So you’ve decided to learn Japanese to play all those otome games that haven’t been released in English (not to mention other games!). Good for you! But what games are best for beginning language learners? I get a lot of questions about learning Japanese, particularly from people who want to play otome games because so few of them are available in English. So, I decided to round up 5 otome games that I think are good for Japanese language students!
I recently discovered the wonders of eBook Japan as an alternative to Amazon Japan’s Kindle products for an easy way to get digital books and manga overseas. Unlike Amazon Japan, which requires you to jump through some hoops to access Kindle products outside Japan, eBook Japan is perfectly tailored for international customers. Plus, every week they offer a great selection of free manga (and occasionally books) that members can download for free!
Reading manga in Japanese is a great way to improve your language ability, but it can be daunting to spend money on a title when you don’t know what to expect. With eBook Japan’s free weekly manga, you can try as many titles as you like and save your wallet a lot of grief! A lot of the free weekly titles correspond to currently-airing anime, too, so you can read along as you watch your new favorite series. But if you’re not sure how to navigate a site completely in Japanese, never fear: this guide will take you though all the steps to creating an account and downloading free manga on eBook Japan!
The long wait for a new Chic Pixel Plus episode is finally over, and I think you’re all in for a treat! Following episode 3’s Japanese language and game-centric podcast, I was lucky enough to snag freelance translator Gabe Glick for a great discussion on game localization, Japanese language learning, and raising a family in Japan. If you’re at all interested in any of those things, then this podcast is for you!
A quick caveat: we recorded two days before I left for Japan, so there is some brief pre-Japan talk, but it doesn’t really affect the content of the podcast as a whole. I just don’t want anyone to think they’re going nuts since I’m already back!
Time codes:
00:00:20 – Introductions
00:04:13 – Freelance translation/game localization discussion (feat. Chaos Rings, Tales of Graces f, and more!)
00:16:18 – Translation methods and difficulties
00:20:50 – Advanced Japanese language learning, JLPT
00:35:20 – Living in Japan/raising family as a foreigner
00:48:20 – My whirlwind Japan romance
00:58:53 – Character tie-in campaigns and convenience stores
01:10:36 – Closing comments
Opening ♫ – Merchant’s Song – Chaos Rings
Closing ♫ – Domino’s app feat. Hatsune Miku ad
Be sure to check out Gabe’s online portfolio for the full list of games and guides he’s worked on! He can also be contacted on Twitter, and I’m sure he’d be delighted to answer any Japanese language or localization-related questions.
I hope you enjoyed the podcast! Now that I’m back from Japan, I plan to get back to a regular bi-weekly schedule and perfect my weirdly abrupt closing comments (sorry about that!). As always, please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions you may have!
Now, this is unexpected! An episode of Chic Pixel Plus is actually up early?! No, it’s not a dream – due to the fact that episode 3 contains some pre-E3 speculation, I’ve decided to go ahead and post it a few days ahead of schedule with the hope that everyone has time to listen to it (or at least the pre-E3 portion of the discussion) before all the new announcements start rolling in. So let’s get right to it, shall we?
