♪Artist of the Week・andymori

おはよう！こんにちは！こんばんわ！

Good morning! Hello! Good evening!

How is everybody this fine Friday/Saturday? ^^ If you’re doing great, that’s awesome! But if you’re down in the dumps and need a pick-me-up, well you’re in luck!

Some of you may have noticed the slight, subtle edit made to this week’s ♪Song of the Week, this is because the band I am going to introduce this week IS TOO MINDBLOWINGLY AWESOME (aka, I can’t really pick a song, so I’m gonna throw a bunch of them at you).

This band is a trio of awesomeness – vocals, guitar, bass and drums. They may look like a group of very skinny, laid-back peoples who play funky indie music, but I can assure those of you who aren’t quite into indie, that this music is indeed very very funky, meaning you should ALL listen to the next few tracks I’m gonna おすすめして (recommend) to you all!

(we’re going from laid-back to upbeat)
Number #1 is: “1984”

Reminds me of The Beatles a little…

Number #2 is: “Blue Sky/Aoisora/青い空”

Very chill song.

Number #3 is: “City Lights”

Picking up some speed with some very speedy lyrics indeed.

Number #4 is: “Bengal Tiger and Whisky”

This song is great, it will get you nodding (at least) every time, I assure you!

Bonus! (Just so we get a nice number) Number #5: “Beautiful Celebrity”

I like this one a lot, it has a really dreamy feel to it..

If I was holding an awesome party in a loft in Tokyo, these five songs would be top of my list. (And in saying that, if anyone  here reading this  owns such an awesome loft and is planning a party and decides to play these songs ;).. let me know how it goes!).

So what did you think of them? I would love to hear how you  liked them, so please drop a comment down belong!

P.S. You may have been thinking as I had, what are these lyrics about?! And so you might have hopped onto google, as I had, to do a little 検索（けんさく, research) but alas there is no translation to be found! Disappointed!!! That is exactly how I felt! So I hope to be working on some translations in the coming weeks/months ( some big exams coming up 😦 )…

じゃまた~ Everyone!

Japanese Mobile Phones ケータイ電話 ：Emoji エモジ

Welcome to the next installation of Japanese Keitai!

I would like to introduce to those who don’t know yet, emoji (also known as kaomoji)! The wonder of ’emotional characters’/EMOJI is prevalent in Japan and referred to outside of Japan as ‘smileys’ or ’emoticons’ (you know, those familiar yellow circles with various faces on it).

Now  if I think back, waay back, to my MSN messenger days I can recall collecting endless lists of emoticons that jigged around my screen and did what not. But that was just on msn, definitely not on my brick phone. Only recently did i notice iPhones start popping out their new feature of including ’emoji’ in the keyboards. But sadly they do not move. Still, Awesome! Now I can add that extra cherry on top of my txts with these tiny faces and objects, because we all know how lame and unexciting plain old txts are.

Anyhow if we glance over now to Japan we may discover, oh but hang on, it appears they had this going before iPhones were even born!
Amongst the big three companies AU by KDDI, Docomo NTT and Softbank, each has their own special list of emoji. Complicating matters further, this means that if an AU user sent a ♪ emoji to their Softbank friend, it may turn out in a different color or something. Thus, this creates a big dilemma for many Japanese high school students choosing their new keitai. Anyhow. Not important.

Though Japan’s emoji may not have as much minuscule detail as that of iPhone’s, they have a remarkably extensive variety to choose from, despite being quite quite simple.  Check out below, Japan’s top 10 most used emoji in txt msgs!

I find it hilarious that the cat beat beer in the top 10. Do cats seriously turn up more than beer in Japanese conversations? After all Japan seems to love their beer, indicated by the mass of beer CMs…

Apparently this is how to enjoy beer (if you’re of age!)

Oh and I love these ‘All-free Suntory’ beer CMs, 0% alcohol! (I know it can get a bit repetitive after two)

More!!

and yet there’s still more!!!!

…oh but then again I guess there’s nyancat..

But I digress. Back to emoji. Now if you’re sad that you don’t have an iPhone, or that your friends can’t receive your iPhone emoji, then you can always resort to the good old manual smileys: Exhibit A ” 🙂 ”
But of course, the Japanese wakamono have taken it one step further to:
(●´∀｀●) or even ヾ(●´□｀●)ﾉ【ﾟ+｡･oこんにちはo･｡+ﾟ】ヾ(○´■｀○)ﾉ\\
(These may or may not turn up fully on your screens, depending on the level of awesomeness that your laptop/computer can accommodate. )
For more extreme kaomoji to share with your friends via emails or txt msgs, please make your way to KAOMOJIYA-SAN! (and credit to them for the above faces)

I guess I should close with a cat…~(=^･ω･^)/｡･:*:･ﾟ★，｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ありがとニャ!

Japanese Mobile Phones ケータイ電話 (and their CMs)

I remember back in the pre-iPhone days when I had a brick phone, I would notice that Japan had all these awesome phones. These days (even when my brick phone is now only used for one purpose: throwing at people – it is a brick after all) Japan is still popping out these amazing phones that we, in the West, have probably not even dreamt of yet.

Exhibit A: Sharp’s Solar Waterproof Phone

And that was back in 2009!

Big brands including AU, Softbank, Docomo NTT dominate the ケータイmarket today. And like with any other marketable product in Japan, many of the CMs they broadcast are complemented by the presence of idols, actors/actresses, singers, celebrities, sports stars. Here are some of my personal favourites:

♫Song of the week: “君へのラブソング〜１０年先も〜” by Matsushita Yuuya (松下優也)

This week (sorry I missed out on last week’s!) the spotlight is on Matsushita Yuuya’s song, “君へのラブソング〜１０年先も〜” (“Love Song To You ~ Even after 10 years ~”).

<video updated soon, hang in there!>

This song is still pretty fresh! It came out exactly three months ago in January. I recall hearing it somewhere on the internet when it first came out, and heard it again last week when I was at Daiso! (yes that is where I get my music from) It’s a nice break from all the techno-supersonic-pop that seems to be all the rage these days, and best of all it’s a sappy love song! The music video is quite interesting to watch too, Yuuya seems to have hand gestures to match all his lyrics!

The best part of this song is the actual lyrics being sung, so I tried to translate them for y’all, check it out below!

Crème Brûlée・クレーム ブリュレ

お久しぶりですね＾＾
Hi everyone! :> It’s been a while!

Today I’ll be sharing a recipe I found on Crème Brûlée (down…), the French dessert, but with a Japanese take on it. This is for all you Amélie fans out there.

オススメ：Lang-8 – Don’t fear mistakes!

Hi everybody!

I’d like to recommend a website to everyone today to help you with your Japanese (or actually any other language) studies. The website is www.lang-8.com. I’ve been using it for… maybe half a year now? And i’m really loving it!

Since their last renovation they’ve added a few nice features here and there, so it’s even easier to use now! Oh and it’s free!

Now I can hear you all calling out: “But what is it?” Good question.
Well, it’s

♫Song of the week: “A.ri.ga.tou” by CNBLUE

It didn’t come out just last week, but it was released by Korean band CNBLUE (シーエヌブルー), a little more than two years ago. This is what I love listening to in Japan, hands down. Yes it is my ‘shinkansen’ 新幹線 (‘bullet train’) song. “A.ri.ga.tou”, from their ThankU album is a Japanese-sung song, and the lyrics are quite meaningful.

A great way to pick up new words in Japanese (as a matter of fact, any other language actually) is through music.
Here are the lyrics or ‘kashi‘ (歌詞):