Tag: Japanese

  • 2018-2019 Compilation Post

    The end of summer is coming… Fall always feels like a time of reckoning. Harvest. Counting up what happened in the year, good and bad, and getting the books in order for winter. Last year I wrote 19 book reviews on this site and started the Diverse Reading Challenge with The Tale of Genji. It’s about 1000 pages,…

  • No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

    Rating: 4/5, good I originally read this on a plane, quickly, without much thought. I tried to sit down and review it a few weeks ago, but I felt like I didn’t understand it well enough. I looked up Osamu Dazai’s biography and then reread No Longer Human, and it seemed to come into place.…

  • My Solo Exchange Diary by Nagata Kabi

    Rating: 3/5, average The art in this sequel to My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is even better than that in the first one, but this book seems to be struggling to find more content to talk about. Kabi actually says at the beginning that she couldn’t think of what to draw for a month after she…

  • Why do you study Japanese?

    If you’ve ever studied Japanese at university or you’ve applied to a job that involved knowledge of Japanese, you’ve probably been asked some variation of this question: “Why did you decide to study Japanese?” On its face it seems like a simple question, but as most people who have taken Japanese in school know, the…

  • Japanese Language Review: 「魔女の侘急便」

    「魔女の侘急便」が1985年に角野栄子から書いた児童書です。若い魔女のキキの話で、色々面白い瞬間があります。キキは気の強く、おてんばぽい少女ですので、おかしいキャラクタです。でも、私はキキと心が通じる感じがあります。彼女は暖かい性格の少女ですから、彼女の冒険と日常生活について読むことが楽しいです。 1989年にスタジオジブリは「魔女の侘急便」をアニメかにしました。英語で「Kiki’s Delivery Service」と名づけました。アニメバージョンは本と少し違う点があります。諸説には、キキは割りと楽な生活をしている、でも映画でキキは魔法力を失う事である。宮﨑駿は角野栄子に脚本を見せた時、角野さんが断りました。原典と違うすぎるとおもいました。宮﨑駿は角野の家に訪問して、スタジオジブリ。結局、角野さんは賛成して「魔女の侘急便」はアニメにしました。

  • The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! by Harry Harrison

    The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! by Harry Harrison

    I picked this copy of The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! at Logos on a trip back to Santa Cruz. They have a lot of really sweet vintage scifi and if you ‘re passing through the area, you should stop by. It’s right on Pacific Street and it was one of my favorite haunts when I was in college.…