Tag: otaku

One way to learn about Japan is through its traditional calligraphy, which uses a writing brush called a fude (FOO-day) ...

I took the train into Tokyo on Sunday to meet a friend in Akihabara, the area of Tokyo famous as ...

I've written before about the psychology of ex-pats living in Japan, such as the the Three Stages of Eye Aversion ...

Japan is, of course, the home of funny English. It's everywhere, like a bizarre Matrix of Strangeness that pervades the ...

Well, one weekend and a staggering 150,000 people later, the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con is past. It was a wild ...

Well, Otakon is over, and it was a real blast. As the premier anime convention on the East Coast, it's ...

There are subtle nuances in how we use language, and the speech we choose to use says something about all ...

What a difference an elongated vowel can make. Japanese is quite different from English, having had a totally unique developmental ...

One Japanese TV show that never fails to please is TV Champion, which pits exceptional people against each other in ...

Anime and comic books -- which are collectively referred with the term "manga" in Japanese -- are an inseparable part ...

Urban legends are funny things, sometimes leading millions of people to believe something that just isn't true. When Gerber started ...

Living in Japan means adapting to many things, not the least of which is modifying your native language. When I ...

The Torino Olympics have been going on for two weeks, and Japanese fans have been eagerly watching all the events ...

Anyone who's ever worked in a Japanese organization for any length of time probably knows the frustration of having a ...

I got a reminder that Japan is very much a part of the Pacific Ring of Fire yesterday when a ...

Words always reflect the people that use them, and vice-versa. In American English our notions about individualism and not going ...

You may have seen that Momofuku Ando, the Father of Instant Ramen, died recently. Momofuku, whose name meant "one hundred ...

Japan is a very seasonal place, with specific things done only during the appropriate times of year. August is when ...

When a foreigner comes to live in Japan, he or she is in for some changes. I remember my first ...

The fermented soybeans known as natto (NAT-toh) are one of the most famous foods in Japan, enjoyed throughout the country, ...

Kanji (KAHN-gee), the Chinese characters that the Japanese use to express most words in writing, is fascinating to Westerners because ...

Just as Americans are accustomed to thinking of our country as a union of semi-soverign states, each with its own ...

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 ...

Japan is a land of conflicting themes, of high tech phones and glittering gadgets alongside abandoned pachinko parlors and that ...