JapanPowered

If you write or consider writing a novel, you’ve likely ran against the idea of the platform. This creature acts as the steed that carries the author to success if you believe the platform-oil salespersons. Email lists stand at the saddle for this steed. Honestly, it’s a lot of bunk. I’ve found the process of publishing books hard. I hate marketing. And I mean that. I despise it and seek to shut…

I love writing informative essays. I never know what goodies I will find when I set out to research for an informative essay. Informative essays involve all the gobbledygook about citations, quality of information, and copyright we’ve discussed. They also use the same writing techniques as reviews and critiques. The phrase informative essay sounds boring, but these articles should never bore the…

Citations aren’t bad. I promise. Formal and semi-formal citations are important for anime blogging. Luckily, you don’t have to have every comma and period perfect for blog citations. The main purpose of citations isn’t to protect against plagiarism. They help readers find your sources. Citation design maximizes the ability of readers, and you, to find information. Pasting links in a reference…

Adverbs add detail to verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Many grammar wonks tell us to cut adverbs unless they are necessary. I mostly agree (see what I did there?). Most –ly words are unneeded and weaken writing. Rukia said quietly. Rukia whispered. Saying something quietly is the same as whispering. Whispered is a stronger word than said. Adverbs prop up mushy words, and often they are…

Writing focuses on word selection. English overflows with words. Choosing the perfect word is fun, and it is hard. Some words are tired like awesome, cool, and fuck. They appear so often that they lost their impact. Other words are obscure and snooty: ascertain, utilize, and hitherto. They make you appear arrogant. There are two sins in writing: using boring language and using jargon. Boring…

Voice is your unique way of speaking. You use words in ways that make a verbal fingerprint. Verbal ticks like like, um, because, so are as important as how your voice sounds. The trick is writing close to how you speak. Writing has certain rules that need to be followed for clarity. Writing exactly as you speak can be confusing for readers, but grammar has room for your voice once you understand…

This article begins a week of articles that examine blogging tips and other writing information. ChatGPT and other language processing models will shift how we interact with the Internet. Such models are already being folded into search and may well replace search as the main way people seek information online. The models can produce coherent articles, but they aren’t the most accurate nor are…

More Than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers begins with a reality-TV premise. Shiori, Jiro, and Akari’s high school has implemented a couples-training practicum, which aims to have students develop their social skills by simulating heterosexual marriage. While on the surface this appears to be the usual manga-anime contrivance, as population levels decline, something similar could be enforced in…

By 2060, Japan will have a population of 86.7 million, from today’s population of 125 million (Yamaguchi, 2022). The population will also grow older. This trend has been going on since the 1970s, when experts first began to write about the decline (Date, 2007). Why is this a problem? After all, fewer people means more access to resources for each person. However, as the population declines, a…

Do It Yourself! is another cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime. In this one, the girls join a Do It Yourself Club. The main character, Serufu Yua is a complete klutz and gets hurt just walking across the street. But her heart and willingness to try and improve no- matter-how-many-bandages-she-earns inspires the other girls. The other members of the DIY club includes official and unofficial…

Bocchi the Rock! teems with experimental animation that captures the social anxiety and catastrophizing the anime’s namesake character experiences. It’s a fun ride. Bocchi the Rock! follows the members of Kessoku Band: Hitari Goto (better known by her nickname Bocchi), Nijika Ijichi, Ryo Yamada, and Ikuyo Kita. Each of the girls fall into different psychological profiles. Bocchi is a neurotic…

Raven of the Inner Palace

Raven of the Inner Palace wowed me on many levels when I gave it a watch. While the animation is stiff, especially compared to the experimental animation of Bocchi the Rock! and the lovely fluid animation of Do it Yourself!!, it is beautiful. The detailed stiffness works well with the guarded feel of the characters and the hidden layers of the characters. Raven of the Inner Palace takes place in…

Download “Tales from Old Japan” ebook for Free!

Download Tales from Old Japan for free from Amazon from Sunday, January 15 – Thursday, January 19. Tales from Old Japan collects 177 tales all in one place! Interestingly, many of the first written folktales were recorded in English before they were written in Japanese. Tales from the Old Japan frees the stories from the dated English and removes other hurdles to reading. Many of the original…

Japanese Poems about Winter

I love winter. The cold may be uncomfortable, but it is the night of the year. It calls us to stop and rest and reflect. Although, as the climate shifts, I’ve seen less of winter than I had in the past. Winter used to begin as early as late October in my hometown. Now winter as I define it–consistent cold and snow remaining on the ground for weeks–doesn’t come around until perhaps January. Most…

Looking Back on 2022

This past year was JP’s 10th. Before I started writing this blog, I struggled to see anything through. I would flit from project to project, from interest to interest, without finishing or accomplishing much. Now, I’ve been writing an article each week, at the least, for 10 years. Thanks to JP, I began to chase my childhood love for writing. I have published 9 books and have many, many more in…

The Fox’s Loneliness

This Christmas I will leave you with this short story I wrote. Merry Christmas! I shouldn’t have shown myself, Kitsune thought. Below her perch in the tree, two human kits walked toward the edge of the forest. They didn’t pay attention to her now. They had dismissed her soon after they held their strange glowing slabs toward her. The wooden slabs had somehow frozen an image of her inside them.…

Below is the first chapter from my newest book Tamamo. If you like what you read, you can buy the ebook or paperback on Amazon. The story takes place in an alternative Heian period. Here’s the blurb: Tamamo grew up in the imperial court, where the space between words mattered more than the words themselves, where battles were fought with poetry. As the favored of the Emperor Junnin, Tamamo knew…