Hissatsu Kung Fu: Kanji Dragon Review

Nobody would ever make a kanji game based on old Chinese martial arts flicks, right? WRONG. Success has done just that, and provided it with high production values and loads of educational value. Hissatsu Kung Fu: Kanji Dragon (必殺カンフー　漢字ドラゴン) for the Nintendo DS has everything it takes to make a great game and an excellent learning experience.

You take on the roll of Po, a lazy martial artist who'd rather slack off than practice forms. Everything changes when a group of men dressed in black attack your father's dojo searching for a secret scroll. With your father unable to stand up to the competition, it falls on Po to seek out a way to defeat the mysterious menace.

The battle system is very simple and spread across multiple stages. In the most basic format, enemies will approach you with a kanji written above them. You've got to write out the reading for the kanji in hiragana. If you take too long or write it incorrectly, you'll take damage. But if you are correct, you'll topple your foes one by one! If you played Kanji no Wataridori, this mode should be familiar.

Kanji dragon offers several other modes, as well. In fearsome one-on-one battles, you'll have to write kanji to match the reading displayed on screen. These problems can sometimes be quite difficult and will really test your mettle. Even if you get a kanji wrong, the correct answer will be displayed so you can study up for next time!

There are also battles where you have to select the synonym (類義語) or antonym (対義語) for kanji. In others, you'll have to choose between two kanji which is the appropriate one in that situation. There is also an exciting stage using radicals.

The game plays very smoothly, mostly due to the excellent input recognition. The system is excellent at properly reading the hiragana or kanji that you write in, so you won't be tearing your hair out every time it turns your ら into an う or your 右 into 石. Success has come a long way with their technology here, and I can't wait to see how much they advance in their next title!

The game uses an attractive 3D background and 2D character style that captures the theme of the game perfectly. I would have liked to see them work with the backgrounds a little more and maybe even experimented with different viewpoints, but it's not really anything I can complain about. The music is also fantastic, and with a martial arts movie feel. It's a big boost to your motivation when the graphics and music push you along, and the game delivers big in this department.

As for the difficulty level, this one is fairly high level. Similarly to Kanji no Wataridori, you may want to avoid this game if you don't already have a good knowledge of kanji. This game is much more focused on review rather than teaching new material. You need to know well over 1000 kanji to play on Easy, and the Hard mode will make any native Japanese speaker's head spin. The game is not for the light-hearted.

I give Hissatsu Kung Fu: Kanji Dragon a definite recommendation. This is one of the best games out there now for reviewing your kanji. If you have advanced reading and writing skills, you should pick this title up immediately. You won't regret it.

6/10/2007 Kanji Kentei Results Available Online!

Anybody who sat the Kanji Kentei on June 10th can view their results online here.

Click on 公開会場（個人受験者）用, then enter the necessary information on the next screen. You can only find out whether you passed or failed, and certificates will not be mailed out until July.

The results went online at 10:00am on June 28th.

I passed ３級, so I am in quite good spirits today.
(Here is an example of a ３級 test.)

If anybody else out there took the test on the 10th, let us know how you did!

Tsugawa Method DS Hits Shelves

Today ERTAIN released まる書いてドンドン覚える驚異のつがわ式漢字記憶術 aka まるかいてどんどんおぼえるきょういのつがわしきかんじきおくじゅつ aka Tsugawa Method DS to kanji-loving DS users across Japan! The software features Professor Hiroyoshi Tsugawa's (津川博義) kanji learning methodology.

His technique is very simple. All you have to do is take a kanji that you have troubling remembering and circle the trickiest part of it. After spending a little time concentrating on the trouble zone or writing it out, he guarantees you'll learn the kanji by heart!


To celebrate the software's release, an event was held on June 26th at the AKB48 Theater on the 8th floor of the Akihabara Don Quijote. Some lovely girls from AKB48, pictured above and dressed in school uniforms, performed a classroom skit with Sayaka Akimoto playing teacher. As the rowdy students attempted to cheat after being challenged to write some difficult kanji, Professor Tsugawa came on to the scene and taught the girls his method, resulting in nearly perfect scores from the girls.

Personally, I would have quite a bit of trouble concentrating on kanji if I were on that stage--or even in the vicinity!

I plan to have a review of the software up soon, so stay tuned!

Akihara event info via AKIBA KEIZAI SHIMBUN

Zelda Kanji Function in Action!

Thanks to akotan from YouTube.

You can also view the movie here.

New Zelda Game Equipped for the Kanji Impaired

Nintendo's latest installment in the Zelda series has come to the Nintendo DS. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (ゼルダの伝説　夢幻の砂時計) hit shelves on June 23rd, and Link is looking better than ever.


Besides being fantastically fun and addicting, the game comes equipped with a very handy and simplistic function that makes a great kanji learning tool.

Basically, any kanji that shows up in message windows (such as when a character is talking or Link is reading a sign) can be touched using the stylus. While you're touching it, the reading will be displayed in hiragana. Very impressive, Nintendo!

Once you've got the reading, you can consult a dictionary or online resource to get the meaning. The simple act of looking up a word will help cement it in your mind. You'll also be using the word to progress in the game--instant application!

So even if you're a bit kanji impaired, I highly recommend picking up this title! You'll not only have a great time playing, you'll also be learning some excellent, new kanji.

The Tsugawa Learning Method Coming to Nintendo DS

On June 28th, yet another kanji game will be hitting the Nintendo DS. This one features the kanji learning methods of Hiroyoshi Tsugawa (津川博義) and is titled まる書いてドンドン覚える驚異の津川式漢字記憶実. That's an insane mouthful, so let's just call it Tsugawa Method DS. The game looks pretty interesting after checking out the official website, and I am looking forward to purchasing it and reviewing the title. It looks to contain not only Tsugawa's learning style, but also a few different types of tests and loads of other functions.

His methodology is fairly easy, though I'm sure I will oversimplify. All you do is take a kanji that you have trouble writing and circle the problem spot on it. For example, the website features an example of the kanji for apple, 林檎（りんご）.
Once you've circled your problem spot, you can either visualize it in your head or write it down a few times somewhere. Mr Tsugawa claims that this will help you overcome your weaknesses and write all those kanji you couldn't remember!

I had never thought of a strategy like this, but I am thinking it might work pretty well. It's usually pretty easy to remember most of a kanji since many characters are made up of the same components, but there's always a tricky spot or two that you fumble with.

I'll be picking up the game when it comes out and will report back!

You can also learn more about the Tsugawa Method at the official website.

Nihongo Kentei Has an Impressive Start

June 15th and 16th marked the first time the Nihongo Kentei (日本語検定) has been administered. The test, aimed at native speakers, evaluates the test taker's ability to use "proper" Japanese.

The test was held in approximately 320 locations across the country. The testing agency reports that over 18,500 people participated in the first exam. Test results will be sent out by mid-July.

The Nihongo Kentei will be held again on October 26th and 27th. The deadline for applications is September 21st.

Read more about the Nihongo Kentei here.

via 時事ドットコム

Obunsha Deru-Jun Kokugo DS Review

Obunsha Deru-jun Kokugo DS is an average title for anybody who wants to work on their Japanese skills. As the title implies, it focus on Kokugo and it includes mostly short drills.




The main chunk of this game is a variety of short drills. First you can select the drilling format from a few options including True/False, Fill-in-the-blank, and Guessing. Once you've selected the format, you choose the topic:

Writing Kanji
Reading Kanji
Homophones/Synonyms/Antonyms
Four-Kanji Compounds
Usage
Idioms

After you complete the quiz, you're graded on how many problems you answered correctly. The best part of this software comes in here. You can select "Review" to go over the content of the questions and study up on the meaning and usage of different parts of the language. You can also re-take the last quiz and put your new knowledge to the test.

In the options menu, it's possible to adjust the number of questions asked in each round of drilling.

The game also allows you to access the information mentioned above from the main menu by accessing a rather large set of dictionaries. These cover the topics above and allow you to look up different points that may be confusing you.

For example, you could open up the homophone dictionary and look up かえる. The entry describes the verbs 代える、換える、変える and how they are different from one another. This is definitely a handy feature.

As you progress through the drills, you can unlock two "minigames". The first is a fairly poor game where you write out kanji. The writing recognition is fairly dull, and while the stylistic representation of your writing is nice, it's often a bit inaccurate.

In the second game, you battle against a computer opponent. A question appears on the top screen such as "Select a kanji that represents a color", and you'll have to dig through a small pile of cards using the touch pen to find the correct answer. The game often tries to confuse you by putting characters like 黄 next to 横, so you have to pay close attention. If you're too slow, your opponent will snag up the card before you do. This game can be pretty fun and there are a few difficulty levels.

Overall, this title has some decent production value. The music is relaxing and the whole game is wrapped up in a historical/fantasy Japanese theme featuring a small cast of characters. The player takes on the role of a kappa if you were interested. Loading and screen changes are accompanied by quick displays of Japanese language trivia on the upper screen. These often disappear too quickly to be of much use, though.

As mentioned above, I found the game to be fairly average, so this probably isn't a "must buy". The drilling aspect left me feeling a bit empty. It seems like you spend too much time selecting answers rather than writing them out on your own, so the benefits are not as great as a more demanding game.

Obunsha Deru-Jun Kokugo DS is intended for Japanese junior high school students, so the difficulty level is pretty high from the perspective of a second language learner. I recommend this title for intermediate to advanced learners. You should probably stay away if your abilities are much below JLPT Level 2. And if you know any Japanese junior high school students, you might want to recommend it to them.

Hissatsu Kung Fu Kanji Dragon First Impressions!

I picked up Hissatsu Kung Fu Kanji Dragon (必殺カンフー　漢字ドラゴン) this afternoon and got to play it a bit. The wait was definitely worth it. This title is fantastic.

After playing it for a few minutes, it was pretty clear the game is a spiritual successor to Kanji no Wataridori. It's got a similar battle system with many of the same features found in Success's first kanji brawler.

A major complaint of Kanji no Wataridori was that its input recognition needed some work, but Success has cleaned it up with Kanji Dragon. The recognition is fantastic now, easily ranking at the top of the kanji games I have played on the Nintendo DS up until now.

There's loads of variety with the modes, too. There's stages where you have to write out the reading of kanji in hiragana, stages where you have to write kanji, and also stages where you have to select kanji with a certain radical or match characters together to form compounds.

So in short: it's good, very good.

I will try to have a full review up by the middle of next week.

I'm also hoping to have a review up of Obunsha Deru-jun Kokugo DS (旺文社　でる順　国語DS) by the end of the weekend, so check back soon!

Hideho Kindaichi and the Japanese Language

In a recent review by Shane, he brought up Professor Hideho Kindaichi, a scholar of language learning here in Japan. Professor Kindaichi was born in Tokyo in 1953 and attended Sophia University, or 上智（じょうち）大学, where he studied psychology. He continued his studies at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies where he earned his doctorate in Japanese (日本語学）.

I should probably point out here what 日本語学 is and how it differs from 国語. As many of you know, 国語（こくご） is a subject taught to Japanese students in the elementary, middle, and high school curriculum. Students learn about the Japanese language, grammar and other rules, and how to write kanji among other topics. Japanese literature is also taught in the class. It's teaching Japanese to native speakers.

日本語学, or Japanese, is slightly different in that it approaches Japanese as a (foreign) language and dissects it from that perspective. This means that somebody who studies 日本語学 will gain many of the skills necessary to teach Japanese to foreign language learners. Scholars of 日本語学 also study what makes Japanese different from other languages and what these differences mean, as well as how to teach them properly. Dr Kandaichi is one such scholar.

In addition to publishing several books, he also appears frequently on television here in Japan. He is probably most well-known for his appearances on 知るを楽しむ on NHK's 教育（きょういく）テレビ. He also makes appearances on Japonica Logos, タモリのジャポニカロゴス, and other similarly themed programs.

The reason I brought up the professor was to discuss a book I recently picked up that he authored. The title is 日本語のカタチとココロ, The Ins and Outs of Japanese (lit. The Form and Heart of Japanese). The book is available via NHK's online shop and is a collection of topics from the 知るを楽しむ television show mentioned above.

You should also be able to find this at your local bookstore by checking the NHK educational books section. This section is usually full of English, Spanish, French, and other language books for Japanese natives to study, so you may not have suspected there would be something good in there for you, too! (Check out their cooking and hobby books while you're at it!)

Here's a sampling of the table of contents:

• 外国語として見た日本語 (Japanese as a Foreign Language)
• ひらがな・カタカナ・漢字がある理由 (The Reason for Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji)
• 「ある」と「いる」にはルールがある (The Rules of ある vs いる)

As you can see, the book covers a variety of topics that are relevant to any scholar of Japanese, especially those learning Japanese as a foreign language. There is loads of trivia such as which sound (あ、か、さ、た、etc) is found at the beginning of the most words in the dictionary, to the difference between saying パンツ and meaning "pants" and saying パンツ and meaning "underwear". There is even an extremely informative section on particle usage and the nitty-gritty rules between は and が. However, since the book is targeted at native Japanese speakers, I can only recommend this to upper-intermediate and advanced learners.

One of the best things about this book is the price: 650yen (about 5 USD). You certainly can't beat that! Although it comes in a small package (135 pages), 日本語のカタチとココロ is one of the best books I have read recently on Japanese. This is an extremely worthwhile purchase that should leave you fully satisfied and a bit more knowledgeable.

Lastly, I want to mention that you should pick this book up soon. It's a June/July edition, and will likely disappear from store shelves in another month or so.

Last Preview of Hissatsu Kung Fu Kanji Dragon

With the release of Hissatsu Kung Fu Kanji Dragon (必殺カンフー　漢字ドラゴン） only a few days away, Success has released the last(?) few bits of information about their upcoming kanji kruncher.

First off, take a look at the last three characters revealed:

From left to right, we've got Bubbles, Kanji Dragon (OMG!!!), and Lee.

A final gameplay element, 和め！ has also been revealed. It looks like a way to cool down and relax with Laoshi. Should be good fun.


Also, for those of you who couldn't attend the Kanji Dragon event in Akihabara last weekend, Success is holding the same event again this coming Saturday, June 9th!!! This time it will be in Kanagawa, at Theta's Mizonokuchi shop (シータ　溝の口店）. You'll be able to try out the game and get a director's cut DVD. Purchasing the game during the event will earn you a Kanji Dragon staff t-shirt! Check it out!