“Yes.” I said. And this happened.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

Worried that your baby brother and/or little kid doesn’t appreciate your love of Kumaman? We have 20+ pages of different Tofugu illustrations outlined and made pretty, all compiled in one ginormous PDF to make them think otherwise!

Random Tofugu employee showing off his finished piece. SO PRETTY.

There are other characters featured in the the coloring book (not limited to): Koichiffany, Hayao Miyazaki, Gomenjira, an alpaca, Shinzo Abe, cute vampires, Fugurobots, Matt Cain, and a giant squid! There’s also funny odd captions on every page that will make you think twice bout printing these pages out to give it to your children/siblings/mum/etc.

Download our first ever Tofugu coloring book by clicking the doobly-doo below!

(To download it to a folder, right-click then “save-as”)

Color in the pages. Put it up on your fridge. Just do it. Make us proud. And make Kumaman proud.

/SIGHS IN THE BRILLIANCE

And, because we want to see some finished products, we thought we’d hold a little contest!

PRIZES!!??

Go ahead and print out a page (or many pages) and color something in. Take a picture with your finished page and post it in the comments. We’ll pick out around five that we like sometime next week and send those lucky people some Tofugu/TextFugu/WaniKani stickers. Possibly bonus points if you make a small child do the coloring dirty work for you. Also some bonus points for a creative picture. JUST IMAGINE IF YOU COMBINED THE TWO!

Have fun, thank you for the great year, and we look forward to seeing what you can do with this!

Aside from the advantage of being visually rather than textually based, the popularity of Dragonball and Street Fighter outside of Japan made it easy for Makanokosappo to cross cultural and linguistic boundaries and catch on with internet nerds around the globe. Now, Japanese humor is often painted as being all-but impenetrable by those without a high level of proficiency in the language, and the idea of not being able to be at least moderately funny in Japanese is quite a discouraging prospect for learners in the early stages of their studies.

But never fear! Just because you aren’t JLPT N1 yet doesn’t mean you are doomed to bore the pants of others when communicating in Japanese. As this article in The Japan Times points out, there is lots of Japanese humor that only requires a basic command of the language to be understood, enjoyed, and used to send your Japanese friends flying into the air from the sheer force of your wit! Three contenders for this year’s Japanese Buzzword of the Year Award have been taken up on the internet in a big way and become memes, and they are perfect examples of how Japanese humor is quite similar to the kinds of things that make us English speakers giggle. So, without further ado, let’s us proceed to teh lolz!

Meme #1: Itsu Yaru Ka? Ima Desho!

Osamu Hayashi’s now-famous catchphrase “Itsu yaru ka?…… Ima deshou!” (When are you actually going to do it? NOW!) made its first appearance in 2012 as part of a T.V. commercial for Toshin High School. A nationwide chain of cram-schools focused on preparing students for the infamously grueling university entrance exams, Toshin tries to lure in customers by showing clips of their best teachers motivating students through their “unique characters” and “inspirational words.” While making the mother of all doya-gao (a Japanese phrase describing look of smugness or self-satisfaction), Osamu faces his students and asks “Itsu yaru ka?” (When are you actually going to do it?), leaves the smallest of pauses, and then answers the question himself “ima desho!” (it’s now or never, right!). The word “ima” simply translates as [now/the present], while “desho” is a grammatical term that, in this particular case, implies that the speaker is very confident that their opinion is correct.

The video gained some attention, but it wasn’t until Toyota hired Osamu to do a parody commercial in 2013 that the videos went viral and Osama’s catchphrase rapidly became one of the most popular memes of the year. Toyota’s commercial mimics the original video, but the “yaru” in “istu yaru ka” is replaced with “kau” (buy), turning the phrase into “When are you actually going to buy it? NOW!”

Usage and Examples

Within a matter of weeks of the commercial being aired, Twitter, Facebook, Mixi, and other such sites were flooded with remix videos, gifs, and image macros.

Dubstep remix anyone?

Or how about the Kirby version?

Another popular way to procrastinate online is to change “itsu yaru ka?” to another question, or alter the response by replacing “ima” with another word or phrase. In the picture below, やる “yaru” has been replaced with 殺る, which is also pronounced “yaru” but means “to kill” or “to knock off!”

“Itsu yaru ka… ima desho!” When are you actually going to knock them off?…NOW!

As Japanese has quite a limited number of sounds, the majority of words have at least one homonym, aka a word that is pronounced the same but written differently and has a different meaning. In the original Toshin commercial, the “ima” meaning “now/the present” is written 今, but there is another “ima” which is written as 居間 and means “living room.”

“Doko de yaru ka? Ima desho!” – Where are you going to do it… In the living room, right?

So when’re you going to start using this meme? Err… sometime soon?

Meme #2: Je! (Je!) (Je!)

In standard Japanese, surprise or shock are usually expressed with the word “eh?”, meaning something like “huh?” in English , or “bikkuri”, which translates roughly as “what a shock!” However, in the dialect spoken in Kosode, Iwate prefecture in North-East Japan, surprise is given voice to with the expression “je!”. The greater the surprise, the more times you repeat the sound, three repetitions usually being the maximum.

One Japanese website gives the following guidance for usage:

Level 1 ‘Je!’

“Udon yori soba no hou ga karori ga takai da te”
[You know, soba noodles are apparently higher in calories than udon noodles]

Level 2 ‘Je! Je!’

“THE BOOM ni wa okinawa no hito wa hitori mo i inai rashiiii yo”
[It seems that not one of the members of The Boom, who play Okinawan-style music, are actually from Okinawa!]

Level 3 ‘Je! Je! Je’

“Ano hito, ojisan ni mieru kedo, jitsu ha obasan nan da yo ne”
[That person over there – they might look like an old man, but it’s actually an old woman.]

So, perhaps you are wondering how and why “je!” became so popular? Well, it’s all thanks to a T.V. drama called ‘Ama Chan’ that was aired on NHK from March to December this year. The story revolves around a girl named Aki Amano who visits her mother’s hometown of Kosode when her grandmother is taken ill. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but I will say that the story involves Aki struggling to qualify as a sea urchin diver and aiming to become a famous idol at the same time. The majority of the main characters in the series speak in the Kosode dialect, and thanks to both the popularity of the show the once little-known expression “Je” has taken off in a big way.

Usage and Examples

As with “Ima Desho!”, YouTube videos featuring the expression have been a big hit. One user decided to record his “improved version” of the instrumental theme song by singing along to it with “Je! Je! Je! Je!…”

… while a slightly more ambitious user created his own song inspired by the show, with a “Je”-filled chorus.

Sukoshi odoroku je！ When it’s a little surprise ‘Je!’
Futsuu ni odoroku je！ When it’s an every-day surprise ‘Je! Je!’
Sungoku odoroku je! je! je! je! je! When it’s a big surprise ‘Je! Je! Je! Je!’
Nipponcyuu je! je! je！ All through Japan ‘Je! Je! Je!’

Ever since the first episode, when Aki’s mother receives a message on her phone where “je!” is written using the emoji (‘j’), usage has been a huge hit on social sites such as Twitter.

‘Je!’ = （‘j’）／
‘Je! Je!’ = （‘jj’）／
‘Je! Je! Je!’ = （‘jjj’）／

“Okaasan taoreta! (‘j’)/” [Mum feinted! :O]

Or you could just make a macro by slapping the phrase on a picture of a surprised looking cat because, let’s face it, cute animals are what the internet’s really about.

“Je je je je je!!!!!! Nanda are?” [Ahhhhhhhhhhh! What is THAT?]

Meme #3: Bai Gaeshi

Our third meme also comes from a 2013 T.V. drama. “Hanzawa Naoki” centers around an incredibly bad-ass banker called (shockingly) Hanzawa Naoki (!), who works for the largest financial institution in Japan, Tokyo Chuo Bank. The series tracks the challenges and scandals he encounters as he climbs his way up the administrative ranks. His catch-phrase “yararetara yarikaesu, baigaeshi da!” means “If your enemies hurt you, take double the payback!”, and as the series progresses and his opposition get more dastardly it becomes “jyuubai gaeshi da!” (10 times the payback), and eventually ”hyaku bai gaeshi da!” (take 100 times the payback!).

Just like “ima desho!” and “je! (je!) (je!)“, this one-liner was a huge hit with internet users, and popped up all over the place as the show gained popularity.

Aside from the usual remixes, there is also (the rather difficult) “listen-to-the-phrase-for-three- minutes-non-stop” video challenge.

The interesting thing about the phrase “bai gaeshi da” is that without a specific context it can have a lot of meanings. It can be translated as “double the payback” or “give back twice as good as you get”, depending on how it is used. As a result, there have been numerous discussions about what else should be given or taken back in double.

“Raisu tanonda hazu na no ni han raisu ga kita.”
[Even though I ordered a full portion of rice, I only got a half. Take double the payback!]

“Omiyage wo”
[Souvenirs: give back double what you get]

Humor really is one of the most awesome forms of communication out there; sharing a joke and laughing with someone allows you to break down barriers, establish common ground, and I know I would be more likely to want to spend time talking with someone who can make me laugh. Moreover, language learning is more efficient, beneficial and, well, fun (!) when you are enjoying yourself as you study, so exposing yourself to Japanese humor seems like a pretty good idea overall. One of the great things about these memes is that they’re not exclusively used online – they have been appearing on T.V. and in real-life conversations throughout the year, so you can work them into both your written and spoken Japanese!

Do you know any other Japanese memes that can be easily understood by English speakers that you can share in the comments?

[hr /]

Bonus Wallpapers!

[2560x1600] ∙ [1280x800]

What is Yukigassen?

Just like the literal translations implies, it is a sport of snow battles, or more specifically, snowball battles. The difference between Yuukigassen to your typical neighborhood snowball fight is the wealth of regulations and professionalism one needs to adhere to. Two teams of seven on-field players duke it out, battle-royale style. Game mechanics are similar to capture the flag, where a team can come out victorious by capturing the opponent team’s flag or “tagging out” the opposing team. The end goal? Fight their way for one of the coveted spots on the Showa-Shinzan International and obtain the top prize, the Public Welfare and Labor Minister’s Award and Cup.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVJg3jHzPs4']

This game is very serious business. An official international federation exists with a strong sponsorship backing. A few of the sponsors are the major media outlets NHK, HBC, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Asahi Shimbun Presses, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan Airlines, and Sapporo Beer(!). There are many Japanese men who dedicate their lives to this sport, training themselves everyday for the big games that only occur for a couple days out of the year. Some even forgo having spouses and raising a family due to all the time required to dedicate themselves to perfecting the throwing strike or volley.

The sport isn’t limited to inside the borders of Japan. Many countries participate in the games, many of which have their own leagues and tournaments: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada, and the USA.

So how did the idea of regulating snowball fighting came about in Japan?

(Short) History of Yukigassen

The idea came about in 1987 by a small, sub-3,000 population Hokkaido town called 壮瞥町 (そうべつちょう, Sobetsu). At the time, Sobetsu’s claim to fame was a summer tourist town. Nearby is Mt. Showa-Shinzan, the main attraction for many visitors.

During the long, snow-filled winters, tourism halted to a stand-still. The town’s young, aspiring population saw a need to improve Sobetsu’s economy during the long winters. Forming an ideas committee, they began brainstorming methods of luring in tourists. They already knew that their idea had to be unique and not have been implemented elsewhere in order to fully realize their goal. Days went by with no home-run idea in sight. What began to be an optimistic search to improve their town slowly spiraled into the thought that in reality they might have to settle to just being a summer town. Then the fateful day finally came.

Members of the committee took noticed that tourists were having playful sessions of snowball fighting around town. The flashing light bulb appeared in the minds of the committee, and the rest was history. The first Yukigassen tournament was held the following winter, which brought in 7,000 visitors and 70 teams for the event. Twenty-three Showa-Shinzan Yukigassen tournaments later, the event is now drawing in an annual average of 25,000 visitors, with a set 128 coed and 24 female participating teams.

How is it played?

As mentioned earlier, a game of Yukigassen is played out with two teams of seven on-field players each. Each team can have two additional back-up players and a captain, making it a total of ten players.

In a tournament style setting, three teams are grouped together and pitted against each other round-robin style. Games are played best two out of three, where each game’s length is a maximum of three minutes. Victor is decided when either

1. The enemies flag is in possession of the opposing team
2. All players on the opposing team are knocked out (one hit from a snowball is considered out; doesn’t matter where the source of the snowball came from, either the enemy, your teammate, or even yourself), or
3. The time runs out one team has more remaining players than the other team.

The team with the best record moves on to face the other victors. This continues until one team comes out on top.

The map of the battlefield is pictured below.

Each blue box represents a snow-made shelters, while the red solid circles encompassed by the black bordered circles are the flagpole points. Field areas are either 40m x 10m (~130ft x ~33ft) or 36m x 10m (~118ft x ~33ft).

Team players are split into a four strikers and three defender/feeder positions. No point during the game can the 4 strikers move behind their own back line. In addition, no more than three strikers can cross the center line into the opposing team’s territory.

A few of the common position strategies are outline below in the two figures below.

Standard Position

Attacking Position

You may be wondering why one of the figures points out a snowball storage behind the rear shelter. Each team is only allowed to have 90 snowballs per match. These snowballs must be made before every match. But wait, couldn’t the players make snowballs from their environment during the game? Nope, that is against the rules. So, if the strikers are not allowed to cross their back line and they can’t make their own snow balls, then how can they attack? They are fed snowballs from the snowball storage by the defenders (or feeders, as I called them earlier). Balls can only be fed to players by rolling it to them, no tossing allowed (think of all the friendly fire that’d happen if they did!).

Ok, but wait a minute, 90 snowballs sounds a lot. Is there an efficient way to mass produce the snowballs? Yep, there sure is. The Yuukigassen Federation would be more than happy to sell your a snowball making device for US$740; produces snowballs in batches of 36.

Follow these instructions...

... And you get perfect snowballs like these! No yellow snowballs, please.

After reading and watching the videos on Yuukigassen, we are fairly pumped to start our own team. Now if only we can get snow to stick around our parts for more than a day… I leave to you a video of a complete game, for your viewing. Check out the volley skills at work! Pew Pew!

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bZtjVra3wo']

Although Yukigassen isn’t quite ready to be a Winter Olympic sport (c’mon, Curling got in somehow!), we’ll be pulling for it every chance we get. To get into the Olympics, a sport has to be “widely accepted around the world.” Yukigassen is starting to get there, though it’s probably not quite up to the standards of whatever committee chooses this sort of thing. Still, I hope to see it sometime soon. Who thought childhood playtime could turn into something this cool, though?

So, are you ready to go out and join your local team, people-who-live-in-places-with snow? We hope to see you on the snow battlefield.

P.S. Going to dedicate your life to the game of Yuukigassen? Share it on Twitter.
P.P.S. If your team wins the Showa-Shinzan International, let us know on Facebook or Google+.

What Is Pocky Day?

First of all, what is Pocky? For those of you who don’t know, Pocky is a popular snack all around the world, but it’s probably most popular in Japan (since that’s where it comes from). When it comes to Japanese treats, though, these are the ones that you’ll see all around the world. Basically, they’re breadish / cookie-ish sticks with chocolate on them. You grab them by the un-chocolatey side and then start dancing.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJVjlQ3BSrM']

There is one special day, though, where Pocky (supposedly) reigns as king of the snack world, and that day is “Pocky Day,” which lands on November 11 (11-11) because that date consists of a bunch of ones, which are, of course, shaped like Pocky. On 11-11 (Pocky Day) you are supposed to buy lots and lots of Pocky, or something, because that’s just what people do… or, that’s what the “It’s Pocky Day!” commercials suggest. Don’t even think about not assimilating with the Pocky Borg.

How “Pocky Day” Got Started

Strangely enough, Pocky Day was stolen, in a few different ways.

In Korea there is a snack called “Pepero,” which is basically just Pocky with a Korean name.

Pretty much what happened was that Lotte (who makes Pepero, first sold in 1983) pretty much ripped off Glico (who made Pocky since 1966). At least one thing came from Pepero in Korea, though, and that is “Pepero Day.” Apparently it is similar to Valentines day, and young couples exchange Pepero, candies, and “romantic gifts.”

So, I guess to try and get Pepero back, the girls and gals at Glico said “Hey, Pepero’s making a ton of money in Korea from their Pepero day, let’s teach people to do that in Japan, too!”

As for the origins of “Pepero Day,” Wikipedia says that “Pepero Day was started in 1994 by students at a girls’ middle school in Busan, where they exchanged Pepero sticks as gifts to wish one another to grow “as tall and slender as a Pepero.” If that’s not a romantic start to this holiday, I don’t know what is.

Although “Pocky Day” is a thing in Japan, from what I’ve read it’s not as popular as Pepero day. Still, Glico is spending money on Pocky Day ads in Japan, so there must be something going on.

To Celebrate…

Unfortunately, I don’t have any Pocky to give to you (go to your local grocer and buy a box!). Instead of real Pocky, here are the best Pocky commercials on YouTube for you to enjoy. Although I may not eat Pocky on Pocky Day, I will enjoy these videos of other people eating Pocky for me. Yum.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSDBwPztxZY&NR']

Another YMO video… these one are a bit creepy…

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGEehy_2TrY']

Dance!

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTN03fM1Dzc']

Anata Mo Watashi Mo…

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHsbuQN4lZo']

Pocky makes arranged marriages fun again

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giZtyYGjH1Q']

D’awwww

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdalvWYAv_w']

This one takes a really quick turn… for the better?

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XbzVPmWMHg']

Holy Crap! So Retro!

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBIsFcAtDCU']

Kind of reminds me of those weird Palm Pre commercials…

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwQzsvm9qBw']

Another “Crap I Can’t Belive That Happened” Commercial

Welcome to another edition of “Saturday Time Waster.” There seems to be a huge difference between American flash games and Japanese flash games. Although this isn’t 100% the case, it seems like most of the time, Japanese flash games are all about making you feel nice and calm. Most of the games seem to have no end, and they attempt to down you with pleasant music and cuteness. I suppose if I was a hard working “Sarari man” I’d want something to calm me down too while I was hiding out in my cubical playing flash games.

This particular game was made by my friends at Team-Lab (they’re the ones that did the fantastically mesmerizing ”Flower and Corpse“), who I’ll be slowly covering over the course of the month. I was originally going to put something up for all you Apple lovers today (which I suppose will have to wait), when I came across this game that Team-Lab made with Wacom (the folks that make those really cool, yet expensive tablets). As you’re playing this game, it definitely makes the tablet yearner in all of us think “man, I wish I had $500-$1000 to buy a tablet to play this game with.” Add that to the zombie / mesmerized feeling you get while playing the game… and you’ve created the perfect monster… er… customer.

You can play the game yourself, or watch the video showing my attempt to win the game. I’m pretty sure if you fill the screen with angry neon pigs that counts as a win, right? At least I didn’t buy a tablet… yet.

Play now: http://tablet.wacom.co.jp/bambooplayroom/

Oh, and you should follow Tofugu on Twitter.

It’s been a while since our last Japan-related Saturday time-waster, so I thought it was about time for another (before Saturday is over). This game is a bit old, but I just discovered the sequel to it. Oh cursor ten, sometimes I wish you were cursor eleven.

The game was made by Yoshio Ishii, a Japanese flash game maker (that’s about the only Japan-connection it has, come to think of it). The game seems simple enough at first: Click on cones to get points, and click on the stairs to get to the next floor. There is a timer, and you have to get to the 16th floor before it runs out. But then it gets more complicated. One cursor can’t get you to the top in enough time, because there are obstacles in the way… Spikes, things you have to press and hold to open the way to the next area, cones to click, stairways to reveal, etc. That’s why you get ten cursors. When you move on to cursor two, cursor one repeats all the actions from before, which means you have to be a team player… with yourself.

You can see my poor cursor got stabbed by a spike. Luckily cursor number three will get through, whew.

Look at all that teamwork! Go play cursor10 and cursor10, 2nd session right now (and don’t forget to brag about your scores!)