After a long hiatus, I return with more questions.

Have you noticed how many (american) games come out in the next two months? Kingdom Hearts II, Tales of Legendia, Grandia III, it makes my hands tremble in excitement. . . and my wallet tremble in fear. Is there a time of year when a lot of games are released in Japan? Around Christmas or golden week maybe?

On another subject, I'm glad FFAC got a PG-13 rating. All the rumors point to a March release. I can't wait to hear an English dub. . . I can understand some of the Japanese, and the imports have subs, but it just isn't the same as English.

Finally, about the new Final Fantasy potions suntory is releasing, do you have any idea how I could get my hands on one after they come out? An American release is unlikely, but I've just got to see how it tastes. If there's no practical way to get one, would you taste one in my honor (if you're still in Japan)?

Thanks for answering,

Nick

P.S. Late congrats on your wedding.

Good to have you back. As for the gaming season, Golden Week is a HUGE season for games. It is THE holiday season in Japan, and publishers aim for it pretty well. If I'm not mistaken, Nintendogs and Jump Superstars came out around then. If not, they just did REALLY well that week. I see a fair number of games coming out on April 20. That's just a week before Golden Week, if that means anything to you.

As for dubs vs. subs, I prefer subs 100000:1. It's not just because I can understand the language, but I prefer watching things in their native language. I don't speak a lick of Chinese, but I watched Crouching Tiger and Hero in Mandarin. I also watched Run Lola Run in German. But I DO understand that some people like watching things in their own native language. So I hope you're happy with the dub work. I'm rather fond of the Japanese cast.

And finally, I will be unable to taste that Potion you seek. If you want some, I'm sure import sites will have it, and you can bet your bottom dollar someone on Ebay will auction some off. If you're willing to pay for it, you'll be able to sample all you want for a highly inflated price.

Thanks for writing!

Jordan,

Howslife? Mine's quite busy now (tomorrow another test), so this is going to be a short (or shorter one). Well, first of all thanks for answering the questions of last week. That were quite some tips! I guess I've got enough to cook and fins-outs for the next coming week! I think I'll do those okonomiyaki first. I've heard of it before, some call it pizza and some call it pancakes. Whatever it is, it looks yummy!

Talking about pancakes, strangely and funny enough, the pack I'm using is called "Hot Cakes", so my little sister was right (without knowing though!). You haven't answered my question yet if you're willing to translate (just a rough one) the back of it (when I send a picture). Or maybe you could give the characters for eggs, milk, butter, flour, water and some other kind of stuff, so I at least can know the ingredients! Please?

Oh, what do you recommend as toppings for your pancakes, except for strawberries (what you told last time). I always eat it with powdered sugar and always found it weird to eat them with cheese or bacon or something.

As for the mail of John Guffey, I've also got a question about the "darker" side of Japan. For some reason it seems it's a culture where you can get stressed easily. From what I've seen and noticed from documentaries and movies, it's seems that a lot is about to perform well and perform all the time (even from a young age on). Like the school system and the honor system. Well, I could be wrong, but do you notice that a lot - that people seems (a bit) stressed out? Well, I could be wrong, so you correct me if I am! Maybe it's also other reasons, as Japan has quite a history behind it.

But I guess a lot of countries seem quite cool when you're not living there. Every country has it's negative sides...

Oh! I'm wondering for quite some time, but keep forgetting, what is the relation between you and Adrienne Beck? If she translates, what's left to do except for putting it online and adding pictures in a webpage format? Or am I missing something, like you adding or changing stuff or something? Or do you only get a rough translation?

And something I've been wanting to ask: what do you think of my quote/signature? You put it up everytime, but I have no idea whether you like it or not. But I do ask everybody I know what they think the meaning is. Even though it's not that hard, I've gotten quite different interpretations! (not to hijack your column with non-Japanese related stuff, but I was just curious!)

Well, that's it I guess. I'm going to start studying again. Thanks again!

Douggie

PS. DO you have a bento box? And oh, what are bento stores?

"We all know that birds fly, but now can you tell me where they are actually flying to??"

As usual, you have lots of questions and made it barely on time. Luckily I don't have much media to do today, or this would make me late on getting the column out the door. If possible, try to get emails in by monday night.

As for the pancakes, I put lots of things IN my pancakes. They are not merely toppings. For lighter things, I stir them in the batter, but heavier things I drop in the pancake right after putting the batter in my frying pan. Some of my favorites include: chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, kurumi (like a walnut), bananas, apples, raisins, cherries, blueberries, and cinnamon. Sometimes I'll combine several of those at once. I usually combine apples with cinnamon, and I'd have tossed raisins in there if I could have. Pretty much, my pancakes are almost half filler ingredient, and they're always a lot better for it. Also, I can be 99% sure that ingredient you don't know about is oil. It's key for making them light and fluffy.

As for okonomiyaki, I suppose it does resemble a pizza, but it's more like a pancake in its cooking. Pizza is a doughy bread that you bake with toppings on top. Okonomiyaki come from batter grilled on a griddle, although both potentially have meat and cheeses on them.

It's interesting you'd mention that particular dark side of Japan. The pressure to do well is EVERYWHERE. In America, I go to kindergarten, then go through regular elementary, middle school, and finally high school. Then I apply to college. In Japan, you apply for every school. Kids have to apply to get into certain pre-schools. If they do, they can get into a good elementary. This sets them up for a good middle school, and that in turn gets them into a good high school. If a student doesn't pass the test for their school of choice, and yes, there ARE tests to get into good elementariness and even pre-schools, they must try again at they the next opportunity. This leads extremely young children to feel very stressed to succeed with mothers pushing them as hard as they can. Should kids feel like they've done something wrong, they DO cry because they feel like they've let their parents down. These kids stay stressed out pretty much until they get to high school.

Then you have the matter of juku, the cram schools. These are test-prep schools that teach how to pass the entrance exams for various levels of school. Originally, they were a leg up for people that took them. Now they are a multibillion dollar industry because EVERYONE does it. Now it is a leg down if you DON'T go to juku. You literally have to go to be competitive. The Japanese government realizes they have created a monster, but they are powerless to stop it. Juku make a lot of money, and people have become addicted and reliant upon them. In my opinion, the ones that lose are the Japanese. They must pay around 1000 dollars or more per year per child, and the children lose that much more of their childhood. It's really sad, but it's not all bad. The kids do make friends at juku, but they have little time between school, juku, piano lessons, dance lessons, English lessons, calligraphy, and every other lesson their mothers can put them through to make them 'well-rounded' people.

As for me and Adrienne Beck, she translates most of what goes in my column. She's far better at translating than I am, so I mainly use what she sends me. But this is not always the case. Sometimes I will find a story and translate it myself, and not all stories come from her. The truth is, without her, this column would be a LOT harder to do. What does that leave for me? Well, I have to type the stories. I know that seems easy, but really it can take a long time. I don't just copy and paste her stories, I take them and then put them into my own words when I can. It can take a while, too; this email alone is pushing 30 minutes. I also have to format it for HTML, add in the media, do the Dengeki rankings, do the Culture Corner, proof, upload, and post. It's harder than it looks, but it's made doable by Adrienne's help.

Bento shops are kind of like fast food shops, but they sell boxed lunches. For 500 yen or less, you can get rice, some kind of meat, and usually a tiny salad. It'll all come out hot and on a plastic tray. They even toss in a pair of chop sticks, so you can eat it as soon as you get it. I generally either get ton katsu, omuraisu, curry, or some other daily special bento. It varies from day to day. Also, I do have a bento box, but I don't use it. It's too small for me; I eat a bit more than the average Japanese. Rather than carry two or more, I just go to bento shops and get what I need, but my wife has one. I think she uses it, too.

Finally, I've never really thought about your sig. I just post it because it's there. I suppose it means exactly what it says. Everything is moving and going places, but we really don't know where anything is going. We just know there's some sort of grand scheme in place, but as to what it is, we can only watch. Dunno. I'm not sure if that's close or not. To be honest, I figured you just liked the quote. I post it because it's always there. Most people don't have sigs, but you always do.

At any rate, thanks for the email again. I can always count on you, but try to send it in earlier next week. I can get pressed for time, and this makes it harder to make it out on time.