Hair Color in Anime and Japan
Anime is an interesting platform for creating stories that couldn't exist in the real world, and one tool animators use ...
Tag: Gainax
Anime 2.0: You Can (Not) Avoid Product Placement
An interesting thing has happened to anime over the past few years: it's become quite common to see well-known products ...
Strange English Product Names
The other day I went into a store and saw an advertisement for a chair that used bags of compressed ...
Saabisu, saabisu!
Last time I talked about some phrases that are very concise in Japanese yet have many long and complex potential ...
Unexpected Benefits for Learning Japanese
The Japanese system of phonology is a unique one based on syllables, for example allowing for the sounds ka, ki, ...
Evangelion Phone: You Can (Not) Buy One
I love my iPhone, really I do. It lets me read Wikipedia in bed, check the status of the J-List ...
Hidden Gems in Anime
Japanese animation is fun for people from all over the world because the stories appeal to us even though we ...
On the Japanese Custom of Taking Responsibility
One concept you encounter quite a lot in Japan is sekinin (seh-kee-neen), meaning responsibility or duty. While the James Clavell ...
The History of Akihabara
Akihabara is the area of Tokyo famous for its Electric Town shopping district and for being the international "Mecca" of ...
Thoughts on innovation and cameras in cell phones, the “next” Brad Pitt as an Otaku, and update on all those lovely fires…
Is teen heart-throb Zac Efron, the so-called "next Brad Pitt," an otaku? That's the question asked in a Japanese magazine ...
The mechanisms of Japan’s group structures, big differences in education between Japan and the U.S., and some useful Japanese words
The Japanese, as I've written many times, are quite group oriented, and it's interesting to observe some of the actual ...
On watching Shrek 2 in Osaka Dialect, frustration at the correct way to pronounce “Appatomatox” and thoughts on returning home
The other day I went into the living room to see my kids glued to the TV even though it ...
The only country where eating quietly is strange, how ethanol can affect the price of soy sauce, and gaijin drinking rules
First of all, we had a problem with checkout on the J-List and JBOX.com websites that caused orders to not ...
Shared experiences through anime and manga, on raising kids who are “half,” and understanding an aspect of Japan through Newsweek
Anime and comic books -- which are collectively referred with the term "manga" in Japanese -- are an inseparable part ...
Frustrations common in Japan, and the current state of Pachinko, the national gambling game of Japan
Anyone who's ever worked in a Japanese organization for any length of time probably knows the frustration of having a ...
All about Mt. Fuji, how taking responsibility can lead to cleaner bathrooms, and thoughts on bathing and how the brain works
You can't think of Japan without also thinking of the country's tallest and most famous mountain, Mt. Fuji. An active ...
On the relationship of foreigners and the Japanese, the “gaijin samurai” and an unexpected crime wave in Japan
All countries have foreigners living in their midst, whether its a Swedish college student working for a season at a ...
Japan as the land of the middle class, thoghts on Japan and Krispy Kreme, and fun Japanese things you can put on your car
Japan is nothing if not the land of contradictions. On the one hand, society has been organized in a vertical ...
Thoughts on raising bilingual kids, comparing of names between Japan and the West, and what Carl Sagan has taught me
It's hard raising bilingual children in a country where English isn't used on a daily basis, except on signs that ...
On the magical blending of features in “haafu,” a Japan cell phone update, and some Japanese words I am passionate about
Somewhere between the staid features of futsu (normal) Japanese and the dizzying varieties of face, hair and body types seen ...
Thoughts on my father and Buddhism, the Mac-PC connection with being bilingual, and our cute American, Japanese daughter
Sunday was my father's meinichi, the anniversary of the day he died nine years ago (although Japanese are always puzzled ...
Thoughts on ordering “peanuts butter,” a tasty Japanese treat in the winter, and a friend who can’t receive New Year’s Cards
You know you've been in Japan too long when your mother sends you a bottle of nutmeg spice for Christmas, ...
A delicious food that brings people together, naughty words in Japanese, and the tragedy of “ijime” in Japan
Last night we went to a friend's house to have one of my favorite dishes, nabe (NAH-beh), a word that ...
The social problems of “hikikomori,” a Japan population update, and budding awareness of a scary holiday
One social problem that's being talked about more and more in Japan is hikikomori (hee-kee-KOH-MOH-ree, 引きこもり), a Japanese term that ...
