...knew that title would get your attention

http://www.riotmonster.com/2010/08/the-b...th-lyrics/

Today a friend showed me "The Birds and the Beedrills" a poke-rap that uses all 151 pokemon's names as sexual innuendos, and while she found it incredibly funny it was very hard for me to follow the humor, not because I don't understand the whole pokemon thing, but because since I am not a native English speaker being able to make sense of seeming nonsense, and interpret pieces of made up words for real words, such as "tentacool" as simply "cool" and "tentacruel" likewise as "cruel" is a very difficult process for my mind.

Thought it was an interesting phenomenon. To imagine how I felt try thinking of making sense of a story in a Japanese song in which half of the words in the sentences are fictional, and can only be understood through what they sound like/what images they give.
Pretty hard, right?

It seems like most of the "puns" aren't really puns but rather using part of the Pokemon's name as the word you're suppose to get out of it. Some are, though. It definitely helps knowing who Onyx and Diglett are, for example.

But I would definitely be interested in giving a song like that in Japanese a listen and seeing how much sense I can make out of it. After listening to hip hop and their word play for so long, it be interesting to see if that's helped me at all.

I've actually been wondering about Pokemon names in Japanese. And if the original names are as silly as the English names.

Your avatar is loaded with comprehensible innuendo. You can turn any THING into innuendo by putting the RIGHT emphasis.

I think it helps that a large part the pokemon names were created using western cliche.

Personally, I didn't get the tentacool/cruel part either so I don't think your not being a native has much to do with it. In fact, I only laughed twice.

そのアイスクリームは美味しそうですね。　（＾＾）

kazelee Wrote:そのアイスクリームは美味しそうですね。

It does look quite good... Although your post got me thinking. With all the talk of "natural Japanese" lately, and what is/isn't normal Kanji usage. Is 美味しい usually written in Kanji or kana. I haven't seen it enough times to really know. But every time I've seen it out in the "wild" it's been in kana.

On a topic related notice you mention the pokemon names being created based on western cliches? What about the original Japanese names? rarely are they so obvious such as アブソル - Absol. A lot of times they are things like　ウインディ - Arcanine or ワニノコ - Totodile.

I'm to much of a beginner to really understand the Japanese names. Right now they just seem like Gibberish attached to the pokemon I'm already familiar with. Where as the word play on a lot of the Pokemon in English is quite obvious. Do the Japanese names have the same level of word play? I would think so, but I have no idea.

As to the video I couldn't stand more than 20 seconds of it. It wasn't very funny at all.

arch9443 Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:そのアイスクリームは美味しそうですね。

It does look quite good... Although your post got me thinking. With all the talk of "natural Japanese" lately, and what is/isn't normal Kanji usage. Is 美味しい usually written in Kanji or kana. I haven't seen it enough times to really know. But every time I've seen it out in the "wild" it's been in kana.

Simple answer: either is natural. Depending on where I see the word, it is always different. Some concrete examples that come to mind are:

1) Azumanga Daioh - Uses 美味しい
2) jin115.com video game blog - Also uses 美味しい
3) 山田悠介's book オール - Uses おいしい　

etc, etc.

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.
もし私の世界があったら、何もかもバカげてるの
Nothing would be as it is, because everything would be as it isn’t. 　 ふつうのことは何もないの、だってすべてがふつうじゃないもの。
And contrarywise, what it is, it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?
だってすべてがあたりまえじゃないの　ふつうのことがありえなくて　ありえないことがふつうなの