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Transcribed all of 攻殼機動隊/Ghost in the Shell (GITS)! That’s right! All the movies [except Solid State Society] and of course all episodes of Stand Alone Complex. The dialog, baby. All of it. In Japanese! Exactly as spoken on-screen.

Those who have looked will know that Japanese/East Asian movies and TV shows that have same-language subs at all, let alone subs that exactly match dialog, are a rare and precious thing indeed. Like, I bet you’ll practically watch a mediocre show just because it has subs (depending on the language, I know I would). Some of the reasons for this are pretty decently summed up here.

GITS notably has no Japanese subs on any of its present DVD releases, despite easily being one of the densest, most literary (is that even the right word?) programs of any kind ever made. Japanese subs for GITS would have been nice. But, whatever, now we have this website — with copy-and-pastable text to boot! W00t.

So, yeah, enjoy. By the way, I would definitely recommend this kind of thing for sentence-picking. And if any of you are inclined to make sentence packs or SRS files for people, this kind of thing, i.e. Japanese by and for native speakers, would IMHO be the best for, like, the health of the world, and in terms of source material [since, as we all know, material made for learners often tends to be some combination of boring and unrealistic].

As an aside, let it also be noted that Ghibli’s 物の怪姫/Princess Mononoke also has exact subs on its Japanese DVD release. Just FYI.

And we’re done! Enjoy!

• Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG on YouTube.
• Script thereof

• うさぎさんの毎日/The daily life of Little Miss Rabbit. It’s a blog. Written by a friend of mine. So, more shameless plug than anything else . She told me she’s worried the content is too “mundane”; I told her we can’t always limit our discussions to what’s in 論点/The Issues.
• This article by Joel son of Spolsky. Suddenly I feel bad about all those 0.1%-funny-99.9%-offensive jokes I’ve made in the past. But it’s a great article about getting things done even when you feel sluggish and useless and like you’re not really progressing, filled with insight like this: “Maybe this is the key to productivity: just getting started.” Read the whole for deeper insight.
• 国立国語研究所/The National Institute for Japanese Language (“Nigel”). I had never even heard of these kids until yesterday, but already I’m officially in love with them. They publish these cool reports with suggestions for Japanese replacements of unnecessary foreign words. And, seriously, as obsessed with words like “コンプライアンス/compliance” so many Japanese companies seem to be nowadays, don’t they really just mean 「法令遵守」? Hopefully I’m not a purist, but when you have one of the most powerful neologism-generation systems ever created by mankind at your disposal, why ignore it just to pretend you know a foreign language and/or are importing a foreign concept when you don’t and you’re not? Rhetorical question. What I love about the 国立国語研究所 is that they’re not in any way denying the value of foreign words; they freely admit the freshness and vitality they can bring; they’re merely redirecting towards sensibleness — away from the descent into katakana absurdity that passes for so many business documents trying to sound “catchy” and “with it” (when the motivation is positive), or (when the motivation is negative) actually trying to break laws by obfuscation: replacing a term for something that is 一目瞭然 clearly illegal or unpleasant when in kanji, with a foreign word in meaningless, emotionally neutral katakana. Nigel take a constructive approach; avoiding blanket condemnation, they identify the prime offenders and actually propose simple, effective solutions. I mean, “パブリックインボルブメント”/public involvement? WTF? 「住民参画」, foo! Anyway, the fact the Nigel exists is a very healthy precedent, and good for the lymph. Take a look at their reports: they’re very well written and easy to read.
• While on the subject of good writing, here comes Uncylopedia — the Japanese edition. And their collection of autologically bad articles on bad (i.e. hardーto-follow) writing. I almost died of laughter In fact, after I get done writing this, I’m going back for some more chuckles. They also had this hilarious disclaimers. 「超フィクション」（笑）. “The contents of this article are entirely fictional, although some of what is discussed may be factual, making this ‘super-fiction’, if you will”. Feels like that guy Alfred E. Tennyson’s famous blog post about half-truths.
• The fact that I haven’t already linked to Sushi and Seduction is a crime. Shame on me! The author, Emergency, is the man now dawg. And he’s the proud parent of three of the most amazing articles ever written. In one, he readies, aims and crushes with his bare keyboard all those crazy, negative, limiting beliefs that prevent so many people fulfilling their Japanese potential; he’s really dug deep and brought into the glaring light of day, all those irrational, nonsensical, unmaliciously racist beliefs ["but those people are just smarter! Their brains are designed for rote memorization! I read it in Mein Kampf!"] people cling to when it comes to Japanese and other Asian languages. But Emergency was just getting warmed up! He then comes out you with the positive beliefs that will help your Japanese self quickly grow big, strong and healthy. And just as a roundhouse kick, he gives his introduction to learning kanji. Keep an eye out for his family-oriented, hand-drawn illustrations that help you understand each article better.
• Glowing Face Man shares his insights on English and why you can’t whine about other languages if you know it. This ought to shut up some whiners for a while.
• Finally, I know I’ve put this up in some form before (indirectly), but that was to a sub-site. This is the main TBS Radio Podcasts site. They have some great podcasts up there, and it’s not limited to news/comedy/politics and general silliness. They also have at least one science podcast up there — Science Xitalk（サイエンス・サイトーク） — that I’m actually listening to as I write this, so check it out.

And we’re done.

• This site is a collection of pictures of building and street signs (plus Google search results for similar sites). Street signs have been intriguing me lately. They’re one of the most important things to be able to read (perhaps second only to contracts), but you don’t get much of them when you’re not in the country. I didn’t actually need to make any special study of them. But, learning to read using street signs strike me as something fun and something that would appeal to people who feel the need to be “learning something useful”.
• This site  is a collection of funny pictures and witty comments thereto appertaining (plus Google search results for similar sites). One of my favorite sites, actually. Back in the day, at least.
• This site is full of street/road signs (both for Japan, and other countries), particularly of the kind that apply to drivers. It’s got plently of place names, too. Looks like a lot of fun — I’ll be going back! And, of course, here are the results of engooglation, for more).

Aaaaand we’re done!

• Original Google Search
• M1: probably my favorite collection of player specs and info
• DVD.co.jp: nice players
• Region-Free.jp: the product I saw sucked, but I haven’t looked at everything yet…anyway, it’s still good for reading
• Kakaku.com: helps you find some of the lowest prices in Japan

Instruction manuals for the PlayStation series.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll find the manuals for the original PlayStation. These come with full furigana. The same goes for PocketStation and PS one. And of course they have sweet diagrams and stuff, too. Enjoy!

Edit: While we’re at it, here are the Wii manuals. These come with furigana and in color!

• A friend of a friend (actually, he’s totally just plain “friend” now, and he says I’m his favorite ) runs this blog that’s tangentially related to his graphic design business. Mostly it’s just about cool-looking stuff he sees and people he meets in daily life. It’s got lots of photos, which helps as a learner because it boths keeps your attention and clues you in to what’s being discussed.
• Goo appear to have launched a new lyrics search service. Mercifully, it’s text-based. None of that Flash nonsense that people have been trying to force on us for a while. Effen Flash, riding roughshod on my lyric-reading attempts.
• Watching Japanese dubs of movies and TV shows you’ve previously seen in another language, or any audiovisual materials that are from a culture with which you are already deeply familiar, is a great learning tool. And so is reading about them. At Goo, you can read film synopses, like this one of The Rock (1996) — “You want me to stick this into my heart?”. You can find more such things using Google Japan. Run a query like [(荒筋 OR あらすじ OR 粗筋) (name of the film in Japanese or original language) 映画]. It’ll get you even meatier explanations of the plot, such as this one.
• Luce e ombra (light and darkness?), by a Japanese person living in Italy. The author, Kanako, has visited this site, so you already know she’s cool. Subject matter is art and personal experiences.
• Ikeda Nobuo writes cool books about economics. And also a runs a blog about it so you can read it for free .
• This blog is all about the musings of a private home tutor. He mainly discusses 国語 (Japanese language) education (for Japanese kids, of course).
• Another blog by someone in the education industry (why do I have so many of these?). This time by a mathematics teacher.
• JSTAGE — The Japan Science and Technology Information Aggregator, Electronic. You can find lots of academic papers here (with a focus on physical science/engineering/computer science) for free. The papers are primarily in Japanese.

That’s all for now. More later .

さて、此間テレビに関する記事（嘆き？）を書いた僕（はい！吾輩は一人称の選べない人間である）なんだけど、ネットサーフィンがてらにこのブログにて「テレビ番組の低俗化に関する一考察」という、テレビをジャンクフードに準えるカナリ興味深いポストを見付けちゃった。僕的には、日本語の勉強に役立って来たテレビはもう完全に見て居られない。今では面白いドラマとか有ったら、DVDで観れるまで待つぐらいだ — 大事な思考力が馬鹿馬鹿しい番組に衰退させられないように。だからこの記事を読んで大同感しました。皆ちゃんも読んで見てね。

テレビが低俗しているのではなく、元々低俗なモノだったという考えもあるみたい。確かに今までパッと見た昭和時代のテレビから判断すると、当時でも特に高尚な番組があったとは限らぬ。どっちみち、俺はもうテレビを見ないけど。

最後に、テレビジョンの悪口を散々言って来た私も、繰り返しだけど実はテレビっ子だった — テレビのお陰で日本語が解る私が居る。なんつーか、語学と地理学の最適無敵な道具なんだ、テレビってのは。あるレベル迄ね。なので、どんだけいかほど低俗な番組でも、その内容をまだ理解できない人には、拒否・批判する資格は無い。テレビを批判するのは、語学的にちゃんと理解できるようになってからの特権なのだ。だから、或る言語を勉強中の方には、その言語でのテレビを大量無差別に見る事を是も非もお勧めしたい。そして、理解できるようになったら、番組を真剣に選んだり、テレビそのものを全面的に否定したりしても構わない。

まあ、恐らく真の問題はテレビの低俗化より、低俗化と面白くない化の同時進行。面白くて低俗ならしょうがいないし、面白くなくて高尚でも受け入れられるが、低俗で面白くないは到底赦せぬ！

The format is simple, OOTA Hikaru/太田光 does the dryly delivered silliness or “boke (呆け)”, 田中裕二/TANAKA Yuuji does the straight-man-slash-wisecracks-on-the-side or “tsukkomi (突っ込み). The quality of subject material, the timeliness of Tanaka’s tsukkomi, and how blase Oota can be while making ridiculous statements, make both BSMD as a group and this show, worth your attention. Oota manages to weave politics into a lot of his discussions without ever sacrificing humor. Tanaka’s rebuttal timing is perfect, down to the millisecond. And the fact that Tanaka can go from saying something very profound to something completely stoopid in the same tone of voice is always fun; that’s quality boke. The other thing that’s cool is that Oota sometimes literally falls in love with certain words or phrases. And he’ll get excited and keep saying them over and over again even when it doesn’t make sense “それからドーした？！！？”. I laugh just thinking about it. Funnily enough, I do the same thing a lot: a few weeks ago, my friend H-star had to listen to me say “豪華にね、ゴーカに” every few minutes for like 6 hours. I thought it was just something I did because Japanese was new to me — ‘guess not. Oh yeah, Oota is also a voracious reader, going through over 100 books a year. So you input fiends take note — if you want to talk like the man, consider reading like the man, too. And just when you thought he couldn’t get any cooler, according to the ‘Pedia, Oota was effectively banned for a time from Nippon Broadcasting System (NBS) in the early 1990s; the deal is that he was sitting in one night for Beat Takeshi, who had a severe cold, and as a joke he very gravely announced that Beat Takeshi had, in fact, died due to complications from the cold. If you know Oota, you can picture him doing something like that; reading about it, I thought it was hilarious. NBS appear to have had a cow…

Anyway, even if you don’t understand all the talk on Bakushou Mondai Cowboy, I encourage you, exhort you, call upon you, to listen to it. The dialogue is really natural, and it’s a good chance to hear someone explain themselves on the fly, as Oota does. You’ll definitely pick up a thing or two, and you’ll start laughing soon enough.

BSMD also do tons of work on TV, so…keep an eye out.

In my time in Japan, I’ve found that when you first meet someone, it’s normal to start out very formal and distant, but as you get to know them better (even within the course of a single conversation), there’s this natural relaxation of the stiffness; of course, unless you’re the same age and rank, the tone remains polite — you’re not likely to be dissing each other’s mommas — but you’re certainly not talking to them as if they were Emperor Palpatine, either. In a sense, that’s exactly how it is in much of the rest of the world, too. Anyway, it’s that typical semi-formal tone that you’ll find in the interview.

What websites indeed. Well, here’s one for starters:やわらか戦車（せん・しゃ）[Softie Tanks], the continuing story of a tank who’s mainly good at…retreating. Somehow, it’s just so…可愛いーーーー（cute). Anyway, enjoy.

The first, and my favorite, is Hiragane Megane (hiragana.jp). Go there, copy and paste the URL (of the website you want to read) into the main box at hiragana.jp, and badabing, like magic, there’s hiragana on all the text-based kanji on the site. I used to use this quite a bit, especially on newspaper sites like the technology section of the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Edit: Hiragana Megana is automated. Human language is not. As such, it does sometimes give incorrect readings. But, speaking from experience, you generally will be fine.

The second is popjisyo.com. Among other things, this site provides a Japanese-English pop-up dictionary. Like with hiragana.jp, all you need do is copy and paste the link into the box, and all the individual words on the site will be translated whenever you roll over them with your mouse. The last time I checked, you could also select what’s being highlighted in order to get more accurate matching/translation.

Since I recommend getting away from using English in your study of Japanese as soon as possible, you could, quite frankly, live without popjisyo.com. Hiragana.jp, on the other hand, is pretty valuable. Of course you can’t go your whole life depending on furigana and you will eventually outgrow them. No doubt you are also mining your reading material for kanji readings. But, sometimes you just want to read something, and to that end, being able to get furigana is really quite cool.

Oh, P.S. — For you geekheads out there, you can paste the following text: “trans.hiragana.jp/ruby/” in front of the URL to any website you want to have furigana attached. Navigate to that modified link, and let there be hiragana!