Realistic more or less implies slice-of-life, no? Stuff like Hyouka, Kuragehime, Usagi Drop... and why not Master Keaton/Monster (they may be too complicated)?

(my opinion) Don't force yourself to watch things that aren't at the top of your interest list because it might be be realistic "enough". Japanese is Japanese. All anime is in Japanese.

You will do better watching a show you're highly invested in with 80% "normal" language/20% jargon as opposed to a less interesting show with 90% "normal" language/10% jargon.

Last edited by ryuudou (2013 August 17, 11:18 pm)

At 6k I watched a lot of lucky star. Don't look at me that way... ;P

Added Space Brothers and Hidamari Sketch to my watch list, both look interesting

@dtcamero, was it easy to follow? I just want to make sure that I listen to a lot of dialogue that I can use myself for the most part. I'm not worried about failing to identify what isn't feminine or things no one says IRL, since those things should get filtered out/more distinguished the more I watch, but it would be reassuring to start off with lots of 'realistic' first before diving into anything unusual. This is why I'm not too sure about all-female animes lol.

@ryuudou, it won't be much of a problem for me because I practically like every anime I end up watching.

gaiaslastlaugh wrote:

What's your level? GitS is pretty tough - tons of military + tech jargon that I wouldn't necessarily classify as "daily conversation" material. Kokoro Connect is also surprisingly difficult (or at least it was for me last year).

I'd toss K-On!, Tari Tari, and 宇宙の兄弟 on this list. But I'd also second ryuudou - don't watch things just because you think you "should" be watching them. Even fantasy anime will help reinforce your knowledge of sentence patterns.

By difficult, do you mean watching it straight away (without subs2srs)? And in the case of GitS, I think I'll leave it for a later time. Thanks for the other recommendations.

I would class myself as a beginner until my main sources of studying shift to light novels, online articles and subs2srs (as a means to follow anime, tv shows, movies etc. more easily). I'm intent on starting before the end of the year, soon after finishing core, among other smaller things that I'll probably finished before then.

drdunlap wrote:

Ghost in the Shell is a good goal if you're working towards understanding a ton of military and political jargon but it's a little difficult for Japanese people as well. The compound words (some of which don't even exist in daily life) can throw anyone for a loop.

Yep. You won't find much use for 電脳 in daily conversation. Even the 攻殻 in the series' Japanese title is a neologism.

drdunlap wrote:

But I'd say most anything you listen to is going to be almost 100% "realistic" Japanese.
However, the most realistic would probably be from podcasts, radio shows, un-scripted variety shows and.. real life. Since almost all of that is non-scripted.

There are a lot of such great dialogs - with transcripts - on LingQ. It's worthwhile to subscribe even for a month to snag some of this content. I really like podcasts for listening because it's a constant stream of audio, thus providing more opportunity for practice.

drdunlap wrote:

Not necessarily just new words. 電脳 kind of makes sense. Especially in context and with how often it gets slung around in GITS. Strings of vocabulary making ultra-long technical words are what threw off my Japanese friend and I when we went to see the new movie. ><

Well, I'm glad to hear it just wasn't me. :-p

What did you think of ARISE?

Do you guys know when ARISE will be released on DVD?

I think it's going to be 4 movies, and 3 and 4 will be 2 hours long.

gaiaslastlaugh wrote:

drdunlap - looks like GHOST WHISPERS hits end of November: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%94%BB% … A%8A_ARISE

Already saved the date with the same friend to go see it on opening day as well. :x