Share Your Recommendations – December 2016
Found some fun Japanese media this past month? Share your recommendations on what people should be experiencing in December.
Answer in the comments:
1. What are you watching?
2. What are you reading?
3. What are you playing?
4. What are you listening to?
If you can, include the Japanese difficulty level of your recommendations.
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Watching
[***] ウルトラマンオーブ (Ultraman Orb)
I only started watching this because I peeked into the live action section of Crunchyroll and saw it was the most popular program. Being my introduction to 特撮, you could say I was overwhelmed, but thoroughly entertained. There is a LOT of technobabble in this show (and I assume all Ultraman shows), but I just ignore it. I really really enjoyed it and got sad when I got caught up, so on the internet’s recommendation I started watching…
[***]ウルトラマンメビウス (Ultraman Mebius)
I love this show so much, highly recommended for those starting live action dramas and don’t want to watch romance. You get a sense for each character easily, even with very minimal understanding, and the protagonist is just downright adorable. Hell, the whole crew is. The episodes go from funny, to touching, to scary (who knew a plant kaiju could be so creepy). I have 10 episodes left and I’m going to be sad when this is over.
Reading
[*] 青空エール (Blue Sky Yell)
This is the third manga by 河原和音 that I’ve read… what can I say, her writing is so easy. It’s about a girl who wants to join the brass-band cheer squad (ouedan) and her relationship with a huge guy who wants to make the baseball team as a catcher. Highly recommended to ex-high school band geeks as it’s a good primer to band vocabulary.
[**] 高校デビュー COLBALT-SERIES (High School Debut)
A 6 book novelization of the manga by the same name, also by 河原和音. It’s just perfect for a first “novel” after finishing my first 1200 J-J cards. Lots of unknown words but, since I know the original manga pretty well, very easy to pick up from context. Also since this is most definitely not high art, I have no qualm highlighting the crap out of this series.
[***/****] http://ja.uncyclopedia.info/ (Japanese Uncyclopedia)
Was looking for some specific info about Ultraman and found this instead. It’s pretty damn funny, just like the English version, and obviously 100% accurate. Had to add this line to my anki deck after I saw it (笑) 「特撮（とくさつ）は、世界各国で放映される、ドキュメンタリーニュース番組の総称である」
Watching
[**] バブルへGO!!～タイムマシンはドラム式 (Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust)
This was a great comedy film about traveling back in time to the peak of the bubble years (1990) in order to avert a present day financial crisis. It’s also kind of a sad film, you really get a feel for how crushing it was to come down from the heights of this exciting(and excessive) time. バブルへGO!! stars Hirosue Ryōko(who you may have seen in Departures), along with Abe Hiroshi.
[*]ドキュメント７２h (NHK’s Document 72h)
I’ve been watching this documentary show for a couple of months and it pretty much never gets old. It’s easy to understand and relaxing as hell. One recent episode that I really enjoyed was about a group of hard working professional wrestlers in Hokkaido. Something about this show gets at the pathos at the center of human life, but in a way that is optimistic and sympathetic.
Reading
[**] 銀河鉄道999 (Galaxy Express 999)
I’ve almost got to the end of Yotsuba, and I’ve been looking for Manga that I might actually enjoy reading after that. This one seems promising as it’s fairly easy to understand despite a lack of furigana and the presence of a fair amount of kanji. The art is great, and it has kind of a relaxed feeling, which seems rare. A lot of the easier manga seem to be gag comics where everyone is screaming all the time.
最近、宗教の動画を観てるんだけど、想像よりも楽しいですよ。俺はやっぱり宗教がないんですけど、日本語で何でも楽しくなるはずです。チャンネルの名前が「サンライズ ministery」と思うんだけど、どうでしょうか？不思議な休憩時間だよね。ｗｗ
Playing:
[**] Pokemon X / Pokemon Y
I’m a little behind the times, but really enjoying this. I’m around level 20 and find I understand enough to enjoy it but not always enough to understand the mechanics and often use an English resource to understand the Pokemon moves.