dianaschnuth

For anyone who remembers Jeff “Pip” Hawley, from Residential Computing Connection at BGSU:

Japanese T-shirt “Hen na Gaijin” (I’m a Strange Foreigner)

I remember him telling us that the Japanese exchange students nicknamed him Henna Gaijin, which he said meant crazy foreigner. It’s one of only two phrases I picked up from him that semester we were both Senior Lab Coordinators. The other one was “Nihongo o hanashimasen,” (although I believe it’s technically “wo,” but pronounced “o”?), which basically means “I don’t speak Japanese.” Not exactly the literal translation, but close enough.

Since back then, in the year 1999 or so, I’ve learned a few more phrases, and a little of how the language is structured, and a few bits of hiragana and katakana (I can recognize “n,” “to,” “ro,” “no,” and “shi,” from sheer repitition alone). I can introduce myself, and get into a knife fight with the Yakuza, and warn the locals that Gojira is coming. Being that I’m not going to Japan anytime soon, though, I’m not in a big hurry to actually learn the language, although it’s something I want to accomplish someday.

Although I can’t speak or read Japanese, that doesn’t keep me from totally digging on Japanese language and culture.

[Posted on Flickr by Happy House of Hentai]

I used to be the person who stood way in the back of group pictures and was never seen. When did I become this person who declares, “OK, I’ll pretend to be a short person and get in the front!”

Left to right: Scott and Rym from the Geek Nights podcast; me; Andrew Corbin, con chair; Martin Leung, Video Game Pianist; Aaron (from the Weekly Anime Review Podcast, of course); and Hello Kitty and Lord Kaosu from the Happy House of Hentai.

I’m taking Friday off of work, so that Aaron and I can drive eight hours to Utica, NY for an anime convention.

Normally, we wouldn’t go to two out-of-state cons in a row like this — after all, we just did Otakon a couple months ago. We’re making an exception for SITACon, though, since they invited us as guests. They’re covering our hotel room, some of our travel expenses, and our admission to the con.

This is weird.

Aaron is going to be presenting a Meet-and-Greet panel about his podcast, and is going to be on a massive Podcasters Unite roundtable panel, with the hosts of half a dozen other podcasts. I told him I’d join him for his Weekly Anime Review Podcast panel, being that it’s just him and all, but I’m probably just going to be running Nikon recon during the roundtable discussion, taking photos of the panelists for posterity. Assuming none of them are camera-shy, which could conceivably happen. Podcasters can be like that sometimes.

It was very considerate of the con chair to invite me, too. I mean, he listens to Aaron’s podcast enough to know that a.) we’re married, and b.) we go to cons together, so he invited us both. Very cool.

I guess I’m still not sure what to think of this whole thing. I’m not sure if it’s going to be fun meeting other podcasters we haven’t met before, or if it’s going to be a thinly-veiled popularity contest, or what. I *think* it’ll be fun… I *hope* it’ll be fun…

And if it starts to go downhill… hell, I’ll *make* it fun. I’m a guest at an anime convention, dammit! ^_^

For anyone who hasn’t seen this yet…

Along the lines of All Things Japanese, this site was helpful for me in deciphering why it was amusing for an anime convention to be named Nan Desu Kan. I’d heard enough Japanese to recognize it (or, rather, “nan desu ka”) as a common turn of phrase, but the Learn Japanese website explained that it means, “What is it?”

I’d love to take a Japanese class. I don’t think there are any local evening classes taught by native speakers, though. I want to be able to do more than count to twenty badly, ask “what is it,” and other fun otaku tricks. If the Learn Japanese site had audio clips to confirm pronunciation, it would be even better. I’ll have to look into some of the podcasts on learning to speak Japanese.

Not like I’m ever going to make it to Japan any time soon, unlike *some* people I know. And, yes, I do know more than one person who either has been or is going to Japan. ^_^

My experience with anime and manga has mainly been through Aaron. After ten years together, he has a feel for things I would probably like, and introduces me to them. That’s how I found out about Neon Genesis Evangelion, Serial Experiments Lain, Tonari No Totoro and all the other Studio Ghibli movies, and all my other favorite anime (of which I may or may not have yet finished watching the entire series). Hence, I get exposure to a lot of robots and mecha (like Eva), or blatant mind-fuck anime (like Lain, and like Eva), and some sci-fi type titles. I haven’t really gotten into the shonen titles, because I’m not much for ninjas and hack-and-slash type entertainment.

However, I am also not a overly girly person by nature. I shy away from anime featuring bishonen or magical girls or anything overly girlish. If not for Erin’s manga review of the Ouran High School Host Club, I would certainly have passed it by without a second glance. I mean, really. A bunch of obviously bishonen guys on the covers of this manga, and with a pink and purple cover, no less? Please.

Erin’s review piqued my interest, though:

By 2002 host clubs were all the rage…. Rich women would pay big money to talk to hot young men. Ouran High School Host Club is the high school equivalent thereof – idle rich girls at a private academy hang out with the host club’s hot young men in an ornate, unused library. They’re not looking for sexual favors later, but they might want a date.

The protagonist, Haruhi (Haru for short), stumbles unknowingly into the club, breaks an $80,000 vase, is mistaken for being a hot guy herself, and is forced to work as a host to pay back her debt. At least one character is surprised to discover that Haru is actually a frumpy girl and not a guy – as a scholarship student she simply couldn’t afford the school’s fancy uniforms.

Much of the humor of the book is derived from fact that Haru is middle class while the boys are upper class. They’ve never had instant coffee or instant ramen! Haru has never had fatty tuna! The rest of the humor stems from Haru’s calmness as she is surrounded by metrosexual prettyboy dramaqueens, many of whom need their egos stroked continually. Haru becomes the calm in the middle of the host club maelstrom.

Ever since listening to this review on the Ninjaconsultant podcast, I’ve been buying up the English translations of the Ouran High School Host Club manga. And just last week, Aaron told me that he’d heard that the manga was being made into an anime — so, of course, I went out and downloaded the fansubs via BitTorrent.

Maybe it was just my inexperience with the act of reading manga (right-to-left just ain’t natural to me), but it took me watching the anime to finally realize why it is that I love this series so much. Sure, there are the guilty pleasures of looking at cute (yes, cute, but not necessarily handsome) high school boys. Even more than that, though, is the protagonist’s view of the metrosexual guys she’s forced to hang out with, and the flighty fluffies who come to the host club to drool over them.

The biggest draw for me, I just realized, is the satire. The stereotypes are fantastically funny: the supposedly popular guy whose ego gets crushed whenever anyone sees through him, the twins who border on having just a little too much “brotherly love”, the baby-faced Senior who carries around a stuffed bunny, the smart and diabolical schemer behind-the-scenes. Even Haru is kind of dull-witted at times, more so in the anime than in the manga, which makes for hi-jinx and hilarity when the punch line needs a little more beating into the ground to be truly funny.

There are six volumes of the manga available in English, and currently there are 13 episodes of the anime, which is still in production in Japan. Until Ouran is licensed in the U.S., I will valiantly download and watch every fansubbed episode, and be proud of myself for reading a manga and watching an anime that Aaron didn’t find first.