Recommendation - CHRONICLES OF BARUSAK: RIKU THE RIGHT WING AND ROOK OF THE SILVERWHITE

(バルサック戦記　-片翼のリクと白銀のルーク)

(Old title: 片翼のリク 　‐退魔師の一族だけど、魔王軍に就職しました‐)

Author: 寺町　朱穂

Synopsis:

Riku Barusak is a character that was originally supposed to become a harem member of the main character in the world of a certain harem game. But ten years before the start of the game, instead of following the  course of events that was meant to happen, despite her innate superious physical strength, she ended up thrown away by her family because of her lack of talent as an spiritualist. At that moment, destiny strayed from its defined path; the gears of fate had broken.

Abandoned, the only ones that extended a hand to her were the demons, the greatest enemies of the human race. Serving under them as a disciplined guard dog, she became a weapon of human slaughter, becoming the fiend that shouldn´t have ever existed.

 https://starrydawntranslations.wordpress.com/katahane/

A Collection of Japanese Anime

Go watch some anime, says Minori Hatsune.

Just a list of Japanese anime to watch at leisure. I'm not saying all of these are good but I did bookmark them for future watching sessions.

Cannot yet recommend (haven't watched):

Alice & Zoroku
https://www.crunchyroll.com/alice-zoroku

Boogiepop and Others
https://www.crunchyroll.com/boogiepop-and-others

Bynhildr in the Darkness
https://www.crunchyroll.com/brynhildr-in-the-darkness

A Certain Magical Index
https://www.crunchyroll.com/a-certain-magical-index

A Certain Scientific Railgun
https://www.crunchyroll.com/a-certain-scientific-railgun

The Garden of Sinners
https://www.crunchyroll.com/the-garden-of-sinners

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens
https://www.crunchyroll.com/hakata-tonkotsu-ramens

To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts
https://www.crunchyroll.com/to-the-abandoned-sacred-beasts

Recommended:

Alderamin on the Sky
https://www.crunchyroll.com/alderamin-on-the-sky

Dr. Stone
https://www.crunchyroll.com/dr-stone

Flowers of Evil
https://www.crunchyroll.com/flowers-of-evil

The Promised Neverland
https://www.crunchyroll.com/the-promised-neverland

Learning Japanese

I have been recently teaching myself Japanese. So far, it has been a slow journey. There are several common methods of learning a language. For me, I have taken the approach of these:

1. Reading books
2. Writing
3. Watching Youtube
4. Watching anime
5. Watching TV series

Yes, there is clearly a lot of watching. Since I don't know any Japanese personally, the way to improve oral understanding is through watching. Several people I know have learned a language from just watching TV shows in that respective language. Now, there has to be an intentional effort though. For instance, I have watched Japanese anime for years and have barely learned a lick. This is because I barely paid attention to what the characters said; I was purely focused on the entertainment and the English subtitles.

Here are a few sites where one can watch anime or jdramas:

https://www.viki.com/
https://www.crunchyroll.com/

Politics: Shoot Japanese Devils Game

I heard recently that the Chinese newspaper People's Daily recently put up an online video game where the player shoots Japanese "devils", world war war criminals. Worsening relationships between the two countries have made it perfectly legal to throw the anger at Japanese. "Japanese devil" is a common racial slur for China's regional rivals. The game marked the same day as the Chinese government approved two national days, September 3 to mark Japan's defeat in World War II and December 13 to commemorate the victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, where six weeks of slaughter ensued on the wartime capital of China and ultimately culminated in over 200,000 casualties.

Both my parents attended university in Nanjing and my parents have many friends and some relatives there. My feeling about this is that neither country should stir up angry popular sentiment like this. The Japanese should stop paying respects to war criminals at the Yasukuni shrine where 14 class A war criminals are honored. Mutual respect requires both sides to own up to history and not continually bring up the past to assault the other.

If you're curious, the game can be found here. The game is all in Chinese.