Did you ever watch an old movie called Yojimbo? And the ancient TV movie Shogun?

I think he was called Yojimbo because he was an Aeon, a bodyguard of the summoner, and he was samurai-like. Yojimbo means bodyguard. I didn't actually like him much anyway because you had to play him money to attack.

I can barely remember the movie, but it was a famous movie in Japan. It was about a rogue samurai who arrived at a town looking for a job as samurai. He ended up serving a daimyo who was currently at war with another. I think.

Shogun is about an Englishman named John Blackthorne in the beginning of the 17 century, sailing for the Dutch to find the "Japans". His ship is attacked by a storm not too far away from shore, and he wakes up in the care of a Japanese peasant woman. He leaves the village and finds out that his crew had been imprisoned and the Portuguese had already landed at Japan. He is quickly renamed Anjin, Japanese for pilot since he piloted the ship, and was actually the name I remembered better. blah blah blah there's some other stuff and after being imprisoned for a second time by the Portuguese, he gets bailed out and learns that the evil Portuguese are stealing Japanese goods. He tells the daimyo Toranaga about this and blah blah blah and more stuff. (Also, Toranaga is at war against Lord Ishido who is with the Portuguese) Anjin falls in love with a woman named Mariko who serves Toranaga, but they are forbidden to be in love because Mariko is already married. Anjin also becomes a samurai or captain of the samurai, I forgot which. Toranaga wants Anjin to live and stay in Japan, even though he misses his home.

I don't actually watch much anime. I tend to learn stuff about Japan from old Japanese movies. And Wikipedia.

Anime is different to classical Japanese culture, but definitely NOT superficial.

I lived in Japan for over two years and have spent far more time learning the language. I must say I'm more interested in certain aspects of culture than others -- such as language, history, and popular culture, although I am also interested in some of the classical culture and myth.

Unfortunately I do have trouble getting interested in certain other aspects that just don't interest me.

"Nihonzuki"?

The best place I've been in Japan is the Hiroshima Heiwa Kinen Hakubutsukan (Hiroshima Peace Park Museum).

WATASHI WA OTAKU!!! NYAAAA!

(rough and probably inaccurate translation: I am Nerd/enthusiast!!! NYAAAA!)

yea i guess like some Japanese culture...but not all.

Yojimbo uses zanmoto/Zantetsuken free for me...(guess it's my fangirl charm...) but all i got from penance was some stupid sword for auron that had break damage limit (not bad except it had i think only 1 free customise slot nyaa..)

i have a heretic yojimbo figure it's so cool cause i've always liked dark yojimbo from ffX. he was a good source of ribbon armour.

Oh yeah it is Zanmato in FFX isn't it? You are much better at FFX than me, I can't beat Dark Ifrit on my best file, but I can beat Dark Ixion. I ruined my best save file though, I accidentally threw away an armour with Break HP limit on it that I got when I beat Omega. I have tried to start another great file but no matter how much I fight I can't find a Coerl on the Calm Plains, so I think that file may be cursed.

Actually, not a bad translation. (You ever seen "Neko no ongaeshi / the Cat Returns"? Cat characters there all say "nyaaa" instead of "na" or "ne" too.)

wow i thought i invented Nyaaaa!...hmmm perhaps i am channeling the ghost of a japanese cat?

oh and i havent seen Neko no ongaeshi if it's anime/manga do you know anywhere i can download it?

...Um. Don't know enough about downloading movies. It's Ghibli, so you could probably get a copy from a video library or store.

It's basically a fantasy spinoff of Whisper of the Heart (which is "Mimi o Sumaseba" in Japanese - the one where the girl sings "Country Roads" in Japanese.) A girl, Haru, discovers that she can talk to cats, and when she saves the life of the cat prince, the king of the cats (who is crazy) gets it into his head that he should send someone to bring Haru to "Neko no Kuni" -- Cat Country -- and there she will marry the prince. But she doesn't want to be married to a cat and Baron and Muta have to help her to avoid it.

LUCKY!! where'd you get to do this?

Some of the best good friends I ever had were Japanese. (And my aunty and cousin, too.)

Many of them are but not all. My mother is from Japan and she can be very mean. When I was a kid and I first got glasses, my mother kept teasing saying that I looked like a cartoon character. She kept calling me "manga chan", and saying "manga mitai nei".  That's one of the reasons I hate anime and manga to this day.

I'm quite fond of the corporatism in that country too :]

Would be interesting to work there, if only for a while. (I hear it gets boring ;p)

I do, I haven't watched too much lately though. I like Korean one's too.
My favourite is 'Tale of Two Sisters' It has quite a complex plot and some really scary moments.
I also liked Ring, I haven't seen Another Heaven yet.

yes - corporatism with lots of imagination is OK ;P

Well, you probably know this already but it's VERY traditional. And it might be hard for an Aspie to work there (well, this aspie would find it hard, even if she were a man lol) because of how group-oriented the culture is.

HEHE. Yeah.

Either seppuku or hara-kiri is acceptable.��Both are terms for ritualistic suicide.

Weird... I got an SQL error when I tried to write the above terms in Japanese kanji rather than romanji.

Let me add that I'm sorry for your loss.

"Jisatsu" basically means the same in etymological terms as the word "suicide"

-Satsu / -Cide = killing

Ji- / Sui- = self

Some computers need special programs to accept kanji, or else it just appears as a series of squares -- which is annoying!!!

You mean a IME? i don't know much about that but maybe is just that some computers have it built-in when you buy it

Not sure. I know they can be downloaded but after my computer broke and I was trying to download one that had succeeded before, and it wouldn't again.

If you run Windows, you can load any available IME if you have the install CD.��I have English, Japanese, and Korean on my PC.

What singers do you like?

I like Ayumi Hamazaki -- especially "Dearest",
Hikaru Utada -- especially "Sakura Drops" and that song that became the theme to "Detective Conan" for a while,
Hirai Ken.

I loved Hirai's rendition of "The old Grandfather Clock", translated into Japanese.

Hell, I even like Sakamoto Kyuu

And also have a soundtrack collection of various Ghibli movies, and 35th Anniversary Collection of Lupin III soundtrack, and a One Piece soundtrack, all of which I really like to listen to as well.

You're lucky. My school system is making major cuts on High School classes. The only languages we'll have this upcoming school year will be Spanish and American Sign Language.

I know a few Japanese words and phrases myself. For example:

Baka
Daijobu
Champuru
Touge

Japanese is actually the ONLY language class my school offers- before this year, they didn't offer language classes at all.  They were told they were "too small" to hire a language teacher.  There's only about 120-150 students there.
I'd love to take an ASL class.  Maybe sometime in college......

I know baka and daijobu, but I don't know the other two words.  What do they mean?
I learned a new one recently:  がんばれ (Ganbare).

It's really fun watching movies and things now, knowing more of the language....  I can catch at least one word in most sentences, and sometimes the whole sentence, if it's short.  I was watching the reality show "I survived a Japanese game show", and before each commercial break the host says the same thing- "Minna isshoni!  Majide!"  Majide is the name of the show, and I got so excited, because I understood what he was saying!  "Minna" is "everyone", "isshoni" means "together"- he was asking the audience to say the show's name with him, "Everyone together!"
It's this kind of thing that makes me love learning new languages so much.    That moment where you realize you can understand something that was unintelligible to you before.

Here's an important phrase, Digimodify:  "Oterai wa doko desu ka?"  Where's the bathroom?
  And also "Nihongo wo amari hanashimasen."  I don't speak much Japanese.
In case you ever end up there and have no clue how to speak the language.  Those, I think, are the most handy phrases for a tourist.

Then again, if you're in Harajuku:  "Shashin wo totte mo iidesuka?"  May I take your picture?

I'll keep those in mind.

うん、とてもおもしろいいですね。  I've been getting most of my robot-related news from http://www.pinktentacle.com/.  I was especially interested by this one:  http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/07/robot-sea-bream/  It's so real looking!

http://whatjapanthinks.com/  is also really interesting a lot of the time.  No robots there, though.

Sounds  exactly like  what happened to me, at the point I  discovered
Japan -

- the look of the blank, white  Noh masks , and then hearing a recording  of the ` singing ` of the  actors,
the very SOUND !
+ the japanese characters,  with patterns within them , and   everything written  vertically -
EVERYTHING !

( and I never grew out of  it  )

You know this project ?

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/07/71426

No, I hadn't seen that one.  But I did see this one:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMqdIWNyWo  And here's another video of it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbFFs4DHWys&feature=related

There does seem to be a perseverence with technology development that is generally lacking in the west. And the we want it now culture in the west and they are prepared to wait difference.