In search of TSU TSU ARU

I am beyond surprised at the moment. Here I was, reading that comic I suggested to you yesterday, and I find a phrase I never thought I'd be able to find. TSUTSU ARU... I've never seen it used except in my textbook, and I've certainly never heard it. My Japanese teacher told me no one uses it when they speak, and of course, my textbook says the same.

But there it is, in a really beautiful scene about omuraisu. 

The phrase in question is:

• あなたの子供になりつつある。
• Anata no kodomo ni nari tsu tsu aru.

TSU TSU ARU means to "continue doing something", and as I mentioned above, it's usually only used in written form. This, of course, indicates that it is a very formal phrase (which may be a very good indicatory on just how Mikako feels). JGRAM also wants me to say that it means "in the middle of doing something", but I'm not real sure about that seeing as my textbook doesn't even mention something close to that. The translation of the explanation my book give is "gradually doing something".

Helpful, right? Sort of...

The context of these scene is that when Mikako was first adopted, her new mother asked her what she wanted to eat, and she replied that she wanted omuraisu. When she goes to put ketchup on it, her mother exclaims something and Mikako thinks she's in trouble. Instead, the mother is just laughing about how childlike it is to use that much ketchup.  The last page is when Mikako is seventeen, and they are having omuraisu as they do every Saturday, and her mother starts laughing about how much ketchup Mikako uses. "You like that much ketchup?" she laughs, "like a child, huh?"

The Mikako narrates with our grammar point before the scene ends. We can divide the phrase like so:

• あなたの子供になる(I'll become your child)  + つつある (continue doing so)
• I'll continue being (becoming?) your child.

I think her use of formality here indicates a sort of contrary feeling to what she says, since it implies distance. Since I'm not Japanese, I can't say for sure, but I think I'm probably right.

How to make a TSU TSU ARU sentence:

• Pre-MASU verb+ TSUTSU ARU
• The NARU in this sentence became NARI

It it as easy as that!

But before I go, I thought I'd talk just a little bit about omuraisu which is, by far, my favorite food. Oddly, though, Japanese people tend to think it's an American food. Ask an American, and they'll say they've never heard of it.

The basic omuraisu is rice, ketchup and egg. There is usually some sort of meat in it (usually chicken, but I like bacon) and vegetables (like onions and what not), but those are not constant since every store makes them a bit differently. In almost all cases, the egg is fried into a thin sheet, and the rice/ketchup medley are mixed and then folded into the egg. It looks like this:

Image taken from: http://blog.omuraisu.net/archive/2006_03_15_omuraisu_archive.html

What it is, basically, is a Japanese version of an American Omellette (Omu standing for Omellette and Raisu being Rice). It may not look good, but I have to tell you, it is BRILLIANT. I crave it almost every other day... and I don't even like ketchup!

In search of GACHI and SHIKA NAI

It's a two for one day to make up for the days I missed last week. I must apologize for that. With my mother having broken her collar bone, I've had to spend half of my day doing the farm work, and the other half doing house work. Needless to say, it has not been conducive to studying for the JLPT.

It has been conducive, however, to falling asleep to radio plays at night... namely Torchwood radio plays... and I'm having difficulty getting myself to think about anything other than how damn cool Ianto Jones is.

And that, my friends, is how I surreptitiously sneak my personal life into this blog. You totally didn't even notice, did you? Masterful.

But I have had a bit of a chance to do more research, so let's get on with it, shall we?

1. GACHI

GACHI means "tends to", though it can be actually translated as a million other things. I think the idea it's supposed to present is that there is a proclivity for something, but it doesn't necessarily make it so all the time. So basically... "tends to". The page I am taking this from is from this page of her beautiful website:

http://juicyfruit.exblog.jp/7871394/

It has a very simple caption:

• 夢見がち
• Yume Migachi

and if you look at the image and assimilate what I told you of what the word GACHI means, you can see the inherent beauty and loneliness to this scene. There are a lot of commonly romantic images in Japan, one of which is sharing a scarf. Another is sharing and umbrella. 

In the last scene, you can see that she is just tied to a tree, and not her lover.

The phrase, then, is a comment on her life.

• I tend to dream

Though I must admit, in this case, I thought I might just translate it as "daydream" despite the fact that there are four perfectly acceptable words to use instead simply because there is no subject indicated. But then again, when is there ever a subject indicated in Japanese? I decided against it in the end because it doesn't quite have the same feeling to it as "I tend to dream".

Also, did you know you can buy t-shirts that say that phrase? I sort of want one...

How to use GACHI:

• Pre-masu form+ GACHI
• because it's a tendency and it will continued to happen, do not worry about tense! No past tense, okay? :)

or

• Noun+ GACHI

2. SHIKA NAI


I wish I could tell you more about the wonderful artist. There isn't really much to say. She does a fantastic web comic about a girl named Mikako which you can find here.  From what I can tell, it's a part of Morning Manga, which is a branch of Kodansha publishing (I think!). It seems that you can buy the manga at stores these days, and I'm sorely tempted.

Our phrase comes from the PV for the manga, though it does appear in the manga itself. I'm being a bit lazy and not searching for it though, so I hope you'll forgive me. I'm also hoping I can sort of nudge you to check out the website yourself and take a look at her amazing work. The scene I will be talking about starts at 0:45.

The phrase I'm interested in is at 0:53:

• 「大丈夫」って答えるしかなかった。
• "Daijoubu" tte kotaeru shikanakatta.

I suppose, though, I should explain how to use SHIKA NAI first before translating the phrase and explaining the context.

SHIKA NAI basically means "no other way", or "have to". I tend to think of it in terms of something that had to be done because there was no other way, whereas other "have to" phrases such as NAKEREBANARANAI can indicate being forced to do it, as well as not having a choice in the matter. SHIKA NAI only speaks to the latter of that, and not the former.

The context which you can watch before is that her adopted mother asks her if she's okay. When she thinks about that, she realizes that adults are always asking that. Then her next phrase is:

• I had no other choice but to answer with "I'm okay".

• 「大丈夫」って答える (To answer with I'm okay) + しかなかった (I had not other choice)

You'll notice this particular phrase in the past tense. That is perfectly possible to do. Since she's narrating the story from some unknown future point, she will of course use SHINAKATTA.

How to make a SHIKANAI sentence:

• DICTIONARY FORM OF VERB + SHIKANAI
• Please remember that depending on the situation, you willl have to change SHIKANAI. For example, if you want to be polite, it's SHIKA ARIMASEN.

Both of this mangaka's works are pretty easy to understand due to the purposefully simple language she uses, and they are a great way to practice reading more artistic Japanese and absorbing cultural phenomenon. Please, please, please check them out!

In search of KURAI / GURAI

Wow. Day number five of manga related posts. I really am on a roll.

Today, we are going to talk about one of the longest running manga group, and one of their most famous stories, so I think it’s okay indulge myself for one more post, eh?

CLAMP is famous. When I say famous, I really mean it. They have done everything from Cardcaptor Sakura to Tokyo Babylon, to Angelic Layer to… the list really goes on. They do very serious works filled with blood and gore, and fun uplifting ones where people don’t die tragically but fall in love. They are sort of the Shakespeare of Japanese comics, really.

The only manga I own in Japanese by CLAMP is X/1999, one of their most epic, and most controversial pieces. Truthfully, I’m not overly fond of it. Why do I own it? Because this, even if it takes thirteen volumes of mind numbing repetitiveness to get through his story line, is one of the greatest characters ever created.

I did purposely scan the whole thing just to give you an idea of how cheap it is to buy used manga in Japan.

Subaru Sumeragi. He is originally a character in Tokyo Babylon, which is a bit more light hearted than X/1999. It’s not necessarily a prequel, but it does have a lot of the same central themes as its successor. In any case, Subaru is one of the most believably developed characters I have ever read. It’s too many spoilers to go into, but his transformation into a teenager who wants to protect everyone to a person with a love/passion for a man he wants to kill is just… amazingly well done!

Sadly, while Volume 12 (where we find our grammar point) is very Subaru heavy, our scene today will not deal with him.

But first, a quick run down of X/1999. The idea is that the end of the world is in the hands fourteen people, seven on the side of Earth, and seven on the side of Heaven. The Dragons of Earth (as they are called) are trying to protect the people of the planet, whereas the Dragons of Heaven are intent on destroying it so the Earth can take back what is its. There are many bloody battles, gratuitous decapitations, and torture scenes with the trials of relationships filling the gaps.

Which is.. a lot different than something like says this:

Oh, how I love Cardcaptor Sakura.

In any case, this series has been made into an anime and a movie, but no one actually knows how it ends. Yes, the movie has an ending. Yes, the anime has an ending. The problem is neither of those were written by CLAMP, and they will only reveal it if they can publish it exactly the way they would like. Essentially, the manga was deemed to violent and ASUKA (the publisher) told CLAMP that either they censor themselves, or they stop printing the manga. Seeing as nothing new has been published, and the last chapter is a cliff hanger filled with the likely death of at least one of the main characters, you can guess how that standoff went down. It is pretty unlikely we will ever see how this story ends...

But on to grammar!

KURAI/GURAI means “about” but not in the same way as NI TSUITE.  More like “It’s about (around) nine o’clock"(９時ぐらい). In fact, you usually hear it when it is in relations to numbers. “There are about seven hundred people”　(７００人ぐらいいる).

What it is, in this case, is an estimation or a guess. But, actually, in Japanese it’s not actually that at all. It’s time for another episode of Lots of Different English phrases for One Simple Japanese Word!

The context of this page is that someone's kekkai (protection seal) failed and the smiley guy's mom happened to be there when it did. Sadly, she is no longer with the living, and Kamui (the main character) is listening to what his friend has to say.

• 葬式の時目が溶けるくらい泣いたから今度は二人の分までいっぱい笑えるように頑張らなきゃ。
• Soushiki no toki me ga tokeru kurai naitakara kondo ha futari no bunn made iappi waraeru you ni ganbaranakya.

The thing with KURAI is that you need to think of it at as "as" "or as much as". It's used to say "about" and "around" because it's not a very exact phrase. It's supposed to give you indication of "how much" without it actually being that. We will see that in this sentence translation, but we are going to stop at the KARA, and just focus on the beginning of the sentence.

• 葬式の時目が溶けるくらい泣いた
• At the funeral, my eyes melted I cry so much.

That is the most literal way to translate it. Seriously, I would probably add a bit of English in in order to get the idea across properly:

• At the funeral, I cried so much I thought my eyes would melt away.

Now for the whole sentence, just in case you're having trouble.

• Because I cried so much I thought my eyes would melt away at the funeral, I'm going to try my best to small enough for both of them (my mom and dad).

Done.

It's not that easy... I hope that gave you some indication of how to use it. I also found this as a nice example sentence:

• 死ぬくらい笑えた。
• He made me laugh so hard I thought I would die.

If you need more, please visit JGram. They have a lot of great example sentences.

Before I leave though, I figure I should quickly go over the difference between KURAI and GURAI is. There isn't any, except for you use one after one type a sound, and the other after another. It is sort of like how sometimes you have to change a SHI to a JI depending on what sound is before it. If you would like, I could do a post on what sounds follow what sounds, but it would be a bit too long to get into at the moment. 

In search of MAI

My god, this will be post number four involving manga. Don't get me wrong, I do love manga, but I'm not really as obsessed as I seem. I really love art and writing, so comics tend to be the perfect medium for me. But four posts in a row? I'm on a roll, that's for sure.

Today we'll be looking at another one of my favorite mangas, and it is unquestionably my favorite love story involving alien babies who float around, Daa! Daa! Daa!

Daa! Daa! Daa! (UFO Baby) Volume 4 by Kawamura Mika

This is another one of those mangas I bought long before I could read Japanese. I spent hours looking up kanjis just trying to figure out what was going on. Since I didn't know how to use a kanji dictionary, it turned out that looking at pictures was really my safest bet.

But seriously... I love this show. So much so that I have most of the DVDs (which are really hard to get a hold of), the manga, the sequel manga, a few shitajiki, and some postcards. I don't even buy that much for shows I really like. That's the level of love I have for this series.

Daa! Daa! Daa! is named for the sounds babies make. If we were to literally translate the title, it would probably be "Goo goo ga ga" but that seems rather silly. In English, it's usually referred to as as UFO Baby, which is a bit odd because it's never been officially released in America. If it ever gets slated to be translated for the United States, I pray fervently that I would be the one to do it. I've read it a million times, and I could do it in an instant!

The story is really silly. So silly it's embarassing telling people about it because it's hard to get them to believe in the fact that it is great after I explain the plot.

It's like Dean Koontz's Watchers.That book legitmately scared me, but when I try to tell people it's about a genetically altered baboon bent on murdering a super intelligent dog because it felt the dog got all the love, I just get funny looks! I can sense you're doing it right now! Stop it! It's really scary!

In any case, the story revolves around the blossoming love affair of Miyu and Kanata. Miyu's parents go away to America to work for NASA leaving Miyu with a family friend who's son is Kanata. Said family friend is a Buddhist priest, and he is offered a once in a lifetime chance to study with a guru in India. Miyu, unable to stand the guilt trip, consents to let him go and finds herself sharing a house with his surly son.

And yeah... they're fourteen.

So, it's sounds horrible so far right? What if I told you that night, a UFO crashed in the temple grounds, and from the craft emerged a floating baby and its babysitter, a giant talking cat. Now it's fun! The baby thinks Miyu and Kanata are his parents, and Miyu and Kanata can't stand the thought of making it feel sad, so they go along with the charade as best they can. The whole premise of the show is a comedy of errors as they try to hide the baby's alien origins from everyone, and they fact they are not related to one another and living together in the same house. It's fun. It's cute. And, it has a satisfying ending.

But on to grammar!

I'm a little confused about MAI because I thought it was used primarily by old men. That's why my friend Aki told me, in any case, and I don't like to think her a liar. But in the example I have, a fourteen year old girl is clearly using it.

• 「少女まんが」じゃあるまいしっ。。。
• "Shoujo manga" jyaaru mai shi... 

So, the context of this scene is that Miyu had a very embarrassing dream where Hanakomachi Kirita confessed to liking her and moved in for a kiss. She's still very much bothered by it at breakfast time. Kanata, who is consistently perceptive in the story, states that this is because she saw him without his glasses and she realized his true beauty and has now fallen in love with him

Our example sentence is her rejection of this idea.

MAI, in this situation, means ないだろう, and I put that in hiragana because it's not an easy concept to translate. I figure it you're at JLPT II level, you know what DAROU means and I don't have to struggle to define it as "an ambiguous phrase to imply that one isn't necessarily sure, usually used to soften the phrase and make one sounds less jack-assy". I should put that in a dictionary....

The translation, then, would be:

• This isn't a romance comic!!!

As I said, this is not really used very often. I want to believe in Aki when she tells me old men use it. Or, I could believe a website that says it's for formal writing. Both, sadly, seem to be not be in favor of cute little teenager Miyu using it. Above, I mentioned that it usually means NAI DAROU, which is only really half true. It's a negative form, for sure. You can use with a pre-MASU form to say someone will not do something with a hint of "probably" in there.

I'm going to have to go on a much more extensive search to really figure this out. Stay tuned, eh?

In search of WARI NI

It's time for WARI NI! This is awesome because I get to use this manga as an example:

Futsuu no Renai by Konomi Shouko

For those of you who are a bit squeamish about love between the manlier sexes, I will tell you ahead of time that this is not a yaoi (boys love) manga, despite its looks. For those of you are like that sort of thing, bummer for you! Maybe next time? I do have lots of interesting things to say about the yaoi culture both in and outside of Japan.

That, though, is really an entry for another day.

The title of the story is Futsuu no Renai(フツーの恋愛) or "A Normal Love". I'm not going to go to into depth about it because neither it, nor its author, are particularly popular. Its publisher, Hana to Yume, however, is! I think it would be remiss to just gloss over the publishers in favor of the artists as I have been because they are integral to what sort of mangas get published.

Hana to Yume is an fairly old furoku (phonebook manga) that does only shoujo comics. A furoku is a cheap way for manga publishers to get stories out and decide on which ones they will keep and publish into tankoubons and pedal for animes.  They are a big phonebook-sized collection of manga chapters written by various authors. Usually, they are accompanied by a survey so the readers literally decide which stories they want to continue or not. This, is probably why SOME mangas/animes go on forever (*cough* Naruto *cough* Bleach*cough* Inuyasha). They are made with very cheap paper, and each story has its own color of ink (blue, red, purple, pink, etc). You're supposed to throw out your furoku after reading them.... Supposed to... Some waste space saving them however... Okay, mainly me. They also try enticing you to buy things by adding little goodies. I, for example, own a charming Gentleman's Cross Alliance muffler.

Since Hana to Yume deals with young love, it's read primarily by females, and in that group, it seems to be mostly high school girls. Granted, that's through my experiences, and I don't have any facts to back that up aside from what I saw. It's also been, in my experience, that they tend to be rather porny in nature. Hooray! Porn!

Okay, and by porny, I mean very, very soft porn. Still, definitely sex is involved.

This is not always true though. One of their most famous serials is Fruits Baskets, which is about as innocent of a love story as you can get, even though it is a bit like the Dragonball Z of emotional drama. Every time Tohru solves on huge emotional disaster, there is an even worse one waiting around the corner!! Seriously, how traumatized can we make these characters?

But, I'm not here to talk about Fruits Baskets today. I don't even own manga or the anime, despite the fact both have made me cry. Instead, I'm going to talk about Futsuu no Renai which is a one-shot volume of manga about a guy who looks like a girl and a girl who looks like a guy. Needless to say, their renai (love) is less than futsuu (normal).

I should say, before I start, that this is a very unusual story for Hana to Yume to publish. The main character is not a high school girl, and it deals with love in a not-strictly heterosexual way, both of which are staples to the Hana to Yume franchise. It's a credit, then, to the story that it made it into at least one tankoubon.

The story starts with a tall and very handsome Akira asking a small and very cute Kazui out. Of course, Kazui immediately freaks out because he's not gay, and how dare a guy ask him out on a date! The people watching this exchange at the bus stop are also flabberghasted to learn that he is a boy. Later, he finds that Akira is actually a girl, and he consents to go out on a date with her after he runs away very dramatically and needs to be rescued. Okay, that is pretty Hana to Yume...

Then... he finds out that she's actually transgender and he immediately regrets the decision to date her. In his wonderfully politically incorrect way, he thinks someone like that can't be normal and all he wants is a normal love. The love story follows him coming to grips with falling in love with Akira despite her surgery to remove her breasts, and the fact that she's more welcome in the male onsen than he is (he even gets escorted out once because they think he's a girl).

It's a fun story, even if it seems ethically questionable in its addressing the topic of transgender love, and slightly inappropriate in that Kazui is still a high school student and Akira is a full fledged adult when they start their love affair.

In this scene, Akira has convinced Kazui to come back to her flat where he tries to come to grips with feelings he may or may not have. The sentence in question is the lower right frame.

• お前　私立の学校で働いているワリに妙に生活レベル低くない？
• Omae. Shiritsu no gakkou de hataraiteiru WARI ni myou ni seikatsu reberu hikukanai?

In order to really understand this phrase, I want you to look at her apartment in the lower right frame. Cracks in the wall. Things in boxes. Patches on the blanket for the kotatsu. The lamp doesn't even have a shade! This is really going to help understand the grammar point.

WARI NI means "for a" or "considering". I like the description given on JGram best, so I'm going to steal it real quick:

「ＡのわりにＢ」＊This grammar expresses a judgement in which the situation expressed by Ｂ does not meet the expectations of Ａ or seem like what Ａ implies.

The A in my example sentence is:

• 私立の学校で働いている
• Working at a private school

B is:

• 妙に生活レベル低くない？
• Your standard of living is strangely low.

So, this can be translated in one or two ways:

• Considering you work at a private school, your standard of living is strangely low, isn't it?
• Isn't your standard of living is strangely low for someone who works at a private school?

If you are at all curious after that, he finds out that she has really expensive things like Dreamcasts (wow, this is old) though she doesn't have a TV because she wins things by listening to the radio. I assume she calls in every time they give something away. Oh Akira, I almost want to like you despite your stalker tendencies.

WARI NI is pretty easy, though, right?

In search UCHI NI

There is no doubt in my mind that you people have heard of Sailor Moon. If you are at all familiar with anything Japanese, I'm sure one of these three things pop into your mind: 1.) Hello Kitty 2.) Pokemon 3.) Sailor Moon. Maybe Dragonball Z, if you're a guy, or a woman who is madly in love with Vegeta like myself.

As a woman who likes to be respected by men, there is no reason I should love him the way I do >.<

Did I just admit to that? I suppose I could just use the old delete key, but... I don't care enough.

Anyway, Sailor Moon recently (and by recently, I mean about four or five years ago) had a reprinting that involved the original colors for most of the colored pages, unique stickers, and new cover illustrations. I totally thought I was over Sailor Moon until this special edition little beauties caught my eye. Needless to say, I left the store about four thousand yen poorer.

Isn't that a well prettier cover than the original. Of course, I could only find this super low quality version of it on the net, but here you are:

Coincidences of coincidences, I was at the bookstore last night, and I discovered they are rereleasing Sailor Moon as the special editions in English (with the full color pages, but no stickers)! What a blessing! The original translations were absolutely horrid!

In any case, we're going to go over the incredibly easy grammar form, UCHI NI. Hooray! It's nice because it's useful, and that's all I really care about when it comes to learning grammar points. Utility. There are so many I learn and forget simply because it doesn't come to mind fast enough.

UCHI NI means "while A ~ A/B is ~"... which is a little vague. Basically it just means "While". The way I like to remember it is that the word UCHI has two different kanji that have a very enclosed feeling to them. So, 内 means "within" and　家 means "house". So I imagine that housed in one action, is another. Or within an action there is also another. Perhaps that is just my weird way of thinking, but it's worked pretty well for me so far.

There are actually two separate grammar points in my book called UCHI NI, though I'm not entirely sure why. Once we get into, we'll see that they are pretty much the same, even if they are translated different.

But first, let's do it as "while" before I confused with a wily word that goes by the name of "before".

A typical UCHI NI sentence may go like this:

• 勉強するうちに平井堅を聞くのはいいね〜
• Benkyou suru uchi ni Hirai Ken wo kiku no ha ii ne~

Was that my facebook status a few days ago? Why yes it was, and I mean every word of it...

...

No matter what you think I'm not going to digress into how cool Hirai Ken is (though I desperately want to).

Strong, Boom. Strong. Okay, this is how you make a UCHI NI sentence.

• A(action) + UCHI NI + B(action)
• A(Studying) + UCHI NI + B (Listening to Hirai Ken)

• Listening to Hirai Ken (B) while studying (A) is nice.
• While studying, listening to Hirai Ken is nice.

The next is way to use UCHI NI is stay say "before an action is completed, this is done/should be done". While in English, these are two very separate phrases, they are quite similar in Japanese.

• 暗くないうちに、帰ったほうがいい。
• Kurakunai uchi ni, kaetta hou ga ii.

It goes like this:

Within the confines of it not being dark, it's best to go home.

Now let's think about the first one:

Within the confines of studying, it's nice to listen to Hirai Ken.

Do you see where I'm going with this? We would never speak like this in English, though, so the second UCHI NI is essentially:

It's best to go home before it gets dark.

That's right. UCHI NI means the same thing, and yet it is translated as "while" and "before". I'm sure some of you must think this is beyond irritating. I, being such a grammar lover, think it's awesome!

So, the example I'm going to give you from the manga doesn't translate very neatly into English like the ones I provided above, but I like it because it shows just how it can be used without strictly confining you into English contexts.

What? I've hooked up a scanner to my computer? No more crappy photos of manga pages?! Happy days!

• マーズ　ーそして　マーキュリーまで　目の前で一瞬のうちにつれさられた。　ーーーブラックムーン。
• MAAZU -- Soshite MAAKYURII made   Me no mae de isshun no uchini tsuresarareta --- BURAKKU MUUN.

Ok, for those who want to know where I am in the series, the first story line is over. Now we have the Black Moon story line, where we are introduced to Sailor Moon's future daughter with a daddy complex, Chibi Usa. If you don't want to have plot spoiled, I would suggest you ignore this post altogether.

You gone?

No. Okay. So, it's not a big spoiler, but Mars and Mercury have been taken away by the Black Moon, and Usagi is struggling to grasp any sort of victory against this mysterious enemy. See, not too bad, right? 

Let's go over the grammar, and translate it the way I say it usually is translated:

• "While a moment, they were kidnapped before my eyes."
• "Before a moment, they were kidnapped before my eyes."

So doesn't work, right? That's why my brief and annoying story about how I remember UCHI as something that is within the confines of another action comes into play.

Obviously, the way this should be translated is:

• "In a moment, they were taken right before my eyes."

Within a confines of a moment, a blink of an eye, Sailor Mars and Sailor Mercury were taken. Suddenly it all makes sense, right?

In search of YORU TO, and YOREBA and KAGIRI

I realize that I have very few days between now and when I take my JLPT, so I'm going to start doing something EVERY day, and if I can, double up on grammar points. So today's inexorably long post is going to be dedicated to YORU TO/ YOREBA and KAGIRI (HA/DEHA). Both are found in volume two of Time Stranger Kyoko by Arina Tanemura.

I used to be a huge fan of Arina Tanemura, even if I could hardly tell her main characters apart. Then, her type of love story started to get a little old (the basic love story is "hate each other than fall in love" which has been her MO for everything except FOS). She is famous for Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, a story about a magical girl who is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc with inexplicably Japanese-styled clothing for her seifuku, and Full Moon o Sagashite, a story about a girl with a beautiful voice who finds out she only has a year left to live and tries to fulfill her dream of becoming a pop idol.

It was once said that Time Stranger Kyoko was Tanemura's favorite work, something I think is true... for the beginning at the very least. What starts out as a fun magical girl manga about a princess who's trying to collect the 12 Strangers so she can awaken her twin sister Ui soon becomes a rushed affair with very poorly constructed twists. I think this is because Tanemura-sensei got the idea for Full Moon o Sagashite and felt the need to wrap up Time Stranger Kyoko as fast as possible. That is just supposition, mind you, brought on by the fact that I wanted TSK to be longer.

1. YORU TO/ YOREBA

First off, I need to make sure you don't ever get this mixed up with NI YOTTE! They have the same root, which is "depends/according" but they are used very differently!

But let's start with the easier of the two, YORU TO/ YOREBA. This grammar point is used when you want to say "according to so and so, this is the truth". For example:

• ブームによるとJLPTのため勉強していることが楽しいだけど。。。
• Acording to Boom, studying for the JLPT is fun...

So basically, it's NOUN + YORUTO + Whatever the Noun says.

Shall we to the manga?

The phrase I want to use is in the right hand corner, and is cut off... Sorry!

I'm going to put things in context really quickly here in order to move things along. Kyoko has discovered that the 12 Strangers she needs to find are leaders of various clans. For example, she's of the Royal Clan, so she's a Stranger. Her best friend is of the Flower Clan, and her romantic interest is the leader of the Dragon Clan. Both of them are Strangers. She then goes on a journey to go find more Strangers so she can use their power to wake her dormant twin sister. Of course, she's only doing this so she doesn't have to be a princess anymore, so it's not like she's really all that much of a philanthropist despite the good deeds she manages to do in every chapter.

So, the sentence in question is this: 

• でもウワサによると仲の良かった２つの村が最近になってケンカばっかしてるみたいなのよね。。。
• Demo, UWASA ni yoruto naka no yokatta futatsu no mura ga saikin natte KENKA bakkashiteru mitainanoyo ne.
• But according to rumour, it looks that these two clans who have always had good relations are bickering. 

Yes. I was a little liberal with the translation. But I kept what was important. Moving on.

So using YORU TO and YOREBA is really easy. Forgive me for repeating myself, but it is just:

• Noun(A) + NI YORU TO/ YOREBA (B) + rest of sentence(C)

This makes:

Rumour (A) NI YORUTO TO (B) + (They are bickering) (C)
According to rumour, they are bickering. 

I'd love to go into the distinction between YORU TO and YOREBA, but I have a lot trouble already trying to distinguish between "if" as in TO and "if" as in BA, so I don't think I'll be any help. Sorry. If someone could enlighten me, though, I'd be forever grateful!

2. KAGIRI 

KAGIRI has three uses. Fantastic. Are you ready?

The kanji for KAGIRI is 限り, which means "limits" or "bounds". What this should give you an image of is that whatever it's describing, it is no more than that. It is used in these three senses:

• 1. As long as
• This should make you think of SAE BA a little bit, but the image is a little different. Here, it's like until that limit of something is reached, something will stay the same:
• 日本にいるかぎり、チンさんはわたしに連絡してくれるはずだ。
• 2. Within the limits of
• This is a description of where knowledge comes from. It's often used with 私が知っている限り, as in "as far as I know". The text book has a great example that takes this further and it uses 電話で話したかぎり, which sort of means "as far as he said on the telephone."
• So, really, the translation is probably almost uniformly "as far as"
• 3. Up until
• This actually translates as "as far as" most of the time. Like, 能力のかぎり頑張ります. "Up until the end of my talents, I'll try." Ouch. That reallly sucks in english, huh?

As for context, it's a whole lot of spoilers, so I'm not going to give you it. I don't know if it's that important. It also has nothing to do with the mysterious guy smooching her. The king, on the previous page, is talking about events and his last thought ends as she's waking up to be orally violated.

I will say the king talks a lot about how she has powers like Chronos, and that awakening her sister doesn't mean she'll escape her fate. This isn't a spoiler, I swear, because he doesn't say what fate and it's strongly insinuated that it's her fate as a princess that can't be escaped.

• 「みんなを守りたい」と思うかぎりー。。。
• "Minna wo mamoritai" to omou kagiri-...

What sucks is that this sentence doesn't end, which makes it an absolute crap example sentence. Why did I use it then? Well, I'm getting desperate. The test is coming up soon and I need something! Plus, this really challenges my way of thinking about KAGIRI so it's good that I have to think this through.

But first, I want to show this absolutely hilarious translation.

And this is why we DO NOT use online translators. Either that, or we only use translators whose language that it is going to be translated into is their native language. First off, that first sentence is about how Kyoko's hair will change back from red to brown. There is another sentence in there that uses DARAKE (魔族だらけの未来) where he says a "a future full of demons".... but according to this, the Mazoku went to the future where Ui's moment of awakening vanished! 

But I'm digressing. 

Let's look at the three translations for KAGIRI. There is "As long as", "As far as" and "Up until". Which is best here?

Well, I for one, agree with the translation above. It is "'Everybody defended' and to think as much as possible". Oh, wait, no I don't! That's ridiculous! I mean, it suggests that there is a limit, so that's good, but other than that, WHAT THE HECK?!

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, it's not definition 3. That leaves us with 1 and 2:

Previous sentence: "After all, you can't escape your fate of awakening Princess Ui."　（結局おまえは憂を目覚めさせる運命から逃れらないのさ） 

• 1. As long as you think that you want to protect everyone...
• 2. As far as you think you want to protect everyone...

So which one of those sounds right? That's right! One! It's inverted sentence! Oh Japanese, how you love to toy with me.

"After all, you can't escape your fate of awakening Princess Ui... as long as you think you want to protect everyone."

In a normal, formally written sentence using KAGIRI, this would be flipped like this:

結局、「みんなを守りたい」と思うかぎり、おまえは憂を目覚めさせる運命から逃れらないのさ。

I'm a little hesitant to end this post because it makes me feel so nostalgic. I remember ten years ago when the first chapters of this came out. I bought the manga for a exorbitant price online, and muddled through with .txt translations because I had no idea how to speak Japanese at the time. Sometimes, I wonder if child self would be impressed with me. Other time, I wonder if child self isn't a little disappointed that I'm not further along.

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.

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.