Share Your Recommendations – September 2016
Found some fun Japanese media this past month? Share your recommendations on what people should be experiencing in September.
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.
Playing: 罪と罰 (https://appsto.re/jp/64AA-.i)
I’ve only had this game for a bit, but it really exercises your brain along with your knowledge of Japanese! The player is presented with a mystery scenario, and has to figure out who the culprit is. You read a short (1-2 paragraph; no furigana) story, ponder the scenario, then, once you’ve figured it out, highlight the sentence with the proof. It’s on the Japanese App Store as an iPhone game; I’m not sure about any other platform.
Pretty fun!
Thanks for the recommendation.
Watching: Gurren Lagann… so it’s far from new, but somehow I overlooked this one thinking I wasn’t into ロボットアニメ. Woah! Only part way in, but I’m loving it. So far it isn’t deep or complex, but this means I’m having a blast with the subs off.
This is pure shounen, ridiculous and over the top, spectacular art, electrifying style, intoxicating character designs, a smashing sound track, and captivating voice acting. I can’t say much for the story, so if that’s a deal breaker for you, tread carefully, otherwise, you might just find this show as exhilarating as I do…
Gurren Lagann! What a great show! it only gets better and better. “Your drill is the drill that will pierce the Heavens!” man I think I’m gonna rewatch it
The PC game Undertale has a free Japanese fan patch (***). Give last year’s must-play game a shot.
Not really a suggestion, but a question. Has anyone here played 零の軌跡 or 碧の軌跡？(Zero no Kiseki, Ao no Kiseki). I see Trails in the Sky is rated a 4 star on the media list, I assume it’s around the same difficulty? I won’t have the skill to play them anytime soon of course, but was curious so I could think about when to try them of my journey.
I haven’t played Ao or Zero specifically, but having played both Sky and Cold Steel, I’m pretty sure they’re all around the same difficulty (~3 star to be able to follow gameplay instructions and enjoy character interactions, ~4 star to follow the overarching geo-political/military plot).
If you’ve played any game in the series in English previously, I’d suggest first replaying that one in Japanese, and then using that as a base to launch into Zero and Ao. A lot of the core ideas and vocab remain consistent, so the more games in the series you play, the easier it gets to follow the action.
Perfect, thanks for the response.
I just beat the first in English, and have moved on to the second. Japan came out with Vita enhanced editions so I’ll use those to brush up when the time comes.