American Gaijin

  • What in the Ever Loving @#$%

    Okay, if you’re a weeaboo or otaku, you won’t like this post. I don’t care, but you can consider this a “trigger warning” if you want. I’m not going to pull many punches on this one. Let me preface by saying one thing, before I get into my rant: I’m not too familiar with anime.…

    Read more →

  • Vtubers confuse me

    So lately, I’ve found a subset of Japanese culture called vtubers. This really wasn’t voluntary, and they confuse the snot out of me. As near as I can tell, they are different anime-like characters that are voiced and acted by real people, they have different personalities, and they stream. Like, a lot. And people seem…

    Read more →

  • Vivid

    I have few clear memories of being a child, but the ones I do have have are extremely clear. I remember the vivid pastel colors of tulips, yellow, purple, violet, and red. I remember other flowers, and how perfectly vivid and beautiful they were. There are some small yellow flowers I remember on a berm…

    Read more →

  • Rules

    I don’t like rules. I mean, I really don’t like rules. Particularly stupid rules or rules I don’t agree with. Now, I’ll be clear: not all rules are stupid, and not all rules I disagree with. “Don’t kill someone or take their stuff” is a pretty good rule. In fact, the Ten Commandments have pretty…

    Read more →

  • ReMarkable 2 Review

    A few months ago, I ordered a gadget called the “ReMarkable 2”. It is an E-Ink-based tablet that is supposed to feel and operate like paper. I received it a couple of weeks ago, and this is my review. It is nearly the size of a normal piece of 8.5×11 paper, and while not nearly…

    Read more →

  • A Change of Direction

    My last post was an eye-opener. It was the single best single-day performing post I have ever had, and I think it gained the most likes and followers of all of the posts I have ever written. And it had nothing to do with Japanese. In fact, near as I can tell, the only reason…

    Read more →

  • Why I Suck at Blogging

    A week or so ago, I decided to post on a Japanese forum an observation I made about learning Japanese. Some people agreed, some people didn’t. I expressed the opinion that I was posting in order to share an observation that I made, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t really interested in…

    Read more →

  • Biden has not yet won

    I promised that I would not make this a political blog, and I intend on keeping that promise. With the last post like this, however, I also stated that there may be one more post, depending on how the election turns out. Well, considering that most of my audience on this blog is global, there…

    Read more →

  • What Japanese has taught me about English

    I’d say this is a pretty good topic to talk about, right? There are many things about Japanese that are very different from English. Some are just what they are – they’re different, but there’s no real useful insight to be gained about my own language. The fact that Japanese is postpositional, for example. It’s…

    Read more →

  • Let It All Out

    As I have mentioned before, I was raised in a religious cult. Music was an important part of the cult, but it was treated more as a ritual than a celebration. We had our hymns which we sang (some were beautiful, some were depfressing, all were treated inexpertly), there was “special music” (which was nearly…

    Read more →

Search the blog for more articles