Anime Review: Carol & Tuesday (キャロル＆チューズデイ)

Shin’ichiro Watanabe (渡辺 信一郎) is a director is most known for his classic anime Cowboy Bebop (カウボーイビバップ), which is definitely one of my top ten favorites. He also did Samurai Champloo (サムライチャンプルー), another of my favorites. Both of these are great not just because their stories and characters, but their wonderful music. Recently I heard… Read More »

Japanese literature release: “A Brute’s Love” by Edogawa Rampo (bilingual reader)

Edogawa Rampo（江戸川乱歩） is an author who took influence from Western culture and went on to make a huge impact in classic Japanese literature, especially in the genres of mystery and thriller fiction.  Back in 2021 I published The Masquerade Ball (覆面の舞踏者), a story by Rampo about a mysterious party that is, considering the spectrum of… Read More »

Japanese word origins: the strange tale of three “hashi” (Bridge, chopsticks, edge)

If you’ve studied Japanese for any amount of time, you’ve probably noticed that Japanese has many homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings. Generally you can tell them apart from context (and there are also differences in intonation to help differentiate depending on the region, as well as kanji representation),… Read More »