Inakamono

Reading for his pleasure

I bought a manga called "Women" yesterday and I am already halfway through it. I am employing a strategy I came across on a weblog the other day. The premise is simple - read for fun and don't worry if there are words (or in this case kanji) that you don't understand - DO NOT LOOK THEM UP - just plough on through the text and guess/deduce from context. The idea is that you imitate the way you learnt to read when you were learning your first language. Subject matter is important - it has to be something that will pique your interest. I have never read an adult manga before - sure, I've flicked through them at bookshops and laughed at the titles, but I have never sat down and read the dialogue. "Women" features a nerdy hero and an impossibly bosomy woman with multiple personalities. Despite the regular scenes of wild abandon, compliance with Japan's amusing obscenity laws means that no genitalia are shown - the nether regions are alternately covered by hands, faces etc or simply whited out. Ironically the story now has me hooked and I expect I will finish it tomorrow. If I am not careful my reading will catch up with my speaking...

Reading Japanese

Somewhere along the Yamanote line I finally finished Reisei to Jonetsu no Aida (Red - Aoi's story). I have started the second volume (Blue - Junsei's story) At this pace I'm definitely not in the running for Reading 400 Mystery Novels in 18 months.

Shinchan DVD

During lunch yesterday I watched an episode from my latest DVD - Crayon Shin-chan. If you want to learn bad manners and some evil Japanese, 5 year old Shinosuke Nohara is the chap to teach you. A lot of parents I have met refuse to let their kids watch the show for fear the anklebiters will imitate Shinchan. Not without reason - for a kindergartner, Shinchan is preternaturally fond of the opposite sex, and his constant challenges to the status quo obviously threaten to bring down Japanese society. In "Baikingu wo taberu zo" the family starves themselves all day so as to appreciate a visit to a fancy hotel with an all-you-can-eat buffet. Once there they take care not to fill up on the cheap food, but stake out the roast beef and caviar. Baikingu is the Japanese rendering of Viking, which is what a smorgasbord is referred to in Japan. I think the term possibly derives from the pillaging which occurs when the more expensive foodstuffs are brought out.

J-Pot

Got the Japanese version of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone in softback at Kinokuniya. Only 950 yen. Only a few pages left in Reisei to Jonetsu no Aida and then I can hit Hogwarts, J-style.