during WWII squid was plentiful but rice was not, so ikameshi was the ideal way to compensate.

… Then the Sweets

Chihiro’s first encounter with Lin, her soon-to-be ally, was when the latter was feeding the soot sprites konpeito (コンペイトー). These knobbly candies are basically just sugar and coloring, and easily available nowadays. Back when they were first introduced by the Portuguese, though, they were considered really posh. In fact, a Portuguese missionary allegedly bribed Oda Nobunaga for permission to preach Christianity in Japan with a bottle of konpeito.

As a human, Chihiro wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms by the other bathhouse workers – that is, until she proved herself by successfully bathing the Stink God (who turned out to be the God of Rivers). As a “Hey, you’re all right,” gesture, Lin gives her an anman (あんまん) later that night. This is a steamed bun with a red bean paste filling, originally from China.

The sponge cake, castella (カステラ), also makes an appearance. Once again, this is a foreign dish that the Japanese have adopted and made into their own: like konpeito, castella is also Portuguese in origin. There are lots of variations on it now, like green tea castella and chocolate castella, but the textbook example is still the plain, bright yellow castella with brown edges.

Honorable Mentions

The foods I’ve mentioned so far are just the tip of the iceberg, really. There are many more dishes in Spirited Away that I don’t know (or don’t consider typically Japanese). So I won’t try to describe them all, but here are a few more that I recognize:

At the far left you can just make out green peas rice. This is a type of maze gohan (混ぜご飯), basically just rice mixed with some other ingredient. Another variant is matsutake rice – matsutake mushrooms are damned expensive so mixing it up with rice is one way to make the meal go further.

At the bottom middle there is nishime (煮しめ), a typical New Year’s vegetable stew with carrots, mushrooms and konnyaku, a grey, jelly-type thing with practically no calories and full of fiber. Last but not least, right next to the nishime there is some form of katsu (カツ): a chicken or pork cutlet, breaded and then deep-fried.

There you have it! A whirlwind introduction to various Japanese foods, modern and traditional, sweet and savory, of foreign origin or a Japanese original.

Can you spot any other typical Japanese foods in Spirited Away? Or in any other Studio Ghibli film for that matter? Let us know what they are in the comments!