The “How To Learn Japanese” How-To Guide

Last year we started up a page full of various Japanese learning resources (and we’re still working on it, a little at a time). Japanese resources are all and good because there are only a certain number of resources out there, and we knew what we wanted to look at first. With Japanese “How-To” guides, we’re not quite as sure. We have, however, posted up a ton of placeholders for things we want to work on, and that’s where you come in.

If you could visit the How-To Guide page and look through what’s there now then come back here to let us know what you’re dying to know, we’ll know what we should work on first. We’re only planning on putting up approximately one new one per week since they take quite a bit of time to do, so your opinion will actually matter 0_0

There actually is a few How-To guides already up there, though. Three of them have to do with setting up the ability to type in Japanese (Ubuntu, MacOSX, Windows). The fourth one is a much better and much updated version of the “Gendered Language” post that I put up on Tofugu a long time ago (here’s the new Gendered Language page). I hope its new home and fancy updates will be incredibly useful to a lot of you studying Japanese (especially those of you who are worried about sounding like too much of a tough guy or too much of a whiny little girl).

So, I’m afraid that’s it for today. Lucky for you, the Gendered Language how-to guide is just like a post, so I won’t go to bed tonight feeling particularly guilty. Just the normal crying and sobbing that accompany my night terrors, nothing to do with this!

Visit: Tofugu’s Japanese How-To Guides Page

Make Babies, Get Internet With AKB48

Creating virtual babies with your AKB sweetheart is creepy, no doubts about it. But what is even more creepier? Seeing Koichi’s face on a breast feeding mom! It even gets more creepier with the post’s accompanying video where Koichi wears a matching wig (wtf?) and trys to seduce wrinkly old ojisans with his Yakuza accent.

The saving grace was the community involvement in the making of the video. Thank you all that played along, willingly have their mugs become Koichi baby abominations. Read this post →

The Geneva Conventions Don’t Apply To These Japanese Giant Hornets [Genocide Doom Bringer]

We all know that Japanese Hornets are not to be trifled with. The post is riddled with lots of informative information and videos of their treachery.  But who knew the hornets had the antiquity and a network that ran deep into the bowels of historical malevolence. Connections with the Nazi Party and the man himself? What a surprise! I’m sure if photography existed in earlier times, we would see gray-scaled, blurry images of the bugs’ involvement in the Spanish Inquisition and the death of Mufasa (if you squint hard enough during the video, you can see the hornet). Read this post →

Yoro Park: The Site Of Reversible Destiny

This is the year that TofuguTV made its debut. Entertaining, fun, and different. Three characteristics each episode brought to the viewer. I particularly liked the Yoro Park video, with its fun editing and laid back approach. And who doesn’t love cats?

Koichi deserves a pat on the back for working hard on these videos. There are many more videos to come. A little encouragement and prodding from the community may assist in getting their release dates pushed earlier *wink* *wink*. Read this post →

Japanese Scientists Learn How To Make Meat From Poop

The engineer in me got a kick out of this article. Meat made out of poop? Certainly, the next food monarch to dethrone America’s favorite ingredient, high fructose corn syrup. Possibly a replacement to the foodie craze “head-to-tail” cooking (what haven’t we consumed yet? Oh! Poop!). Is it better than the alternative, soylent green? Who knows! But I do know entrepreneurial Viet wants to get in on the action before its becomes HOT and MAINSTREAM. My lifelong dream of selling animal excrements disguised as health-boosting meat products to the Asian market (who doesn’t want the sex drive of a dolphin?) will become a reality. Read this post →

The Mother of All Pocky Days [11-11-11]

I could tell you why I find this post hilarious, thought-provoking, and a life changer. But I don’t want to ruin the excitement for you. You’ll just have to find out yourself. Read this post →

That pretty much it for me! See you all at the 2012 reunion party!

Also, be sure to check out Koichi’s, John’s, and Hashi’s favorites of 2011!

Ok I lied. I’m adding a sixth item to my favorite list. Technically it isn’t a post, but it’s still a Tofugu work of art. I present to you A Tofugu Halloween, a choose your own adventure YouTube video. Godzilla, Starcraft, Crying, Cats, it has everything! (Note: You’ll need to view the video on YouTubes webpage to be able to access the clickable tags on the video)

P.S. Can’t wait for the 2012 movie sequel? Hashtag it on Twitter.
P.P.S. Will 2012 see a new Japanese Prime Minister? Find out by adding us on Facebook or Google+.

These 5 posts were my absolute favorites from 2011. They might not have been the most popular, but I really enjoyed each of these posts for different reasons.

Save The Salarymen Foundation

The video for this post was easily my favorite of this year. The shots (as directed by cinematographer extraordinaire, Koichi) were so spot-on for the kind of charity commercials that we were trying to satirize.

Plus for the video I got to wear a fake mustache and a necktie on my head while drinking in public. What’s not to love? Read this post →

Understanding Japan Through the Karate Kid

I was really grateful that Hikosaemon did this guest post for us because not only because it freed up a good twelve hours for Starcraft 2 practice, but also because it was probably one of the insightful articles on Japanese culture I’ve ever read.

Hikosaemon has the kind of life experience in Japan that you can’t imitate nor find in many people. The result of that is a post with a lot of first-hand insight into the Japanese mentality. If you want to stay in Japan for any extended period of time, this is a must-read. Read this post →

Are We The Nation Of Sushi Abomination?

I thought this was one of the funniest posts all year. I’ve always been wary of the crazy Americanized sushi rolls (like the cream-cheese-laden Philadelphia Roll), but Koichi uncovered whole classes of sushi abominations I had no idea even existed.

And even with all of those abominations, Koichi still didn’t talk about famed TV chef and fashion criminal Guy Fieri‘s sushi restaurant, Tex Wasabi’s, whose cuisine and website are both blights upon the earth. And why do you wear those sunglasses on the back of your head, Mr. Fieri? What are you hiding?! Read this post →

All You Need to Know About Japan’s Weirdest Dialect, Tohoku-Ben

Another great guest post from this year was written for us by Ken Cannon A.K.A. Ken Cannon Rush of Japanese Through Anime. I picked this post because I learned a lot from it. Not only was I pretty much completely unaware about the different Japanese dialects (something I’d never really thought about), but I had no idea about the stereotypes associated with dialects like Tohoku-ben.

And of course, as we all know, other dialects have very specific stereotypes associated with  them. For instance, the speakers of Koichi-ben are known to be both devastatingly handsome and Starcraft 2 savants. It’s a tough life. Read this post →

Cup Noodle Museum Opens; College Students Everywhere Rejoice

When I die, I want to be remembered for one thing above all others: the stupid captions I add to pictures in my posts. Not only did I really like writing about the Cup Noodle Museum (it sounds like a fun place to visit!), but I had a ton of fun writing the captions for that post. Content? Pff! It’s all about the captions, baby. Read this post →

That’s pretty much it for posts in 2011, I’ll be sure to see you all in 2012!

Be sure to check out John and Koichi’s “best of” posts, and watch for Viet’s post tomorrow!

P.S. Scared of the impending 2012 apocalypse? Seek shelter on Twitter.
P.P.S. Wiser than to fall for that whole “end of the world” business? Add us on Facebook or Google+.

Top 10 Strange Japanese Films You Need to Watch

This was one of my first big posts here at Tofugu and I had a lot of fun writing it. I was even exposed to a few new favorite movies in the process. I really dig strange Japanese things and this list is just packed with strange and entertaining Japanese movies. If you missed this post the first time around, you should definitely give it a look now. If nothing else you might get a few ideas for what to watch to help you stay up way past your bedtime this New Years. What better way to ring in the New Year than with these crazy films? Read This Post →

If Apple Made Capsule Hotels, They Would Look Like This

I always enjoy Koichi’s posts that include videos, but I thought this one was especially interesting. I’ve always wanted to check out a capsule hotel, but despite having been to Japan once before, I have not yet had the opportunity to do so. This post and video were really cool because up until then I had not seen a capsule hotel quite like it. I still want to stay in one. It just seems like such a neat experience. At least for one night maybe – after that it’d probably start to get annoying. Definitely wouldn’t want to make a home out of the place. Read This Post →

True Blood: Personality and Blood Types in Japan

I always thought it was interesting how much weight was placed on blood types in Japan and in this post by Hashi, he goes into a lot of detail regarding it. I think it’s really cool to compare how this is similar to astrological signs and horoscopes and all those crazy things that people can get super into. Do you know what your blood type says about you? Read This Post →

Japanese Etiquette: How to Save Yourself from Embarrassment in Japan

This was another one of my favorite posts to write this year. For a lot of people, going to Japan (or just out of the country in general) can be a daunting experience. But with handy guides like this one, the anxiety fades away at least a little bit. My best friend actually left to visit Japan yesterday and she was super nervous about going (she’d never even been out of the States before). But after reading this post (and receiving lots of pep talks and sedatives) she finally calmed down and wasn’t so nervous about the trip ahead of her. So if you’re even planning on taking a trip to Japan, the information contained in this post is certainly worth a read. Read This Post →

The Ridiculously Racist Robots Of Mobile Fighter G-Gundam

Another choice post by Hashi. I was never really that into Gundam myself, so I wasn’t totally surprised that I’d missed these characters, but I was just surprised they even existed. Some of them are just outrageous. I definitely lol’d while reading this post and checking out all the pictures of these racist Gundams and I’m sure you will too. Good ol’ Hashi – never lets us down. Read This Post →

P.S. Happy New Year!

We all hope you’ve enjoyed this year of 2011 and we look forward to entertaining and informing you through all of 2012 as well (don’t listen to Koichidamus’ ramblings, the world’s not totally ending in 2012.)

And we’ll be on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ if you need anything, but in the mean time look forward to Hashi’s top five Tofugu posts tomorrow!

The First Time Japan Saw The World [Japanese Cartography]

This post was so interesting to write. I got to do a ton of research, learn the progression of maps in Japan (and China a bit too), and gain a new perspective on how Japan viewed the world (both socially and map-wise) over several centuries. The world maps of Japan were also very artistic and totally different from maps you’d see anywhere else. It’s amazing how far we’ve come in such a small time period. Read This Post →

Goroawase: Japanese Numbers Wordplay (i.e. How To Remember Japanese Telephone Numbers)

This is another one of those posts where I got to learn a lot and share that learning with all of you. I knew how goroawase worked already, but I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole would go. Turns out it’s pretty deep. Learning about goroawase is like solving a puzzle, and I’ve always believed solving puzzles is the best way to learn (and the most satisfying, much more so than getting an A or a B on a test). See what I mean and Read This Post →

The Greatest Inventor of All Time: Dr. NakaMats

While it’s up in the air whether this guy’s legit or not, I loved this post by Hashi because of its entertainment value. I’m glad there’s still people like this in the world, inventing all kinds of crazy things just for the love of inventing crazy things. We need more mad scientists in this world. Read This Post →

Konichiwarrrr, Mateys! Famous Japanese Pirates, Ninja Pirates, And The Wild Wakou

Who doesn’t love pirates? Also, who doesn’t love ninjas? Did you know Japan combined the two at one point in history (the two most powerful things in the world, wrapped into one). Couple that with the fact that Japan is the leader in robot technology and you’ll have yourself a Pirate Robot Ninja… Let’s hope it never gains sentience. But seriously, awesome read on Japanese pirates. I had no idea these existed until Viet wrote about them. Read This Post →

In Japan, Women Think Mark Zuckerberg Is A Hamburger

Last but not least is a post based off a study that WhatJapanThinks wrote about. I go into pretty deep details as to why these women thought Zuckerberg is a hamburger as well as looked at the other things they thought a Zuckerberg was. It’s really interesting, and also a good little Japanese study that will help you to better understand how the Japanese language works. Read This Post →

Favorite Video: Cat Island Part 1 & 2

How can these not be my faves? More TofuguTV in the new year, too. Next episode will also have cats in it, too.

P.S. Have A Great New Year!

I won’t be seeing you until the New Year, so everyone have a happy and safe one. Don’t eat too much or blow anything off with fireworks. Seeyah next year!

And, of course, we’ll be on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ if you need anything. John, Hashi and Viet will be posting their fav-fives this week too, so enjoy!

Hey everyone. I’m pretty certain we screwed up, though to be honest, I’m not sure how much yet until I talk to the right folks. We posted something up this morning about Americans and their food portion sizes in comparison to Japan and their portion sizes / ways they eat. There were problems with this post. So, I just pulled that post, and am putting this up in its place. Here’s what was wrong:

There were a few things. First, it was not a particularly sensitive post. That I can live with, to a certain degree, but this post went too far for some people. Hashi & I will make sure posts more tactful. But, that’s not the main reason we pulled this post. Very awesome commenter ‘observer’ pointed out something else.

Not to point fingers but the first half of this article seems really similar to http://kotaku.com/5850783/amer…from a couple weeks ago. Even down to some of the phrases.

And after reading the Kotaku post just now it was concerningly similar (at least the first half of the article). But yeah, that’s not okay. I have no idea if it was a strange coincidence or not, and won’t know until I talk to people, but I thought it was similar enough to pull the post, so that’s what I just did. The most important thing for me, personally, is the overall originality of Tofugu articles, and obviously this doesn’t really pass the test, whether or not any borrowing occurred. None of us noticed this (despite being readers of Kotaku ourselves…).

So, the post was taken down for a couple reasons, but this was the main one.

Anyways, I just wanted to post up a quick explanation and apology so nobody wonders where this article went off to. Will be talking to the author to figure out what happened, and hopefully prevent anything like this again. I’m so, so, sorry :’( This is really lame of us.

Cheers,
Koichi

Welcome to Tofugu’s first-ever Halloween week! With Halloween only about a week away, we thought we’d treat you guys with seven days of posts about scary, spooky, and creepy Japan-related things.

Halloween was originally a European holiday, with roots in Irish and Roman traditions. Over time though, the original meaning of the Halloween has been transformed from honoring the dead and celebrating autumn to dressing up and getting tons of candy from strangers.

So as you might imagine as a European holiday, Halloween isn’t really celebrated all that much in Japan. Generally, there’s no trick-or-treating (although Japanese people might be polite enough to give you candy anyway), there aren’t really a whole lot of costumes or anything like that. Usually only Japanese university students do any sort of celebrating, and even then it’s pretty limited.

“So Hashi,” you might be asking, “If Halloween isn’t a big deal in Japan, why are you writing about it?” Well disembodied voice, that’s an excellent question.

We here at Tofugu are based in the United States, and celebrating Halloween is as American as apple pie. We wanted to do something to celebrate Halloween on Tofugu, and what better way than combining celebrating Halloween with our love of Japan? And secondly, theme weeks are awesome, and we don’t get to do them often.

So keep an eye out this week for posts about terrifying J-Horror movies, swarms of killer bees, deadly robots, and all things spooky, scary, and creepy.

Oh, and if you want to keep track, we’ll be adding all of them to the scary tag here, so you can just check out that tag and see them all (especially if it’s not today, because today we only have this post up).

P.S. What do you want to see in Tofugu’s Halloween Week? Let us know on Twitter.
P.P.S. Can’t wait for Tofugu’s Arbor Day Week? Like us on Facebook.

So, what’s in the store right now?

Stickers!

Some lucky people (haiku winners, people who’ve beat us in Starcraft, Tofugu day laborers who we pay in stickers) already have these stickers with our fugu logo on it. Now they’re up for sale for anybody who wants to cover every conceivable surface with the Tofugu logo.

Not included: Koichi.

Vocab Packs!

Some of the things in our shop are even educational! (Shocking, I know!) For beginners to Japanese, we’ve got a whole bunch of vocab packs to help you learn essential Japanese verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Apparently, knowing words is important when learning a new language. Who knew?

Not included: adverbs, prepositions, and pronouns.

Admittedly, there isn’t a whole lot in the store right now. We’re taking it slow since the store is still so new, but depending on how things go, we might add new items to the store in the future.

P.S.: Wanna know when we add new things to the store? Follow us on Twitter.

P.P.S.: Are you also a ruthless capitalist? Like us on Facebook

It’s been about a month since we launched our “Japanese Resources Page” – on it we say things like “blah-didy-blah japanese resource this that etc” but we thought it would be fun for you guys if we just put our money where our mouths are. Not all the resources on the Japanese Resources page are free (some of them are, though, and they’re awesome), so we thought we’d give you some of the paid ones using cash from our very own Scrooge McDuck gold coin swimming pools (that way you don’t have to). We have a lot of cool resources to give away, too.

How To Win (It’s Suspiciously Easy)

On our Japanese Resources page, we have “recommend” buttons. They look like this:

The cool thing about these is that they’re linked to Facebook, meaning only real people can “recommend” something. Although individual items will get fewer votes by using Facebook (I’m guessing), the idea is that each “recommendation” will have a lot more umph behind it. Real people are recommending these resources, and I think people will be pickier about what they choose. That’s awesome, I think. You can really get an idea already what’s a great resource out there, just based off this (though some newer stuff has fewer recommendations).

We’re greedy fugus over here, though, so we want to bribe you to give some recommendations on this page (if you haven’t already). Here’s how to enter the contest.

1. Make sure you have a Facebook account (big sorries if you don’t!)
2. Go to the Japanese Resources page on Tofugu.
3. Recommend one or more resources by hitting the “recommend” button. Pick your favorites! The ones you’d actually recommend to someone else for their awesome-ness.
4. Come back here and leave a comment, telling us what you recommended and why. Be sure to add your email in the email field when doing your comment, that’s how we’ll contact you if you win something.
5. Hope for the best. There are a couple different ways you can win something (and a bunch of prizes, see below), but we’ll start giving stuff out next week.

Quick, easy, and helps out both of us, I think (especially if you win something). More importantly, it will help others to find great Japanese resources, based off of your recommendations. You’re changing people’s minds! 0_0

Prizes

Out of our own linty pockets we’re providing prizes. Some of the prizes are ours, some are others – there’s a good mix of stuff going on, here, with different ways to win them, depending on what they are.

Rules

There you have it. Odds are really good on some of these, not as good on others. There are some rules, though:

1. You have to recommend something on the Japanese Resource Page first (that means you need a Facebook account to recommend with).
2. We’ll only count one comment from each person, below (so don’t spam comments… we know your IP address! Be nice to others!)
3. We’ll try to make sure one person doesn’t win more than one prize (besides the Ultimate Vocab packs, because everyone wins one of those, at least!).
4. We’ll start giving things away a week from now. That’s August 8th. Probably won’t get everything out on that day, but expect to start hearing from us then (and the rest of that week). Make sure you put your email in correctly while leaving your comment, otherwise we won’t be able ot get ahold of you :(
5. Comments that are particularly entertaining / well written / etc may or may not get two entries into the “random choosing pool.” Quality is king, ya’all.
6. Also, tweeting / liking / G+ing this post may or may not also help you out. Probably won’t, but just sayin’, you know?

That’s it – get to it if you want to get to it! Let us know if you have any questions, too.

Remember that sweet music that started playing when Koichi finally found the cats of the infamous Cat Island? Want to relive that feeling of stumbling upon a clearing of cats live, in person? Do you like noble light fixtures?

Then we have a treat for you.

The music in Cat Island was done by the awesome alt-pop band, Brave Chandeliers. These guys have always been great about letting us use their stuff for TofuguTV, and we want to make sure to help them out too! They’ll be touring the US from now till August, so we thought we’d get the word out for their US tour. Here’s when and where they’ll be playing:

Tour Dates

Tuesday July 26 – Charlotte, The Milestone
Wednesday July 27 – Chapel Hill, Local 506
Thursday July 28 – Philadelphia, Rusty Nail
Friday July 29 – New York, Sullivan Hall
Saturday July 30 – New York, Times Square Arts Center

Tuesday August 2 – Detroit, Magic Bag
Wednesday August 3 – Indianapolis, Birdy’s
Thursday August 4 – Chicago, Bottom Lounge
Saturday August 6 – Milwaukee, Shank Hall

Monday August 8 – Kansas City, Riot Room
Wednesday August 10 – Dallas, Double Wide
Friday August 12 – Albuquerque, el Rey Theater

So if you like their music in Cat Island, be sure to check them out in live.

And as a special treat, Tofugu readers can grab a free EP from Brave Chandeliers here!

P.S.: Like Brave Chandeliers? The let us know on our Twitter!

P.P.S.: Like Liking things? Then Like us on Facebook.