WAKE WEEK! In search of WAKE GA NAI

Why yes folks! It's day 3 of WAKE WEEK!

And we arrive at WAKE GA NAI, which is very very similar to WAKE DEHA NAI. We're going to have to try and discover how this one is different together, or in a more likely way, I'm going to stumble about for a full five hundred words.

Today, I'm going to go on the fall back of anime, and talk about 俺の妹がこんなに可愛いわけがない, or Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai. It's usually abbreviated at Oreimo, which I always think sounds like "I'm emo"。。。

何で誰でも俺の友達なれん？？

。。。but that is probably just me. The English dub will be named Oreimo as well, and this post seems to be quite fortuitous because it's going to be released in five days! Check out the aniplex website here.

WAKE GA NAI translates as the following:

• There is no reason why~
• It is impossble for ~ to~
• Cannot ~

As you can see, it's not the easiest thing to translate. The way this anime series is usually translated as, then, is:

There is now way my little sister is that cute! 

Really, that is the best way to go about it. It's not like it's fluid English to say "It's impossible that my little sister is cute" "Or there is not reason my little sister is cute", though both of these are a bit more true to the original feeling behind the grammar point. I suspect that no matter how you translate the title though, it will always sound a little silly in English, and that's why the Aniplex chose Oreimo. I'm sure that's what happened with Saikano. My Girlfriend, the Ultimate Weapon really isn't going to get the demographic that anime is actually meant for, which is people who likes stories about love during the destruction of the world. With the actual translation, you just get a lot perverts who like making love to the barrel of a gun.

Anyway, you'd think that with a title like "There is no way my little sister is that cute!", the anime/manga/novels would be about a guy who is uber protective of his sweet sister who attracts all sorts of guys, or about a guy who can't figure out why all his friends fall in love with his sister. These are reasonable guesses. They are, however, wrong.

Let's join me for another episode of Weird things from Japan!

Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai is about a brother and sister who haven't gotten along for years. That is, until the brother discovers that his sister is into hentai games, or eroge, specifically ones about little sisters. Somehow, the brother becomes convinced that he has to help his little sister hide her weird hobby so she can be herself. I'll be honest, I'm not real fond of the series. It really plays on the sister-love theme too much, and the sister's actions (despite her swearing that she doesn't want to have sex with her brother) are just too... erotic and inappropriate. It's also filled with scenes of her in her underwear, or her with her butt in the air... or her with her skirt blowning up... or... you know, I'm just going to stop.

I'm not sure how it is in the books (which the anime and manga are based off of), but I really just don't get it,  nor  do I think it is something that you're even supposed to get. The one redeeming quality of the series is that the little sister is emphatic that 2D and 3D worlds are separate, meaning reality is reality, and fantasy is fantasy. It's stupid to mix them up, she says. I almost wonder if isn't a comment on readers like me, who still think the story is pretty needlessly perverted. I'm just not realizing that none of it is sexual because of the reality of the situation which is... she doesn't like her brother that way. Or something like that.  But you know what? I'd like it to be explained to me why it's necessary to keep placing her in the role that she enjoys watching, but has no desire to play. What I mean is that she plays a little sister sex object though she claims she isn't. For example (and I will not put the image up) she falls down at one point which somehow perfectly pushes her skirt and blouse up to show her bra and panties, and her brother is straddling her because he fell down too. Seriously. Explain that.

It's not that I think the story is horrible (it has interesting point about what are acceptable hobbies and why ordinary seeming people have fetishes) but the scenes are just needlessly perverted beyond all belief. And this is coming from someone who

I feel, though, that I have not successfully described WAKE GA NAI to you, so I'm going to add just a smidge more. In my two year old notebook, I have these two sentences:

•  こんな優しい仕事が君に出来ないわけがない。
• Konna yasashii shigoto ga kimi ni dekinai wake ga nai.
• There's no reason why you can't do such an easy job.

• 日本語がそんなに速くマスター出来るわけがない。
• Nihongo ga sonnani hayaku MASTAA dekiru wake ga nai.
• It's impossible to learn Japanese that fast.

These sentences have an important distinction. Do you see how the first is negative with a negative? Well, Japanese is a lot more carefree about their double negatives, though as a hobby linguist and grammarian, I see very little wrong with double negatives so long as they aren't completely muddled. But the truth is, us English speakers try to avoid them. Japanese people, however, love them. I think it has to do with misdirection in a language that is filled with implication and ambiguity. The second sentence has an affirmative and a negative, making a nicer English sentence. I just want you to know it's possible, and indeed even encouraged, to use a double negative.

So, in the end, I think that the general way to use WAKE GA NAI is to suggest that whatever the sentence is in front of it is, that sentence is impossible, or at the very least, very stupid.

How to make a WAKE GA NAI sentence:

• Plain form form of whatever, unless it's a noun then add DEARU/DATTA + WAKE GA NAI
• what you're talking about + it's impossible to do what you're talking about

I assume to make this more polite, you would probably say WAKE GA ARIMASEN.

WAKE WEEK! In search of WAKE DA

Guess what guys! It's going to be a わけ week here at JLPT Blues.

This week is going to be dedicate then, to all the grammar forms that involve WAKE, which is WAKE DA, WAKE GA NAI, WAKE DE HA NAI, and WAKE NI HA IKANAI. That's right! Five days of crazy, WAKE fun!

But let's start with the easiest to explain, and the one that will help us go onto understand the other grammar forms.

The kanji for WAKE, though it is rarely ever used in the grammar form, is 訳 which means reasoning/reason.  So immediately, we can surmise that it means whatever it is, we use this grammar point to explain the reasoning for this. Here are a just a few of the translations of WAKE DA:

• As you know, ~
• The fact is that~
• The truth of the matter is that~

So really, in attacking this form, you just have to get the general idea of feeling behind it. My notebook from a few years back has this pretty useless sentence:

• 私の責任であるのわけだ。
• Watashi no sekinin de aru no wake da.
• As you know, it's my responsibility.

I don't really find that particularly helpful, so I had to go on a search for it. I struggled finding this grammar form in a fun way, so we're just going to talk about Japanese ad campaigns and domestic tourism. Fun, right?

Now, if you travel around Japan, you will find more than your fair share of posters like this at train stations. This poster, actually brings back some pretty vivid memories of walking over the bridge at Hakui Station. Generally, these posters are dedicated to domestic tourism, and they are usually on the train line for whatever they are trying to advertise.

This particular poster is featured on the blog of a hotel called the Sakurai which is located at the Kusatsu Onsen in the Gunma Prefecture. If you read the link I provided for the onsen, you would think it was the most famous place in all of Japan, though I have to admit I've never heard of it. That, however, is generally the way of tourists attraction in Japan. Everything seems to be world famous... But before I go into that, I need to say that I'm in no way an onsen connoisseur so it may well be famous. I'm usually forced to go, and the only time I ever had fun at one was when I went to Odaiba Onsen because it was Edo style.

あきちゃ〜ん！会いたいよ！アメリカ行ってくれね〜！

In any case, most town's in Japan survive on domestic tourism, and the only way to get people to come is to have something that no one else does. This is why you see lots of posters boasting things like 名物　(meibutsu) which is a sort of specialty food. It's like how Nagoya has Miso flavored donkatsu, Hiroshima has a special kind of okonomiyaki, and Hokkiado has its own type of ramen. Barring that, they try to have something else that is world famous. The Hakui I mentioned earlier is, interestingly, the unofficial UFO capital of the world. You can even get UFO themed ramen there!

My Japanese hometown had the world's longest bench. At least, that is what the sign says. In fact, it's the third longest bench. Also, at the souvenir store at the base of it, you can get the specialty Togi ice cream, which is potato flavored. They give you a salt shaker to put salt on it even!

That's me surveying the length of the bench, and my bud Davin enjoying potato ice cream. The other two aren't enjoying the magnificence of my bench so let's ignore them.

Someday, I'll dedicate a full post to domestic tourism, but I think it's high time I stop reliving my Japanese double life and return to the topic at hand. The poster's phrase is:

• そりゃ、涼しいわけだ。
• Sorya, suzushii wake da.

I'm hesitant to translate this because suzushii is such a weird word. You usually hear it when you fan someone's face, if there's a nice cross breeze in your house, or if a breeze picks up and cools you off on a hot summer day. And yes, it is that specific of vocabulary. So, the literal way to say this is "That's cool, you know."

But I'm going to say this:

• It's a breeze, in fact.

Ok, so I interjected an English pun in there. So what? Yes, having taken French translation courses, I know you're not supposed to add, but I'm not professionally translating here, am I? I win.

And bonus points for those who have the same mind as I do and immediately thought:

Leave it! It's what they read.

Ah man, gotta love The Birdcage.

The reason the ad says this is because, if you read the blog, summer in Tokyo can be painfully hot. This, having spent two summers in Tokyo, I can attest to. It also is saying that it's cooler up in the mountains where the onsen is (1200 meters up, in fact) so it's an excellent place to escape the heat (by jumping into scalding hot water?). All in all, it's a nice little promotional poster to say, despite what you may have thought about coming here, you should get your butt up here! It's only two hours away in the Gunma Prefecture!

The structure of WAKE is as follows

• Sentence in plain form of which every tense (na for a na adjective is necessary) + WAKE DA.
• Noun + DE ARU/ DATTA + WAKE DA

Before I go though,  I think it bears to mention that WAKE DA functions a lot like NO DA, which, if you are old school anime person like me, means you probably recognize it from this guy:

This is Chichiri from Fushigi Yuugi, who generally ends every sentence he says with NO DA. Some people mistake this as some sort of dialect (like Tokyo-ben, or Osaka-ben), though I'm certain I've never heard of anyone except Chichiri ending their sentences with NO DA as a matter of accent as opposed to meaning. In any case, it's translated very annoyingly in the dub as "you know?", and left relatively untranslated in the sub. At least, as far as I remember. I'm really not interested in rewatching the series to find out. Though, I would have translated it as "actually", I'm not sure if that would make him sound less annoying. Wow, you would never believe he's one of my favorite characters from the series, would you?

But since I'm not into rape fantasy like Yuu Watase, I'm not really going to go details about the series. (That comment is going to cost me, isn't it?) It's weird, my distaste for the show, when I absolutely loved at age fifteen. I even painstakingly scanned in every page of the artbook, such was my dedication. I wonder where I put that, come to think of it...

Tomorrow, look forward to WAKE DEHA NAI!

In search of SEI DE/ SEI DA

Today, I'm going to use Fullmetal Alchemist to help us. And so you know, yes, it is one of my favorite mangas of all time, and I'm more than a little in love with Edward. I also really want this shirt:

The basic premise of the show sort of follows an I, Robot way of a storyline. What I mean is that the entire story is set up around a law that can't be broken (for those are Asimov-challenged, I mean the 3 Laws of Robotics). This immutable truth of the law becomes just as much an antagonist as any of the villains do, which is partially why I'm so attracted to the manga. The concept is summarized at the beginning of each episode of the anime, and it becomes absolutely heartbreaking when you start realizing its implications.

Of course, once you realize which character is delivering this monologue at the beginning of each episode it becomes even more haunting.

But today, we are not going to talk about the anime. No we are not. Why? Because I only own the manga, and it's pretty different from the anime. Why is this? Well, the mangaka, Hiromu Arakawa (who I automatically like because she's from Hokkaidou), sold the rights to do an anime early on in the series, but she would not tell the animators what the plot was after the volumes that were already produced. It makes sense though. Why would read the manga if you already know how it's going to end. She was protecting her creativity and product in a very smart way. I actually wonder the same thing about animes. Since I always read manga, there seems very little point in me watching the show when it's almost the same thing (I'm looking at you, Naruto). In any case, there is the manga, which is the original story, there is the first anime, which is true to the manga for about eight episodes, and there is the second anime called Brotherhood, which follows the manga. There's also a movie that acts as a sequel to the first anime series...oh, and a series of audio dramas...but I digress.

Shall we to the grammar point?

Yet again, I'm all sorts of classy and I used my digital camera instead of walking ALL THE WAY downstairs and booting up a crappy old computer to scan this. Why don't I just put the scanner on my computer? you ask. It's just that old, I reply. Plus, there aren't any drivers for a mac.

This is the pivotal scene that puts much of the plot in motion, at least for the main characters Edward and Alphonse. They try to use alchemy to bring their mother back to life, but while they have everything that is important to making a body (salt, potassium, etc.) they don't have anything to give in exchange for a soul. Edward has lost his leg, and Al has lost his entire body in creating a monster that only sort of looks like their mother. Edward, in a last act of desperation realizes in order to save his brother's soul he has to attach it to a suit of armor.

Our grammar point in question is here:

Do you see it?

• アル。。。　オレのせいだ

SEI DA (DESU) means "fault". Anytime you want to say anything is the fault of something, you use that word. Knowing this, then, means that it is pretty easy to guess what this particular grammar point means.

• Al... It's my fault.

Though, I would probably translate this as:

• Al... It's all my fault.

From what I can tell, there isn't really way to include that "all" in a SEI DA sentence, but I find that to be more fluid than just saying "It's my fault". Oh the liberties translation can take.

Ed loses an arm attaching Al's body to the armor, and suddenly it makes a lot of sense why the series is called what it is. Those are two very metal alchemists. Almost full metal, I'd say.

But this is the most simple way to use SEI. So, it's time move on to other things that more fun to use like SEI DE.

Just knowing that SEI DE uses the TE form probably leads you to know that you can write a lot longer sentence. And... while I'm sure FMA uses it at some point in the manga, I'm not going to go searching for it. It'll just make me sad that I don't have the last five tankoubans (volumes). So, instead, I'm going to talk about something really different.

With this phrase:

•  私のせいで負けました

using this video that used it as its title.

Honestly, I wouldn't watch the video for more than ten seconds. I only used it because I want to talk about the game a little bit. I know it's a POD (Panoramic Optical Display) game, and it is just so Japanese.

So I took the following image from this link that sort of talks about the game.

That, my friends, is a video game. It also made me hella dizzy and motion sick the one and only time I played it. I'm not real certain if the above video is GUNDAM, but I'm relatively sure it is because I'm a nerd, and I recognize the alert sound from Gundam Wing.

In case your wondering, playing games in Japan is really just that awesome.

But I'm going to stop myself from talking about things like Pop'n Music, and actually get on with this incredibly long post.

•  私のせいで負けました
• Watashi no sei de makemashita.
• It's my fault we lost.

So basically it goes like this:

Who or what's fault? + What happened = SEI DE sentence.

I should probably also mention that anything can go with SEI. But here are the rules for each one:

• Verb -  appropriate tense
• I Adjective - add i
• Na adjective - add na
• Noun - add no 

Nice, right?

In search of KOSO

Can I be honest with you folks? Really honest? Like really, really honest? I don't want to do this post. I hate KOSO. You can't translate it. You have to sort of stumble around feelings and notions that exist to an English speaker, but don't necessarily have a precise way to term it. And that, folks, is why it's a pain in the ass to learn Japanese.

But, let's get into anyway, shall we?

You probably know KOSO from こちらこそ which sort of sucks because it's not the most exact of term. It's pretty unhelpful in learning the grammar point, in my not very humble opinion, but I'm going to go over it anyway.

So, my textbook says that KOSO means "to express emphasis". That means that こちらこそ is trying to emphasize the place over by you. People usually translate it as "I should be the one saying that" because it's used in response to things like どぞよろしく. It's meant to let you know that you specifically are the one who should be saying something. But, since I didn't think this would be that helpful, I painstakingly searched through my mangas for a better example (read: picked up one volume and got lucky).

But first, a little enka, because I don't put enough of it on this blog (read: any). It is still an incredibly popular art form, especially since the majority of Japan's population are seniors (the only people who watch it). You can even take enka lessons, and then impress your friends at karaoke. It's very hard not to find an enka program playing in the evenings in Japan, though in my experience it's usually blaring from the televisions of elderly women who can't hear very welll. So, I'm pleased to present Mizuhara Hiroshi, one of the earlier enka singers. I'd love to blab a bit more about enka, but really, wikipedia knows more than I do.

[If you want to hear me sing enka, let me know... I'll think about maybe posting one... possibly...]

The name of the song is Kimi Koso Wagainochi. Putting what I said into practice, it means that there is emphasis in this song! Emphasis on the "you" as a matter of fact! But... it doesn't translate.... here is what I have:

• You in our life.

It's not there, is it? Also, I italicized the wrong word. Well, that's because English speakers think differently, and I have a strong suspicion that for us, "our" is the more important word to that sentence.  But I'll explain it better in just a moment.

The way you use KOSO is:

• Noun +  こそ

• If you don't find this particularly helpful, just think of it as a particle that can only be used with a noun. So wherever the noun you want to emphasize in a sentence is, you put the KOSO.

Whereas we usually use adverbs to indicate emphasis on verbs, and adjectives for nouns, Japanese sort of has a catch all that only works when put with a noun. But let's go on a deeper search to figure this grammar point out.

Now, if you want to talk about pop culture, this is it. Neon Genesis Evangelion has been around since 1996, and it is the most influential animes of its generation, if not all time. It is constantly parodied. People constantly make homages to it. It spawns more merchandise than you can dream of, even fifteen years after its inception. In short, Eva is one of the great cultural cornerstones of Japanese society, and that is pretty close to being understatement. The anime deals with themes of adolescence, bearing the sins of previous generations, degeneration in social ties, neglect, modernity... the list goes on and on... 

It also has one of the most nuanced characters to ever exist in fiction. I also absolutely mean it when I say that Shinji Ikari is one of my most favorite characters ever conceived. He is a flawed character in every sense of the word, and yet he is the only character who even makes an attempt to better himself. Through it all, he is constantly berated by his peers, his superiors, and his own inner demons, and yet he continues to live and fight. His bravery is labeled cowardice, and accused of being incapable of love when it's denied by all the people he tries to give it too. I guess I just really love misunderstood characters.

But today is not about Shinji Ikari, nor is necessarily about Eva. No, it will be about the sentence you can't make out in the speech bubble up there. 

• レイの笑顔こそ本当に誰も見たことないわ
• Rei no egao koso hontou ni daremo mita koto nai wa.

This is taken from volume three of the manga, and I do apologize about the quality. The scanner is downstairs on a computer that takes forever to boot up, whereas I am currently upstairs and my camera is sitting next to my monitor. Can you blame me?

Before I go into explaining the sentence, it would probably be good for me to talk about the scene before it. Shinji and his legal gaurdian, Misato, meet Rei on the street. She is very cold to them and walks away, and Shinji wonders why she hates him. Misato responds with the grammar point. 

I think the first thing to do is just translate the sentence without the KOSO.

• No one has seen Rei's smiling face.

Okay. We know that KOSO means emphasis. I think in English, we would emphasize this sentence with a "never", or say "no one" heavily. But this isn't in search of English grammar, so we need to change our thinking up. Here, Misato is trying to make sure that you know that it is Rei's smiling face in particular that no one has seen. I guess this means people have seen other kinds of her face, so I suppose that needs emphasizing... I'm not really sure.

So just like above where Mizuhara-san really wants you to know that he wants you in his life, Misato really wants you to know that it's Rei's smiling face that's never been seen. That being said, you know how I would actually translate this sentence?

• No one has ever seen Rei smile.

Isn't translation a bitch? Aside from the italics, there is no indication whatsoever that KOSO is even there. Oh well, now you know how to particularly emphasize things when you're speaking Japanese in daily conversation.

I suppose I should wrap this interminably long post up, and I think I'll do it with one of my oldest and favoritest AMVs ever made. It also does a very good job of encompassing everything the series has to offer.