One of the problems with the Fruits Basket manga is how long it take to get to any of the really interesting stuff. I could care less about Yuki and Kyo and the rest of the boys and thier lame problems - i wanna know about Hana-chan, and Rin. I’ve had enough Tohru to last me a lifetime now. 
That said, yay for volume 9! It shouldn’t be THAT big of a deal for me - after all, i did steal all of Dom’s japanese Fruits Baskets volumes, so i have all of it already -but it is nice to be able to just read through it in english. I love Hana-chan’s backstory, and it’s nice that Takaya-san spent the time on it that she did. Yeah, yeah, Hana-chan is my fave FB character. So shoot me.
I have a stellar idea for a side story for Hana-chan. Too bad i have enough trouble finishing my own ideas. Kind of like i have some really oddball ideas for a Mahoraba side story too… i guess you can always tell your faves, and stories that you enjoy by the fact that they inspire you to do something more with them.
Last year i gave a drawing i did of Hana-chan to Daichi-san (the director of the Fruits Basket anime). Yknow, i wonder what happens to those when you give them to people. I have a large stack of drawings, sketches, paintings and other artwork that people have given me over the years, and to this date i still haven’t got around to going through it all and scanning, posting and organizing them the way i should.
At least i take better care of them than i do my own drawings.
I should get busy on my MT rant. I still have some kind of major reluctance to write them. i still don’t understand why… Kinda sucks being afraid of your own website, isn’t it?
- pirotunes: Solitaire - Fearless -
wow…i thought i was th eonly one who liked hana-chan….gawd i wish i could read jajpanese cause a friend of mine has all the japanese ones….
I wish I could read Japanese. That would’ve helped a lot when I was reading today MT comic. I love hana-chan too! I think my friend is just like her, except w/o the psychic powers.
BTW, saw you at ACEN. Loved your panel! Can’t wait to see you at Otakon. ^_^
Try google… helped a lot for me. I’m slowly starting to learn more and more Japanese words (when watching anime I have started understanding bits of sentances without looking at subs) but having huge issues with sentances since they form them differently to us.
I couldn’t translate everything Nanasawa said but
kudasai = please
so
ochitsuite kudasai yo = please calm dawn (am I right?)
and
tsukamaeta = “caught”
so guess on its own it means “got you” or “caught you”?
Having issues translating “shitsureishi” and “nigenaide” though
Oh, forgot to add that I quite like the Japanese in the strip… gives me more incentive to try to remember Japanese words (learning is easy compared to remembering for me). Will definitely have to remember kadasai…
If there’s something you don’t understand with a strip (like Japanese words), you can always stop by the Forums. Piro always starts a thread for each comic (in Story Discussions), and general questions usually get asked and answered within the first couple pages (and then debated for the rest of the thread). Dom even posted the Kanji for this one on page 4.
So, courtesy of various people who know a lot more on the subject than I do:
Panel 1: Sorry to be rude! (Translations vary widely here, but it’s a general apology/”excuse me”)
Panel 4: Please don’t run away! Please calm down already! (The first is also translated as “Please stop running away”, and the “yo” apparently indicates a slight annoyance)
Panel 7: Gotcha! (It’s literally “caught”)
I too was lost on the last two pages.
I need to get of meh lazy butt and learn more japanese. And no FAIR! I’ve only been able to read vol1 of Fruits Basket. XP Who’s Hana? >.< I love Kyo tho. Phoo! Got my pic yet? Sorry if I’m nagging. First time I’ve done something like that and I’m nervous. P: Ciao fred
What can I say? I love Japanese… I love Fruits Basket. But it kind of annoys me… FB, that is. It irritates me sometimes. I should learn Japanese… but I’m too troubled by Chinese I don’t even need that problem right now. And I want to learn Korean… so that doesn’t help either. But I’m having other problems, so it’s too late…
meh? did that post?
If not already mentioned, you should pass your idea along to the creater of Fruitbaskets. If good (an since you are more likely to be listened to) then it’s in his hands to do. You could even get a credit, or maybe do a cover or something. Collaboration I think they call it. This also doesn’t add too much to your workload.
Most japanese phrases can be googled for… there’s also a number of decent conversational Japanese articles on about.com (if you can stand the ads and popups there — use firefox).
I’ve got several writing system workbooks for hiragana and katakana. I’m using the Rosetta Stone software for formal learning and some conversational websites (also found via google). I’m going to take Japanese courses starting this fall.
Call it my mid-life crisis but I find it quite refreshing.
Some free online resources for those interested in learning Japanese:
– http://www.japanese-online.com/ : free language lessons (including audio samples, lessons on particles, and math), online dictionary and community, all rolled into one site. Registration is free, though they’re getting enough responses that soon people will have to go on a waiting list.
– http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/euc/tty/dict : This is an extremely versatile J-E-J online dictionary and the one I use primarily when my paper dictionaries are at odds. It’s capable of all kinds of searches in several word classes, including archaisms and obscure terminology.
– http://www.msu.edu/~lakejess/kanjigame.html : This online game helps teach you hiragana, katakana and kanji, allowing you to select the desired level of difficulty. Great for improving your recognition and reading skills at your own pace. If you really want to learn Japanese, I strongly recommend learning to read and write the syllabaries as soon as possible, and especially to get used to seeing them; except in a few instances, you won’t see English text in Japan, and more often than not it’ll be Engrish.
There are also several great books to learn from, but if I listed everything I had this’d become *my* blog. XD I do recommend a good kanji learner’s dictionary and books on grammar and particles so your sentences will flow smoothly and naturally. I also recommend listening to it as much as possible, preferably through online talk radio stations (instead of anime or music) so you can get used to hearing the language spoken at native speed.
I should also note that, as in the case of the most recent MT strip, when native Japanese speakers write in romanized text, they don’t put in spaces for word breaks because Japanese itself is written without them. This can become confusing in a real hurry for those non-native speakers trying to untangle the long blocks of syllables. To take Dorsk’s example, ’shitsureishimashita’ is actually two separate terms: ’shitsurei’ is a noun meaning ‘impoliteness’ and ’shimashita’ is a past tense form of the verb ’suru’ (to do). Since this was already translated, I won’t repeat it except to note that, to me, where the phrase was broken up seemed due to the size of the speech bubble (as well as the aforementioned lack of word breaks in romanization).
Yes, I’m a geek.
Hope this helps, though.
I’m probably strange then, in that its almost never my real favourite stories that inspire me to do fan works, but more the stuff that comes in second place for me.
Afraid of your own website? I try to avoid remembering that mine even exists :p .