Tag Archives: romance

Japanese novel translation: “Welcome to the Raindance Cafe” Chapter 2: Waging War (Part 2)

This is Chapter 2 of the novel “Welcome to the Raindance Cafe” by Yama Yamasaki (山崎山). I’ve talked to the author and gotten his permission to translate and put it on my blog. The story’s original table of contents and summary can be seen in Japanese here. You can see the original Chapter 2 in Japanese here. As… Read More »

Japanese novel translation: “Welcome to the Raindance Cafe” Chapter 1: Waging War (Part 1)

This is Chapter 1 of the novel “Welcome to the Raindance Cafe” by Yama Yamasaki (山崎山). I’ve talked to the author and gotten his permission to translate and put it on my blog. The story’s original table of contents and summary can be seen in Japanese here. You can see the original Chapter 1 in Japanese here. As usual,… Read More »

Japanese novel translation: “Welcome to the Raindance Cafe” Summary and Prologue

I’ve decided to start translating the novel “Welcome to the Raindance Cafe” (original title “パーセント・エイジ 〜カフェ、レインダンスへようこそ!〜”)  by Yama Yamasaki (山崎山). I’ve talked to the author and gotten his permission to translate and put it on my blog. This post will cover the summary and the prologue. The story’s original table of contents and summary can… Read More »

Japanese movie review: “百瀬、こっちを向いて” (My pretend girlfriend)

I’ve seen my share of Japanese movies, especially romances. There are those with dramatic tragic settings (like a fatal heart condition,etc.), or those with a fantasy element, but what most of these movies share in common is they usually extremely unrealistic. What I loved about “My pretend girlfriend”, released in 2014 by Suurkiitos, is that it… Read More »

Japanese movie review: 陽だまりの彼女 (The girl in the sun)

This time I’d like to review a movie I just finished watching, “陽だまりの彼女”, which I would categorize as an offbeat romance. To start off with a linguistic note, the word 陽だまり is a little tricky to translate to English because there really isn’t a good match, at least using a single word. Here 陽 (hi) means… Read More »