Tag: manga

A new anime season is upon us, and I'm doing my best to keep up with the flood of new ...

When manga and anime creators go to design a new character, they have many options available to them. They might ...

Anime is filled with fun tropes and memes. One that comes up in romantic comedy series is the 間接キス kansetsu ...

I received a request in my Twitter feed from a customer who was studying Japanese in preparation for a visit ...

I continue to enjoy Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!, aka No Matter How I Look ...

I've written before that, while anime and manga can be useful tools for studying Japanese, it's important to avoid relying ...

It can be fun to try and trace the origins of anime-related memes. For example, if you use the phrase ...

Otaku, of course, is a word that's come to describe aficionados of anime, manga, visual novels and cosplay, although it's ...

There are many approaches to studying a foreign language, including the Communicative Method, stressing verbal communication with other students, the ...

One common theme in anime is the dramatic and/or humorous tension that arises when girls are attracted to other girls. ...

Language reflects the society that creates it, and there are many interesting words that give us insight into Japan. I ...

Sometimes I think my family would make the basis for an interesting 4-koma manga series along the lines of Darling ...

I happened to see an article that officially declared anime and manga to be good ways of learning a foreign ...

It's time for a new anime season, even though I still haven't caught up with the previous one. There are ...

Last time I talked about how 謙遜 (ken-sohn, with a long vowel on the end), meaning humility, is considered an ...

One thing textbooks don't tell you about becoming bilingual in a language is the way you'll naturally come to internalize ...

I happened to see that popular actress Ayame Gouriki, famous for her energetic nature and boyish short-cut hair, was awarded ...

It's fun to look up odd place names, like Intercourse, Pennsylvania, Climax, Michigan, Whiskey Dick Mountain in Washington State or ...

This may not exactly come as a surprise, but I love anime fandom. It's a warm and comfortable place filled ...

One question I'm asked sometimes is, how do Japanese feel about otaku? Originally a semi-formal way to say "you" or ...

I've been a student of Japanese since that first day in 1987 when I started Higurashi-sensei's class at SDSU. (There ...

Two important concepts related to Japan are 建前 tatemae (tah-teh-mah-eh) and 本音 honne (hon-neh), which essentially mean "the facade or ...

It's fun to analyze the way anime, game and manga companies go about creating characters that will win the hearts ...

One of the more exotic aspects of Japan are its "love hotels," private hotels that couples can go to in ...