2007年10月19日金曜日

Good Blog

Well, I figured that maybe I should post on the subject of the week. A good blog to me has to be engaging to other readers in some way or another, and it should be informative. So I guess that means that it definitely should relate to Japanese as it is a Japanese class blog. Tips on studying, maybe some rambling on culture - and pictures. Pictures definitely make words pretty. And definitely if they're moving ones - so movies are great.

As far as specifics beyond that, I'm not sure what they should have. Blogs are typically about yourself, but it seems that it's a little harder to write a blog in relation to Japanese. Though we've all managed it thusfar.

I do like the blogs, if only because it's a better way to learn about your classmates outside of talking to them. It also helps up to realize more about everyone's position in class and helps us to support each other.

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A Kappa Explanation

I'm sure by now some people are confused as to the images I've chosen and the video clip below. The clip below, in case you can't read the rather blurred kanji, is from the anime Gensomaden Saiyuki by Kazuya Minekura. The opening isn't as full of pretty fluorishes and whatnot like the actual episodes are.

Why am I explaining this, you may ask. Well, it all has to do with the kappa nickname that I tend to use - in case you didn't figure the kappa part out by now from the signature on the left. Kappa was the term incorrectly assigned to the Saiyuki character in the original Journey to the West series, Sha Gojyo. Gojyo was a sand demon in the original Buddhist myth about a Sanzo priest traveling to India to meet the Buddha. A kappa, however, is a water demon whose favorite food is cucmbers and who carry water dishes on their heads. This is not Minekura's Gojyo, either.

Still lost? That's good - I'm not there yet. In Kazuya Minekura's version, which is far more of an action and personal discovery piece where the four main characters (five if you count Hakuryuu the dragon who can turn into a Jeep) are trying to prevent Gyumaoh, the Demon King, from being reborn, than a religious treatise (though there are a lot of philosophical aspects and debates buried within it), Sha Gojyo is actually half kappa. You can tell he's not human or demon from his red hair and red eyes. I bet now you know who he is in the clip below.

I got the nickname Kappa from Minekura-san's Gensomaden Saiyuki series, prescribed by a group of friends that seems to perpetuate it regardless of who I'm around - it's actually migrated with me past highschool. Gojyo's personality has some rugged edges, though he's really a big brother type beyond that. He's also the fair bit of a romantic, once you get past the playboy aspect. While there are plenty of differences between myself and Gojyo (mainly the whole he's a guy and I'm not aspect), the name persists.

So, longer than anyone cares, this is your kappa signing off.

Gensomaden Saiyuki