aloe, dream

I find it interesting that this is the first time I’ve embarked upon this portion of the anime world; by that I mean seasonal affairs. I’ve not been one in my few years of watching anime to keep up with weekly releases of the new digs. There are sweets and bitters to this habit, but I don’t find it tidious to keep up with 7-9 or however many shows week to week (except of course if one was to fall behind a couple weeks O_O). Truthfully, I find it much more difficult to pace with an entire series en totale. So why the hell does this matter, well seasonal weekly releases are going to air no matter what, but they do not always get subbed, and so lies the grey area of watching raws [when not of native speaking level].

First, I have to say that it would be almost entirely pointless to watch raws for myself to view raws of say Kanon (the new one). The subs are strong scheduled and come out almost like clockwork, but the times still suit a mix of series which are anticipated, but just dont get attention (link). Now I’m going to try and keep this simple, because it is really a simple philosophy to RAW-watching mayheim. Let’s take it to level zero, someone who is very unfamiliar even with the six most-used phrases in Japanese animation (I actually don’t have that list, but it would probably be greetings, table manners, over-used nouns and adjectives *coughかわいいcough*, etc) anyway, if I were there I wouldn’t want to watch raws, at all! Now wherever I am, somewhere in the midst of grabbing the language structure, very slight vocabulary, low level of kanji/radicals, but understand more common phrases, and conclusive when I understand certain words that I can subtract from a sentence of unfamilar words and then can hopefully break them up and try to remember if I’ve heard them before (and somewhere conclude meaning). Alright, that last step may or may not occur, because it isn’t a conscious thing, it is less than a moment of trying to link something. This I believe is something necessary when trying to understand another language, in fact, it is most likely reflex to simply creating a need to understand/decode sounds.

Okay, where was I? Yes, Japanese can be complicated, and it gets more complicated in understanding, when peculiar words are being used in a series. This would usually occur in technical-type series involving science-fiction, physics (which the only word I actually grasp is ‘でんかい’), or any other technobabel that may be over-present in every single episode. Noein comes to mind, but I can’t exactly recall any of the terms I wouldn’t recognize. Remembering unrecognized/unprioritized objects is difficult, sorry. Now if we are talking a school-harem or similar, then there is ton of reused terms and phrases. Also, one advantage of a non-native speaker attempting to watch anime when grasping 50% or less of the dialog is the actual animation (images). Images and objects in the scenes definitely help with assigning meaning to the sounds, this is good.

So what raws qualify for myself? When I began this season the few shows I started viewing in-the-raw were Asatte no Houkou, Tokimeki Memorial, and Code Geass. That’s not much, but I don’t want to rewatch 8 episodes a week for stuff that I may not enjoy. Code Geass and Asatte no Houkou are worth it, and I haven’t found any lack of enthusiasm when wathcing the subs. Also, I find it good to see small conclusions in meaning be positively reinforced when reading English translation. It is all good, though, Geass definitely has picked subspeed seeing as two-3 awesome groups are on the job [and it is a very intriguing situation with highly appealing characters *sweats for C.C.*]. So, I may be leaving the Geass raws aside if there is a slight span between air and sub. Tokimeki, expect a ‘meh’ here, but episode 7 reconsolidated me a tad, and I now understand the reasoning of building the Inukai character seeing that Aoba has someone on the ground to actually consult with (sorry piro-piro Hyoko doesn’t always cut it). Anyway, I can take Tokimeki raws, and Asatte no Houkou speaks for itself. It has usually brief and sweet dialogs oozing with complexity and emotion; some of the first episodes had some large spans of scenery without dialog. Also, Asatte does well its backgrounds and character designs, so focusing on animation and dialog is soothing (I’ll have to update about why its soothing, has to do with the time of day also).

Am I doing this just because it is anime? Definitely not, in fact, I’ve commented (link) that one major pull, for myself, into anime is Japan. And lately there has been a serious-type question of “If you could live in Japan permanently, would you trade your anime/manga experiencing rights?” For some that’s just a no brainer, but … I love Japan, and its tough. So my reasoning for raws is not entirely anime-based, it is more language/culture based. Subtitles are nice, but the training wheels need to come off sometimes. Sadly, there are very few places which I can take courses on Japanese in Central Florida, USA (there is even a petition about it), but I do like to take time to study and hopefully meet proficiency requirements one day. The kicker is that raw anime (or movies/tv) can help in the listening and introduction to less common but still popular vocab and phrases. Attempting to link these together with subs is just something I cannot do; romaji is hard enough to bypass when listening.

Alright, my rant is almost over, so I’ll recap my standards for watching raws:

• subs are (s)lacking
• series is personally worth the time
• dialog is not overly techinical

That’s it, Yaay!

Ryan A