Liner notes: Chapter One
Tsurezuregusa is a collection of essays from the Kamakura Era of Japan, believed to have been written between 1310-1334. The author is Yoshida Kenko, and it contains two essays, "Souheki" and "Makura no Soushi", which are considered the greatest essays in the history of Japanese literature. Students probably have to read from Tsurezuregusa all through their school years, like Shakespeare for the Western World. ^^
Ever notice that in anime and manga, whenever a student is in trouble, they have to hold a bucket full of water while they stand out in the hall? You see this in Ranma, Sailor Moon, Hime-chan, Touch, etc etc etc. Since it appears so often in their stories, it stands to reason that real-life Japanese students have to do this as well, ne??? I wonder if this would have worked on all those annoying troublemakers that were in my school classes. ><
Short explanation: a Chinese character. Long explanation: Japan's written language has its roots in Chinese. Long before modern Japan, monks who traveled to China brought the Chinese writing system to Japan. This writing system consisted entirely of "kanji", which are those fancy symbols you see all over the place in Chinese and Japanese writing. Each symbol can be thought of as a pictograph, and represents a thing or idea. Over time, the Chinese kanji were slowly adapted to Japanese use. They were often simplified, their pronunication changed, and their meanings slightly altered. It is because of their Chinese origins that almost all Kanji have two different readings, or pununciations. One is the "On" reading. This is the reading taken from the original Chinese. The other is the "Kun" reading, which is entirely Japanese. Again, these two readings MEAN the same thing, they are just pronounced differently. One Kanji can have over 5 different readings, depending on the context of the sentence, and the nuance desired by the author. To further complicate matters, written Japanese does not consist entirely of Kanji, but contains the much more simple characters, known as Hiragana and Katakana, or just "kana" for short. These characters are NOT pictographs, they have no meaning alone. Instead, like our own alphabet, they are used for pronuncation. But unlike our alphabet, they can be either their own words, or modify a Kanji. (By modify, I mean that a word is created by combinging Kanji and Kana, with the Kana usually at the end of the word. Verbs are the best example of this. "Taberu" means to eat. The "tabe" part is written with Kanji, and "ru" in Kana. To conjugate the verb, the Kanji stays the same, but the Kana change. "Tabemasu, Tabemashita, Tabete imasu, Tabete kudasai, Tabeta, etc etc etc.) Hence, a Japanese sentence usually contains both Kanji and Kana. A sentence can NOT be written without some form of Kana, but it CAN be written without any Kanji. (In other words, if you wanted to, you could write all those different forms of "Taberu" without any Kanji at all, but just Kana. Either way works, but the first--using Kanji--is more formal.) I hope you are not confused!! Try this English example: & - this is a symbol we all know to mean "and". We know it means this because it was taught to us. In the same way, English has its own kanji. @ = at, # = number or pound, $ = dollar, % = percent, = = equals, etc etc etc. These are NOT words, they do NOT tell us how to pronounce them, but they all have meaning. So I could write an English sentence using our own Kanji: "@ the store, I bought #3 brand soap, & it was discounted by 50%, so the total amount I paid = $3.00." Or, I could write the exact same sentence without our Kanji, just in our Kana: "At the store, I bought Number Three brand soap, and it was discounted by fifty per-cent, so the total amount I paid equaled three dollars." Sugoi, ne???
Yen is the national currency of Japan, just as the dollar is for the US. 1000 yen is about a ten dollars. For a rough estimate of yen/dollar price conversions, move the decimal point in the yen amount left two places. So 1000 yen becomes $10.00. Or, 592 yen becomes $5.92. This is not a solid rule, but it gives you a good comparison. ^^
Tamahome's Shichiseishi mark is a normal Kanji used in the Japanese language. The Kun reading (see above in the Kanji liner note) is "Oni", and means devil, ogre, spirits of the dead, hobgoblins, normal goblins, you get the idea. My old fansubs use "ogre", Viz's manga translation uses "Demon", and Pioneer's commercial subtitles also use "ogre". They all work. I chose the keep the original Japanese, as we are educated fans interested in learning all the cultural details behind our beloved anime. ^^
Miaka's voice actress, Araki Kae, is also the voice of Chibi Usa, from Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon. Like Sailor Moon, Sailor Chibi Moon makes a declaration of the evils of the enemy she is about to fight, and always ends her statement of hostility with, "In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!" As an inside joke, Miaka follows the same form here.
Aja is a famous Japanese woman in professional wrestling. (Miaka, the queen of opitmism! But I sure would hate to make the girl mad!! Ghaaa!) Liner Notes for Chapter One completed 11-10-98. Last tweaked 12-1-04. |
