nicknack28 wrote:

Serge wrote:

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only student of Japanese who doesn't care about anime, hates manga and fails to see the attraction of video games... :-)

While I can respect one's interest originating from exposure to the culture itself, what honestly is so bad about becoming interested through media?  There has to be something about a country that you are introduced to before you can actually foster an interest for it, whether it be hearing the language, seeing the language, having lived there for a little while, reading about culture some, ethnic background, media, etc.  This suggestion is assuming a person doesn't wake up some random day with no previous knowledge of a country and blurts out "[Subject country] is awesome!"  For most people, their introduction to Japan will obviously be through games, anime, manga, J-pop and the like because those are the Japanese products that are so easily internationally shared.  Once a connection is made between a person and the country (and through media is definitely the easiest and most likely way), that person will probably begin exploring all the other aspects of that culture as well.  From this a love of the country can be formed.

It's just bothering to hear someone speaking of other people's interests like their an inferior way of initiating a love for another country.  Even small connections can spark worthwhile fascinations.

Not sure why you're suggesting there might be anything inferior in any of the points mentioned above. As for me, I'm just surprised by the amazing UNIFORMITY exhibited in the contributions to this thread (and to the forum in general, although I continue to believe it is the most informative one out there).

Where are posts from those people who were attracted to Japan (and the language) by practising martial arts? By Kabuki or Noh plays? By enka? By Japanese jazz or Sakamoto? By reading Murakami's books (both authors)? Movies by Kurosawa or Ozu? Or Kitano Takeshi, for that matter? Where are those who first got interested in the country through fascination with Rei Kawakubo's brand or Yohji Yamamoto, or even Evisu?! Or through studying Chinese or Korean and wishing to expand their knowledge of Asian languages? By Zen-Buddhism? Or through contracting 'yellow fever'?

Once again, there is nothing inherently superior about any of the above. It's just surprising that all that gets mentioned is anime, manga and videogames. Or is this just a reflection of the demographics of this forum?

Serge wrote:

Once again, there is nothing inherently superior about any of the above. It's just surprising that all that gets mentioned is anime, manga and videogames. Or is this just a reflection of the demographics of this forum?

Of course, the demographics may play a part in it... but you also have to keep in mind the various probabilities of being influenced by the things you mentioned. How many % of young westerners have ever watched even one Noh or Kabuki play? 0.1%? 0.0001%? I have no idea, but I know that a LOT more young westerners have played videogames from Japan or seen anime, especially with the huge boom in Japanese pop-culture in the west in recent years.

I guess it can also be a matter of what interests certain people. Maybe the people who go out of their way to view special plays (like Noh etc) are not the same people who are inclined to learn a new language. Personally I trained Southern Shaolin Kung-Fu, but I never really got the idea that I should study Chinese... maybe because you don't need to know Chinese to train Kung-Fu, but you do need to know Japanese to play japanese-only videogames?

Many reasons for me, my family has always had Japanese friends, I love Japanese music (yes, particularly Enka), I did watch anime on TV when I was a kid. Though I had never read a single manga before starting Japanese I find myself reading some now and enjoying it (both for practice and because some are really fun to read...)

The biggest trigger however was a more pragmatic reason. I had to take 2 languages at my univ and the English classes were pathetic, the German teachers awful... so I hesitated between Japanese and Italian. I ended up choosing Japanese telling myself "you'll never do it yourself, so take the opportunity that you have now... you can learn Italian later". A few months later I spent a month in Japan and fell in love with the country :-)

Many reasons... nowadays it is mainly to be able to read the wealth of untranslated books for my various hobbies and also to be able to communicate with my in-laws directly.

Never cared for Japan or Japanese back in highschool. I loved HK films, but didn't care about videogames or animes. Things changed when I saw my first Japanese film: Hana-Bi by Kitano Takeshi. Add other directors like Ozu, Iwai Shunji, Tsukamoto Shinya or Miike and you can imagine my fascination with Japanese films. That was no reason for me to study Japanese though.

Some of my friends decided to take Japanese classes and dragged me along. We all dropped out after two months, but I just couldn't stop studying Japanese. I also got to know some real life Japanese people from Japan. And began to study Karate (and Japanese Martial Arts books).

I don't know why I'm studying Japanese. I guess it just happened somehow.

@ plumage - Man you summed up my own thoughts! I just couldn't agree more with you on this one. I started to study English a long time ago (I'm a native Portuguese speaker) because I thought the language sounded "cool", liked American movies and everybody was telling me the language was useful. Nowadays, I love it!

Answering the OP, I was first exposed to Japanese culture through Portuguese dubbed anime and tokusatsu when I was a child (probably around 5-8, and don't remember exactly. I was a fan of shows like Yu Yu Hakusho, Saint Seiya and Tokkei Winspector. Sometimes they would air some songs or segments subbed, and I liked the sound of the language very much, so I said to myself that I would learn it someday. In 2001 was when I started learning English. Back in 2005, I watched a few anime that were airing on TV here (namely, Love Hina, Ranma 1/2, Trigun and others), but stopped after a while because of the terrible time they used to air (starting at 1:00 a.m.? You must be kidding me...)

Then, by August 2007, my friend started to download a subbed version of Rurouni Kenshin, which I had never watched before. I fell in love with the show, and was watching it a lot. It was the show that re-sparkled my curiosity for anime. I started to look around the net for other anime I liked, started to become interested in J-music, started to research Japanese culture on the net... See the pattern? I was spending most of my time at home on things Japanese, so I figured I should put it to some good use and learn the language. So around the end of January 2008, I decided it was the right time to start learning Japanese, because my English was at a good enough level that I could keep studying and practicing it while devoting a bigger part of my time to another language without being afraid of forgetting it.

I then found thejapanesepage.com, through which I learned hiragana and katakana using rote, which worked terribly. Then I saw the need for an improved approach to learn the kanji (they are so many - OMG! I can't memorize 92 simple symbols well, imagine about a "minimum" of 2000 complex ones), then I found this site, RTK, AJATT, KO, a bunch of other useful books, resources, methods and as they say, the rest is history.

Serge wrote:

Where did I say I didn't care about the culture?

That's a misunderstanding on my part.  You wrote 'the Japanese lifestyle' and I read 'culture'.

As for plays, music, etc...  I'm not exposed to that.  In fact, I have trouble finding it when I'm looking for it.  I suspect that I'm not alone in this, and that's why it fails to attract people.  Anime and manga are a -lot- more readily available.

Serge wrote:

Where are posts from those people who were attracted to Japan (and the language) by practising martial arts? By Kabuki or Noh plays? By enka? By Japanese jazz or Sakamoto? By reading Murakami's books (both authors)? Movies by Kurosawa or Ozu? Or Kitano Takeshi, for that matter? Where are those who first got interested in the country through fascination with Rei Kawakubo's brand or Yohji Yamamoto, or even Evisu?! Or through studying Chinese or Korean and wishing to expand their knowledge of Asian languages? By Zen-Buddhism? Or through contracting 'yellow fever'?

Once again, there is nothing inherently superior about any of the above. It's just surprising that all that gets mentioned is anime, manga and videogames. Or is this just a reflection of the demographics of this forum?

This site being a part of the internet, and our discussions being here on an internet forum, probably does tend to attract a demographic of those into anime, games, and the likes.

Thinking this over for a bit, I think it has to primarily do with the gain you actually get related to your activity from learning the language and then other personal factors like free time and willingness to adopt another's culture. Some of those reasons you also mentioned are likely to be things people learn about after they have developed an interest in Japan -- how many people are first going to learn about Japan from Noh plays? How many people are going to enjoy Noh even after they gain an interest in Japan?

Like you said, it really doesn't matter, but it is kind of interesting. Japanese probably has the most amount of people who, if not self-studying, consciously decided they wanted to learn the language for some reason or interest in the country. Can't say the same for most of the people I remember in high school taking Spanish "because it's easy."

Edit: Another why Japanese that I forgot to mention in my original post, but I totally love the sound of Japanese. Everything from the grunts, to guys mumbling, to girls high pitched voices, to the over the top enthusiastic announcers, and the soft spoken heartfelt moments in dramas. The only sounds I probably don't enjoy are some anime voices. English or Japanese, some anime just sounds plain stupid.

Last edited by sutebun (2008 August 27, 10:01 pm)

Well, this thread certainly sees more diversity as it grows longer! And I guess the forum demographics do play a large role in people's responses...

Jon_B wrote:

So before you go around throwing the idea that anime is a bland and artless form such as american reality tv, i suggest that you take a deeper look into what the actual makings are.

I'm not saying that all anime/manga is beautiful and artistic (not even close), but to people like me who enjoy mostly the ones that are, the comments you made feel somewhat degrading =/.

I guess the above is directed to me and I'm somewhat confused as to where and how I could have compared anime to American reality TV, not having seen one American reality TV show in my entire life. But if you believe some of that stuff is similar, so be it. Actually, I don't care about anime in the vast majority of its incarnations but I do acknowledge that there are hidden gems. Thus I stumbled upon 「涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱」 quite by chance, weeks before Tae Kim publically endorsed it and it has become one of my favourite productions ever: it is IRONIC and that's a quality not often found in Japanese culture. (If Minna san know(s) any other artworks exhibiting this quality, 教えてくれ.)

Serge wrote:

it is IRONIC and that's a quality not often found in Japanese culture. (If Minna san know(s) any other artworks exhibiting this quality, 教えてくれ.)

Ouran High School Host Club mocks and playfully subverts genre tropes (as well as gender norms and social class) in a similar way, while also playing them straight and making them work, which is something I really admire. I'd compare it vaguely to The Incredibles or Shawn of the Dead that way. A lot of tropes it satirizes stem from the admittedly creepy shoujo genre though, so it might not be for those who aren't familiar enough with them to really get it. Regardless, I found it totally hilarious, and for most of the same reasons I liked Haruhi. (Speaking of which, the protagonist of Ouran is named Haruhi as well. Hmm.) They pretty much make up my two favourite anime.

I keep hearing good things about さよなら絶望先生, which supposedly satirizes just about every singular aspect of Japan, and the art style is kindof delicious, so that sounds good. I haven't, personally, watched it yet.

I just gotta say, I'm impressed there are so many people on this site learning Japanese just for the heck of it or to enjoy anime or manga in the original or because it is a challenge.  I started learning Japanese the day I found out I was moving to Japan because of my husband's job.  I find being illiterate and incoherent more than adequate motivation to learn a language.  Plus I think it is rude to visit or much worse live in a foreign country and not at least try to learn some of the language.  Plus, once I started on kanji I was hooked   But it is a challenge and my hat is off to all of you who are teaching yourselves without the daily motivation of actually living here, or trying to get a job.

Jon_B wrote:

This makes me think if there was a time where ukiyoe was big, way back in like the 1800s or something where there was a boom in people learning japanese to go see ukiyoe, but others said that they were suprised that everyone wants to go over just to see that, even though that one thing might mean alot to them.

Speaking of Ukiyo-E, actually, a lot of parallels are being drawn between the work of that time and today's manga. I guess that's when it all started. For those who are interested to see for themselves this book is a good start:

http://www.amazon.com/Hokusai-First-Mas … 0810993414


@QuackingShoe

Thanks for the tips! I'll check them out.

I started Japanese back in 02'. You know, before it was cool, jk. It was some software that was half thought up. It would have been good if they had me test it. Then I abandoned Japanese for long long while.

Then I started to study Korean in December last year. I loved how the language sounded. Especially when the chicks said 'mianhae.' The problem was, I couldn't hear what they were saying no matter how much I tried. So, I gave up a started learning Japanese in January. I found RTK and did if for like 2 weeks then stopped.

Then in June or July I started finding good resources on learning languages. I have no interest in French, despite my being at an advanced level. The amount of resources on Japanese far out weighted, those of Korean, so I decided to give RTK a chance again.

I'll give Korean a chance again in a couple years. Hopefully it should be as easier to learn the language by then. Then I'll learn Chinese. Then I'll hit Thai, then Spanish, then Russian.

Maybe I'm aiming a little too high...?

It's the only place I know how to aim 8)