Is out too.
The chocolates must’ve been a real chore to retouch, because some things had to be shuffled so everything made sense in English. Thanks Sabrina!
Skip Beat 24
July 13th, 2011Black Butler 6
July 11th, 2011Is out as well.
Vol. 12 will be out here at the end of this month.
A quick note about Kansai-ben. Kobe, Kyoto, and Osaka all get lumped together as “Kansai”, but the Kansai-ben most often used in manga and anime is the Osaka dialect. Kobe-ben has a more western dialect mixed in with it. Because Kyoto was the capital of Japan for about 1000 years, Kyoto dialect has the language spoken in the imperial court and the language spoken in town mixed in it, and thus Kyo-kotoba has more honorific expressions, for example, making it softer than either Osaka-ben or Kobe-ben.
Pandora Hearts 6
July 10th, 2011Is out.
Vol. 15 will be out here the end of this month.
Ooharae
July 2nd, 2011On June 30, I went to a neighborhood shrine for the Ooharae. The Ooharae is held to ward off disasters and to expel sins and impurities that have accumulated in you. The Ooharae is held twice a year, on June 30 and December 30 or 31.
The Ooharae became an official function of the imperial court in 701. In these times, people did not wash their clothes every day, so you changed your clothes before the summer to prevent plagues.
So I went to the shrine and a grass ring was set up:
This grass is the type of grass that was used as roofing material. Because these grass grow vigorously, people believed that its life force held powers to ward off disasters.
To get rid of my impurities, I passed through the ring, turned left and passed through the ring again, turned right and passed through the ring again, turned left and passed through the ring again, in a figure eight.
This shrine is a relatively small one, but it celebrated its 1300th (!) anniversary in 2009.
Kamisama Kiss 3 Notes
June 26th, 2011Sidebar: Izumo
Izumo is Izumo Oyashiro Shrine in Shimane prefecture. Daikokuten is the kami enshrined there (Narukami-hime borrowed his magic mallet in Vol. 2). Izumo will eventually be appearing in the story as well.
Ryugu Palace
The kanji for ryugu mean “dragon-palace”.
White animals
Many white animals are considered holy here. White foxes are believed to bring people happiness, and most foxes at inari shrines are white. White deer are said to be familiars of kami. When horses were offered to shrines (so the kamisama there could ride them), white horses were offered. White snakes are also famous as water kami.
Asagiri and Yugiri
The kanji for Asagiri mean “morning fog”, and Yugiri is “evening fog”.
Yonomori Shrine’s Spirits of the Shrine
In the “Kikan S” magazine that Suzuki-sensei mentions in the sidebar, she mentions that the spirits of the shrine in Yonomori shrine are the yokai “Amefuri-kozo”.
It is believed that if you steal the umbrella from them and wear it yourself, it will not come off. They are also believed to make rain suddenly fall and amuse themselves by seeing humans have trouble with the sudden rain.
Kamisama Kiss 3
June 22nd, 2011Is out too.
You’ll be seeing more of Mizuki in future volumes as well.
Tale of the Waning Moon 2
June 21st, 2011Is out as well.
Volume 3 is scheduled to come out here next month.
Hoshin Engi 23
June 20th, 2011Is out already.
It took me nearly four years to translate all 23 volumes, plus roughly a year more until the all volumes were published. But now it’s all done!
Tokyo International Miniature Show
June 16th, 2011I went to this show this past weekend. About half the booths were selling dollhouse miniature items, kits, and imported books featuring dollhouses and miniatures.
Most of the other booths were selling “sweets deco” items, such as keitai straps, bag charms, and accessories. There were various workshops being held as well, and I tried my hand at creating a macaroon charm.
I got this bag charm at a booth selling Alice-motif items:
Yokohama Kitkat
June 10th, 2011I went to the Yokohama Chinatown the other day, and got this:
It’s a Yokohama-only KitKat that’s almond-jelly-flavored. Yum!
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