Peter's Japan blog

Pocky, the famous Japanese snack. It is a biscuit stick with a chocolate coat. It is a very popular snack in Japan, and especially among anime-fans outside of Japan as it is used often in anime series. Pocky is not pronounced with an english 'o', more like 'goal' but short.

But it is also famous for its many different and sometimes odd tastes. When I was in Japan I tasted chocolate (normal), strawberry, coconut, vanilla and pistache. I liked the coconut very much, but didn't like the pistache.
Among other tastes are: honey, kiwifruit mango, bitter (Men's Pocky), banana, coffee, caramel, marble royal milk tea, melon, milk, cream cheese, berry, sweet potato, coconut, almond crush, pineapple, pumpkin, pizza, hazelnut, kurogama (black sesame), kinako (soy bean flour), and green tea. Also some regional flavours: grape (Nagano), yubari melon (Hokkaido), giant mikan (lemony, sold in Kyūshū), powdered tea azuki bean (Kyoto), Kobe wine (Kobe).

It was first introduced in 1966 by Ezaki Glico Company. Here in Belgium, they are also available but under a different name: Mikado, like the stick game.

It has been used in many anime series like: Onegai Teacher (the main character is addicted to them), Ichigo Mashimaro, Card Captor Sakura, Lucky Star, Eureka Seven, Elfen Lied, ...

Origin
The Japanese language (nihon-go '日本語' in japanese) is an isolated language, meaning that it has no relation to any other language whatsoever. There are only a few possible relations which are unsure. It is spoken almost exclusively in Japan with some small communities in other countries, and is spoken by 130 million people.

Writing
The Japanese language is written using 3 different scripts: hiragana, katakana and kanji.
Hiragana and katakana are syllabic alphabets and are used to spell words in full.
Hiragana is a more rounded script which is used for grammatical elements, small words or for spelling words.
Katakana is more angular and looks simple and is therefore used to write non-japanese words like English (using the available Japanese syllables).
Kanji characters originate from Chinese characters but their pronunciation has changed. There are about 2000+ kanji characters. Kanji usually do not have a meaning like Chinese characters, kanji mostly are sounds for making words when combined with other kanji or hiragana.
Furigana are kanji characters that are accompanied by hiragana above them, so people that do not know what the kanji character means, they can read the sound, and know the word by sound. Other uses are with names, because kanji might be pronounced in more than one way, furigana are used to be able to read the correct name. Another use it for puns or double meaning, when they want to give a different meaning to a word, they write a different word in hiragana above the kanji characters.
Romaji is the romanization of the Japanese language. There are several systems. The earliest was used by the Portuguese but this lead to some wrong transliterations that are still used today (e.g. Nippon in stead of Nihon). The most important system is the Hepburn (or Revised Hepburn) System. It is the closest to the sounds that the latin alphabet represents. Another system in use and that has been approved by the Japanese government is Kunrei-shiki. There are still exceptions when used in Japan, for example, station names are romanized slightly different from regular Hepburn. Because of the need to be able to type Japanese on a computer, another style of romanization is used which is called Wapuro (Wado Purosessa / word processor). It is also close to Hepburn, but uses some special combinations (e.g. to write the small vowel hiragana, an 'x' is typed in front of the vowel).

Original post: May 28th 2007
Updates: June 24th 2007

I saw this on a trivia tv show in Japan. The sign they use in Japan for their currency, the Yen, is this: 円. (I think the old sign was 圓) Why is it such a strange symbol for money? Coins are round, paper money is flat and it doesn't look like a letter either. So what is it?

I read somewhere that it looks like a counter in a bank, but that's not the true origin. On this trivia show, they showed the real origin with an interview to prove it.

Take a look at this satellite image: (image taken from Google Earth)

Look familiar, doesn't it?
This building is the Bank of Japan (aka Nihon Ginkou / 日本銀行) that issues the coins and bills for the Japanese Yen :)
They just took the shape of the building and used it for the currency sign!

Bought three new books for helping studying japanese:

1. Kodansha's Furigana Japanese-Engish/English-Japanese Dictionary
A good dictionary which has all words written in hiragana, followed by their kanji-representation with furigana added. It's quite an extensive but still basic vocabulary, so you're not gonna find every word in it.

2. The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary
This book is truly amazing and VERY easy and quick to look up kanji. You have two ways to look up a kanji: the traditional way and a new one.
The traditional way is to find the radical of a kanji character, count the strokes, find the radical and then find the kanji from that point. But the New Nelson goes even further in the traditional approach as well, if you found the radical, count the remaining strokes, and find that number under the radical, and then all the combinations with other kanji are listed below that, also sorted on stroke count. So it's very easy and quick to find.
But there is one problem, it is not always easy to find a correct radical in a difficult kanji, so here comes the new method in handy. Since a kanji can be made up of several different radicals, the New Nelson now contains a lookup table called the Universal Radical Index, that you can lookup any kanji using any radical that it has, so not just the main radical. Based on the position of the radical in the original kanji, you look it up in the URI, and it will have a reference to the kanji in the book. I find it quicker (and more fun) to look up a word in this book than in Kodansha's Furigana dictionary.

3. A Guide To Remembering Japanese Characters by K.G. Henshall
Since it is a hell to learn kanji, even for Japanese, the traditional way is to just learn them by heart. But Henshall tries to explain the kanji, where it comes from, what it means, how it can be spoken, how it can be derived to other kanji and how to remember it using an easy mnemonic.

For now, the New Nelson is my favorite one (and also the biggest, it has 7700(!) kanji characters listed)

Buy them at Amazon.com:
The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary: Based on the Classic Edition by Andrew N. Nelson (1600 pages)
Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English English-Japanese (717 pages)
Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters (Tuttle Language Library) (675 pages)

A new and very good anime that started since April.
The world is terrorized by demons called Yoma, who can disguise themselves as humans, and also kill and eat humans. They are fought by a group of warrior from a nameless organization. They are called Claymores from the name of their swords. These are women that are half human, half yoma, that can control their Yoma inside them. Claymore usually have blond hair and have silver eyes. The main story follows a Claymore called Claire who takes a boy under her care (which is very unusual, as Claymores travel alone).
The setting of this anime has a medieval look which can also be heard in the soundtrack. The action is very fast and detailed. This is not an anime for small children as splattering blood is used quite heavily and decapitations are shown as if it's nothing.
The soundtrack is done very well and has some dark synth sounds in it.

The OP is "Raison d'être" from Nightmare, who you may remember of doing the first OP and ED of Death Note. (Buy at YesAsia: CD, CD+DVD V1 or CD+DVD V2)
Watch on YouTube the PV or Live at Music Station

The ED is "Danzai no Hana ~Guilty Sky~" from Kosaka Riyu, her first solo single and an instant hit. It has a very gothic feeling that fits the series perfectly. (Buy at YesAsia: CD or CD+DVD)
Watch on YouTube the PV

But this anime is not just about violence, the story follows the characters and goes deep into their past. So if you like deep story and good action with some medieval put into it, this is definitely for you.

P.S.: my reviews and descriptions are not very good, so don't blame me :)

I've merged the travel blogs with this one as I want to make this one the main blog. I've put them under the Traveling category. This way I won't have to keep switching to the other blogs as the entry blog, and get google all crazy because of the changes ;p.
I've still kept the travel blog of America 2006 separate though because it's in a different language. You can still visit it through the link in the menu.

Today my dvd box of "Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu" arrived in the mail. It just came out May 29th. This dvd box only contains the first dvd as the next 3 will come in separate releases over the next months and you can just put them in the dvd box.
But this dvd box is a bit more special than the usual anime boxes. From the outside it looks like a dvd box for 7 dvds, but there is only room for 4. The remaining room is used to put in the music cds that come with every dvd release. This release contains the cd single for the ending song "Hare Hare Yukai". But the box contain more, it also has an iron-on sticker, a hard post card and a head ribbon for cosplaying (it's the orange head ribbon that Haruhi wears).

The content of the dvd:
- Episodes 00 to 03 (english and japanese audio with english subtitles)
- (the usual) textless opening and ending
- TV broadcast previews
- Making of Suzumiya Haruhi clip
- TV commercial
- The Adventures of the ASOS brigade (the american team cosplaying Haruhi)

Buy at Amazon.com:
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Volume 1 (Special Edition)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Volume 1

Here are some pictures of the box and contents:

Read more »

I've also put some pictures of my trip on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hatix/

Have a look ;p