好きなレストラン

 私の一番好きな食べ物はタイりょうりですが、たくさんほかの食べ物も好きです。私の一番好きなタイりょうりのレストランはまたありません。今、いろいろなタイりょうりのレストランに行きます。そのレストランは今ないので、新しいレストランに食べに行きます。

だから、私の一番好きなレストランのなまえは"Takos al Pastor"。マドリードにあって、メキシコのりょうりで、よく行きました。タコスはとても安くて、おいしかったです。タコスは一つがいちユーロ半でした。お酒もとてもやすかったです。お店の人は早くて、やさしかったです。

私の写真じゃありません

そとでしょくじするのが大好きですが、高いので、あまりしません。たいてい、からい食べものにします。だから、インドのりょうりや中かのはとても好きです。新しい食べ物を食べるのは大好きです。

日本のメディア: 君の名は "Your Name"

The film is a romantic drama with comedic elements that tells a story of a boy in urban Tokyo and a girl in rural Gifu prefecture who discover that they can uncontrollably swap bodies. The movie explores the supernatural causes for this phenomenon and follows the two main characters as they struggle against this force, culminating in a major twist of an ending. 

While I have seen this movie before, rewatching it again made me remember how much I loved it the first time. The animation and music together make for an amazing viewing experience. I was even able to get my friends who do not generally watch anime to see it, and they enjoyed it just as much as I did.

I think the movie does a fantastic job at playing on the emotions of the viewer, keeping them captivated with the mystery and story, and endearing them with the characters. I really enjoyed how even after the movie had ended, the next day I was able to talk about the movie with my friends to make further observations and talk about the movie. 

I was able to recognize the difference in speech patterns between Taki (the male protagonist) and Mistuha (the female protagonist) which other characters also made note of. Additionally, there were portions of dialogue that I was able to understand without the help of the subtitles. It was interesting to see the differences in lifestyles, architecture, and speech patterns between the rural and the urban parts of Japan.

To avoid spoilers, I will just say that the ending and the themes contained within have also been explored in other anime like ReLife and Plastic Memories, but with the obvious difference of body swapping and other elements that threaten to spoil the narrative, Your Name takes an interesting take on these themes.

Foreign Language Week: Trivia Night

    This week on Wednesday, the CSLC hosted a trivia night with questions focused on different cultures, featuring a mix of pop culture, history, and geography. My team ended up being composed of some of my friends in my dorm, グリンさん, and his friends from his dorm. Our team had an extensive mix of individuals who studied different languages and cultures. In total, we had members on our team who spoke Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and German. We ended up tying three ways for first place. In the tie-breaker round, we finished in third place and won Chipotle gift cards, a prize that I am happy with. The trivia, along with my team and the international snacks, made for a fun afternoon.

日本に行ったら

 日本にいったら、たくさんことをするのがしたいです。

はじめに、いろいろなたべものをたべたいです。たとえば、トンカツはとてもおいしくて、ほんとうのをたべたいです。ラーメンやおこのみやきをたべたいです。私の日本人のともだちは大阪からきて、大阪のたこやきが大好きなので、たこやきをたべたいです。さらに、お茶が好きなので、きっさてんにいきたいです。

れきしてきなところやきれいなのをみたいです。富士山をのぼりたいです。そして、ちかくのもりであるきたいです。東京のちよだくやせんそうじをみたいです。たくさんはくぶつかんとしろをみたいです。京都のきんかくじやふしみいなりたいしゃをみたいです。

そして、みやぎのしろいしに、Zao Fox Villageがあって、キツネをなでてはいいです。

この夏は日本にいきたいです！

日本のメディア:Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

This Miyazaki film portrays a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has destroyed itself with massive superweapons called "God-Warriors" over a thousand years ago. The world is now faced with the dangers of a growing poison forest infested with huge insects that swallows up human kingdoms and wipes out their populations. Over the course of the movie, we follow the main character Nausica, a princess of a kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind. She appears to be the one character who seeks to understand the insects that dwell in the deadly poison forest, and her actions eventually save humanity. Clashing human kingdoms that only seek to annihilate or conquer in the face of impending doom from the forest complicate matters which all leads to the culmination at the end of the movie. The ending had high action with great animation, and a great soundtrack composed by Joe Hisaishi.

I really enjoyed the movie, and it instantly became my favorite Miyazaki film. I thought that the world building of the movie instantly stood out and remained one of the film's most captivating and impressive aspects. I have seen Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and My Neighbor Totoro, but I think that this movie's action, message, music, and impressive scenes all combine to make it my favorite. While it is not as whimsical as My Neighbor Totoro, or have the same levels of individual character development as Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away, I found the action and the world itself to make it stand out to me. One thing that I noticed is that although there were high levels of action, there was minimal blood shown in the movie. Despite this, many characters are killed on scene. My interpretations is that Miyazaki wanted to portray a darker movie with darker themes yet still wanted to be accessible to younger audiences without being restricted for high levels of violence.

In terms of the language being used, I noticed nuances that were not stated in the subtitles like the children of the village calling Nausica ひめねえさま which implied a stronger familial bond between the children and her compared to the subtitles simply writing "princess" or "Nausica" in its place. Additionally, I found it interesting how the word ふね was used to describe the flying machines in place of 飛行機. To me, it created an implicit comparison to the zeppelins "airships" of WWI rather than bomber-type airplanes that they seemingly resembled.