blueoceanwalk

Many people say Eromanga Sensei is the best anime in this spring season. "Eromanga Sensei" is a very impressive title for Japanese people, it means "Mr. Sexual Illustrator" or something.

One of the keywords of this anime is so called "hikikomori". It is a heavy theme, because it means the people who don't want to communicate with other people especially with their family members, and many cases  they wouldn't get out of their room.

The hero, Masamune Izumi, is a high school student, but he is a light novel writer.He has a sister in-law, but she is a hikikomori.

One day, Masamune notices that his sister is the Eromanga Sensei who has been painted the illustrations for Masamune's novels! It is very cute that his sister, Sagiri, always says, "I don't know Eromanga Sensei who has such an embarrasing name!", when she is called by the name.

There are other junior high school students who are also light novel writers, Elf Yamada and Muramasa Senju. The anime becomes a chaotic love comedy!

Someone says this anime is a hyper version of "Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wakeganai."(My sister is never cute like that!)

I bought a song entitled "Heikousen (Parallel Lines)" by Sayuri on the iTune Store. Firstly, I was surprised by her powerful breathing! She is called "Sanketsu Shojo(Oxygen Deficiency Girl). I realized that she is called this because she breaths as if she were drowning.

"Heikousen" is the ending song of an anime titled "Kuzu no Honkai"(long-cherished ambitions of scum). The story is complex love triangles of heroines and heroes.

The summary of the lyrics of Heikousen: If I could fly over the solar system, the parallel lines would cross over. I am dreaming it, but it never happens. Of course, this is about the feelings of the heroine.

Come to think of it, someone said that the kind of breathing done while swimming is the same as the kind of breathing done while singing.

I posted an article "Is Wa（は) Always The "Topic Marker" in Japanese Grammar?" last year. "Topic" in the Japanese grammar is popular in Japanese learners, but almost Japanese speakers don't know the word. As I mentioned the last post, a Japanese linguistics scholar,Akira Mikami, advocated this keyword and it has been famous in Japanese researchers and learners.

I recaptured how I have learned it in my school days. The Japanese text books said that Japanese sentences are made of "shugo"(subject) and "jutsugo". I found a good translation in English for "jutsugo". It is "verb phrase".

Japanese and English also have noun phrases, adjactive phrases, and adverb phrases. English doesn't have "verb phrases".However, Japanese has "verb phrases"!

So, the famous sentence exampled by Akira Mikami is analized like this - 象は鼻が長い Zou wa hana ga nagai - Elephants have long trunks. Zou wa [verb phrase] - verb phrase=hana ga nagai.

X wa Y ga Z.

This sentence format is very common in Japanese.

今日は天気がいい Kyou wa tenki ga ii - It is fine today. 彼女は髪が長い Kanojo wa kami ga nagai - She has long hair. 私はテレビが見たい Watashi wa telebi ga mitai - I want to watch television.

The grammar is very different in these cases, so when they are translated literally, they sound very weird vice versa.

それはよい、今日。 彼女は長い髪を持っている。 私はテレビを見る欲しい。

"Bandori!" is an anime about high school students who are members of a girls' rock band. I think that the anime is more like Love Live! than it is the anime K-ON! which is also about a rock band. The main character, Kasumi Toyama, is like Honoka Kosaka in Love Live!, Chika Takami in Love Live! Sunshine, who is a very positive and cheerful girl.

There has been 4 episodes. One of the impactful scenes for me is when a talented person is a rock musician or an artist who can sing and play  even if he or she has no techniques for singing or playing instruments.

The voice actors of Bang Dream are also the members of the rock group that has the same name, Poppin' Party, in the anime. I wonder why they decided to use "poppin'" for the band name. Because it is a genre of dances. I will be able to know it in the following episodes.