Calligraphy on their training outfits for “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid”

12/18/2017Posted inJapanese Kanji Blog
Can you read the Japanese kanji "修行"? The answer is "shugyou (shugyo/ syugyou/ syugyo)" and it means "Training". But 修行 is not regular training. It's more like an ascetic practice...just like sitting under the waterfall.(@_@) In real life, today we use that serious word for traditional craftsmen's training or monk's training and so on. Usually we don't call Karate training "修行". However, it's very popular for anime to use the word "修行" for martial art training like in samurai era. Zoro for "One Piece", Goku for "Dragon Ball", Ninjas for "Naruto"...everybody does 修行(shugyou). Even in "Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid", main character dragon girls were doing it. Meanings of Calligraphy on…

Japanese Culture at Restaurants in Japan

12/11/2017Posted inJapanese Kanji Blog
FOOD and DRINK are the highlights during Japan trips. There are a crazy amount of choices to eat in Japan but not everybody can go to fancy restaurant every night. So, where do the normal Japanese workers go for reasonable dinner and nice selections of the drink? The Answer is "Izakaya Restaurant". In Japan, "居酒屋(izakaya)" is a very common and popular place to eat dinner. It is Japanese style pub. Adults can enjoy a drink and options commonly include rice wine and reasonable small Japanese (or any kind of) dishes. Typically, there are so many izakaya restaurants around train stations in the cities for Japanese office workers, just like the…

The Japanese Joke on the Bottle for “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid”

12/06/2017Posted inJapanese Kanji Blog
"Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid(小林さんちのメイドラゴン)" is a very cute show. Does anyone want to try Tohru's tail meat?? ...She keeps saying that it's sweet and creamy...!(◎_◎;) By the way, here is one question about the show from viewer. I see some calligraphy on the green bottle that Kobayashi has. What does it say? Ah-hah! You are talking about this bottle, aren't you? Thank you very much for asking me a question! Japanese Culture behind that Green Bottle First of all, Japanese people notice this is obviously a "一升瓶(isshou-bin: 0.47 gallon-bottle)" of rice wine. 升(shou) is the measuring unit that is used to use in Japan before the metric system got adopted. Even today,…