I just found this while randomly surfing. Despite the name, it's not a rhythm game, but one where you type the lyrics of a song in real time (let that sink in for a bit). It's actual use as a learning tool is questionable, but I've had some fun progressing my carpal tunnel.

The bad: you essentially forced to use romanji if you don't have a Japanese keyboard. While it's obviously technically possible to type kana, I don't have an urge to learn how to type something that has no graphical representation on my keys. Since romanji generally takes twice as many keystrokes as kana, you're basically screwed if you try any faster songs.

That game's pretty nuts.

The kana keyboard layout isn't that much faster than romaji, because about 1/3 of the kana are in pretty inaccessible places (the top row with the numbers, for instance). む is 3 keys to the right of L. In addition, vowels are only one keystroke either way and anything with ゛ or ゜ requires 2 keystrokes in the kana layout.

The kana layout is even worse for everyday applications, because it makes all the numbers and punctuation unusable.

Oh, okay, so they actually expect us to type this fast? Color me fazed.

It never occurred to me that one would have to manually input 濁点 and 半濁点 on a kana layout, although it's pretty apparent that a keyboard that did not would be fairly large.

Lol, I've played that game. I think it's called "Typing of the Dead" or something. It's exactly the same as the dawn of the dead shooter except that instead of a gun, you brandish a keyboard.


The truth is, most of the Japanese people I've met are lousy typists. Touch typing isn't that helpful when you're shifting over to the IME every 2 seconds to choose a kanji compound. Some of them look amazed when they see me typing, but it's a bit of an illusion, since I don't have to use an IME.

Yeah, Typing of the Dead was awesome. The PC version has network play, but I've never gotten that to work and no one, no one, has two keyboards for the DC version.

Huzzah, rejoice, my brothers, for Sega has announced Typing of the Dead 2. No word on an American release: this is one instance in which romanji does its job. Let's pray that it works on US keyboards: the only other difficulties would be if they make another boss that speaks in riddles...

I have a copy of Typing of the Dead for the PC, but it's back in the UK and I want to play it
Not that I think my steam powered laptop would be able to run it anyways...