J-Word Play #28 (Answer)

First off, kudos to regular Cocomino for another riddle solved!

Last one was:

ナイスなスイカは、何になるでしょう？

いか (Squid)

Ok, so this one was a little tough, I think. If you change the Japanese a little, you have: 無い「す」なスイカは、何になでしょう？This riddle doesn't work in English, but in Japanese, 「すいか」is "watermelon." Figuring out what the question is asking is the main park of this one! It wants to know, "「すいか」without the 「す」becomes...what?" And in Japanese, 「いか」 is squid. So a watermelon without it's 「す」becomes a squid.

Toyota Doraemon

Here's a pretty sweet series of Toyota commercials. Doraemon is pretty much the most popular cartoon ever in Japan (a cartoon cat that even teenage high school dudes like) and seems to be a cultural element that everyone can share and enjoy. In these commercials, the gang talk about their dreams for adulthood and Nobita-kun doesn't seem to have any ambitions except for being able to drive. Fast forward to 20 years later (and decartoonification) and the characters have become adults. Give it a watch to see what's going on with everyone.

Also, the portrayal of Doraemon is...well, it's great. Just watch.

Boil Japan?

I do not think it means what they think it means...

Cultural shapes

One thing that caught me off guard one time while in the classroom was the different meanings of certain shapes across cultures. I was standing at the blackboard, the students having chalked some answers up there. As I read the first answer, I checked it off and nodded, and threw in a "Very good." The students looked puzzled, and several touched eraser to paper.

Apparently, check marks are not used in Japan to denote a correct answer. As I learned that day and would come to observe quite frequently in the future while watching teachers grade tests, correct answers get a circle beside them (○＝まる) and incorrect ones get an X (ばつ) or often just a straight line (that sometimes resembles a check mark, I guess). 

Additionally, triangles (⊿＝さんかくけい) are often used to denote partial credit or "debatable."

I've seen these symbols used at my current job, too. At our daily morning meetings, we each present some articles and talk a bit about them, and then my boss tentatively draws a circle, x, or triangle on his paper next to the article name to note whether or not the news will be sent to Tokyo (the triangles are "maybe").

And blue moons mean "%$^ you!"

In retrospect it makes perfect sense, but it just never occurred to me that different shapes and symbols take on different meanings depending on the culture.

和製英語: Pinch

A Japanese friend of mine posted the following status update on Facebook some time ago:


めっちゃ幸せな気分になりました！充電ピンチやけどwウィラーコンセント付いてへんかな!?(*^^*)

There's kind of a lot going on in this construction, but I want to focus in on the use of 「ピンチ」 here. I'm not exactly sure what my friend was referring to here or why he was so happy, but it seems he was having battery issues with something. He's roughly saying something like:


"I'm in a great mood! Though I'm in trouble with my battery charger lol I don't suppose Willer has outlets?!"

I believe he's talking about Willer buses here - that's one of the bigger highway bus companies. 

Anyway, the Japanese use of 「ピンチ」looks to be derived from the English expression "in a pinch." It basically means trouble, a problem, or a tight spot. Not too far off from the English, I guess, except that as far as I can tell it only has that one meaning and isn't used in quite the same situations as we would use it in (i.e. I'm not sure how natural it sounds to say you're in a pinch with your battery charger or "in a battery charger pinch").

Edit 7/23/2012: As Jturningpin points out in the comments section, I really should have said "(Battery) charge" instead of charger. Charger would be 充電器 (じゅうでんき).

J-Word Play #28

Here's another one for you:

ナイスなスイカは、何になるでしょう？

Could be a little tricky, but think about it and email me if you have an answer: blueshoe[at]jadij.com.

Good luck!

J-Music and Me: Kintama Girls

Detroit Metal City is (as Wiki says) a vulgar, comedy manga, and one that has made it to anime and live movie form. Basically about a gentle, kind of metrosexual country boy who dreams of going to the city to make it big as a pop musician, he somehow winds up as the lead member of this heavy metal band called Detroit Metal City (DMC). I can't speak as to the manga and anime, but in the movie his identity is a secret as he is quite ashamed of his nasty alter ego.

I think the movie is pretty funny and have watched it a few times now. The music is pretty decent, and it's also a good way to study some Japanese that you won't learn in any textbook.

Though I may talk about some of DMC's songs sometime, my favorite track from this movie is actually by another fictional band called Kintama Girls (金玉ガールズ). In the film, Kintama Girls is only shown in one scene where they are playing against DMC (Battle of the Bands style) at some club. They are singing this ridiculous song called "Detarame Mothercon Cherryboy."


Just so you can get an idea of the colorfulness of the movie and the music in particular (the dialogue itself is pretty tame in most cases), let me explain a few key words here:


金玉 (kintama) - you can see that the kanji is "golden jewels" or "golden balls." Yes, it refers to specific male anatomy.


出鱈目 (detarame) - "bullshit," basically.


マザコン (mothercon) - the tamer meaning is "mama's boy," but it can also mean Oedipus complex.


チェリーボイー (cherry boy) - a male virgin.

去勢 (kyosei) - found in the main chorus (きょせい、きょせいせよ！) - castration.

Silly and crude but pretty fun, I think. Incidentally, the lead member of the Kintama Girls, Nina, is played by Minami Hirase, who also appeared in Battle Royale.

Playing with food

Yesterday I attended a Japan America Society of Washington DC event on bento making. More specifically, the focus was on trying to make キャラ弁 , which are bentos in which people shape and design food into popular characters or designs. More art than cooking, I guess.

Anyway, there was a table full of food, some arts and crafts-style supplies, and two helpful J-women to guide us (one of them is actually from near Itami). 

First I had this idea to make an Abraham Lincoln rice ball, but it just turned out looking like some kind of spook.  After that I was pretty much out of ideas, so I just started putting food in my boxes without any kind of plan or pattern.

A food riff. 

Then a Pac Man-like thing happened. 

The class was small; there were maybe 8 or 9 people. There was only one other dude aside from me. Cooking can be pretty masculine, but in retrospect, making bento food into cute little characters and designs can only be so manly. After I finished, I had to go outside and do 200 push-ups and then eat 5 lbs of steak to rejuvenate my testosterone levels.

J-Word Play #27 (Answer)

Last week's riddle was:

海にもいるけど、空も泳ぐ生き物はなんでしょう？

Kudos go out to Lukas, Rufus, and Cocomino (who came up with a good alternate answer).

たこ (Octopus/kite)

Our riddle poses the question "What creature is in the sea but also swims in the sky?" The answer lies in the fact that たこ is the word for both "octopus" and "kite." Cocomino's answer was 飛び魚 (とびうお; flying fish), which I thought was a clever answer that also seems to apply.

As a side note, keep an eye out for a score chart I am going to be placing somewhere on the right side of the page to keep tally for our riddle masters.

Just Another Manga Monday #9

Our featured manga this week is よつばと！, or Yotsuba&! in English. It's eleven volumes (so far). I own all of them but honestly I'm writing this before I've read the latest two. I'm taking a break since I read through the first nine too quickly and want to savor the last two.

But first! If you look a couple lines up you may notice that surprisingly this edition of "Just Another Manga Monday" is not written by Julz or Blue Shoe. In point of fact (you can never say "in point of fact" enough) this is my first time writing on the topic of manga. I haven't read many different manga but the ones I do like I read a ton of. Yotsuba&! is one of the chosen few.

The manga follows the misadventures of a strange, young Japanese (or is she?) girl named Yotsuba who recently moves to a new house with her father (or is he?). The stories are often laugh out loud hilarious. I don't like to read overly serious manga, and in the others I like there are always humorous parts, but I've never read one that caused me to burst out in a startle-my-wife level of laughter before. It's a manga unlike one I've seen. It's light hearted but never too goofy, it's thoughtful but never too serious. It's a manga that you can read any time and just feel better. This is all due to the eponymous character of Yotsuba.

Cicada-Yotsuba

Yotsuba is six years old, incredibly positive, and insatiably curious. All the stories center around her adventures and how they affect the people around her. The cast of characters is small and only consists of her father, her father's very few friends, and the family next door. It's drastically different than any other manga I read in that it has no overall plot. Each volume is broken up into stories. The first one has seven. And they actually are stories, not chapters. Each one is just a glimpse into the life of Yotsuba and the antics she gets up to. Sometimes one story will lead into another. For example, in one they plan to go camping and in the next they go camping, but just as often you'll go from eating ice cream to catching cicadas. For me, I crave continuity, but even though it sounds disjointed there is enough that connects the stories to prevent them from feeling too episodic.

Yotsuba&! isn't without it's flaws. Maybe flaws is an unfair word since the manga succeeds at what it sets out to do: share with you interesting stories from Yotsuba's life. That part is great but when I started the series I expected it to be more. In the first couple volumes you are presented with some mysteries: Where did Yotsuba come from? Where's her mother? Why does she randomly use English words? Hints are dropped which add to the mystery and my curiosity. Then those hints stop and that whole mystery is abandoned. Was it ever supposed to be a mystery? Is the author saying "it doesn't matter where she came from, just laugh at her going to the convenience store by herself."? Like I said before, I crave continuity, and I hoped this would turn into that overall plot that Yotsuba&! lacks. This probably only bothers me because I'm used to reading story driven manga. Even the episodic ones I read have an overarching story (Mushishi for example). I brought this up with my wife who is also a Yotsuba&! fan and she said this wasn't unusual for manga. I guess I don't read enough. Paul pointed out when I described this to him that it sounds like a newspaper comic. I guess it is in a way. I could draw a ton of parallels between this and Calvin and Hobbes. The benefit of Yotsuba&! being in manga format is that each story isn't limited to four panels. I'm digressing.

Many of our readers are studiers of Japanese or at least interested in Japanese culture. So am I, which is one of the main reasons I love Yotsuba&! so much and why I heartily recommend it to any likeminded people. Since I grew up in the northeastern US my childhood was pretty different to the kids of Japan. Even though I would never trade my summers of barbecuing with the neighbors or trick-or-treating on Halloween, I still wish I could somehow share in this collective childhood that it seems like a lot Japanese people have. There are the staples like catching cicada, or visiting the grandparents in the 田舎, or joining in a festival, or watching the fireworks in summer (well, I guess Americans have that one too). By reading Yotsuba&!, in a way I feel like I can get a sense of what it's like. Even if you don't care about any of that, at least Yotsuba is funny.

I rate Yotsuba&! four silver moons and one half star (my own personal rating system). It's good, I think you'd like it.

By the way, even if you've never heard of Yotsuba&! I'm sure you've seen one of the characters, ダンボー:

Originally from Yotsuba&!, someone from Amazon.com thought it was cool and made him their mascot. He's become quite famous from photographers taking artsy pictures of him.