garejei

Best cosplay: Awesome art of terribad anime: And now for something completely different:

Well, like I said, my post above was partly a pep talk given to a friend who wanted to learn Japanese but was intimidated by the kanji. Hence the "awesome". =P Honestly I have no idea what "the norm" is, everyone has a different way of learning I suppose. But I did know people who kept vocab in just a text file without any actual notebooks. Hell, just by browsing through online threads related to learning Japanese all over the internet, one could assume that Anki + RTK is the norm, based on how often people recommend them. And I did neither of those things. *shrug*

I regret nothing. Also, those who recognize the song I'm listening to there are all classy gentlemen.

I'm starting to think I'm the only one on the planet who learned kanji without ever using Anki. haha. I see people swear upon it all the time but it just never worked out for me personally. Instead I kept -and still keep- an actual physical notebook, so this improved my writing as well. Soon enough I was writing kana as fast as latin letters, without having to stop to think. In any case this topic isn't really for me, but if we're allowed to share advice, then here goes my wall o' text. It's actually something I wrote for a beginner friend a while ago, so I'm only going to copy/paste it here. It's about memorizing kanji. I'm not saying this is the best and only way, it's just what worked for me. My method worked out for me personally just fine. Still, if my applied linguistics/language pedagogy studies taught me anything, it's that there is not "best" way to learn a language. So I think you should always be open to other methods and finding out what is the most comfortable for you. (I actually haven't read any of Heisig's books either, although I keep telling myself I should find the time to skim through it at least) One book I found really useful is マンガで学ぶ日本語会話術, especially if you want to be able to speak as well, not just read. It gives you the various nuances and is basically a "what to say, when, and how" sort of book. Its greatest advantage is that it contains language the way it's actually spoken by natives instead of boring and stale "classroom Japanese". (half the book is basically a manga illustrating various situations in daily life, the workplace and so on). So anyway hopefully this was at least a bit helpful to some of you who are still uncertain regarding how to go about studying.

Yeah, I'll be lazy as well and just refer to my vndb list. The only games I rated as a 9/10 to are Muramasa, 999 and Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Trials and Tribulations). So I guess that's my top 3 for now. I'm sure it will change as I play more games. 999 I loved mostly because of its True End. It was clever, surprising and just blew me away. GS3 for similar reasons. I like Muramasa a lot because it took a promising central theme (to quote the game, 「武道とは何か？」 and 「正義の味方など、いない」) and explored it in insanely great detail through the protag's emotional development while giving it a dark twist here and there. And still being able to tie it into the whole "family" plotline with Hikaru which made for a highly emotional pre-epilogue finale. So for these reasons I could overlook the more draggy/boring bits here and there. My list, btw: Analogue: A Hate Story Digital: A Love Story don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story Fate/stay night Gyakuten Kenji Gyakuten Saiban Gyakuten Saiban 2 Gyakuten Saiban 3 Gyakuten Saiban 4 Kara no Shoujo Kara no Shoujo - The Second Episode 999 Narcissu Ourai no Gahkthun -What a shining braves- Saya no Uta Soukou Akki Muramasa Soukou Akki Muramasa: Janen Hen

It would have to be good. Although I do admit I tend to prefer the manga artstyle as well. But as long as it tells an interesting tale, I don't mind too much. I'm not a purist. The only OELVNs I played were games by Christine Love, but I did enjoy those, so yeah. Well, correction: I really enjoyed her latest one, Analogue. The other two were just okay.

Only if it's really good, but even then, at least a couple (5+) of years will have to pass, or however long it takes me to forget all the details. Unless it feels semi-fresh again I usually can't be bothered.

Well I guess that would help, if it's not too much of a bother. I'm mostly just curious if the newer version is worth playing for the added content, even without H scenes. Edit: Nevermind, issue solved.

Whoa, that's quite the list you have there. Welcome to the forums! Enjoy your stay.

Thank you, although I can't actually register on Animesuki (keep getting an error message), I looked through the thread you linked to and it more or less answered my question. Amantes amentes seems to be an expanded (although all-ages) version of AeF with extra content and such, minus the H scenes obviously.

Okay, so I'm *really* hoping there's someone here who's read/is familiar with this VN. This is the one: http://vndb.org/v548 Well I've been toying with the idea of reading it, but as I'm looking at the vndb page I see it has like three different versions with different subtitles (Also sprach Zarathustra, Acta est Fabula, Amantes amentes). Anyone know anything about the differences between them? As in, which one should I read? Thanks.

のうぎょう 農業 agriculture

あ、初めてプレイしたゲ－ムはFF零式だったけど、実は、最初から最後まで初めてクリアしたのは装甲悪鬼村正だった。本当に名作だと思うよ。 ああ、そうか。聞いたことないけど、YouTube動画からすると何か初音ミクに関するゲｰムだよな。ミクの曲も好きなの？一番好きなのがある？

いいね、このトピック。僕も付き合ってるよ。丁寧語を使わないんだけどな．．． 日本のミｰムについては心当たりが全然ないので、他の話題でもいいかな？例えば、ちゃんと日本語でプレイした初めてのゲｰムとかVNとか、何だったか？ えと、僕は、日本語を勉強し始めた頃、「FINAL FANTASY零式」を試してみたんだけど、出てくる単語がちょっと難しすぎて諦めることにした。ｗ

Pretty much agreed with Down. My speed varies so I never use auto, plus I very much prefer to be in control while reading.

Porn with a story. /trolling Okay, seriously now. Basically books with music and pictures and voice acting. That's about it in a nutshell.

You love Snatcher and can't stand Tidus - I like you already. Welcome! And you have to play 999. The true end will blow your mind.

Wait, you read it via skipping? Like, you can read 4-5 lines of Japanese in about 0.1 seconds? I bow before your superhuman reading abilities. Either that or the skipping in your game was somehow not as fast as in mine, haha. In any case, congrats on completing it. :3

I can only recommend anime if that's not a huge problem. Stuff that comes to mind now: Sword of the Stranger (exceptionally good fight scene choreography in this one), Karas, Sengoku Basara, Black Lagoon.

I would appreciate recommendations for darker -or at least more serious- VNs , mostly non-translated stuff because I have very little knowledge about the non-English scene (but naturally, I won't reject English recommendations, either). I guess it doesn't even *have* to be super dark, just something that's not your run-of-the-mill moe-filled high school VN. On a somewhat relevant note did anyone here play Gekkou no Carnevale? Would be nice to hear someone's thoughts on it, I'm still very much on the fence about whether I want to sink time into it.

1.) Berserk (series + movies) 2.) Fate/zero 3.) Aria 4.) Hellsing Ultimate 5.) Gurren Lagann 6.) Rebuild of Evangelion (what I've seen of it so far) 7.) Spice and Wolf 8.) Psycho-Pass 9.) Kaiji 10.) Highschool of the Dead (shut up) There's no real order in 2-10. But Berserk will always be #1 for me.

You have succeeded. Congratulations. =P

Hmm, I suppose. Saya was actually my first VN, which was pretty short, and I foolishly assumed that all VNs are generally of this size. Needless to say I was in for a surprise when I started Fate/SN. One more thing I didn't mention is that VNs also made me interested in translation, though I'm still very new to the whole thing and don't consider myself super great or anything. I run a blog (see sig) where I post all my translated stuff and other shenanigans. /shameless self ad

Nah, Gahkthun was actually my first exposure to the series. I saw Aaeru post a screenshot of it a couple of months back, and the art style plus the whole thing with steampunk Nikola Tesla sparked (oh the puns) my interest. I enjoyed what I've read of it, will probably continue on with it once I finish/get bored with Kara no Shoujo 2.