bubble's Blog

That's mostly what I've been doing, although I started with a few classes and I do watch other things as well. There's a lot you can pick up that way, even if it does tend to be a bit ridiculous. This gave me an idea.

It was tough starting out, when I couldn't understand anything, so I thought maybe I could help others out. And then I thought I could do so through a blog, which would avoid the classic problem of class - that you're trapped, and you have to do the parts you detest as well as the ones you find useful and interesting. The format would be the following: I pick a show or two and go through them one episode at a time, highlighting useful and important words and phrases. Anyone who wanted could watch the series in Japanese with the help I provided and ask me questions. And because it would be a blog, the archives would stay up.

So, would any of you want to learn Japanese like that? If so, what show(s) would you be interested in? I was thinking Cowboy Bebop, because I have the DVDs and I rather like it, but maybe a show that doesn't have a good dub... or any dub... would be better? And perhaps a show with a more realistic setting would be preferable, although if you want to learn Japanese mostly to watch anime, that's irrelevant. And if you want it for more general use, you shouldn't exclusively use anime.

I've found sites that use anime somewhat to teach Japanese, but not whole episodes. If you've seen a blog/website that does what I describe, please point it out to me.

Also, if you know of sites that have anime scripts/transcripts in Japanese, that would be super helpful.

Anime Relations: Digimon Adventure

When I loaded up Youtube a little while ago (I was actually going to watch one of the zillions of Hare Hare Yukai videos - you know, the song from Haruhi that people dance to) there was a link to the German dub of the first episode of Digimon. Now, I don't speak German, nor do I even understand it, but I love foreign languages (including German) and I was feeling nostalgic, so I watched it anyway.

It was interesting to hear the German voices - I've already seen the U.S. English and original Japanese versions all the way through, plus the opening to the French version. The U.S. and French versions have this (french version). The German version uses a translation of the original song, which I like a lot better. The Latin American Spanish one does as well (incidentally my Spanish is about twice as good as my German, which is to say that it's absolutely terrible).

Now the translations appear to take their cue from the English version and abbreviate the characters' names: Taichi -> Tai, Yamato -> Matt, Takeru -> T.K., Izumi -> Izzy. But the Spanish version uses the original Japanese introduction screens, with kanji and all. The French version (the only one I understand besides English and Japanese) even uses the Alaska reference from the English version. One wonders if they had the original at all! :/ you lose a lot in repeated translation.

It reminds me of someone I heard about who collects Harry Potter in multiple languages. I'm not sure why they do it, but I think I'll keep watching the French one because I'm curious and I wanted an excuse to rewatch Digimon (it's been about a year since I watched the Japanese version).

Anyone else rediscover an old favorite recently? Comments on translations?

Anime Relations: Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer, Jinki:Extend, Scrapped Princess, FLCL, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, Ouran Koukou Host Club, Simoun

A list mostly for personal reference. I decided to clean up my act a little and buy series and movies I've been meaning to. Not right away, but when some things in my personal life settle down a bit, kind of as a reward for sticking it out.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - it's one of my favorites, but the question that's been delaying me is this: should I buy the regular edition (chronological order) or the limited one that comes with discs in broadcast order? I'm thinking regular edition (cheaper, I don't need more random merchandise, and all I have to do is swap discs).

Ouran High School Host Club - not out yet, but it's coming out in two box sets starting late October. Yes.

Simoun

Jinki:Extend - debating whether I just want to buy the first couple discs, which were better, or the whole series. I'll probably get the whole thing if I get any.

Revolutionary Girl Utena - if I can find it. Appears to be out of print. :( Going to skip the movie (still in print) because it was okay but the only part I really want to watch again is the rose garden dance scene.

Scrapped Princess - first fansub I saw, thanks to my cousin. Probably should have bought it long ago, but now there's a cheaper set!

Angelic Layer - I have the first two discs, and want to complete the set if possible (individual discs out of print). On that note, FLCL as well (have the first disc).


Wow. That'll add up. I'm planning to make a trip to the local place that sells used DVDs soon though - sometimes they have decent prices on used anime, but of course selection is limited.

I already own a decent amount of anime, but I'm kind of... cautious about buying things. I want to make sure I'll make use of it (watch it multiple times) first. So I'll go long stretches without buying much, then get something or even a lot of things - most recently, Remi Sans Famille (Ie Naki Ko) from a company in Quebec.

This is also the reason why I don't buy as much merchandise as some fans, even proportionate to the rest of my collection or to my capacity to buy it (somewhat limited).

Sometimes online I wonder how people imagine me. In most cases I don't say that much directly about my demographics - age, race, sex, orientation, religion, etc., but I imply a fair bit of it, and some people might guess more, perhaps even correctly. But I know that often I form an impression that a certain user is male or female (mostly based on username and avatar I think) and am proven wrong, and my idea of a person's age is based mainly on writing style. Specifically, I often suspect people who have tons of spelling errors and netspeak to be fairly young, but sometimes I'm wrong there too.

And then too, there's other things that you might imagine about me - my face, voice, what kind of tone I would say a certain comment in. That's harder to quantify, though I'd be interested for you all to try. :)

Anyone else wonder about this? Or have an idea of what kind of person I am in real life? You'd have an easier time using the forum search function, since I've posted some relevant things, but I think it's still down.

So. Some anime and manga-related goals. :D
Some of them are stupid, some aren't. Most of them don't have a timeline... at least not yet.

First, one I made a while before:
Before school starts (late September) get the anime watching 'days' count up to 45. I made this goal when it was about 39, now it's 44.2. Very close.

Before the end of the year: finish reading at least one manga raw. Probably Penguin Revolution, but who knows (how I wish I could tag manga...)

Eventually:
Finish or drop for good everything on my 'on hold' anime list.
Watch more old anime (older than 90s). Especially MS Gundam and Rose of Versailles.
Catch up with everything on my Watching list (Detective Conan, I'm looking at you).
Finish the Fruits Basket manga in the original (so loooong... reading Japanese still takes me a long time).
Start reading manga that don't have furigana... Parasyte (寄生獣) I'm looking at you.

And of course, get so I can understand the darn things better! The road of language learning is long (but at least in the case of Japanese, well-paved!).

Okay, so I've been reading scans on my OS X Tiger computer, and it sucked. I had to resize and open each image separately. Too much clicking makes my wrist hurt. But here's the scoop, I figured out how it's done:

Open Preview and go to preferences. Under 'Image' select "open all images in one window" or "open all groups of images in same window". Doesn't matter much which - the first puts all images in the 'drawer' no matter if you open them separately or together, the second puts all images opened at the same time in the same drawer.

Under 'default image size' select "actual size". Uncheck the box that says "respect image DPI for 'actual size'". This way you won't have to resize unless you actually want the image smaller.

Next, navigate to a folder that has the scans you want to read... this next part is good if you want to read the whole folder at once. Hit command-a (command is the one with the weird thing and the apple) to select all, then double-click on any filename to open them all in the same window.

Alternately, you can select a range of files (file 1-9, for instance, or 4-15 or whatever) by selecting the first one, then holding shift while you click on the last one. Or you can hold command while you click to add/remove things from the selection one by one.

Once they're all open, you may or may not be able to see the drawer, but you can push up and down to select the previous or the next file, respectively (same order as in the folder, I think).