So, how's your Japanese? Episode 2.

Learning Japanese may be a mammoth task, but thankfully we no longer live in prehistoric times and there is of plenty of technology to make the learning and communication a little easier.
(Terms explained in the previous post on Japanese language are written in italics).

Web-based translators such as AltaVista's Babelfish have been around for years. I've found that Google's translator for Japanese-to-English is the most reliable, giving me the least "err-I-can't-display-this-page" errors. You can set Google's translator as a link in your browser's toolbar (Google toolbar not required), making a translated page just one click away. Sadly though, this does not work with Gmail, so I still have to copy-paste my Japanese e-mails into the translator page.
Another good translator is Eigo-Navi, which shows both the original and the translated text on screen, which can be handy at times. Sure, with all these translators the English looks like by Yoda it was written, but understand it we can, hrrrmm?

I've also been using my Nintendo DS with DS Rakuhiki Jiten. This is a relatively simple dictionary application that's very easy to use, thanks to the touch screen.
It does require one to know how to write a word phonetically using kana. If I know that, I can look up the kanji for it and read the meaning in English. I never use it for English-to-Japanese translation though, because the result is always written in kanji, and not how to pronounce that. There's also a DS Kanji Dictionary, but I have yet to check that one out.

Finally, there's LexiKAN, an excellent piece of software for learning to read and write kanji. I've only recently discovered it, and I was truly surprised at how good it is. Using a mouse or Wacom tablet (which I strongly recommend) you draw the kanji, either on a blank canvas or by tracing a light-grey image. The software immediately gives you feedback while drawing each stroke, ensuring you draw them in the correct length, order and direction. This is very effective in helping you memorise how to draw each character. If you work on paper, you just end up copying the character you drew before, not forcing you to think. LexiKAN also lets you view a little animation of each character being drawn, which can be useful for the more complicated ones or where the stroke order deviates from the standard rules.

The full version of LexiKAN (only US$29) contains writing instructions for all the 2000-odd kanji required for the highest level JLPT; a dictionary which lets you search on meaning, reading (pronounciation) or a few strokes you've drawn; a fully customizable flashcard system which lets you create your own lessons and tests, and much more. Bargain!
But most of all, it's fun! I blast through a number of flashcard lessons each day for practice, and I can clearly see my kanji knowledge improving. I'd buy this again if it ever came out on the DS (hint to developers/wishful thinking).

Happy Mascots: Pipo-Kun!

Not to be outdone by the Tokyo Fire Department, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police of course also has a Happy Mascot, namely Pipo-Kun.

He has large ears, large eyes and an antenna on his head to keep alert, and a pair of strong hands to help out. Born in 1987, his name is derived from "People" and "Police".

Pipo-Kun has his very own 70s-sounding theme song, to which you can sing along here. I quite like it! All this and more can be found on his own website.

In the DS game Phoenix Wright:Ace Attorney, Pipo-Kun is parodied (repeatedly) in the last episode of the game, in which his lookalike is referred to as the Blue Badger.

Red Bean flavour KitKat

Here's something we tried last week: Azuki (sweet red bean) flavoured KitKat. The chocolate had a very faint pink colour with dark spots in it, presumably bits of red bean. Unfortunately neither of us were very convinced by the red bean taste -- it just seemed incredibly sweet. I must admit that I found the Azuki bean ice cream I had tried earlier far too sweet as well, to the point where I couldn't actually eat it.

Top marks for this lovely KitKat packaging with its gold lettering, though.

More about Azuki beans on good ol' wikipedia.

Akiba Robot Fair 2006

Earlier this month, me and a friend went to the Akiba Robot Fair in Akihabara. Akihabara is also known as "Electric Town" and is famed for its enormous electronics shops. It has also evolved into a center for geek ("otaku") culture with its many games- and anime shops, and more recently the Maid Cafés. The last time I was in Akihabara I don't think these even existed, now you are greeted by a number of maids promoting their cafés as soon as you come out of the station (on a busy Saturday at least).

The robot fair itself, located in a shiny new building behind the station, featured robot football and battle events, build-your-own-robot workshops, special demonstrations and of course a display of various robots.

Click on the images below to see the videos I took at the fair.

A creepily realistic robot woman.	Kids confuse a penguin robot.
Robot Battle: Humiliation!	A typical Robot Battle.

You can read another blog post about the Akiba Robot Fair here.

Happy Mascots: Kyuuta!

Autumn Fire Prevention Week has also brought to my attention the existence of Kyuuta, Happy Mascot of the Tokyo Fire Department. The first part of his name is derived from 1-1-9 ("ichi,ichi,kyuu"), Rescue ("Res-kyuu"), and the second part of his name comes from Tasukeru, the Japanese verb "to help".

He wears the number 119 on his chest, and his yellow antennas flash when he senses danger. How do I know all this? Why, from his own website of course! Check it out and marvel at the real-life futuristic Rainbow 5 fire-fighting tank which is equipped with a giant robotic arm!

Autumn Fire Prevention Week

Yesterday was the last day of Autumn Fire Prevention Week in Japan. The week starts annually on November 9th, as a reminder to dial 11-9 in case of a fire. The local firestation (shoubousho) was open to the public on Sunday, and since it is literally a stone's throw from our house we decided to have a look.

A number of firefighting and rescue operations were on display or being demonstrated. We saw a demonstration of a portable defibrillator which talks the user through the steps on how to use it, firemen sliding a stretcher and themselves down a rope, and a fireman abseiling down the side of a building. Children could wield (water-based) fire extinguishers and watch animations -- from what I could see, it just looked like Pokemon to me, though. We saw a young child crying its eyes out after its parents had put it in an oversized fireman's outfit, and were trying to take a picture of it.
The highlight however was the chance to be lifted up an extending crane to about 30m high (shown here about halfway up).

For me, Autumn Fire Prevention Week has done its job - I've since had a look at the website of the Tokyo Fire Department (English page) and know what to do in case of fire: run down the road to the shoubousho! Or dial 119.

Happy Mascots: Ni-tere-ching!

Japan is a densely populated country. Not just with people, but also with cute, happy mascots. Every other product, brand or institution appears to have one (or more). While most are native Japanese, European classics such as Nijntje/Miffy and Barbapappa are also licensed here to promote various products. In this series of posts (Happy Mascots) I'll regularly be showing these cute, happy, but sometimes ugly members of Japanese culture. Most perform their job extremely well and cheer me up.
First up: Ni-tere-ching! Ni-tere-ching gets his name from Nippon Terebi (television) and the sound he makes when he slaps himself on the head. He's the Happy Mascot of NTV, and slaps himself on the head between commercials in a 2-second ident. Ching!

So, how's your Japanese?

Never been better, thanks for asking! Could be better. Getting better! Not quite good enough. But I'm working on it, and will be for years to come. That much I know.

Before coming to London, I studied Japanese in my spare time on-and-off for about three years. I took some lessons with a few colleagues, bought a few books, listened to many hours of audio lessons and did exercises from the books.
Now, in addition to self-study, I go to class once a week (not enough, I'm going to take more classes). The lessons I'm following cost a whopping 300 Yen per four lessons. How much is 300 Yen? About £1.50, or €2.

I will try to give a very brief and simplified explanation as to what's involved in learning Japanese.
Disclaimer: Remember, I'm no expert on the subject!

Japanese uses three types of writing; hiragana, katakana and kanji. To be able to read a book or newspaper you need to master them all. Hiragana and katakana (together known as kana) are phonetic syllabaries, meaning each character has a unique sound. Katakana is generally used to write words which originate from other languages (mostly English), while Hiragana serves the same purpose for phonetically writing Japanese words. There are 48 basic characters in each syllabary.

Kanji is also known as Chinese characters, from which they originate, and the highest level Japanese Language Profiency Test (JLPT) requires you to know nearly 2000 kanji. Each character represents a word, but combined they can also form unique words. Memorising a kanji's meaning in your own language isn't that difficult, but knowing how to pronounce it? Hoo-boy.
You see, most kanji have several ways to pronounce it, depending on the context.
An (extreme) example: 下, meaning under, lower, bottom, etc.(!), can be pronounced as Ka, Ge, Shita, Moto, Shimo, Sa-, Kuda- or O-. I'm sure you'll understand how relieved I am whenever I come across a kanji with only one pronounciation!

Still, pronounciation of the Japanese sounds is relatively easy for myself, as the sounds used in Japanese can also be found in Dutch. Native English speakers tend to find the pronounciation more difficult at first, as they are not used to pronouncing a,i,u,e,o as "ah, ee, uuh, eh, oh".
So, if all goes well, and I keep studying, I should hopefully be able to at least speak the language at a decent level within a reasonable amount of time. As with learning any other language, building an expanding your vocabulary is the key. Wish me luck.

Reference from wikipedia: Kana, kanji, JLPT

In an upcoming post I will write about some cool technologies that make learning and understanding the Japanese language a little easier.

PS3 Launch in Japan

I suppose I should write something about the Japanese PlayStation 3 launch, seeing as I'm a games developer who's in Japan.
Of course, I didn't carry out my devilish plan to try to buy one here and double/triple my money by selling it on eBay to someone who really wants one. With some luck that could've worked, if also I had the energy to queue all night, but I consider myself too old for that kind of thing.
Having just seen an item on TV on the launch, I have no regrets. Twelve employees of the TV show were sent on a mission to buy a PS3, and began queueing 24 hours before the launch which would be at 7am on Saturday. The report showed sleeping people on the streets, sped-up shots of the queues hundreds of people long, and a manic stampede across a street and into a large shop, with security looking utterly helpless. Out of the twelve TV employees five managed to buy a PS3. A good first-hand account of the events can be found here.

First job interview in Japan

Last week I had my first job interview in Japan. I had applied online to this company and was asked to come a few days later for an interview in the late afternoon.

Never wanting to be late for anything ever, I arrived half an hour early at the station and went looking for the building. I found it soon enough, and to kill some time, walked around the block. The building was clad with a charcoal grey marble, much like the type that's used for gravestones over here. I went inside, spoke to the lady at reception and was asked to take a seat. The waiting area had a few games on display on monitors surrounded by Point of Sale material. The seats and tables were all primary colours which made the waiting area look like a kids' corner.

While waiting in the lobby I silently rehearsed my little introductory biography in Japanese, and looked at the game demos running on the TVs. Another person was called inside, and sometime later left. Another person arrived -- also an artist here for an interview? It looks like he's carrying a portfolio. Eventually my time came and I was shown to the room nearest to the lobby.

The interview itself was probably the most intimidating I'd ever been to, but thankfully also the shortest. Seven people were sat across the table, and I was simply asked to talk through some of my best work. My introduction wasn't called for, and while I talked through most of my work in English, I inserted a Japanese sentence wherever I could. Only two specific questions regarding my work were asked.

As I left, still somewhat confused by the briefness of the interview, I wondered if it had gone well. I couldn't really tell. The lack of questions could have been a good thing or a bad thing. If I heard correctly, I'll be hearing from them in about a week. I checked my watch and concluded that the interview had taken half an hour, if that.

Thinking back, I figured these 7 from across the table probably had been churning through first-interviews all day.
...
A few days later, I received the standard thank-you-for-applying-and-good-luck-to-you rejection e-mail. No matter. Read about what happened at my second first interview elsewhere in an upcoming post.

The beast with many eyes

A few weeks ago, while we were still in the lazy period (waiting for PC and Internet), my wife and I cycled to a few places of interest here in Machida. On the top of a very steep hill (which you can't possibly cycle up) is a small park where remains of prehistoric dwellings have been found. Two dwellings have been rebuilt and foundations of others were marked on the ground, plus a few signs explained what the site was all about. Interesting but not amazing. What was amazing was this caterpillar we saw crawling about just outside the park!

It was about 6cm long, and the tip of its tail whipped up and down as it crawled about. The markings on the side that look like eyes are incredibly well defined. You can see a video I took of it here.

The game's afoot.

My highest priority at the moment of course is to find a job. Here's a quick run-down of what's been happening so far:

Before coming to Japan, I had already started one application at a company that looks very attractive and where I thought my chances of me getting a job were pretty good. This company had asked me to do an art test as part of the application. It was impossible for me to do this back in London while a million things needed doing for the big move, so it had to wait until I had arrived in Japan. Thus after getting our PC in Japan, the first thing I did was the art test. It wasn't particularly difficult, as it wasn't that much different from work I had done before. I sent the two pieces off and awaited my judgment.

Next, I updated and polished my CV and digital portfolio further. At the Tokyo Games Show I met an English games recruiter who works here. I met up with him the following week, gave him a copy of my portfolio and he's now doing "his thing". To my knowledge, he has introduced me to two companies here thus far, but I've not heard anything back about those yet.

Meanwhile, my wife had started translating my CV. The CV and portfolio needed to be bilingual, because let's not try to kid ourselves that every Japanese HR person or lead artist can or wants to read a CV and portfolio in English. Translating the CV took a few days, which involved me having to explain to my wife what "Initiated improvements to the special effects technology and pipeline" exactly means, among other game-technology terms. The Japanese CV text was then copied into the portfolio (so the English portfolio's text is actually different).

From a friend and game artist who lives and works here already, I'd received a massive list of nearly every game development studio in Tokyo, including addresses. He had done the bold thing of applying to a 100+ companies from abroad in writing (in English!) a few years ago - with success! Now, I haven't sent out a hundred applications just yet - and I really don't want to. I checked the list to see which companies were still around, which (kind of) games they'd made, and how foreigner-friendly they might be. The big names and those with recruitment pages in English on their websites would be the best to start with.

With the CV and portfolio all bilingual and finally a broadband connection at home, I could upload my website for the world ( = potential Japanese employers) to see. I had a slight problem with the website's host (it's in Holland) not willing to send HTML pages encoded with Japanese characters. I found a workaround, but it makes it nearly impossible to edit my HTML, as each Japanese character is written as a five-digit number now.

Most of the big Japanese games publishers let you apply for a job directly online. You fill in an online form with pretty much the same information that's on your CV (copy-paste), answer why you want to work for them, and in my case promote my online portfolio. So far, I've been very impressed with the response times I've gotten to most of these applications. One company apologised for not replying any sooner, while I'd applied only one week before. The reply was negative, but at least I didn't have to wait long for it. Another invited me for an interview, about which you can read later.

Most companies however, from what I've seen, require hard copies (printouts) of artwork. So, for a second batch of applications I quickly put together a little booklet. We also put together a Japanese-style CV, which has a particular layout and includes a straight-faced passport photo. A plastic folder containing the Japanese-style CV, colour printouts and the CD-ROM was sent to a small number of companies. Two replies so far: one saying the selection process will take 6-8 weeks, the other an invitation for an interview! Bring it on!

Quick first post

OK, so two months after arriving in Japan I finally sit down and start writing my weblog. What's been keeping me so busy? I will try to answer that in a few upcoming posts.
First up, I'll be documenting my search for a job here. Hopefully, that won't last very long and I'll be able to just join the ranks of the many "Hey-I'm-in-Japan!"-bloggers.
Read on!