カウボービバップをちょっとやすみます

わたしはジャズがだいすきです。そして、(apparently?) 日本人もジャズがすきですね

The history of Japanese music and jazz is actually pretty interesting, er, to me at least.  While I'm not very familiar with post-WWII Japan, it would seem that along with the rest of world-wide cultural influences came American Jazz.  I say "American" to emphasize that it came from America, ahah. Ever since the mid 70's or there abouts, there has a lot of mixing in Japan of their more traditional musics with jazz.  The opposite happened, too, where American musicians starting copying the musical style of traditional Japan.  Ever since then, and especially in the 80's, Japanese ideas have been used in American music, which was used in Japanese music, and back to America and so on until it's hard to distinguish what aspects came first.  Here is an example.

日本のジャズの中で、上原ひろみがいちばんすきです。

My favorite Japanese jazz musician is Uehara Hiromi.  In one of her more recent albums, "Beyond Standard," she takes a lot of classic songs and puts her own jazz spin on them.  Some you might recognize are Caravan (by Duke Ellington), Clair de Lune (by Debussy), and My Favorite Things (popularized in Sound of Music).  But on a CD with largely western songs, I was always baffled by one song whose title is in Japanese.  My step-mom recognized it as an American song, but the title seemed to imply it was Japanese.  Let's see if you know.

Here is the version she is familiar with:

If you are familiar with older Japanese music (or maybe even not! this guy was really famous), you would have recognized this song as (excuse my poor translation?) "I shall walk looking up" by Kyu Sakamoto.  Of course, 日本語で、the song is 「上を向いて歩こう」。

Here is the original:

And of course, this is the song that Hiromi plays in her album. 

いいですね~

カウボービバップ３

So far, I've shown you the opening, ending, and one random song from Cowboy Bebop.  I think it's time for another ending.  About halfway through the show, there is a special two part episode featuring Vicious and Gren.  It's a very touching episode and incredibly well done (also more related to the overall story than most episodes), and so I guess the director thought that it deserved it's own ending.  I have to admit, I found it very fitting.  Although, since I'm posting it here pretty much without context (SPOILERS!!! :O) you may not know why it's so fitting. But trust me it is. Or better yet, go watch the show! A little context though.  The name of the song at the end is "Space Lion." (Wonder why? Watch the show!)  It is based on a song in another part of the episode named "Goodnight Julia" which, for reasons of spoilers, I cannot explain here~ *(Also, don't be daunted by the four videos I posted. It's really not a lot, 'cuz they are all short and one them is technically a duplicate version.  Also, they *are* all the same song...)*
^_^

Here's Julia (original music box version. want to know why? watch the show!):

Here's the sax/piano version:

And here's Space Lion: **SPOILER ALERT**

Here is the clean version of the song, sans ending, for those wary of the spoiler~ (jsyk, the song picks up a lot more than sax/piano version):

二十ねんごのわたし

二十ねんごのわたしは、何をしますか。ちいさいうちがほしいです。
わたしの国はアメリカです。でも、アメリカの中で、どこへ行きたいですか。わかりませんよ。
しんせつなつまがほしいですが、こどもがあまりほしくありません。
ぶつりがくのけんきゅうしゃです。そして、つまはミュージシャンです。
「フェルミラボ」の社員ですから、月曜日から金曜日まではたらきます。
しごとがいそがしいですが、とてもたのしいです。
そして、毎日つまと朝ごはんと昼ごはんをたべたいです。
二十ねんごのわたしのせいかつはひまじゃありませんですが、とてもいいです。

Katakana Literary Works Final

[アドバタイズメント]

またカウボイビバップ

Okay, so just in case you're gonna get any funny ideas, every song I'm gonna post from Cowboy Bebop will have been written by Yoko Kanno, as stated before.  So far, you have heard some jazz, and some blues rock. Now how about some classical?  If you are at all familiar with classical music in general, you are probably familiar with the song "Ave Maria."  If you are more familiar, you are probably aware that there are quite a few versions of the song, some using the same lyrics, some changing it up.  Some people just altered the melody or combined some other songs.  Arguably the two most famous versions, and very beautiful too, are from Schubert and Gounod.  (Gounod took a more standard melody/lyric set and added it to Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major.)  Anyways, I would like to submit Yoko Kanno's completely original Ave Maria composition as another of one of the most beautiful.

せいめいが。。。

すみません！

わたしはとてもとてもいそがしかったですから、ポストがすこしありました。しけんとしゅくだいがたくさんありました。そして、先週の週まつはサンクスギヴィングでした！だから、ぜんぶであまりわるくありませんでした。しちめんちょうをたくさんたべました。マチネリスを三本のみました！ジュースの中で、マチネリスがいちばんおいしいです、ね？でも、わたしはぜんぶでとてもいそがしいでした。今朝さいごのしけんがありました。ぶつりがくのしけんでした。

でも、かえりますよ。

じゃあ、何かはなしたいですか。。。

もっとアニメをはなしょうか？もう、サムライチャンプルーをはなしましたから。。。カウボーイビバップをはなしたいか？じゃ、そうしましょう。これがニメの中でいちばんせいこうですよ！ハンｄスダウン！びじゅつやおんがくがだいすきです！そして、アインがいちばんかわいい、ね？でも、おんがくがだいすきですから、おんがくがはなしたい。

。。。えいごでいいですか？

Good, ahah.  The composer of the entire soundtrack is Yoko Kanno.  She is probably my favorite modern composer.  "Why?" you ask.  She doesn't just make awesome music, she makes awesome music in sooo many styles. Except hip-hop.  But you got enough of that when you looked up the Samurai Champloo OST, right? Right??? Anyways, she writes jazz, classical, rock, metal, pop... pretty much anything you could want.  And of course, the show is called "Cowboy Bebop" so you can expect a lot of jazz.  By the way, in case you haven't seen the show yet (blasphemy!) and are wondering, it is not about cowboys.  "Cowboy" is just slang for "bounty hunter" and came from, well, the Wild West days, you know~  If you want to learn more about the show, which I highly recommend you do, you can just check out the Wikipedia page. 

So yea, let's start with the opening theme!!!

And, uh... the closing theme???

By the way, the ending theme has some pretty sweet lyrics. Which you can check out here.

More Cowboy Bebop to come.

See you, space cowboy

Katakana Analysis (Final)

Two phrases that I found interesting in Katakana are スズキ and ヒト.


Suzuki seems to be in katakana to emphasize the fact that it is not just a name (like the name of a person) but the name of company.  The company is internationally known and is certainly not limited to Japan, so writing the company name in katakana, as opposed to kanji, probably implies this as well (since kanji is, at the very least, incredibly Japanese/Asian looking).  This seems supported by the fact that Suzuki also writes their logo in romaji, so that Japanese people know that the company has strong international/western ties, and so that it can be recognized by those who do not speak/read Japanese.  (Of course, this is all aside from the fact that it might just look cooler to use Katakana for international reasons.)


The usage of Hito in Katakana is a little more subtle, where writing it in Katakana implies a specific scientific usage, and not just referencing a random person.  In general, words written in katakana seem to be written that way as some type of emphasis.  Regardless of the intention (to look cool, to imply something western, etc), words in katakana, surrounded by kanji or hiragana, stand out.  So, one way or an another, the writer puts emphasis on that word and wants to draw your attention to it by writing it in katakana (perhaps with the exception of loan words).


Different textbooks explain Katakana usages in various ways because there are so many potential reasons to use Katakana (many different aspects of the language to emphasize).  It can be used for foreign words, sounds, names, and even to show that person writing or speaking is not native Japanese.  Each textbook would focus on the aspects they find most prevalent and easy to understand from a foreign perspective.

さくぶん２

やまださんへ

はじめまして。ロルダンです。わたしはだいがくのさんねんせいです。
そしてぶつりがくのけんきゅうしゃです。コロンビアのせいかつはとてもたのしいですが、むずかしいです。
ニューヨークはおもしろいまちです。そしてとてものごやかです。
ニューヨークとコロンビアはおおきいですは、ひとはおまりしんせつじゃありません。
でも、わたしのまちはおいしいりょうりとすてきなおんがくがありますよ。
六月十一日にひこうきで日本へいきます。
どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

ロルダンマイルス

Katakana Literary Work Draft

[アドバタイズメント]

～ヤマハのあたらしいプロダクト～
　　　　　　この「ハコ」はいちばんベンリなもの！
　　　　　　「ハコ」はほそい！そしてとてもシック！
　　　　　　アオイやアカイやシロイ「ハコ」があります。
　　　　　　　　　いまかいましょう！

Katakana Analysis Draft

Two phrases that I found interesting in Katakana are スズキ and ヒト.  Suzuki is probably in Katakana so that everyone knows that it does not just refer to the name Suzuki like a person, but something different.  In this case, that something different is a company.  The usage of Hito in Katakana is a little more subtle, where writing it in Katakana implies a specific scientific usage, and not just referencing a random person.  In these cases, Katakana is used to emphasize that the word is not being used in a normal way so that the contextual meaning is more obvious.  Different textbooks probably explain Katakana usages in various ways because there are so many potential reasons to use Katakana (many different aspects of the language to emphasize).  It can be used for foreign words, sounds, names, and even to show that person writing or speaking is not native Japanese.  Each textbook would focus on the aspects they find most prevalent and easy to understand from a foreign perspective.

わたしのせんしゅう

わたしはせんしゅういろいろのものをしました。
せんしゅうのげすようびににほんごのテストをおしました。
それからすんしゅうのかようびにぶつりがくのウェブスとオプチクスのテストをしました。
そひてもくようびにふたつのしゅくだいをだして。せんしゅうまつバースでフィラデルフィアへいきました。きのうだいがくへかえらました。たへんですね？

カタカナ！

I know katakana!  Which seems very useful, because a lot of things seem to be written in katakana versus hiragana.  For example, noises.  Remember when I has happy at learning how to write にゃ?  Well, it turns out that that would really be written in katakana, ニャ, which is pretty fair, I guess. I can also write my name in katakana, ロルダン, although I'm not entirely sure how I would write Miles... マイルス？マユルス？マエルス？マエユルシ？？？I don't know... :/

But, as it turns out, a lot of anime titles are written in katakana, which is maybe a little odd?  For example, フリクリ。そしてサムライチャンプルー。FLCL is in katakana I guess for obvious reasons, but the reason Samurai Champloo is also in katakana is perhaps a little more subtle.

For one thing, the word "samurai" is apparently more prevalent only in the west, or just outside of Japan.  They prefer ぶし.  Apparently, when the word "samurai" is used, it tends to be used as a foreign word, like ザサムライ, or "the samurai" which seems to be the Japanese approximation of the English phrase.  So what about Champloo?  It turns out that this is an Okinawan (from the Ryukyu's, remember?) word.  Since it comes from a non-Yamato (imperial Japanese) dialect, it makes sense that it would be considered a foreign word, and written in katakana.  ね、してるか。チャンプルーはえいごで "to mix" or "to hash"です。 And that makes sense, right? Because the show is mix of different styles of storytelling, art, and music.  すごいですね？Whoops, did I turn this into a Samurai Champloo post...?

Okayokay, this was my last post about Samurai Champloo, I swear.

じゃあ、ね

サムライチャンプルー

よこそサムライチャンプルーのみっつのポースト！も。。。よこそサムライチャンプルーのさいごのポースト！（ま、いいですね）

このポーストはサムライチャンプルーについてほんとうじゃありません、でもサムライチャンプルーのおんがくです。あなたはヒップホップすきですか？わたしはヒップホップだいすき！サムライチャンプルーのはヌジャベスのとFat Jon (the Ample Soul Physician)のとツッチのです。

あの。。。There really isn't much else to say about it. So, how about some music?
First, the opening, "Battlecry"

Then, the main ending theme, "Shiki no Uta" (which awesome lyrics, see here: http://www.spookhouse.net/angelynx/comics/champloo-song-lyrics.html)

I might come back to other songs from Samurai Champloo, but if I do, I'll be focusing more on the song itself or the artist, not the anime.  And with that we say goodbye~ それじゃあ、さようなら。

わかりますか？

Let's talk doing things.  Er, let's talk about verbs~ (duh).  Let's also talk about time, maybe?  "Tenses" maybe? "Verb tenses" so to speak?  How many ways can you do something in English? I can do it, or maybe I did it.  Maybe I will do it.  I could be doing it right now.  Or perhaps I was being formal and had done it, not to mention I have done it.  Is this something I have/had been doing? On second thought, I'll not be doing that...

Uh... where was I? (Where am I? Where will I be? >.<)  Well, I learned something new today~ In Japanese, there are only TWO basic tenses!  It's like, past tense, and *not* past tense.  The present and future are treated the same! It's, like, crazy! "NOW" DOESN'T EXIST!! THE PRESENT ISN'T HAPPENING!!!!!
わかりましたか？？？わかりますか？？？？
O.O
o.o
._.
..


えと。。。That's not actually true. Or, rather, I exaggerate~
"Now" does exist. As in, what time is it now? いまなんじですか。

Spricht jemand hier Deutsch? There is a similar sort of parallel there, too. Auf Deutsch: ich kann etwas machen.  Auch, ich kann etwas gemacht habe, oder ich machte etwas.  Anstatt, vielleicth, werde ich etwas machen.  And there you have your simple "I do it," "I did it," and "I will do it."  But you know, in English, we don't normally say, "I shop."  We swap the action verb for a helping one and change the action into a gerund, eg, "I am shopping."  But German doesn't have gerunds!  It is impossible to literally translate "I am shopping" to German; you can only say "I shop." Verstehen Sie?

My head hurts now...

サムライチャンプルー (Part 2!)

Without context, I'm moving on to the next awesome character in Samurai Champloo, Okuru!


He is only in the two part episode, "Lullabies of the Lost" or 酔生夢死 ひと夢。His featured song plays during the second part, while the cinematic reveals his mysterious past.  He is from what came under the control of the Matsumae (松前氏), which was a small domain in Hokkaido, the northern-most island of Japan.  He stands in contrast to Mugen, who is from the Ryukyus, as mentioned in the last post.  Anyways, this is his song:

The song is "Pekambe Uku" (ぺかｍべうく？) or Wheat Harvesting Song, by artist, Umeko Ando.  Unfortunately, I cannot understand exactly what she says, but the song is beautiful nonetheless, ね？


And now you're thinking, what is the point of me bringing all this up?  Not much, aside from that IT'S AWESOME.  What's awesome?  The writers of Samurai Champloo payed enough attention to detail in it's characters to give them historically based backgrounds.  Mugen is from the Ryukyus, which are islands far to south of Japan.  It is one of last areas to be brought under Japanese Imperial control.  This helps explain why Mugen and those he grew up with detest the central government.  On the other hand, Okuru is from Hokkaido, the northern most island.  This is another region that was brought under shogunate control very late in history.  Many of the peoples that populated this area are of Ainu decent, which explains the simple differences in their cultures.  Something perhaps more subtle is that the clothing that both Mugen and Okuru wear reflect the areas from which they came.  Even the songs that their respective episodes feature are traditional folksongs from their respective areas.  Obokuri Eeumi is a tradition Ryukyu song, sung by Ikue Asazaki, who typically sing Ryukyus folksongs.  Pekambe Uku is a tradition Ainu folksong, sung by Umeko Ando, who sings a lot of Ainu folksongs, and even won awards for this song in particular.


It's awesome that the writers of Samurai Champloo would put so much detail and depth into their stories.  WHY ISN'T MORE ANIME THIS AWESOME??? (I don't know~)  But now you know at least a little bit of why Samurai Champloo is one of my absolute favorite anime.


つづく？？？
（eh, prob not)

サムライチャンプルー

I'd like to call your attention to one my favorite anime (because I can't go four posts without talking about anime~).  As you may have guessed, that anime is サムライチャンプルー!  With the help of another class I'm taking, called Intro to Japanese Civilization, and a little research, I have found some interesting things (yay!)  But, I s'pose  I'll take it one at a time.


First, Mugen.  むげんはりゅうきゅうしょとうからきました。そして (semi-relatedly) おきなわ is part of the Ryukyu's!  Anywho, there is a two-part episode (Misguided Miscreants, or 暗夜行路 其之壱と暗夜行路 其之弐) which explores Mugen's past.  During one part, they play an incredibly beautiful song to accompany the imagery of the video:

The song is Obokuri Eeumi (おぼくりええうみ?) by Ikue Asazaki.  As this is a Japanese blog, I will attempt to write the lyrics in ひらがな。 Wish me luck

あらやしきくのでい

はらさくばくのでい

はれふしぎゅらさねじゅく

すらじふしろよんど

はれふしぎゅらさねじゅく

ふしぎゅらさねじゅく

すらじふしろよんど

きりしがきくのでい

くがねやべたていてい

はれももとびゅるわきゃ

やうりばゆわおよんど

はれももとびゅるわきゃ

ももとびゅるわきゃ

やうりばゆわおよんど

はていがちやなりゅり

とびばにやねらぬ

はれうとうかたばに

やからちたぼれ

ひとつあるばにや

かなしゃせにくすいてい

はれわぬやおくやま

ぬかずらだすき

おじゅうごやのていきや

かみぎゅらさてりゅり

はれかながじょにたたばくもていたぼれい

A translation of the song can be found here.  For the time being, my point in bringing this up, aside from the fact that it's a beautiful song, shall remain hidden until I explain part two, about Okuru.  But, that shall have to wait.

つづく


(Oh noes! I accidentally highlighted everything! How do I undo thiiiiiiiiissss??????)

Hooray!

I now know all of Hiragana! :O

 So, now I can write Hiragana in Hiragana! I mean, ひらがな！ははは, whoops, I mean "hahaha." Haha...  Anyway, I'll shamelessly admit that one of characters I've been most looking forward to learning is "nyan" or just "nya" which I now know is にゃ or にゃん. :3

 It's very surprising to me that instead of having a separate character that sounds like "nya," it's a combination of "ni" and "ya."  Another aspect of Hiragana that I found surprising was the difference between "ka" and "ga," "sa" and "za," etc (or, in Hiragana か and が or さ and ざ).  Although, to me, it makes sense that instead of having an entirely different character for similar sounds, you only have to modify a different character to get what you want.  But this also brings up another point.

Because the characters in English don't necessary mean anything by themselves, the syllables are must consist of multiple characters for the most part. I think a lot of the word structure gets lost when writing in romanji versus Hiragana.  For example, "tadashi" is a pretty neat word, in my opinion.  Mostly because of the "tada" part, where there is slight consonance between the "ta" and the "da."  However, in roman characters, "t" and "d" are completely unrelated, even though they sound similar.  Their similarity is incredibly evident in Hiragana, where "tadashi" is written ただし.  Similarly with "kaga" as かが.  Is it just me, or does かが look a lot nicer than "kaga" especially considering the consonance of the word?  It isn't. It looks awesome.  Relatedly, none of the roman character names match up with the sound they make. Like, the letter "t" is called "tee" but the noise it makes on its own is, well, "t."  The only way we understand the roman characters is how they relate to others.  With Hiragana, like I said before, each character is already a syllable and complete by itself, eg ね is "ne."  Pretty neat~

Unrelatedly, I am now having trouble remembering all the Hiragana characters. Ahahah, oh boy...  Well, I am actually pretty sure that I remember all of them except for the m set and and r set.  While I'm typing this I can sort of cheat, because I can just type らりるれろ or まみむめも without needing to remember the characters.  That aside, those are my last Hiragana to memorize! にゃにゃにゃにゃにゃ！ (that was me laughing maniacally)

Until next time, じゃまた
＾＿＾

なぜにほんご？

Why Japanese?

Admittedly, one of the main reasons why I want to learn Japanese is so that I could understand various anime that I watch and manga that I read.  But why not watch them with English dubbing?  That's because most of the time, the voice acting in the dubs are absolutely terrible.  Aside from that, you still have the problem of possible mistranslations, a problem which is even worse with fan subbed versions of anime.  Manga presents a similar problem.

There are still several other reasons why I want to learn Japanese.  I have never attempted to learn a language that uses a completely different character set than English (as I am already proficient in German).  I have also always been very interested in Japanese culture, be it modern or not, and I believe you can achieve a greater understanding of culture by learning the language.  Both of these things (learning the culture and the language) are what excite me the most learning Japanese.

Interestingly enough, the hardest part about learning the language so far is not memorizing vocabulary, the characters, or even getting the accent right.  The difficulty was mostly in the handwriting.  While I can recognize all of the characters that I had learned, being able to right them correctly and neatly is something that I very much need to work on.  I have to get the stroke order right, and if it's a hard stop or a flowing motion, etc.  It's probably because I'm too used to writing in roman characters, but the difficulty is there nonetheless.

Well, we shall see.
Pleased to meet you.
どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

はじめまして！

こんにちはみなさん！
わたしはロルダンです。
わたしはコロンビアだいがくのがくせいです。そしてさんねんせいです。
アメリカじんです。
フィラデルフィアからきました。
ぶつりがくのけんきゅうしゃです。

どうぞよろしくおねがいします。
わたしはおんがくがだいすきです。そしてゲームがだいすきとあにめとコミックがだいすきです。

よこそわたしのブログに。たのしんでください！

＾＿＾