Japanese can be a tough language to get into. Not because it’s a hard language to learn, necessarily, but because there are a bunch of mental barriers and misconceptions. Koichi’s talked a bit about this before, but there’s a bit of an elephant in the room: Japanese has a reputation for being hard to learn. [...]
This week’s news out of Japan ranges from mundane to bizarre, covering Japanese linguistic quirks to bird dating sims. Let’s dive in, shall we? That wraps it up for this week’s news. Did I miss some crucial news this week? What was your favorite story? Let me know in the comments! [Header image source.] Every [...]
I was doing research for another post a while back, and found something a bit…unusual. It was an old Japanese scroll about farting. No, you didn’t misread that last sentence. The whole scroll, which is called He-Gassen (“The Fart Battle”) is just about people farting. Farting at other people, farting at cats, farting off of [...]
There’s a lot of music out there I just don’t really “get.” Everybody has genres of music that they don’t like or avoid, and that’s fine. To each his own. I always try to be open and receptive to different types of music, but one genre continues to confound and fascinate me. Let me introduce [...]
When people think about Japanese history, there’s one group of people that stand out more than any other. NINJA! Even people who know nothing else about Japanese history know about ninja, their clothes, shuriken, and their sneakiness. Ninja have infiltrated popular culture like a well-guarded castle. But in the hundreds of years since ninja were [...]
That covers all the news for this week. Did I miss anything? What did you think of the new format? Please let me know in the comments! Every week we gather up all the Japanese news that other people have written about and put it here, in our “Sunday News” column. Although this news may [...]
For the last couple of weeks, our friend John has been tearing up the Saturday Timewasters, posting tons of music from his favorite bands and artists. I thought that I could step in this week and talk about my absolute favorite musical act from Japan, a DJ by the name of Nujabes. Nujabes was a [...]
Legendary competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi made headlines once again this weekend when he emerged victorious at the annual Wing Bowl. In front of a screaming crowd of 20,000 fans, winning $20,000, Kobayashi smashed all records when he devoured 337 chicken wings in 30 minutes. At a little over ten wings a minute, Kobayashi can eat [...]
Military forces all over the world are constantly trying to think of the next great weapon, the one device that will help them turn the tides of battle in their favor and crush the enemy. In World War 2, the Japanese thought that weapon would be a new battleship, bigger and greater than anything that [...]
This week’s Sunday News runs the gamut of odd topics and news, everything from theme parks to a citizenship scandal to some pretty sad news. Let’s dive right in: Gundam park to open in Odaiba: Japan is finally getting its own Gundam theme park, fulfilling otaku dreams everywhere. While that’s great and all, I’m still [...]
