Hey. It’s chilly outside. It’s toasty inside. I’ve got this…Honeywell space heater action going here. Movies get watched, okay?

Today’s transcript is from Gladiator. One of my favorite movies. I didn’t get round to seeing it until about 2005. Being a man of extensive huevos, I personally did not cry at the end, but, my…friend did. Anywhere, here’s the English and Japanese. Also, the Japanese audio of the speech.

Commodus: How dare you show your back to me! Slave, you will remove your helmet and tell me your name.

Maximus: [removes helmet and turns around to face Commodus] My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

コンモドゥス：「余に背を向けるのか？無礼者！兜を脱ぎ、名を名乗るのだ！」

マキシマス：「名はマキシマス＝デシマス＝メリディアス、
北軍の司令官、フェリキス軍団の将軍、
真の皇帝、マルクス＝アウレリウスの家臣。
殺された幼子の父、殺された妻の夫。
今生でなくば来世で（その）復讐を果たす。」

I like how the Japanese pronunciation (vowels, especially) is much closer to what we presume (?) Latin sounded like…well, the “Marcus Aurelius” part at least; Maximus’ name seems like it was modeling the English. Anyway, enjoy!

The mid-1990s movie speech nostalgia party continues.

Today the objet of our adulation is that space-themed romantic comedy romp, Crimson Tide, starring Denzel Washington and Aragorn.

Gene Hackman’s Captain Ramsey gives that speech early on in the film before they board the U-boat. It’s one of my favorites, so I went ahead and transcribed it. Don’t ever say I never did nothing for the peoples!

Anyway, enjoy, and here’s the text of the original speech. Also, here’s a link to the Japanese audio for the little speech.

『全員整列致しました！

家鴨共よ！
露西亜でトラブルだ！
それで呼ばれた。
だから我々は行く（ﾕｸ）！
但し、最も凶悪な殺しのマシーンに乗って、だ。

その気に成れば、
戦争の歴史を塗り替える程の、強力な兵器を発射出来るのだ。
目的は唯一つ！祖国を護る為だ！
我々は国防の最前線に就き、
同時に最後の防衛線と成る。

諸君に望む事は、
最善の努力だ。
それが出来ない者は、空軍に入って貰いたい！
最高司令官は大統領であるが、
これは私の艦(ﾌﾈ)だ。
それに乗る以上は、私に従って貰いたい。
それが出来ない者は、ケツの辺りに刺激的な感覚を覚えるであろう。
私の蹴りが入るからだ！

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ミスター＝コッブ！

はい、艦長！

この艦(ﾌﾈ)の名前を知っておるか？

よく知って居ります！

それは誇り高い名前であるか？

誇り高い名前であります！

乗組員は優秀であるか？

極めて優秀であります！

偉大なる国に住む者か？

偉大なる国の者であります！

其処は世界に冠たる国であるか？

世界に冠たる国であります！

この艦(ﾌﾈ)の名は何だ？

「アラバマ」であります！

気合を入れろ！
行け(ｺﾞｰ)　「バマ」！

行け(ｺﾞｰ)　「バマ」！

艇長！　乗組員解散！

乗組員　解散！了解しました！
乗組員！これより解散して、銘々の部署に就く！
解散！』

As much as it pains me to admit fallibility, there are two words there’s a bit at the very end that I just couldn’t make out clearly. I think #1 is 「以上」 and #2 is…#2 I just have no freaking idea: it sounds like 「命令」, but that doesn’t seem like it would make much sense.

Anyone with a clearer idea…feel free to share .

[Big thanks to KREVA for totally wiping up my mess! I mean covering me!  I mean...yes!]. By way of more late-breaking news — it turns out there at least two other people online who’ve already transcribed this, so check them out here, and here.

I think maybe I’ll do the “you can’t handle the truth” exchange from A Few Good Men next…if I feel like it . Not feeling like it yet…

I was feeling nostalgic last night, so I swiss-cheesed Independence Day like three times — in fact, I’m watching it as I write this.

Anyhoo, that famous President’s speech is so cool, and the subs in the Japanese version are so unlike the dub (most likely made at different times, on different timelines, with different intentions, by different people), that I thought it fit to, since I can, transcribe the Japanese speech for you and put it up here.

Needless to say, all this is copyright 20th Century Fox or whoever, i.e. not me, so…if they want it down, it goes down . Just for kicks, here is a sound clip as well. If anyone whines about the quality, I josh you not, choking will occur .

This film’s got great pacing. I’d always thought it was 90 minutes long. It’s actually two and a half hours.

早う。
お早う！

一時間後には、
諸君は飛び立ち、
世界中の仲間と合流する。

そして人類始まって以來最大の空中戦に臨む事に成る。
然う、「人類」。
この言葉に今日、新しい意味を持たせよう。

これからは、些細な違い等にコダワって居ては行けない。
我々は共通の目的で団結する。

この日が、七月四日だというのも不思議な巡り合わせだ。
我々はもう一度独立の為に戦う。

敵が求める物は、弾圧や迫害ではない。
人類の滅亡だ。
生き殘る権利を賭けて戦おう。

必ず、勝利の旗を掲げ、
七月四日という日を、
単なるアメリカの独立記念日ではなくするのだ！

世界が声を揃えて宣言した日だ！

「我々は決して音無しく死の闇に消えたりはしない！

我々は決して戦わずして死にはしない！

皆で生きるのだ！

生き殘るのだ！

今日　我々の　独立記念日を祝おう！」

Ｕ・Ｓ・Ａ！
Ｕ・Ｓ・Ａ！
Ｕ・Ｓ・Ａ！

Enjoy. Go here for the original English text of the speech. And if you haven’t got your Japanese DVD yet, either visit your rental store or the AJATT Amazon store, or, or something!

_{※音無しい（おとなしい）is a non-standard — but not non-existent — kanji representation of 温和しい/大人しい. I like it because it reflects precisely what the President was saying in the original English: “We will not go quietly[=soundlessly] into the night!”, as you can see from the characters.}

The QRG video has arrived! The QRG video, nicknamed “QRG: The Movie” is a video supplement to the best-selling ebook of similar name — the quick-start, action-oriented, no-nonsense AJATT Quick Reference Guide (QRG).

As is the custom here at AJATT, let me be the very first to tell you precisely and in no uncertain words:

Why You Don’t Need The QRG Video And Why You Shouldn’t Buy It

• No special effects
• No hot chicks
• No hot guys
• No hot anything, really
• My Mum says I’m handsome, but does that really count?
• No 3D animation
• No popcorn
• In the background, you can still see the tape marks from when I used to try to prevent my cats opening doors (those clever motherlovers…)
• No batteries included
• I hadn’t shaved
• My posture was bad
• It’s a monologue
• There’s virtually no Japanese in it.
• Which is pretty funny for a site called “All Japanese All The Time”.
• Wanna know what’s even more funny?
• 日本語を全く解さない癖に一々「アイツのホームページはさぁ、やっぱ日本語足りないんだよね」とかホザいてる馬鹿野郎が
• That’s what’s freaking funny.
• 百年早いぞｺﾉﾔﾛｰ
• There’s lots of mumbling and rambling. To quote Tolkien verbatim: things were mumbled that shouldn’t have been mumbled.
• At one point in the video, I inexplicably feel the need to tell you that I read a lot of books — intellectual small man syndrome, hmmm?
• I have a weird, hard-to-place, mid-Atlanticy accent thing going on that is neither here nor there, and thus, ultimately, hard for everyone to understand.
• I then take this accent and mumble in it.
• It’s full of unfunny jokes.
• That I then laugh at.
• Yes, I laugh at my own jokes.
• You could just read the AJATT site.
• You could just read the QRG ebook.
• “They” (air quotes) don’t want you to have it.
• A good number of fellow AJATTeers have put up free AJATT walkthroughs on YouTube. For free. For free, meng.
• It comes with free membership in the AJATT cult wait…baby steps…baby steps…

So Who Would Want To Buy The QRG Video?

• People who bought, enjoyed and benefited from the QRG ebook
• People who have enjoyed and benefited from previous AJATT videos
• People who have read, enjoyed and benefited from AJATT articles
• People looking for a lazy, “hands-free” but action-oriented overview of the AJATT “method”
• People who prefer verbal explanations.
• People who prefer watching a video to reading large amounts of text
• People who want to get right to the AJATT “action” without wading through large amounts of interesting but “less action-oriented” individual.

The AJATT site, this site, has grown into a compendium of brilliantly insightful articles written by an incredibly handsome man. This is a good thing. The one weakness is that, well, it’s all very large, and can tend to leave you wondering “OK, but what do I DO?”.

The QRG series has been designed to fulfill the specific need to “get straight to the action”, without sacrificing the more universal and context-independent appeal of many of the articles you typically find here on the site.

Some things are best read, some things are best heard, some things are best said and heard. The QRG video, in combination with the QRG ebook, covers all these bases for you. One of the coolest parts of the video, I think, is the oral walkthrough of the entire AJATT “philosophy” (AKA “mental tools”) section.

Over and above that is the “greater than the some of its parts” effect, that inexplicable magic you get in a video that text can never quite replicate. This video is a lot like sitting with me, in my “Fortress of Solitude”, having a conversation. If that’s something you would enjoy, then I think you might enjoy this video as well.

What’s In The Package?

• A video file — digital download.
• WMV format.
• File size: Approx. 425MB
• Running time: 81 minutes
• All the points in the QRG are covered with sparkling wit and verve.

For best results, I recommend you:

• Get the QRG ebook as well, if you don’t already have it. This video is designed to be used in combination with the QRG ebook, and assumes that you already own it.
• Be learning Japanese. This video, like the current QRG ebook, is quite specifically focussed in that direction.

Own It Now!

Your copy is waiting for you. But “they” may try to take it away! So panic. Buy now. Treat yourself. You deserve this. Do something for yourself for a change! Et cetera .

• QRG Video Only: $25.95
• QRG Video + QRG Ebook + My First Sentence Pack Bundle: $35.95 (save over 37%).

No Likey? No Problem!

As with all its predecessor products, the QRG video comes with a 100%, no-questions-asked refund guarantee. If you are in anyway unhappy with the product, just shoot me an email at qrg at ajatt dot com, and I will be happy to give you a full refund on your purchase.
Even if I try to ask questions, you can be all “nuh-uh…no questions!”

One man. One mission. One destiny. One walkthrough video.

This season’s greatest semi-educational blockbuster is coming soon to a PC near you!

Feel the magic.

Believe the miracle.

Use more abstract nouns.

Enjoy the hype.

違ええんだよ！全然違えんだよ！そんなこと毛頭ございません！

実はネ、拙者を含めて多くの外国人がホザいて来た「ニッポンの人種差別」というのは、事実無根の愚痴に過ぎない。「『外人』は差別用語」だの「人に見られている」だの弱音を吐くより、先ずは全面的に自分達の日本語能力をレベルアップした方が遥かに得策。他人の国に住んでるのにその言葉をちゃんと学ぼうともしない我々外人＝差別用語を語る資格の無い、迷惑的な存在だけだ。せやから、理不尽な主張を抜かす前に責任を取りましょう。何よりもここは日本で、国の主は日本国民（俺らも税金払ってんだけどね（笑））。そんなに辛い想いをしてるなら、他に200カ国ぐらいの国家がそこら辺に轉がってるし・・・

っちゅう事を、僕とYouTubeのTkyoSamが英語圏の皆さんに、今回のビデオを通して伝えたいと思った譯。殘念ながら内容は英語のみなんだけど、まあ、ターゲット層も英語圏の奴らだから或る程度合理的な選択かと存じまする！因みに、ワイは「植物中心食生活」（←関係ねえだろうがよ！^_^）のお陰で結構減量してるので、興味のある方は是非ご覧あれ！・・・やっぱり無いか・・・

Not really. In fact, not at all. In fact, people need to shut the truck up, learn Japanese (especially reading and writing), and stop overanalyzing every interaction they have in Japan like some kind of sociopathic girlfriend. As much fun as it is to try to demonize Japan, certain highly vocal countries which shall remain nameless have more racism between the cracks of their pinkie fingernails than Japan does in all 120 odd million of its bodies put together. We all need to give the people of the J-land a break (they’re busy at it is), and learn to have the finesse — I’m one to talk — to discern “racism” from misunderstanding from culture from just being a jerk. If you must hate something, hate individuals.

That’s the basic idea of the video was very kindly put up by TkyoSam. TkyoSam’s like “Konnichiwa, motherlover! I want sushi!”, and I’m like “No! I implement Fuhrman! Look how I’ve regained my girlish figure!” and he’s like “Like I give a truck! You don’t have to eat, just come! We’re recording video!”.

So we’re there, getting around like 寿司 on a 回転, recording a video while I eat peanuts out of my bag…Anyway, yeah — here ya go. Two parts.

And to the housing thing, let me add, you will never ever be prevented from living in nice places or from making PILES of dough in this country. And isn’t that what really matters? There’s really nothing to complain about. I mean, what, are we babies that need everyone around us to smile and applaud whenever we expel waste (グー！)? Is that it (for the record, I would actually like that, but this is early 21st century Japan, where most people simply have-no-time-for-you)? Extreme example…but it hints at something: namely, that what most people are really missing may be a loving family environment.

Remember: no likey = no havey to stayey. There are about 200 countries in the world, no use getting itchy haemmorrhoids over 1 [that's smaller than California!].

ほーらアップしたじゃん？！もう「ホンマに日本語できるのかコノヤロー」とか抜かすなよ！こう見えてもオマエ作るにゃ超時間掛かったぞ。撮影だの変換だのWMMの故障だの。まあ、これからも兀々（こつこつ）投稿しながら向上して参りたい所存ですので、4649お願いしまーす！

Look…ok?…It was late; we were talking; the camera’s on; I have strange quirks and gestures from my childhood (“Mommy loves you! It’s not your fault!”). Then 龍 is all “come on, dawg…I don’t have any make-up on, don’t put me in the video”, so then I cut him out, and there’s no background music and you have no idea how long it took just to make this one sucky video but I’ll keep improving and now you can stop asking me whether I can actually speak Japanese the end.

And now…I’m going to go eat fruit.

And yes, this counts as “Khatzumoto: The Movie”. There! Are you feeling anticlimactic now? “Khatzumoto: The Grainy 8-Minute One-Cut YouTube Video”. The joy…

Hey all you boys and girls. Continuing our ongoing series of transcribed Japanese stuff, it happens that just as I was about to start doing it myself, I found that someone had already done it. Done what?

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

名台詞コーナーの第2弾だっつってんだろう、ゴラァ！今回は腕白鴨（ダック）夢冒険の主題曲。次回から主題曲を卒業して、名前通り映画の台詞を紹介して見たいかと・・・思います。それでは！腕白鴨（ダック）夢冒険

気楽に突っ走れ！
い・つ・で・も

倒けたら寝転べば
好い・じゃ・な・い

躓いた　謎々さ
鴨冒険物語（ダック＝テイリズ）

楽チン頭で鴨冒険物語（ダック＝テイリズ）
無理しちゃ駄目だよ
鴨冒険物語（ダック＝テイリズ）

ちょちょちょ一寸！
ご用心！

貴方（あんた）誰？
奸人

徹夜で夢見て
鴨冒険物語（ダック＝テイリズ）

腕白　極楽
鴨冒険物語（ダック＝テイリズ）

知りたい　遣りたい
鴨冒険物語（ダック＝テイリズ）

止まらない冒険
鴨冒険物語（ダック＝テイリズ）

俺って凄くない？感謝しろよ（笑）。

「懐かしいなあ」！と思ったあのアニメ。「ええっ？何て言った？」と思ったあの日本語吹替え版洋画の名台詞。そう悩む貴方を僕が慰めて遣るぅ！今回は「ガミーベアーの冒険」の主題曲だー！御覧あれ！

遥か遠い不思議な森
耳を澄ませて御覧！
勇気と愛と魔法に満ちた
歌声がほら聞こえる。

ガミー熊（ベアー）
僕らの仲間　ガミー熊（ベアー）
さあ、今日も飛び出そう！
冒険が待ってる！

誇り高き熊達の秘密
それはガミーベリージュース
大空高く飛んで跳ねて
正義の為に戦え！

ガミー熊（ベアー）
僕らの仲間　ガミー熊（ベアー）
さあ、今日も飛び出そう！
冒険が待ってる！

僕らのガミー熊（ベアー）！

以上。感謝と賞賛の言葉を待ってるよ。

待ってるよ・・・

YouTube’s TkyoSam very kindly did an ad-hoc interview with me…unfortunately it’s in English. Fear not, I have finally acquired a camera [inherited from TkyoSam, actually], so Japanese stuff shall be forthcoming.

Um…this really was ad hoc. TkyoSam walked into my fortress of solitude while I was watching Dragon Ball Z in Cantonese, and turned his camera on. My posture, hair and make-up would make any mother weep. (To Mum: deal). Notice how the Cantonese ball kept rolling even while we used this non-Cantonese thing.

It’s funny because we’d tried making semi-scripted versions of this before, with digital effects and light sabers and Gollum, so I figured this was just us doing our umpteenth “screen test”. But the rawness of this is cool. Thank ye, Sam of Tkyo!

Anyway…yeah. Video. Me. In. Three parts.

言っとくけど、俺は白人がカナリ好き。白人居住区育ちの俺が、白人の幼稚園をはじめ、白人の小学校・白人の中学校・白人の高校・白人の大学に続々進学して参りました。大学時代聴いてた洋楽も白人向けであれば、妻も白人だ。尚且つプラス更に片方の猫ちゃんまで、毛の半分以上が真っ白な訳。そして友達全員一人残らず白人。昔は黒人友達も居ったが、敢えて連絡を取らなくなった。キャラが被って困る 。

だから、こう言うのを人種差別として誤解されないで欲しいが・・・

俺は白人が完全にイカれてると思う。いや、思うっていうか、事実です。お前ら（白人）サァ、正気か？ヤッパリ正気じゃないナァ。正気な人種ならこう言う映画は撮れないだろう。

『マンデラの名もなき看守』って言う映画なんだけどサァ。ええっ？ちょっと待って。マンデラの看守？・マ・ン・デ・ラ・の・看・守・？マジかよ。って、有り得ない！！冗談じゃないよ！誰、この馬鹿企画を創った馬鹿が？一発、いや、二発、いや、三発殴らせろ！

基本的に平和主義な俺は何故に暴力に訴えるか、ご説明しましょう。
①私が知っている限り、これは史上初のネルソン＝マンデラの映画化。
②上記同様
③本来敵対者ていうか、悪役である筈の連中が、白人が為に主人公兼善玉にされるのは、今回で初めてじゃない。いや～皆さん、これは蔓延してる病気だ。病気な白色人種が世界中にバラ蒔いている・・・病気・・・だ。

何で？何でマンデラを虐待した浣腸野郎が美化されなきゃいけないの？

• 「ダンス・ウィズ・ウルブズ」（白人虐殺者が先住民の言語と生活習慣をプチ勉強する・・・だから？）
• 「モガディシュの戦闘」（別にソマリア人があんたらに助けなんか頼んでないぞ～）、
• 「アラモ」（テメエ等みてえな平気で他国に侵攻する奴等が死んでも、神様も哀しみましぇ～ん）、
• 「サハラに舞う羽根」（お前らナァ、そもそもスーダンにおるのはその土地の人間を奴隷にする為だろうが！）、

と全く同様、人道を逸した事ばっかりする白人男性が何故かヒーローにされちゃう訳。同胞がやってる事をチョッピリ反省して何が偉いの？何も無いでしょう？でっしょ？だから今ここで俺はこの流れに強く反対せざるを得ない。

「でも、勝元、どんな民族でも自分達を美化しガチじゃん」、とかホザく呼び捨て野郎もいらっしゃるでしょうが、それは全然違うって。つい最近、かのニッポンが、「ベクシル － 2077日本鎖国」を創り出したんじゃない？アレは日本人が、アメリカ人を主人公／善玉にし、日本人自身を悪玉にした作品なんだ。佳作とは言えないけれど、発想が新鮮そのものだ。しかも主人公が女性。やるじゃん、ニッポン。SFでも自分達を厳しい目で見れる黄色人に、白人も是非倣うべし。特にノンフィクション（実話）を扱う時にね。って、「実話」の意味が解かるか、白人共よ・・・明らかに解からないね。漢字学べ。

ていうか、何でマンデラ役が碌に南アフリカの訛りが出来ないアメリカ人なんだよ！？演技がド下手だっつーのに。好い加減アフリカ人にしろ。「黒人だから」イイって訳じゃないってば。『24』の大統領なんて知るかっ。一回だけ黒人大統領を巧く演じてからって永遠にそれとして起用されるべしって事は無い。無い。絶対無い。

以上。皆さんのご意見も聞こう。

First, let me say this: it sucks being famous and having snot-nosed kids like me who don’t know what they’re talking about make stupid comments about you. I think that almost all (if not all) the comedians on Japanese TV are funny, I just picked the ones that gave me the highest LPM (laughs per minute). Probably the main problem for those who have a low LPM is that they are in the wrong situations — Oriental Radio (オリエンタルラジオ) are amazing on stage, but don’t get the chance to shine comically in their current work as late night variety show hosts: the format just doesn’t work for them. Downtown (ダウンタウン) are funny, too — when they’re not just going through the motions out of boredom, i.e. not on their variety show but in those punishment game (罰ゲーム) specials they do, and in their skits from the 1980s and 1990s. And a lot of guys who I used to think sucked eggs are amazing once you take them off those variety shows and put them on a more personal program like Hitoshi Matsumoto Presents: Funny Stories (人志松本のすべらない話). As you can see, it sounds like I have beef with variety shows. I don’t, really, I don’t. It’s just that, when you think about it, having virtually all Japan’s comedians do variety shows is akin to having every athlete in the world play soccer, whether or not they were good at it or even like it, just because it was the only professional sport in the world. Variety shows are cheap and easy to do, and they may have been a good choice when Japan was poor and coming out of WW2, but Japan is rich now. And TV can act like it if it wants to…and get sets that don’t look like they were made by Miss Keene’s class at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten.

There’s also the interesting phenomenon of comedians who are funny in-studio or to other comedians, but not to the TV-viewing public at large. Denis Leary seems like an example of that in the anglosphere; other comedians find him funny. Downtown, when stuck on a variety show, are funny for their guests — if I were to be interviewed on TV, I’d want to be interviewed by Downtown, they seem like great fun to be around — but it just isn’t as funny for viewers.

Anyway, the list. I haven’t bothered to rank it, but there are ten of them.

• [雨上がり決死隊/Ameagari kesshitai/The Suicide Mission Squad at the End of the Rain(?)]: Ameagari Kesshitai, a duo made up of 宮迫博之 (MIYASAKO Hiroyuki) — the tanned one — and 蛍原徹 (HOTOHARA Tooru) — the round-headed one, are that very uncommon thing in comedy (at least it seems uncommon to me) — the perfect combination and execution of both slapstick and verbal comedy. And it’s not the stupid kind of slapstick, it’s the original, funny kind. The kind that you would laugh at even if it were just your friend doing it. That thing where Miyasako slaps his own face and then looks into the camera, or the two-legged flying kick of punishment for saying something wrong that sends Hotohara crashing to the ground. And then there’s the look that Miyasako gets on his face when he’s about to tell a joke [see picture], so you kind of get to laugh twice — once for the look and once for the joke.
• [JINNAI Tomonori/陣内智則]: Jinnai is a rarity in that he works alone. His skits often involve uncooperative machines — lewd passport photo-taking machines, arrogant arcade games, sassy car navigation systems. Big laughs to be had.
• [Impulse (インパルス)]: super-funny skits! Mostly revolving around portly 堤下敦/TSUTSUMISHITA Atsushi playing straightman or authority figure to slim 板倉俊之/ITAKURA Toshiyuki’s abject inappropriateness. One of their funniest recurring characters is Johann Riebelt, a young Japanese man with a bad case of alcohol poisoning and major delusions of grandeur who thinks he’s German. They’ve also done great one-shot skits like フック船長/”Captain Hook” and “Mafia Boss”.
• [Drunk Dragon/ドランクドラゴン]: Another portly-skinny duo. In that sense, they bear a shallow resemblance to Impulse. The content of their comedy is different though, often revolving tangentially around the entertainment industry itself — silly TV shows for learning English, awkward and uncalled-for displays of English “proficiency” [some middle-aged men in Japan looove to whip out the old English to impress other Japanese people...when they really should have kept it zipped up], fanboys who are waaay too overprotective of the object of their fanaticism, and cetera. And of course, it makes you laugh.
• [Garage Sale/ガレッジセール]: these guys are sketch comedians. Their best stuff is on the show One Night Rock and Roll, where Gori cross-dresses as Gorie.
• [Bobby KONDA/近田ボビー]: Nigeria in the hizzouse! Although he is actually Japanese now. And technically he’s a tarento rather than a comedian. But he’s funny as heck. I loved reading on Japanese Wikipedia about how amazing at Japanese he has to be in order to suck as much as he pretends to. Playing the fool and raking it in — genius. AFAIK, he acts under his old name, Bobby Ologun (ボビーオログン). Bobby also happens to be an example of a comedian who shines on variety shows.
• [Taka and Toshi/タカアンドトシ]: 欧米かっ！”What are you, Euro-American?!”, the signature wisecrack of this pair, frequently rolled out when too much katakana Japanese is used. I find it quite useful in my daily life…
• [Lover Girl/ラバーガール]: do really funny skits often involving one person speaking polite or otherwise euphemistic Japanese and the other person taking liberties with the literal meaning of what was said. That makes it sound really technical and it makes Japanese sound hard to understand, neither of which are true. Anyway, the point is, you’ll laugh.
• [The Laughter Problem/爆笑問題]: politics is a dish best served hilarious.
• [Untouchables/アンタッチャブル]: I’ve only ever seen one or two of their skits, but I laughed so hard that they earned a place on this list.

Honorable Mention

• [Ungirls/アンガールズ]: these guys LOOK funny…tall, lanky, gangly…awkward in a good way, just like their skits.
• [Anjush/アンジャッシュ]: have made a career of doing situational misunderstandings. Some of the skits are a bit forced, but some are pure genius.
• [Oriental Radio/オリエンタルラジオ]: rose to fame on エンタの神様/Enta no Kami Sama with their ヒップホップな武勇伝 (“our hip hop legends”) skits. Since that time they’ve been stuck on a boring variety show, so there you go.
• [Downtown/ダウンタウン]: one of the longest-running and most highly respected comedy outfits in Japanese history. They’re not always as funny as they used to be — not because they can’t be but more because they almost can’t be bothered to go trying to get laughs any more; they’re “beyond that” if you will. But, yeah, look out for their old stuff.

First off, let me share that I believe that everyone should, no MUST, follow their own personal preferences when it comes to selecting learning materials. In order for you to learn Japanese voluntarily, it has to be enjoyable, and for it to be enjoyable, you have to be able to watch, listen to and read whatever you want that is in Japanese — or, indeed, any language. So these aren’t the best Japanese shows, they’re just the ones I like best as of right now (late 2007). Having said that, if you’re just getting started with Japanese, and/or you don’t know many Japanese shows, and you don’t live in Japan, it helps to have someone who’s watched a lot of stuff give you some tips.

Take note: a lot of these shows don’t have subs, Japanese or otherwise. But that’s fine, believe me, you’ll work it out somehow — even being able to understand only small bits and pieces is fine and normal. Also, all these shows are either comedies, dramedies, or somehow funny. Now, a lot of people will go “in learning a new language comedy is the hardest thing to understand”. No. It. Isn’t. (Dewd, I don’t know who went around spreading the bad news and deciding what’s “the hardest” in the world of everything…whoever they are, they suck!). Comedy isn’t intrinsically “hard” to understand, no more than news or a children’s book is. What perhaps sets comedy apart is the necessity of prior knowledge in order for the comedy to be enjoyed. That prior knowledge may be the source of whatever reference or parody is being made (by the way, a lot of really good comedy often contains a lot of internal, self-contained references, so that abbreviates the prior knowledge requirement right there). Or it may be prior knowledge of whatever social norm/status quo is being inappropriately ignored or applied. So, if, as Stephen Colbert and others have suggested, comedy is about status change and betrayal, then you need to know what the original status is or was, in order to recognize the change and therefore (perhaps) find it funny.

Anyway, the comedy itself is not very hard. Like I said, a lot of the best comedy is actually very high in self-references. This may be because, as Jerry Seinfeld suggested in his comedy book, a comedian generally needs to be able to build some kind of semi-realistic logical baseline from which to launch her jokes. As such, a skilled comedian may build a very good baseline: so good that she re-uses it. Or not, I don’t really know. My point is that you can do it. You can enjoy comedy: a lot of it is physical, low-brow or self-referential (and therefore, more or less universal) anyway, so the bar is nowhere near as high as many people appear to contend. Furthermore, the comedy itself can serve as a place for you to learn what the social norms are, such that the next time you see a joke based on the same material, you’ll be informed, and therefore in a position to enjoy it as comedy.

Oh, and by the way, if there’s ever some comedy you don’t seem to get, it may just be the case that it simply isn’t funny. Like any country, Japan is subject to a variant of the Pareto principle, whereby maybe 90% of the consistent laughs (high LPM rate throughout the show) are produced by only maybe 10% of the comedy shows — the rest of the shows suck and aren’t funny. It’s not a bad thing and it’s not a rare thing — after all, Comedy Central is built almost entirely on Chappelle, Stewart and South Park.

Where was I? Yeah, comedy is good, and I watch a lot of it. So here is my list of the best Japanese TV shows (highly biased towards comedy), for informational purposes rather than for recommendation purposes. Do with it as you will. The list is in no particular order.

• エンタの神様 (Enta no kami sama/The kami of entertainment).
  A cross between stand-up and sketch comedy, comedians (usually in duos, sometimes alone, rarely in larger groups) perform on stage in front of a live studio audience. The Enta no kami sama people seem to work really hard to make sure that the people on the show are funny, so…highly recommended. It also has subs for the punchlines.
• トリック (Trick)
  [Season 1, vol. 1] [Season 1, vol. 2] [Season 1, vol. 3] [Season 1, vol. 4] [Season 1, vol. 5]
  トリック2 (Trick Season 2)
  トリック: troisieme partie (Trick Season 3)
  トリック：新作スペシャル (Trick: The New Special)
  トリック劇場版 (Trick: The Movie)
  トリック劇場版2 (Trick: The Movie 2)
  トリック 堤幸彦演出研究序説 (The Making of Trick, behind the scenes footage and discussion with director TSUTSUMI Yukihiko)
  I don’t know if you can tell yet, but…I love this show. The plot is basically UEDA Jirou (an arrogant, cowardly, well-endowed physics professor) and YAMADA Naoko (a modestly-chested magician who’s useless on stage and chronically strapped for cash but also something of a genius in term of investigation), go around busting a string of shady psychics, cult leaders and other pretenders to paranormal abilities. Ueda pretends to use physics to bust them while Naoko does all the real work. Hilarity ensues. So, I guess it’s a mystery-dramedy, with LOTS of laughs, and great supporting characters, and all kinds of random regional dialects. Most Japanese shows don’t run more than one season. Trick ran for not one but three seasons and had not one, but two movies released in real theaters. A show has to either (a) be backed by the Illuminati, or, (b) be really good, to get this far. The answer is (b).
• ハンドク (Handoc/half-doctors)
  NAGASE Tomoya was one of my surrogate parents for Japanese (he doesn’t know this, but…). Anyway, so this show’s about new doctors (who only have half the skill of experience doctors, therefore half-doctors), working in a top-flight whiz-bang super-elite hospital run by a chief surgeon who is as unethical as he is skilled. But it’s not like your typical American medical drama. This one is genuinely funny, has actual direction, and doesn’t try to use blood-spewing emergency room patients to push up its ratings…oh, did I say that out loud?
• ごくせん (Gokusen/Yakuza homeroom teacher)
  [Season 1, vol. 1] [Season 1, vol. 2] [Season 1, vol. 3] [Season 1, vol. 4] [Season 1 Special]
  ごくせん2 (Gokusen, Season 2)
  Usually, when a show has a formulaic plot, it’s a bad thing. But Gokusen uses that to its advantage and just takes things to a whole ‘nother level. NAKAMA Yukie plays a homeroom teacher who’s secretly a yakuza. She’ll roundhouse kick her wayward students (all boys) for going out of line, but also beat up anyone who tries to harm them. And try to keep her yakuzaness a secret from the school board. By the way, my spoken Japanese became really vulgar as a result of watching this show (テメエ、▲▲▲じゃねえぞぉ！). That’s not meant as a warning, but actually as recommendation — this show is fun. Just be sure to pretty-up your Japanese later. Gokusen has two seasons. [Edit: the name ごくせん is a portmanteau (?) of 極道 (ごくどう -- the road of crime, gambling, drugs) and 先生 (せんせい -- teacher), so, yakuza teacher: for some reason, I missed the part where this was made clear on the show, if there was such a part, so this is for everyone who's wondering].
• タイガー＆ドラゴン (Tiger & Dragon)
  + Tiger & Dragon special prequel double-length episode
  This show is in terms of structure, content and characters, one of the best shows I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. I don’t mean to talk it up, but it’s an AMAZING show, and super-rewatchable. Go judge for yourself. P.S. — it has exact subs!
• ココリコミラクルタイプ (Kokoriko Miracle Type)
  Viewers send in real-life stories which become sketches which make you laugh.
• ワンナイR&R(Wannai/One Night Rock & Roll)
  Along with Kokoriko Miracle Type, part of a Wednesday night line-up called 水10 (すいじゅう/suijuu). The two shows are separate, they just run/ran back-to-back. Both are really funny. Wannai is a sketch comedy show, more fictional, but like In Living Color, having a lot of recurring characters like 轟 (Todoroki), ゴリエ (Gorie) and チョコボーイ山口 (Choco-boy Yamaguchi). The names alone will get you giggling.
• アイチテル! (Aichiteru/I rabu you)
  A roomful of foreign women from around the world (Africa, East Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and cetera) who speak fluent Japanese, and two of the guys from Wannai combine for fast-paced, talk-based and often pretty biting humor. Really funny.
• はねるのトびら (Haneru no tobira/you knock on a jumping door)
  About 6 comedy duos (most comedians in Japan run as duos and do or can do 漫才/manzai) combined to make this youth-oriented sketch comedy show. A big hit with the twentysomething crowd, and with good reason. Funny stuff. カワイイ！
• サラリーマンNEO (Salaryman Neo)
  First, this show will have you on the floor laughing. Then…you’ll break your jaw when it hits the ground when you realize that NHK, the GOVERNMENT station, made one of the funniest and most sardonic TV shows to ever hit Japanese TV screens. Who says the gubmit can never get it right!? Semi-prerequisite: have worked in a Japanese company or know what it’s like to do so.
• 池袋ウェストゲートパーク(Ikebukuro West Gate Park/IWGP)
  If you only buy one Japanese TV series, buy Tiger & Dragon. If you only by two, buy Ikebukuro West Gate Park. IWGP is one of the best TV shows ever to be produced in any language…ever. It’s no surprise that it was written by the same guy who wrote Tiger & Dragon, one 宮藤官九郎 (くどう かんくろう/KUDOU Kankurou). It also stars the same guy as T&D, namely Nagase Tomoya, in the role of Makoto.

  IWGP has lots of laughs, lots of action [a little violent at times, actually], great characters and a bumping soundtrack. It also serves as a great window on contemporary Japanese youth and street culture; Kudou has a real ear for dialogue and a sense of situational realism. I’m not going to tell you any more, you have to watch it for yourself. It’ll have you saying “面倒臭ええナァ！”…

  I can’t believe I almost didn’t add IWGP to this list. It brings the total to eleven, but whatever. Definitely an example of “last but not least”.

  By the way, if you only buy three shows, buy Trick…

You may not know this from all my writing about drive and discipline, but I am actually a really lazy and fun-oriented guy. And that laziness shows in how I learned Japanese and in how I am learning Chinese. Here’s how I watch a movie:

1. Get the Chinese version of a movie that I’ve seen before in a language that I’m already good at (generally Japanese, sometimes English)
2. Loop the movie. I’m not doing anything, just sitting back and enjoying the pretty pictures. I do this several times.
3. Start pausing, listening closely, perhaps mimicking dialogue.
4. The main event: start picking out sentences to enter into the SRS (sentence-mining). Again, the pause button receives heavy use. Sometimes I write them down to enter later. Other times I enter them directly — I find direct entry works best, since reading notebooks can be suuuper boring. By the way, I only do this for as long as my energy and concentration allow, which can be anything from hours to minutes.
5. You’re tired. Go back to step 2.
6. Rip the audio of the DVD movie to mp3. I use Xilisoft DVD Ripper for this. The effect is one of having a radio play where you already know what all is going on, and you can just focus on dialogue mechanics rather than plot or setting — this is true in general of watching or listening to a target language version of something you’ve already seen in base language (assuming your target and base are separate). Like everything on this site, it may not be the most earth-shaking idea ever, but I came up with it as a way to give myself Japanese “radio” at a time when I could neither (a) get, nor (b) meaningfully follow Japanese radio. It’s also a time-management thing: watching a film requires you to stay in one place and use both your sight and hearing; listening to audio only requires hearing.
7. Listen to the audio all day while doing other things (and maybe even at night while sleeping), loop, loop, loop.

In each of those repetitions, you will pick up something you didn’t know before. Since you’ll be doing so much repetition, it’s crucial to have fun stuff and lots of it. If you are bored, find something fun. I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did — if you’re bored, do something else, just make sure it’s in the target language.

So, the Chinese Project is going really well. I made another shopping trip to my favorite Taiwanese online bookstore. These are new members of my Chinese media collection (except for 玩具總動員/Toy Story, which is an older member):

So, most of what I have are comic books and Disney/Pixar DVDs in Chinese. I also have Chinese-dubbed Powerpuff Girls, because I love that show; the dialogue is hilarious; the animation is top-notch minimalist and…and yeah. It’s a good show. McCracken and Tartakovsky are unsung geniuses; as far as I am aware, their work was the only thing in American TV animation worth watching during that dark age after both Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles had ended. Am I comparing Dexter’s Lab to Gargoyles? Yes.

I’ve already watched 玩具總動員/Toy Story about 10 times, I looped that “I’ll make a man of you/男子漢” song in 花木蘭/Mulan until people (Momoko) started making death threats. This is what I mean about having fun things to read and watch — you can learn a ton of words and sentences and have fun at the same time. I’ve been singing 男子漢 all night — I’ve even made up a version called 「孫小龍」 (my cat’s Chinese name…long story, but he was “hunting” and doing other manly (that’s sexist…lionesses hunt all the time…anyway) things, so it seemed more than appropriate).

Yes, that’s another personal development book at the bottom. I feel kind of embarassed buying stuff like that, like “what’s the matter, Khatzumoto — you need wittle help becwoming a bwetter pwerson?”, but…whatever, I guess. Actually, if you ever do get the chance, Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog is a really good time management book. Short, sweet, no BS, straight to the point. Speaking of BS, there are of course a lot of shady people in the PD industry. I think part of the problem is that many people treat personal development with a fervor that is essentially religious; they’re looking for a religion — they’re looking for something that is good and true all the time and that they need only believe and obey in order to be happy. The problem is that the PD industry is very much a human endeavour, so it does require you to have your brain turned on and your BS radar working at full capacity. On the other hand, I think it’s immature — literally — a sign of underdeveloped thinking to say that “the PD industry has problems, therefore we should ignore it completely” — very much a baby-and-bathwater way of doing it. Some of its good, a lot of it sucks, and you have to pick out the good — the good authors, the good parts of the good authors’ books, and stuff. I don’t know…That particular PD book in the picture, by the way, has some people in it who are full of crap, so I wouldn’t recommend to you unless you’re happy separating wheat from chaff.

Also, in the past week, I realized that my ability to create a foreign-language environment is…too powerful. I was finding myself going for long stretches of time without ever using Japanese; this had no short-term effect, but I worry that it could stunt my Japanese growth in the long term. I don’t “need” to know any more Japanese than I do now — I can function as an adult — but why not go beyond that, I think? Why not keep building a massive vocabulary? So, in the interests of maintaining and expanding use of Japanese, I am scaling back my use of monolingual Chinese dictionaries — I am going back to using the laddering method, with Japanese as a base language for Chinese. Interestingly enough, though, my sojourn with Chinese monolingual dictionaries has given me a lot of confidence in using them, and sometimes when I’m unhappy with a certain Japanese definition, I refer to a C-C dictionary.

AntiMoon have a series of articles on input over here. Perhaps most interesting to you will be their article on how to sentence-mine a movie, since this is an idea that initially baffles a lot of people.

As many of you are painfully aware, most Japanese-language movies, TV dramas and animes still have no subs on the DVDs. Foreign/Hollywood movies dubbed into Japanese generally do have subs, but these are almost never exact dialogue transcripts (at least, I have never seen one), rather they are a rewording or a paraphrasing.

But why? I needed answers. So I went to my local video rental store, and asked to speak to the manager. (Names changed to protect the innocent). And I said to him, I said: “Mr Nakamura, Double-U. Tee. Eff. Why are the subs so often inexact or nonexistent?”. And Mr. Nakamura told me that the thinking in Japan’s movie industry has typically followed two distinct lines:

1. Hearing-impaired people can go in the general direction of heck.
2. Subtitles on foreign movies are not merely intended to repeat dialogue, but to convey, clarify and expound on dialogue — in other words, to pick up perceived slack in the audio translation.

Which is all well and good, but that kind of thing can tend to leave an avid learner like you or me…cold.

But there is hope! For there are some Japanese shows that do have exact Japanese subs; right down to the pauses and bridges (the equivalents of “um”). Here are the ones I know about from my pavement-pounding research (I seriously went in the flesh, because the information on the web was on the unreliable side).

• タイガー＆ドラゴン (plus the special extra episode「三枚起請の回」 — a 2-hour prequel that fills in a lot of details that are alluded to later in the show; it’s really essential to a full understanding of the series (and was in fact made before the rest of the series, rather than later like some kind of starwarsian afterthought), so I highly recommend getting it and watching it first).
• クロサギ (cool plot set-up, but the worst acting ever…even the subs couldn’t redeem this show for me)
• 女王の教室
• 電車男 (infinitely re-watchable dramedy geek love story..based on a supposedly true series of Internet forum posts)
• 3年B組金八先生 (exploitative, tearjerking Confucian propaganda at its worst (love and respect for the sensei), but…whatever)
• ドラゴン桜
• 救命病棟24時 第3シリーズ
• Drコトー診療所
• ウォーターボーイズ2005夏
• あずみ2 Death or Love
• 花より男子
• きみはペット
• 医龍~Team Medical Dragon~
• 恋におちたら ~ 僕の成功の秘密 ~
• プライド
• 渡る世間は鬼ばかり
• 輪舞曲
• 元カレ
• 8時だヨ！全員集合
• 8時だヨ！全員集合2005
• のだめカンタービレ
• タイヨウのうた

There it is. I am quite certain that these shows have exact subs — I checked every single one at my local video store. But, just to make even more sure, you might want to check with the vendor in question, especially since at least one major vendor (Amazon.jp) has a naughty habit of not listing any info at all about whether there are subs or not. So here is a sample email you might write them:

Subject: 【お願い】DVD字幕の有無を確認する／「Name of show」DVD-BOX

お世話になります。

「Name of SHOW」というDVDセットを購入しようとしていますが、
これは大事な教材になりますので、日本語字幕が必要不可欠。
そこで、お手数ですが、日本語字幕が収録されているかどうか確認して頂ければと思います。

ご返事の程、宜しくお願いします。

[Your name]

Most Japanese dramas run for a single 10-12 episode season of 3 months; this makes it so the good shows end before ever jumping the shark, and the bad shows, well, end. Some shows do have sequel seasons, but this is rare. One thing to note is that just because one season of a show has subs, that doesn’t necessarily mean that any other seasons do. Very much a case-by-case thing.

Pricewise, buying a Japanese drama TV series box set will typically run you in the $120-$150 range, before shipping. In other words, the same price 2-3 normal university textbooks (or one chemistry textbook)…it is steep, but it’s worth it. If you can only buy one right now, buy Tiger & Dragon (タイガー＆ドラゴン); I love that show! It has a really cool plot structure that makes it very re-watchable. Infinitely rewatchable. I’m watching it right now — I often just loop the DVDs.