Japanese video clips

The biggest internet success story of 2006 has to be YouTube, the video clip site that was bought by Google for $1.65bn (£883m) this month. Showing over 100 million clips a day, the site has become popular with Japanophiles as a good source of Japanese anime, TV commercials, variety show clips, music videos and movie trailers.

Following the Google buy-out however, YouTube has become a victim of its own success and although the takeover has resulted in improved searchability of the site, its new owners have become more cautious about users uploading copyright material. While the site used to turn a blind eye to copyright violations, they’ve now started removing clips following complaints from the copyright-holders.
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Sunset In Kyoto

Japan’s national emblem and the Hirakata Doll Show

In addition to a national flag, which all officially-recognised countries have, most nations also have at least one national emblem. These adorn things like money, government information and documents, and are also sometimes incorporated into nations’ flag designs. Typically a species of flora or fauna that is native to the country, examples of national emblems include England’s rose, the US’s bald eagle, Australia’s kangaroo, New Zealand’s kiwi and Canada’s maple leaf.

In Japan’s case, the national emblem is a chrysanthemum, a rare example of a country having a non-indigenous species as its emblem. It may come as a surprise to most Japanese people that their national emblem is not actually Japanese, but the cultivation of chrysanthemums is believed to have begun in China around 17,000 years ago.

Although Japan does have its own native species of chrysanthemum, these have much smaller petals than the shiragiku (white chrysanthemum), which was brought to Japan in the 8th Century AD and adopted as the Imperial crest a few centuries later (hence the term Chrysanthemum Throne being used for the Japanese Imperial dynasty). As with so many of Japan’s cultural imports from China (festivals, writing, food etc), the chrysanthemum was embraced with such affection and enthusiasm that it is considered an archetypal Japanese icon today.
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Words and phrases I like to use in conversation

In this series I’m going to be introducing you to some of my favourite slang expressions, most of which are related to my life in Japan in one way or another. Some of these expressions I coined myself, some of them I stole from friends, while others are in common use in spoken English in England or elsewhere.

For each word or phrase I’ll be giving a definition, plus some background information such as notes on usage or origin, or further explanation of their meaning. As I write posts about each expression I’ll add the links to the list of slang at the bottom of this post.

Enjoy…

Your homework:

Do you know any other good slang (English or Japanese) you’d like to share?

Post your replies below, or email me at bigonjapan[at]gmail.com

My favourite slang list:

• crop dusting
• eigo bandit
• foreplay futon
• Flying While Gaijin (see ‘FWG’)
• FWG
• Gameboy dropper
• gutbuster
• hit up
• J-trash
• LBH
• lemmings
• Loser Back Home
• The Louis Vuitton Game
• mentalist
• naijin
• necking turds
• the overlap
• Pringles girl
• Riding While Gaijin (see ‘RWG’)
• runway futon
• RWG
• templed out
• tip whore
• turbo shandy
• turd necker (see ‘necking turds’)
• Washington

The latest cult TV programme from Japan

こちらの記事は現在日本語に翻訳中です。もうちょっと待って、また覘(のぞ)いてみてくださいね

Kure Kure Takora - Greed is good!

The kind of TV shows and films that establish a cult following are typically offbeat, unique or downright bizarre, and there’s certainly been no shortage of these from Japan over the years. Although there are too many to list here, examples with a significant number of overseas fans include TV’s Saiyūki (Monkey Magic), Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets) and Super Sentai (Power Rangers), and the films Kozure Ōkami (Shogun Assassin), Akira, Tetsuo, Ring, Audition, and Battle Royale.

The latest addition to this long list of Japanese pop-culture exports is Kure Kure Takora (Gimme Gimme Octopus), a kids TV oddity from the ’70s. This deranged programme finally reached its overseas audience this year after a number of episodes were uploaded onto the phenomenally successful YouTube website and the show was subsequently shared on P2P networks and reviewed on several blogs.
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Photos of my favorite Japanese skyscraper

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