Japanese Studies - 06/01/2012

Once again, I am a day late with my post about my studies, but here is the nihongo that I studied yesterday.
Yesterday's lesson dialogue was a the third part of series where the two main characters were meeting again after not seeing eachother since graduation. The lesson had a few new words I was unfamiliar with, and one that I seem to be having a LOT of trouble pronouncing (damasareyasui / だまされやすい , or 'Gullible' in English) but I am starting to get the hang of it.
Today's main lesson point was how to say 'too much', which oddly enough my friend at my Tae Kwon Do club ('Bekkii-Sensei' as I call her) taught me the night before! At least I had a head start on the lesson thanks to her ^_^
Here are the pictures of my notes:

Arrietty Interview Clip, and Opening Sequence

The UK Magazine recently uploaded an interview with the actor Mark Strong, who plays the role of Pod in UK dub of Studio Ghibli's newest film Arrietty which is due out this coming Monday (9th January). Mark Strong has also appeared in films such as Green Lantern and Sherlock Holmes. In his interview he describes Pod as "a very traditional, very manly guy who takes care of his family and, like a miner, on regular occasions has to go out into the big world and find stuff for his family to survive."



The second clip uploaded by SFX was of the opening sequence to the film, which shows Arrietty hurrying to her house under the floorboards of the human's home. If you have ever seen the live-action film The Borrowers you will notice a few similarities with it, as they are both the same story.

UK Anime Releases - 09/01/2012 to 15/01/2012

Time for another look at what releases are due to land this week. It looks like quite a good week this week, and even includes the latest offering from Studio Ghibli. I may have to buy 2 of the releases this week, and there are others i want later in the month aswell, it seems this month is a good month to be an Anime fan ^_^

Monday 9th January

Arrietty (Studio Ghibli)
Welcome to NHK! (Complete Series - 4 Disc)
K-ON! Volume 4 (Episodes 12-14) 
Whisper of the Heart (DVD/Blu-Ray Double Play Edition) 

Manga UK announces Anime Blu-Ray Cancellations

In a rather upsetting and unforeseen piece of news, MangaEntertainment UK have announced that quite a few popular series blu-ray releases are being cancelled. The affected series' are K-ON!, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. They have, however, announced that many other blu-ray titles will still be released as planned, and includes titles such as the first three spinoff Bleach movies (Memories of Nobody, The Diamond Dust Rebellion, and Fade to Black), Samurai Girls, and Mardock Scramble: The First Compression.

A Manga UK representative stated that the cancellations were purely economic, due to the costs of remastering and manufacturing the titles on to the blu-ray format. The representative also acknowledged that UK anime fans would be disappointed by the news, and that it had been a very hard decision to cancel these titles.

In a statement after this announcement Jerome Mazandarani, of Manga Entertainment UK, released this statement:

"I personally, fought to maintain these Blu-ray releases against stiff opposition from my superiors, but the commercial considerations of running a successful company overruled my objections about the damage to our brand's credibility should we not release these titles. In summary, I would say that while we have made a sensible commercial decision, we have created a situation that is alienating to a good deal many of you and I sincerely hope that over time we can make it up to you."

Japanese Studies - 04/01/2012

It's been quite a while since I last posted about my Japanese language studies, and it's also been quite a while since I actually completed some 'real' studies anyway, thanks to Christmas and New Year celebrations with family.
Also, I do release this is dated as yesterday, but I had forgotten to take pictures of my notebook which I like to upload along with the post.
Yesterday's lesson dialogue started with a woman whose daughter's goldfish has died. She then went to buy another one before 'running in to' a groper (ちかん) on the train, and then beat him up before calling the police. It sounded a lot funnier when they had the english translation alongside the native dialogue aswell.
There were only a few words I learnt from this lesson though, and quite odd ones aswell, namely 'scream', 'punch/hit' and 'step on'. It felt good to be learning new japanese vocabulary though!