I didn’t really realise it until recently, but kanji is an important part of learning Japanese. You’re basically illiterate if you can’t read kanji. After studying Japanese full-time for over a year, I still cannot read advertising on the train, brochures, utility bills, mobile games, web sites, Twitter posts or really anything except for Shounen Jump manga because it has furigana.
You should learn kanji as soon as possible. Ideally every word that you learn you should try to learn the kanji for as soon as you’re comfortable with its pronunciation and meaning. For me, I didn’t pay any attention to the kanji for the first 9 months until I was forced to learn it because classes started having no furigana. I did do the kanji elective but I skipped it for a term (3 months) because I thought it would be more efficient learning it by myself, but in the end I didn’t end up studying at all and it’s been an uphill battle ever since. Also the once-a-week elective isn’t enough. By the time the next class came around I’d forgotten everything I learned the previous week and in 3 months I didn’t really progress at all, other than being able to read a lot more from doing it in class.
Reading and writing are totally different and you can be able to read most of the kanji while not being able to write most of them. The reason is that when reading you can partially guess from context and partially guess by knowing the general shape of the character, but when writing, you’re forced to know every stroke. Reading is a lot more useful, however learning to write is essential because it helps you to remember the kanji and also to differentiate between kanji that look similar.
So for the first 9 months, I didn’t really think about learning kanji much because I considered myself still at beginner level (which was true), and kanji being more of an intermediate level thing. It’s not really. Maybe you can think of it this way: after learning hiragana and katakana, you don’t stop learning characters; you continue on to kanji, never stopping learning new characters. (I already knew hiragana and katakana really well before I started though so I had already stopped for several years.) Sometimes it’s best to think of kanji as just another kana, or symbols to indicate the pronunciation of words, although the meanings of the kanji will make them a lot easier to remember.
Kanji is a large part of learning Japanese, as in, it should take a significant portion of your study time, not just a side thing. If you look at the estimated number of hours of study to pass the JLPT, people who already know Chinese (I assume even simplified Chinese is included), it is about 1800-2300 hours compared to 3100-4500 hours, i.e. the workload is double for people who don’t know Chinese characters. If you have 4 hours of class a day and do 1 hour of homework, in which you learn no kanji, do you then spend the next 5 hours learning kanji? Sounds ridiculous, but some food for thought.
There are people who say learning yomikata (the correct reading of the kanji) is a difficult part of learning kanji. In my opinion, it isn’t too hard, but it seems hard because of other things happening simultaneously. To be able to correctly read the kanji, firstly, you need to be able to recognise the characters being used, and secondly, have the vocabulary for the word. Then thirdly, the actual yomikata comes into play which is knowing that those characters are the ones used for that word. Those three factors combined are what make kanji seem all the more difficult.
A lot of the time when I can’t read kanji, knowing the yomikata is useless because I don’t know the meaning of the word in the first place. People say you can figure out the meaning from the characters used, but I find that this is rarely the case. It mostly works the opposite way, in that if you know the word first, the kanji used to make up the word seem to make sense. Only people who already know the meaning of the word will say that you can work out its meaning from the kanji. Let’s take kaimono (shopping), made up of the kanji for “buy” and “things”. “Buying things”, pretty straightforward right? But that’s because you already know what it means. If you had to work it out, does it mean the act of buying things (which is a verb, not a noun anyway), or the bought things (that would be kattamono but who knows because of the way words are shortened in Japanese), or things that are to be bought (goods for sale)? Or it could even mean things that have the ability to buy, like automated shopping robots or something. That might seem like a stretch, but for other kanji, it could be something like that, and along with words with multiple characters and each kanji meaning multiple things, the possibilities increase exponentially.
My recommended way of learning kanji is Anki. Doing Anki on top of regular study might seem tough, but Anki is a long term thing and it is more efficient in the long run. Forgetting things means the time spent learning them was mostly a waste of time, and Anki is designed to counter that. Also I found that even Anki wasn’t enough to prevent forgetting so I had to tweak the intervals a bit (only do this after a few months so you get proper statistics about how often you forget cards. A good value is that you should remember about 90-95%, higher than that you might be spending too much time reviewing cards you already know, lower than that you might be spending too much time relearning cards).
You should try to get through Remembering the Kanji (RTK) within a year. That’s about 6 kanji a day. I tried 20 a day (default Anki settings) for a few weeks and got overwhelmed. Also keep in mind you will have other things to add to Anki as well, which will add to the workload. You should use Anki for things like vocab and grammar (which is best done by example sentences), not just RTK. Doing RTK will give you a solid basis for reading and writing most of the commonly used kanji, and then from there you can concentrate on yomikata and vocabulary. The reason why I would try to get RTK out of the way first (within a year) and not do it more slowly as you’re advancing (2 years) is for two reasons: RTK is not in the same order as you will learn words so you should get enough of RTK done to cover most of the words you’re learning, and secondly, so you can start relating to words in Japanese rather than the English keywords that RTK uses.
The most important thing is to do it every day. I cannot stress this enough. If you give up for a few weeks or months, it is basically useless and you might as well just have studied normally. Skipping a day is okay, two avoid it if possible, three you’re going into dangerous territory, a week it’s a serious problem, a month you’ve failed and you need to change your lifestyle and review your priorities and motivations in a big way. And remember: it will save you time in the long run.
Disclaimer: I haven’t been able to keep up with using Anki (which is why I’m having problems now) so I’m recommending things that I haven’t tried myself.
I’m sad that I broke the regularity of posts, but it wasn’t unexpected. Life is always busy and I’ve had things I wanted to post but not when you have to wake up in 6 hours. Even now, I can’t make a detailed post so I’ll try to list some the important things, but small details are important too so I guess I’ll just start writing whatever with a disclaimer that there’s a lot more that might get you into trouble or you might naturally deal with it without a hitch. The things aren’t listed in any order of importance; it’s up to you to decide.
When to Visit Japan
Japan is very seasonal. But going at the peak times will cost you a lot in airfares…
One mistake I made was visiting in Winter. Well, the skiing was awesome, and so was the Sapporo Snow Festival, but the other places were just full of dead-looking trees and yellow grass. So don’t just think “I’m going here and there because reviews were good”, because the reviews were probably at a time when it looked better. Also the sun sets early in Winter (about 4:30pm) so you don’t have many daylight hours. The lesson is: Do things that fit the season.
Spring: The cherry blossoms only bloom for a short time (about 2 weeks) so that’s a short window of opportunity. A very crowded season.
Autumn: The trees turn various shades of green, red, and yellow. You might think you’ve seen it every year in your country and people don’t even take notice, but in Japan it’s a thing. There are certain places where there are large numbers of trees that make really nice scenery. Also even if that doesn’t appeal to you, part of it is the culture and experience of going to places and seeing all the people doing that too.
Summer: Hot and humid. Very hard to walk places.
Festivals: Look up when festivals are and try to make them coincide with your trip. These are really important to make the trip enjoyable and to have a taste of the culture.
Mt Fuji: Climbing is not for the faint hearted. Prepare thoroughly and read up on it. You can only do it in Summer. You can also just go to the 5 lakes at the bottom, but I went in Winter and it was dead and deserted. FujiQ Highland is a very awesome rollercoaster park.
It’s really crowded when it’s the time for certain things, both from tourists and from Japanese.
Internet Access
Nowadays, one of the most important things is Internet access. Although you can certainly get by without it (as people did before Internet was common, and as a lot of people still do now), it makes life a lot easier. What I do is get a mobile data SIM card. The two main companies are b-mobile and eConnect. My information might be out of date so as always, do your own research. It’s a bit expensive but there aren’t many options.
Most hotels and hostels have free wifi, but wifi tends to have reception and overcrowding issues. You can get free wifi at some convenience stores and shops, but it’s inconvenient. They’re never around when you need it.
Hyperdia (mobile application)
This is really useful for train trip planning. However, don’t follow it blindly. You will find that sometimes you miss connections because you get lost or it takes longer than you expected (but it takes transfer times into account surprisingly well), or you wanted to stop off to get something to eat. Also, there will be trains that it doesn’t show. I’ve heard that sometimes there are extra trains that don’t show up, but the main point is that if there is a slower route, you won’t see it unless you set specific search parameters. Why would you want to take a slower train? Between Kyoto and Osaka, there is a Rapid train and a Local train. The local train arrives 6 minutes before the rapid train, but takes 12 minutes longer, so it arrives 6 minutes after the rapid. You usually arrive 6 minutes before the rapid train, so if you can catch the local one, you’re only losing 6 minutes. Even if it’s only 6 minutes, why lose time? Because the rapid tends to be crowded. You tend to be exhausted from travel, and especially if you’re lugging 30kg around, you don’t want to be standing for 30 minutes. Also the local would have more space for luggage. How crowded the rapid is probably varies, but every time I’ve done it, that’s been the case.
So once you become experienced at train route planning, you tend to look up each leg separately. Also one thing that surprised me was that one time, there was a 15 minute transfer time (15 minutes to walk to the next station) but I thought it was because the interval between trains was long so it was a 15 minute wait instead of a 15 minute transfer time.
Navigation
In Japan, the maps are oriented to the direction you are facing. North is not up.
Google Maps. This saves you having to stare at your train map looking like a tourist or look at the display in the train carriage (sometimes you aren’t in a position to see one, and there have been trains where there wasn’t one). Also it helps finding out of the way hostels in a back alley. Just make sure to look it up beforehand because sometimes it can be hard to get Google to find the address (type in English or Japanese?) and cross-reference it with the directions on the site (the address might not be where the place is). By the way, Japan doesn’t have street names (unless it’s a major street) so typically directions are given using landmarks (beware because there might be two of the same convenience store near each other).
Caching maps beforehand is a good idea on hotel wifi so maps load more quickly and to save data usage. I have also used screenshots as a backup since using GPS tends to use more battery, and with mobiles nowadays, battery life is always a problem.
Caution if you don’t have mobile data: There was one time where Google Maps did an update and I needed to be online to accept the new terms and conditions. I was lucky I opened the app just as I was leaving the hostel (using the hostel’s wifi) otherwise I would have been stranded not knowing how to get to a place I was going to.
Electronic devices
Bring a portable battery pack! Don’t forget the cable!
Bring/buy a travel adapter.
Bring a power splitter/multi-plug thing. You’re going to be charging several devices and you might only have one power point.
Bring a LAN cable and laptop. This is probably more for the technology-oriented, but I have been to a place that only had a wired connection. Also wired beats flaky wifi. In one hostel I could not get reception unless I stood in a certain spot. Also you can use your laptop to create a wifi hotspot to share that reliable wired connection (requires special software Virtual Router or Connectify).
Transport
The JR Pass is only available for non-residents of Japan, and you can only buy it (the “exchange voucher”) outside of Japan. When I first heard of it, it seemed really expensive. If you are taking the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto/Osaka and back, the 7-day pass should approximately break even. This means that your trip will revolve around the 7 days that the JR Pass is valid. It’s a bit hard to see many places in 7 days. It’s hard to make the 14-day pass worth it.
Choose seats at the back of a carriage on the Shinkansen for extra luggage space (behind the seats). The second best is the front of a carriage with a little extra leg room (I think). Also the very front or back of local trains are better if you’re carrying luggage because you have a wall to lean your luggage against and not be in the way.
You can avoid having to buy the JR Pass by booking your incoming/outgoing flights at each end (Tokyo and Osaka).
Trains stop at midnight. Start going home by 10pm to be safe.
Buses are cheaper than the Shinkansen but they take longer.
Itinerary/General Travel
If it’s your first time to Japan the main places to see are Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. So if you bought the JR Pass you have 7 days to get to Osaka and back. A sample trip would be 3 days in Kyoto, day trip to Nara and 2 days in Osaka. 7 days seems like a lot, but you only get a few days in each place and each day you can only do a few things.
Take into account travel time and going to and from the accommodation to drop off luggage and check in. You can waste a whole day because the morning is wasted on travel, then you go out for a bit and come back to check in. Then it’s dark and everything is closed.
You might imagine Japan as a 24 hour city (Tokyo). Things actually close at maybe 7-9pm, or as early as 4pm for some temples in Kyoto. Also ATMs close and trains stop. Some things open at maybe 10am so if you’re somewhere at 9am you might be hanging around for a while.
There’s a lot of walking. Also lugging luggage around. If you really want to make the most of the trip, consider doing some physical training prior to the trip! Also jetlag/lack of sleep can ruin your enjoyment of the trip so get plenty of sleep and consider scheduling a rest day. Also a rest day might come in handy if it happens to be raining that day.
Weather: Don’t always assume it will be a fine day!
Don’t schedule anything between accommodation places! This is easy to overlook because when you’re planning, you think “oh I might as well stop over at Nagoya because it’s on the way”. But you will have your luggage with you and you can’t do anything with 30kg of luggage. It’s possible to store it at the train station lockers, but it’s risky because there are few or no large lockers and they might be already taken.
Accommodation: I don’t know, but Japan always seems to be out of/low on accommodation. It’s always hard planning an itinerary months in advance when you haven’t even confirmed flights. Accommodation sets the core of the trip and you should try to book it as soon as you have your flight dates.
Money
People say you need cash, some say you can do a lot of things with a credit card now. I’d stay safe and use cash because you know it will always work.
ATMs: Use the post office ATMs. Only open during business hours. Beware of long stretches of public holidays (Golden Week, Obon, New Year).
Conclusion
I have listed many things that came through experience that should give you an idea of some of the things to be aware of. Travel seems to bring out a lot of problems that you would normally not encounter or would be okay if you were in a familiar place. You should always try to be as prepared as possible just so minimise the things that go wrong rather than having everything go wrong.
Update 2014/08/31: Added information about storing cards in presents, some bits about the big game update and a “Late Late Game” section.
Love Live! School Idol Festival is a mobile game (iOS, Android) based on Love Live!. This guide is for the Japanese version, although the international version should be similar. I will not be writing about the rules and mechanics of the game because there are already good sites for that. Below are some useful resources. The English wiki has two links to Japanese wikis, which have a bit more information regarding things like the amount of experience required to level up cards and card lists (the English wiki added card lists earlier this year) random information that may or may not be useful.
This guide will be more about insights that a player develops over time and implications of the game mechanics. That is, tips on how to play the game that are not obvious when you start out. When I play a game, I naturally try to optimise for efficiency. You need to know the limiting factors and whether to save money or stock up experience or friendship points. Just knowing the game rules isn’t enough; you need to know how the game plays out in the future, e.g. that events happen on a fixed schedule and new songs are released, and whether you will eventually run out of ways to get loveca or friendship points (you don’t).
Screenshots
Firstly, here are some random screenshots to liven up the post.Error message if you have root When I first started, I thought it was strange that you can get full combo and still come last. Full combo for an event song was not enough to get S score. Mysterious computer players – あいて written in grey. Nico fans like to score 252521 or rank 25252 because you can translate “Nico nico ni~” to those numbers in Japanese. My combo is 261, but I didn’t get a full combo. This anomaly happens if the first note is a held note and you get Good when you press it but Great or Perfect when you release. The combo counter counts it but you don’t get a full combo. My first UR In all the time I’ve been playing, I only got around 4 to 16 of a single Rare.
Early Game
This is when you first start playing.
Japanese Version: If you’re starting fresh, the English version might be okay because you won’t need all the latest songs and cards right away and can go along with the updates as the English version progresses. If I were me though, I would still use the Japanese version because I could level faster than content is released, you get current events, more players (doesn’t really affect much) and you get the culture (player names, Score Match messages, 25251 rankings).
Installation: Android: You need to either use a Japanese IP address or download the apk from somewhere. In-game downloads and updates are fine, but app updates on Google Play need a Japanese IP address. The app version updates around once every month or two, entirely dependent on the developers (events only need an in-game update). You cannot play with root. Just use SuperSU and disable root. It’s a hell of a lot easier to get working than PuzzDora. iOS: You need to change your app store to Japanese (I don’t use an iPhone so I’m not sure about details).
Account Password: This is a 20-digit number that is used to restore your account when you change phones. BACK UP THIS CODE AS SOON AS YOU CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT. If your phone dies or your app data gets deleted you won’t be able to open the game to get the code. Then everything will be lost. You might be able to write to customer support (in Japanese) to restore your account. And how do you tell them which was your account? Do you know your account ID (a different number, found on your profile page)?
To access the 20-digit code, go to the settings screen. Press the button on the third row on the left. Then on the next screen, press the bottom right button. Then there is a confirmation screen. I’m not sure why they make it feel like you’re going to delete your account or something. Also one more thing: this code changes every time you use it, so make sure your code is up to date. Also I heard that to switch between platforms (Android/iOS), you need to have exactly 0 loveca in your account.
Score: Your Unit isn’t powerful enough to get more than a C rank. This is fine, it will come eventually.
Kizuna: Rotate your cards to max out their kizuna. Since you’re not going for score, using level 1 cards is okay. Also you will be able to max out all your kizuna pretty early on. Also if you’re a person who optimises for efficiency, note that no kizuna is wasted unless everybody on your team has full kizuna.
Skills: Don’t bother. You will rarely get more than one of each SR and most of the SR’s skills are unique. For the Rares, their stats are too low to use them in the long term and the skills don’t make up for it. Getting a skill to level 2 is easy. But I estimate it takes 127 cards to get a skill to level 8 (the information on this is sparse). Game update: Still don’t bother. DO NOT SPEND BLUE TICKETS ON SKILL CARDS. Save those or the UR draw. A 20% chance of a UR is worth something like 100 loveca.
Inventory: Your inventory is big enough. This has probably changed since I started playing since they added so many new cards, but when I played, I had enough inventory space to keep all my unmaxed normals until I maxed them and used them to feed the rares.
Levelling cards: Always level using the same colour. It gives 20% more exp. (I didn’t realise this for several weeks.)
Album bonus: I levelled/evolved all my cards just for completion’s sake. You get some album bonuses which are nice but not essential and the rewards are not much. All that effort gives you about 15 loveca total and about 15 inventory space (3 inventory = 1 loveca). But if you don’t do it, there’s nothing much left to do with regards to cards.
Loveca stones: Save up 50 to do the 11-draw. Also, wait for the period just after events when there’s a guaranteed SR.
Events: There are two events per month, 5th to 15th and 20th to 31st (last day of the month). You probably won’t be able to get the SR rewards if you play on Easy, so hurry up and get better!
Friendship points: Just use these up so you can get Rares.
Money: You will never have to sell a card because of lack of money at this stage of the game. You get a lot from song rewards, login rewards and events.
Song rewards: Getting the bonus for completing a song lots of times takes a long (calendar) time. Concentrate on Easy songs first because you get more cards that way, and later on the Easy songs will be too boring to play.
Calibration: It helps to calibrate your device. If you can’t get perfect every time, it might not be because of your lack of skill. On a good song, I can get about 90% perfects. The 10% greats are probably my lack of precision. The default setting was close, but I found that on my phone, a setting of 4 (or minus 4) worked a lot better (I don’t know the conversion rate, but it’s only maybe 20ms). Also I find that the warmer my hands are, the more easily my screen will pick up my touch. I don’t even need to make contact with the screen if my hands are warm. This affects timing because the screen will pick up the signal a few milliseconds earlier and release a few milliseconds later at the end of held-notes.
Mid-Game
This is when you’re playing at Normal Difficulty and can start to get SRs in events.
Cards: I kept all my Rares because they have a higher experience to inventory ratio. That way, I could instantly level up a UR using rares (although this rarely happens). You will still have a lot of Normals that you slowly consume to level up SRs. It takes about 4 level 40 normals to level up an SR.
Friendship points: Don’t worry about running out. Even though getting points from choosing a friend to play with is so low that it’s not an option, you will get points from events and login bonuses and new songs.
Money: You should still have enough money so you never have to sell a card (unless you get lots of URs). If you do run out of money, sell level 1 cards. They are plentiful and also less efficient to level cards with because it costs more per exp (1000G per 120exp).
Song rewards: Getting S combos might be annoying but it’s good practice. I never considered getting S combos in previous rhythm games, but it’s doable in Love Live. Try to finish off the Easy song completion bonuses because after getting to Hard songs you never want to go back. Or don’t finish them; they’re not that important.
Events: To be able to get the SR reward playing on Normal difficulty, I had to try not to waste any LP. Well, I wasted about 3 hours every night because I my maximum LP wasn’t high enough to last the night, and at the end I might have had one day spare. I found that the placement in Score Match is quite random, so even if your unit is bad you still have a good chance of getting first or second (or third or last). Since it’s so variable, it doesn’t matter if you don’t put full effort into getting full combos every time. Also I found that the claim tickets have a lot higher chance of giving an SR than a 5 loveca draw. I’ve received maybe 5 SRs out of 8 draws, but due to the small sample size I’m not really sure.
Event cards: The Rare reward card (the one that you can’t use for anything) gives lots of experience. The Alpaca card gives 30000G or 2000 exp. At first glance it looks like a better deal to sell it. However, if you had 20 normal cards, it takes 20000G to use them whereas it costs very little to use the Alpaca card for 2000 exp. The maths is conceptually complicated, but trust me, it’s better to use the Alpaca card for exp unless you have absolutely no need for exp. If you disagree, it doesn’t make much difference overall, but I just like to know that I’m being efficient.
Hard songs: It depends on your skill, but I thought hard songs were hard so I stuck to normal songs. It’s worth a try though, because after I full comboed all the normal songs, I started doing the hard songs and they eventually became as easy as how I thought the normal songs are. It’s rewarding to know that you’ve actually made a significant improvement. I think all rhythm games that I play will be easier now. I guess playing every day (takes at least an hour throughout the day) for 9 months is more than I’ve ever spent on any instrument (I learned piano for 6 years and never practised). The power of games.
If you’re having trouble, note that in Winter it’s a lot harder to play fast with cold hands. It’s troublesome to have to warm up your hands just to play, so you might want to wait for Summer? Lol, I don’t know, I’ve only played through one Winter, when I was struggling with full comboing Hard songs.
Friends: Try to get friends with a UR centre, since it will give you a higher bonus when you choose them for songs. You only really need one of each colour, but I made all my friends URs (sometimes they change their centre card). It’s easier to get UR friends when you have a UR yourself, but I managed to get all UR friends before that. Once in a while everyone receives a bonus SR (or UR) card (e.g. UR Kotori at the end of last year), or there are exclusive cards that come free with Weiss Schwarz decks or Dengeki G Magazines: these cards usually have a bad centre skill (equivalent of a Rare) so watch out for those.
Maximising score: Just do automatic unit selection. When I first played I thought maybe you could optimise positioning/colours based on note frequency to each of the 9 positions (there are frequency charts on the Japanese wiki), but it doesn’t work. The score is based on your total unit score, so individual card scores don’t matter. The colour matters, but all your cards are the same colour anyway so that doesn’t matter either. Sometimes you might have a UR of a different colour (because the stats are high enough to make it into the team of another colour), so only in that circumstance will it matter, and the effect will be small. Also you have to tune it for each song specifically.
Late Game
This is when you (finally) unlock all the songs and finish the story. Rares start becoming disposable. I estimate it takes about 6 months of playing every day to get to this stage. Game update: level 1 to 100 takes half the time now.
Songs: This game has so many songs! It took me until level 86 to unlock all 33 songs in April. My profile said 45 songs because it included the event songs. This number will be higher in future because a new song is released after every event (twice a month) so don’t expect to run out of songs any time soon if you started playing recently. A new story chapter is also released with the new song. The releases keep the game interesting after you have unlocked all the songs. Actually it’s as if you haven’t reached the end because it’s the same except that unlocking new chapters/songs is a bit slower.
LP: I still don’t have enough LP to last the night all the time, but on weekdays I can usually do it. My max LP is 77 at Rank 104 (after 9 months of playing). The formula for LP is 25 + Rank/2, i.e. you get 1 extra LP every 2 ranks and you start at 25 (I’m not sure if it’s every even or odd level).
Hard songs: This might depend on the person, but suddenly I was able to do hard songs without any difficulty, full comboing more than 50% of the time (depends on your concentration). The songs on rotation have a different difficulty scale (Easy is Medium, Medium is Hard, Hard is very hard), but I managed to get full combo on a few of them (9 star difficulty) after looking up the difficult section on YouTube. It’s great that they reduced them to 15 LP instead of 25.
Expert songs: This really depends on your skill as a musician. I don’t like Expert songs because I have to really concentrate and I might fail and I don’t really feel like I’m playing the song, but just struggling to hit random notes. There are some songs I can’t even pass, although I haven’t practised them. If you really want to do these songs, look up the videos on YouTube to practise because you’ll never be able to do them otherwise.
Money: Only sell level 1 cards. They are more than enough. At this stage you may have run out of money, but at the same time you will have more than enough fully levelled Rares so you can start selling all your level 1 cards and start to accumulate millions of Gold.
Inventory: You will run out of inventory if you kept all your Rares. You will have to choose which rares you want to keep.
You are able to free an inventory slot every time you get an SR because the SR uses one slot, but you free two slots because it takes two level 60 Rares to level up an SR. One level 60 Rare gives 8928 exp and only costs 24750G to use. To level an SR to 60 requires 23802 exp which is 2 level 60 rares plus 5946 exp, assuming you don’t get an Ultra Success or the other Success (I never stay on the screen long enough to see).
SR 1-60 requires 23802 exp.
SR 60-80 requires 12998 exp.
UR 1-80 requires 59408 exp.
UR 80-100 requires 20282 exp.
Unlimited Inventory: You can store an unlimited number of cards in Presents, however they expire after 60 days. Cards from Friendship points do not expire (and claim tickets, and probably premium draws) I think cards from premium draws do not expire either. The disadvantage of keeping cards that expire is that you might forget about them and lose them, and that it takes time to scroll down to the bottom to withdraw, so I don’t recommend keeping those cards in the long term. Just keep them during events or before a 50 loveca draw when you know you will be getting an SR.
How do you “put” cards in presents? You probably know this by now, but when your inventory is full, any extra cards go to Presents. There are a few opportunities to do this:
When you complete a song and get 3 cards. You can’t start playing a song if your inventory is full. If you have one inventory space, the first one will go into your inventory and the other two will go into Presents. The top one will be the non-level 1 card and the second one will be the level 1 card (in Presents it doesn’t show what level the card is). If you want to add the non-level 1 card to your Presents, play songs while having exactly 2 inventory space free.
You can draw two cards with Friendship Points even if you have 1 inventory space. This way you can add one level 1 card to your presents.
The daily friendship card and “claim ticket” draw can be drawn with 0 inventory space.
The 11 card loveca draw. (Not sure about what can be drawn with 0 inventory space.)
Friendship points: You should have almost all the Rares by now. It’s those annoying one or two that you never get. You shouldn’t worry too much, because it’s not like you need them. It’s only for the sake of completion. So instead of using all your friendship points instantly to try to get those rares, start managing them so you accumulate them and use them up when you want to instantly finish levelling an SR (or rarely, UR).
Events: It’s probably better to stick with Hard songs unless you can get S score and A or B combo in Expert songs (or you’re bored of Hard songs).
Cards: You probably have 1 UR by now. If you’re lucky, more than one. If you’re unlucky, none :(. I have one (plus the special URs that are given to everyone). Almost all the cards in your units should be SR or higher at this stage. Is the 10+1 draw better or getting a high event ranking to get two of the same SR?
For the 10+1 draw:
You might get an SR that you already have 2 of (evolved).
You might get one that is too weak to go in your unit.
It’s the only way to get URs, well, besides claim tickets.
For event SRs:
Guaranteed to get the same SR so you can evolve.
Guaranteed to be a card you don’t have.
Takes time and effort.
Number of loveca stones required is around 20 as of July 2014 but it will change depending on popularity of the card and just in general along the lifetime of the game. Also keep in mind that this will work better at higher levels because you have more LP.
Evolved means a higher unit strength sooner than getting random SRs, so you might be able to get a claim ticket from getting a high rank for the song score in the token collecting event.
Suppose it takes 25 loveca to get a high enough rank in the event (note that the number of loveca required might be higher). The tradeoff is two level 80 SRs, or one random SR and a 1% chance of a UR. The level 80 SRs sound really good, but ultimately, are you aiming for URs or SRs? If you’re not spending money, you will not get many URs so those level 80 SRs will be with you for a long time. However you need to have at least one UR just for the satisfaction. I think keep trying for URs until you have at least one and then reevaluate. Game update: SR and UR cards more than 6 months old are not in the random pool for regular loveca draws, which affects things slightly. If you don’t get two of the same SR in the event, you will probably forever have only one. You can still get older cards from the themed recruitment boxes and the voucher (blue ticket) boxes.
Late-late Game
Inventory and levelling: Your inventory will fill up with SRs so get rid of all your Rs. With the inventory trick in the previous section you won’t need to keep Rs as feeders anyway. You will also have the feeder R and Alpaca from the event to help level the event SR.
Events: See “Late Game”. If you’re going for event rankings, you want to make maximum use of LP recharges. When you get to Rank 146 or 148 you will have 98 or 99 LP so you can play 4 Expert songs in a row and then recharge LP again. Having the right Rank so that you can use all your LP without any leftover doesn’t come often. If your maximum LP isn’t optimal, you can either wait for it to charge, or play a song that requires the exact amount of LP, or waste some LP (if you have less than 4 LP). Waiting is inconvenient because you have to do something else for a short period of time and have to set an alarm and have to be available at that time. Playing a song that is less than 25 LP is slightly non-optimal (you get fewer event points per LP) but another consideration is the amount of time you spend. If you have to play an extra song every recharge (e.g. if you have 20 LP left, you need to play two songs to use it up), that’s an extra hour if a song takes 3 minutes and you recharge 20 times. Even if you only have to play one song, you are getting e.g. 10 or 16 tokens in the time it takes to play one song instead of 27.
Money: In “Late Game” I said to only sell level 1 cards. But then what do you do with the non-level 1 cards? Well, you may have reached the point where you just sell all cards sooner than I did because I was collecting Rs for a long time.
Friendship points: I still can’t get the last few rares. Also new Normal cards come out every event (or two?) and the chances of getting any specific card are becoming ever smaller.
Money Game
If you’re spending (real) money, it’s a whole different game. I don’t recommend spending money to try to get specific cards. This person spent $1000 trying to get a card. I think it is okay to spend a bit to show support for the the game.
Game design
I find that the game is simple but well designed. I played Rage of Bahamut before and that game really made you rage. I also had a look at the AKB48 game, which made me realise how well designed Love Live is. If there is nothing that really annoys me about Love Live after playing every day for 9 months, it must be really well polished. I don’t know if it was specifically designed that way or if it’s just a coincidence, but either way, they got it right.
In Rage of Bahamut, each page takes a few seconds to load, like a website, and doing things requires too many button presses. This really adds up and you end up pressing things for an hour just to finish up your stamina and level up cards. Love Live page transitions are client-side mostly and also data is transferred in the background. The AKB48 game takes about 30 seconds to load a song and the song results screen and rank up animations are unskippable. Love Live takes about… 0 seconds to start a song.
There are way too many cards in Rage of Bahamut so your inventory is always full. Even doubling the inventory wouldn’t be enough. I can’t remember if you could increase inventory without cash, but in Love Live, you can use Loveca stones which you can pay for but you usually have plenty from events and bonuses.
Love Live is simple. You don’t have to worry too much about card management. Levelling using one card gives the same amount of experience as using 10 cards. You use two of the same card to evolve and you don’t have to keep track of which cards you need to evolve. I guess Love Live is a music game first and foremost and the cards are secondary.
At first I questioned whether a mobile game could be good because it didn’t have multiple symbols like in Project Diva. However, now I prefer this game because the touch screen is a lot more responsive than a button, and you don’t get confused as to which button you need to press. AKB48 has swipe notes, which breaks your rhythm because it takes a lot longer to do a swipe (btw, their hold notes suck because they come at a different angle and speed).
There are a few reviews of The Yamasa Institute on the Internet, so I thought I’d write my own. I wanted to be anonymous on the Internet, but I guess it’s a bit hard to write about life that way. Here are some reviews of Yamasa that I found during a quick Google search:
Even though two of them are quite old, I think they’re general enough that they still apply. It’s interesting that with all the things that have changed in the past 10 years, certain things seem to stay the same. I’m not sure if this review will be helpful because I can’t compare it to other language schools, and I’m the type of person who is mostly fine with bad and good alike. Also, I will not be able to write everything in a single post so read my future posts for a better idea (if I get around to them). I will try to expand on each topic because I have opinions and experiences for all of them.
Decision and Application
Decide as soon as possible! If you’re reading this, you’re probably still deciding which school you want to study at (or not; maybe you just randomly found this page). The application process takes several months (5 months is the deadline, so start applying 6 months before). This is due to immigration procedures mostly, but it might take a few weeks to ask questions, fill out forms and make sure all documents are submitted to Yamasa. That’s for the Student Visa though, so if you’re going on a tourist visa or working holiday visa (my working holiday visa was approved in a week in Australia), you apply maybe 2 or 3 months in advance. If you’re in a hurry for some reason, it doesn’t hurt to ask because unlike the Immigration Bureau, Yamasa can override their own deadlines (I haven’t heard of it, just saying it’s a possibility).
That said, don’t make a hasty decision, but just be aware of the time frames. The Student Visa starts in April and October, however you can come for 3 months on a tourist visa first and start in January or July. I’m not sure if you can get a Student visa starting in January or July because some of the other schools implied that you can, and the Immigration Bureau doesn’t mention that you can’t. It was annoying from a planning point of view because if I could get the student visa starting in January, then I could have come 3 months earlier. I’m done with it so I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Also note that in Japan, April is the start of the school year. It’s more important than I thought. It’s not just schools, but companies hire for April and even the financial year starts in April.
There is much to say about motivation and your reason for studying Japanese in Japan but I’ll leave that for another time. I’ll just say to be realistic and know yourself.
Location
Yamasa is in Okazaki, Aichi. It’s quite quiet, but also decent sized city. Nagoya is half an hour on the express train but I don’t go there since it costs about 700 yen each way. Tokyo is a bit far and expensive to go to. Do not take the Shinkansen. Although it’s fast, it costs maybe 10,000 yen each way. Taking a bus costs about 3000-4000 yen each way (plus the train fare to get to Nagoya) and takes about 5 hours. During certain seasons you can catch the local trains using the Seishun 18 ticket which is about 10,000 yen for 5 daily tickets (on one physical ticket). The local trains also take about 5 hours. There is a night train but you have to book it in advance because it sells out. I’m not an expert so consult other sites for more information. Sometimes the Shinkansen can save you a night of accommodation so it might not be so bad after all.
Kyoto is a bit close and Osaka is slightly closer than Tokyo. It’s a bit strange being right in the middle of the biggest cities, yet everything being just a bit far. Ski mountains are also within range, including Nagano.
Spare Time
I’m not the party type, so I don’t need to be right in the middle of Tokyo. Actually, I’m glad I’m not in Tokyo because I would feel that it’s a waste that I never go out. You don’t really have time to go out anyway, since school is 5 days a week with homework. I don’t know if I have enough time for a job either. However, there is plenty of time if you manage your time well and you probably know better what you are capable of.
Classes are usually 9am to 2:30pm (1:30pm on Fridays) but could vary depending on your electives and private lessons and higher levels might have a different timetable. There are 24 classes a week (50 min each which equals 20 hours). I think that’s a bit more than other schools which are usually around 20 classes.
There are few holidays. I guess it makes your money worth it. There are many public holidays that the school doesn’t take, and in between terms there are only about 2 weeks of holidays. If you’re used to getting a long break somewhere in the year, this adds to the “intensiveness” of the course. The Summer holiday does not line up with the normal August school holiday. I guess I can’t expect there to be a holiday that lines up with certain events (e.g. Summer Comiket), although a weekend trip is always possible, although slightly expensive, and travelling takes quite a bit of time so you can’t do it too often.
Student Mix
This is actually one of the deciding factors in my choice to study at Yamasa, albeit not an obvious one. Many other schools have large proportions of Chinese and Taiwanese (and Koreans). I thought about it, and realised that I would be different from the other students in not knowing kanji. The teachers would not be able cater to students who didn’t know kanji as effectively as a school like Yamasa. The disadvantage of non-kanji students is that most speak English to so it’s not total immersion. I think it was a good decision in the end, and has the added benefit that it eases the transition and you can make friends a lot more easily, which greatly increases your enjoyment so you don’t feel alone and wanting to drop out. If you are dedicated enough to do Anki every day with Heisig’s Remember the Kanji and learn 2000 kanji in 4 months, you’ll be fine studying with Chinese speakers, however that is a huge task in itself (I did it for 2 weeks and stopped, and still want to do it but never do). That said, at those schools you will be on the same level as Koreans and might make some Korean friends and end up wanting to learn Korean instead of Japanese. Really. Jokes aside, it can happen so you’d better be sure what you want to do. Edit: Korean has the same grammar as Japanese so…
Academic Program
The course is intensive. I had already learned Japanese for five years and watched anime for 15 years before coming here. However, I was still put in the absolute beginner class, 101. I was a bit disappointed at first, but I thought, hey, I can take it easy for a while and brush up on details. After a week or so, I realised that it was quite challenging and perfect for my level. I have no idea what I learned in those five years long ago, but I didn’t really know as much as I thought I did. I thought maybe they tuned the class to suit our current level, but we started at Chapter 1 of Minna no Nihongo and finished at 20 and it doesn’t seem like it could be any different since they have to connect it with the 102 class.
If you know absolutely no Japanese, expect to repeat 101. Well, I can’t really tell since my circumstances were different, but it will definitely be full-on. We learnt hiragana and katakana in about 2 days (although we all already knew them anyway). When I learnt them years ago, it took about 2 years to learn, although that was only 2 classes a week and we learned other things alongside it. If you have to learn hiragana and katakana, you’ll be struggling with reading and writing in addition to learning the vocab and grammar. You’ll instantly be on the back foot and will always be playing catch-up. It’s one thing knowing the symbols, but it’s another thing to read and write them like second nature. Take a look at Minna no Nihongo for a good idea of what the course is like. There is no roomaji anywhere. We cover a chapter in about 2 days, plus a lot of supplementary material and conversation practice.
Teaching
Probably the most important thing? I’m not sure whether I can review this properly but I’ll describe it a little. There are several teachers for a single level, about 5 different teachers, each teaching about 2 lessons in a row. Each has his or her own style and personality. You tend to prefer some teachers over others but variety is nice as well because it keeps things interesting. I have yet to see any grumpy or tired teachers. It helps keep me motivated to keep up my end when I haven’t had enough sleep. I guess that’s a good thing.
Student Services
They are generally quite helpful, and there are two people who speak English (that I know of), although you should be trying to speak Japanese as much as possible. There’s something a little bit strange, but often there’s a missing detail in information. Something that makes me confused, but what I’m given is just enough to get by. It might just be that I’m new to a foreign country and they don’t think to explain something they take for granted, or maybe it’s lost in translation. I’ll give some examples, and they are all unique.
Can I get the Student Visa in January? This is more Immigration’s fault for not being clear, but it could be Yamasa sticking to what they’ve always been doing for years and not testing whether it can be done.
When does school start? The website has the date, and it says to arrive a few days before that (although I didn’t notice that amongst all the other information). There was no orientation or information before I arrived other than what I read on the website. The acceptance package included a page in Japanese, which was totally useless since I didn’t know Japanese. Well, it had the number of classes and my accommodation preferences, but I wanted to know which one I was in! I didn’t know which apartment I was in until after I arrived. After I arrived, the orientation was quite simple and I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know. We weren’t told of the start date of the next term until the last day of the previous term. It’s not the date listed on the site because existing students don’t have to do the orientation day. I didn’t even know there was an orientation day before I came.
Where do I throw out my cans? I was supplied with a nice trash guide. It should have been enough. Except that the picture didn’t say where to put other items like cans. I saw other areas with baskets that appear on the trash day, but I couldn’t find them for my trash point. Eventually I realised that we have bins, which are a lot nicer, and they change colours depending on the type of trash that is being collected (not the same colour as the baskets are supposed to be). Someone I asked at student services pointed to the non-burnables place in the picture, which was wrong. I guess it’s not her fault because she’s probably never even seen the apartments in person. Oh yeah, I didn’t get a new trash calendar for the year starting April 2014. I downloaded it myself from the council site.
How do I get my Health Insurance? They were helpful helping me to fill out the forms, which I had to do in Japanese even though I wasn’t supposed to have known any. I had to go myself, and it would have been hard if I didn’t have a Japanese speaker with me. They did better for the April batch of students, taking everyone in a bus. They informed the students only 2 days before the trip (but of course, everyone was free anyway). I shouldn’t be so critical because they probably had to organise a lot of visas before they could confirm the trip. But it’s little things like that that come up unexpectedly.
Bank account, mobile phone? Not a word mentioned, even though from the website it seemed like a standard thing everyone does. You can ask them yourself, and I’m sure they’ll gladly help. I think it’s better that they didn’t do anything because the phone company and bank I want to use are probably different from the one they recommend. Also they are completely optional.
The website is out of date and has broken links. This is more because their website maintainer left last year (or so I heard from another student). But anyway, this is a more general problem that Japanese websites are all from 2003. You know how Geocities was shut down? Not in Japan. This is a topic for further discussion, but in the meantime, read about Galápagos syndrome.
I think what my experience has been is mostly “if you don’t ask, you won’t know” and “if you ask, you’ll get answers that look good but later you find out it doesn’t answer it satisfactorily”.
Anyway, I’ll explain more in other posts, but that’s it for now.
I went to a sushi train one day and they had a container of matcha and a hot water tap at every table. The first thing I learnt: the amount of powder you put in is tiny. You can’t even use a spoon to measure it. They supplied a flat piece of metal about half a centimetre wide, and you need one scoop of that. I estimate it to be about 1 tenth of a gram. Then you put the hot water in and all is fine.
So I bought my own matcha powder and did the same thing. It didn’t work. There are different grades of powder for different purposes so I probably had the wrong one. Mine was for making ice cream ^_^ . What happened was that the powder didn’t dissolve and remained in clumps no matter how I tried to stir it. Searching the Internet, I found out you need to make it into a paste first. Usually you use the whisk but of course I didn’t have one. Also you need a large enough amount that you can actually have something to stir and so you don’t waste all of it sticking to the whisk and sides of the bowl. You can add more to taste but 0.1 grams is enough for me. It may even be closer to 0.05 grams. I would add more for making ice cream though. My container of powder is only 40g, so it makes sense that it’s designed for very small amounts.
So to get a feel for what it’s like, here is what I did in more detail. I took out a tiny amount of powder and put it in a cup. I added about 1 drop of water. The only real way to mix it at those quantities is to use the back of the teaspoon against the side of the cup. Make sure the radius of your teaspoon is less than your cup otherwise the powder will get stuck to the back of your teaspoon and you won’t be able to mix it. Then when the paste is consistent, add your hot water and you get nice even green tea 🙂 Oh yeah, don’t use boiling water otherwise something happens like amino acids are destroyed and/or the taste changes (I haven’t researched it enough to state it clearly). I think around 90 degrees is okay.
I actually remembered, I have a similar problem with Milo and cold milk. What I do is add a bit of hot water first to dissolve the powder. The hot water trick doesn’t work for my matcha powder though!
Hope that helps!
*When I say dissolve it might not be technically dissolving in the scientific sense.
DO NOT TRUST THE HIRAGANA AND KATAKANA STROKE ORDER OF THE TOP SEARCH RESULTS.
In particular, I did a Google image search because in class, the teacher taught some stroke orders that were different from how I had always written them. The last time I learned stroke orders was over ten years ago(!) and I rarely wrote Japanese in that period.
I only knew the search results were wrong because I looked at a few charts and they were different! Both of them couldn’t be right (unless there’s more than one correct order, which I’m quite certain there isn’t). It’s disappointing that people specifically teaching stroke order get it wrong, and it will cause many people will use the wrong order for the rest of their lives. So make sure you find out which site is correct. I won’t say anything because I haven’t researched it enough to conclusively know that I’m not teaching the wrong thing. Also, don’t trust a way just because a few sites use it. I’d say find at least ten sites using the same way, evaluate how authoritative they are and try to find reasons for the stroke order being that way. It’s a lot more than you would normally do, but there was so much variation to begin with that you can’t have any trust.
Stroke order isn’t critically important, but there aren’t many kana so might as well get them right since you will be using them so often (until you learn kanji). You always look a bit strange when someone sees you using the wrong stroke order. I’m curious as to whether some native Japanese use the wrong order. Calligraphy (which is compulsory in school) emphasises stroke order. However, for English, I’ve noticed people doing certain things (I can’t remember what in particular) that suggests that either they weren’t taught that in school, they didn’t pay attention, they forgot or they changed unintentionally or intentionally somewhere along the way.
It annoys me how people write the letter ‘a’ like with the current font. Doing the letter ‘b’ is a lot more common and acceptable because it looks a lot cleaner than the cursive ‘b’. Writing printed characters might have become more common with the rise of the Internet and computers, since people would be typing a lot more than they write.
Another thing that annoys me is people’s inability to distinguish between you’re and your, they’re and their and a few other ones I can’t recall at the moment. They’re completely different words. I’ll accept most other grammatical mistakes, especially because it’s how people talk colloquially in everyday English. I was thinking maybe the English language is evolving and one day “your” will replace “you’re” (shudder). Although everyone who does proper writing will use the proper term and it isn’t likely to disappear.
I’ve noticed that the more often you see something, the less incorrect it will look. I actually used one of the above incorrectly once and it was horrifying. So I can see how people mix it up, since they see it all the time. I am quite good at spelling, however there have been times where I was sure a word was right but it wasn’t. The right way looked wrong and made me realise that you can’t rely on whether it looks right or whether you think you’re right. It helps when you know someone who you know is good at grammar/spelling and wouldn’t possibly make a “mistake” like that. Then you find out that more often than not, you were the one that was wrong.
Another thing is that in the past I don’t remember being unsure of as many things and the correct spelling would just come naturally. I’m not sure if it’s true or if I am just more aware of it now. Probably a combination of both.
As with K-On!, I went around as a tourist, not specifically out to make accurate comparisons, and the photos just happened to match… or they don’t even match. I “cheated” on some, for example, the bus is just a regular bus, going to Mt Fuji instead of Kyoto.
The pair of images below are of Tokyo Big Sight, where large events are held, such as Comiket (in Japan, more commonly referred to as Comike).
Kyoto
The shots of the river are at the wrong point of the river. The actual location should be a few kilometres up the river. The river is called the Kamo River and has bridges every few hundred metres.
Kyoto Animation
I was originally planning to go to Kyoto Animation on the way to other shrines and temples, but it’s actually not on the way to anywhere. It’s not that far though, only a few stops past Fushimi Inari Taisha. One tip for Fushimi Inari: it’s probably better go to Fushimi Inari last because if you plan on doing the whole walk, it will take the better part of the day and you probably won’t have time (or be too tired) for anything else afterwards. A lot of places in Kyoto have last entry at 4pm (or even 3:30pm) and it takes forever to get anywhere because the buses are so slow.
The Kyoto Animation building is a yellow building on the west side of Kohata Station (JR Nara line) (oh I guess my earlier statement was wrong, it’s on the way to Nara). I actually caught the Keihan train to similarly named Kowata Staion, because there are no JR stations on the east side of Kyoto where I was staying. The KyoAni Shop is in a brown brick building on the west of Kowata station. It’s important not to confuse the two. The office building is a private office and you’re not allowed inside. You can try to talk to the staff if you feel brave enough.
The KyoAni Shop is a small shop, but it’s surprising how much small Japanese shops can hold. Sometimes in anime shops around Japan there is a small “KyoAni Shop” section with a limited selection of KyoAni goods, so what’s sold in the “official” shop isn’t exclusively sold there, however the small sections elsewhere are hard to find and might not have what you want. I’m not sure if there are other “official” shops like this one. The shop was on the second floor, although I’m not sure why the sign outside the building has Kyoto Animation taking up the whole third floor. Maybe I’m missing something. For reference, it is open from 10am to 6pm every day, and until 4pm sometimes (the writing is too small on my photo). It’s best to check their website though. When you’re organising things, you don’t think of these details and you might end up going and it’s closed, or if you want to find out, there’s nowhere that you can find out. I went on a Sunday which could have been bad considering opening hours, but it was the only real chance I had considering my schedule. Also, opening at 10am was a bit late because I had to rush off to Toyosato afterwards so it would be past midday before I reached Toyosato (I actually missed the train which comes once an hour so I arrived at 1pm). It was okay in the end because there’s not much to do at Toyosato (more on Toyosato in another post).
Nara
There’s always something under renovation. The renovations often take years, for example the famous Himeji Castle has been under renovation since 2010, and they’re planning to finish this year. A regular business wouldn’t be able to stop business for four years.
Washinomiya
I recommend going here when there’s a festival. Festival dates are listed on their website. It’s hard to schedule your holiday to coincide with specific dates though, so you might not have a choice. I think the New Year festival is the biggest. It’s been many years since Lucky Star aired, so I’m not sure how crowded it will be but from news websites there have still been a considerable amount of Lucky Star fans. This article says 470,000 people visited the shrine for New Year 2014. I went on the 4th April 2013 and there were about 5 people in total.
I didn’t want to make this a pilgrimage blog, but I guess it’s easier to do something that’s already been prepared (and photos are nice). Also, as mentioned previously, these old pilgrimages aren’t really pilgrimages so the quality cannot match the Kyoukai no Kanata one. Well, I’m not sure if future pilgrimages can match it either. Every time I think of it I feel so proud ^_^; I went to Kyoto in early March 2013. Basically most of these shots came from just visiting the area. It was my first time in Kyoto so I took a lot more photos than I would because anything different is interesting.
The ones near the bridge were from a big Google maps map with a list of anime locations. Only a few had photos so I had to work off that. Only after the trip when I found the screenshots did I realise what the shots were meant to represent. Being the first time looking for places corresponding to specific screenshots, I thought they were meant to be iconic places or something. Well, they are iconic now that I’ve done them and remember them. People say they like pilgrimages because they feel like they are in the world of the anime. I don’t actually feel that way because the buildings and scenery look so normal in real life. For me, it’s more the opposite: the real life location is nothing special, but when I watch the anime I can identify with the locations and the anime becomes more real. Well, I suppose if I stop and imagine the anime I will be able to recreate the feel of being in the world of the anime, but to get the right atmosphere I would have to watch the anime right there and then.
You’ll notice there is a net on top of Kyoto Tower. I thought it was due to renovation (there is always something under renovation) but I also have a theory that it might be to keep snow from accumulating on it. It was removed a few days later when I returned.
The dog one is a bit of a stretch… but I guess it highlights that when you walk around the neighbourhoods you do see these signs and that people own dogs in Kyoto.
I went here on 2013-11-26 at about 4pm (always in a rush before sunset!). I was in Tachikawa before that and had to make an executive decision whether to do Mizuho in a rush or sometime in the distant future. I think it was worth it. Also my camera (Panasonic Lumix LX-7) is awesome. The pictures it takes is better than the human eye for night vision. All those pictures of the pond were almost night time already. A disadvantage is that it doesn’t actually take what you see. I could tweak the settings, but I’m not an expert and also the default photos are almost always better anyway.
I screwed up with taking the path leading up the hill because I was trying to take the scene at the beginning of the anime and thought it was facing downhill but it’s actually more facing the side without a view of the path. Partly because of that, I didn’t take enough uphill photos which were the ones mainly used in the anime, but also I went a different way up and only walked downhill on that road. The road is a lot shorter than I thought, with only two curves. I didn’t try to figure out the exact places on the hill beforehand because I thought the path was too generic. However, being only two curves, you always know where it is by the direction of the curve, and most of the scenes use the same curve at lower part of the path because there aren’t as many features at the top.
The tunnel under bridge is my favourite photo. I stumbled upon it because I saw a pond and wanted to explore, not expecting there to be any scenes from the anime. From there a path leads to the top and that’s the reason why I didn’t head up the road.
For the mobile phone tower, it was really hard to find the screenshot for it (I knew it was there from one of the sites I used as a reference). I was looking through every episode and realised that Tomoyo doesn’t appear in most episodes but even then I couldn’t find it. I finally found it (with a bit of help from a reverse image search) in After Story episode 1 where they were trying to find members for their baseball team.
Even though I took my pictures at sunset, I could never get that yellowness that KyoAni does. It could be the season, or it could be the clouds, or an animation effect, or maybe I just missed it. For the fountain, it alternates between small and big around every 5 minutes, but I couldn’t figure out which one they used in the anime.
In the first pair of pictures, it is actually the wrong bridge. There is another one about 100m down the river. I managed to take a wrong turn walking from the station and missed some of the buildings on that road too.
Not many pictures, but I only had an hour and I covered the main parts that I wanted to (the hill and the pond). I really needed more preparation to find the other places, and more time to walk to the other places (it would take several kilometres of wandering).
I’m really not good at blogging. The most fundamental thing is to at least make some posts. So I’m just getting this out there to contribute to the community. There are many things that I wanted to do but would take a fair amount of time like side-by-side comparisons and information about locations but I guess this will have to do.
I actually went on this pilgrimage last week (17th December 2013) but only managed to upload it today (barely). I have to do it while it’s still current (episode 12 aired on the 18th) just because it’s that much more awesome. What’s really awesome is @seki_saima‘s page which is updated mere days after the episode airs and which I used as my main resource. Many thanks to @mjvito and his blog “like a fish in water” which was helpful in aggregating the community’s findings and led me to the other site.
I wanted to go on the pilgrimage a few weeks earlier (because of my schedule) but it’s a good thing I waited put it off for so long because I was able to include scenes from episodes 10 and 11, where a few important scenes were introduced, which resulted in a fairly complete pilgrimage. The autumn leaves were gone by then (so quick! I thought they would still be there) but the extra scenes were well worth waiting for.
This was my first real pilgrimage, although I have been to other locations from anime but… I guess it’s a grey area. It’s also probably my last because I won’t be around there anymore, but I might surprise myself since I enjoyed this one so much. I’m still not sure what’s so enjoyable about pilgrimages. I think it’s the end result, having photos that are the same as the anime, and being able to say “I’ve been there”. I’ll also try to upload photos from my previous “semi-pilgrimages“. I think one of the reasons I don’t consider them real pilgrimages is that I went to places where I was sure there was something else to do there. I was always insecure about whether I would travel all the way somewhere only to see a few boring houses and farms, spend a short while there and go all the way back. This pilgrimage had a high density of distinctive locations and I was short on time anyway so I had nothing to worry about.
I want to write about my preparation as well, but that would take pages and i would go off on related tangents and never finish. Let’s say it took many hours, and Google Maps and Street View were valuable tools. I was putting it off because I always felt I was underprepared and that when I arrived I would just be wandering around randomly not finding anything. I put it off for so long that it was actually detrimental and I had to do all of it with about 4 hours of daylight left. It’s a good thing Kyoukai no Kanata is full of night scenes, but daytime photos are better for detail and thanks to my thorough preparation, I got most of it done before nightfall.
If you’re new to this and not sure if you’d like it, the only advice I can give is to be prepared. Don’t rely on wandering around expecting to find locations. I “wandered” for hours on Google Street View instead. Imagine how much walking that would be equivalent to. Street View doesn’t have everything so some wandering might be necessary (e.g. inside parks). Have backup plans for places to visit nearby if you can’t find anything or finish early or just want to make the most of your time while you’re there.
Excuse me for how inexact my shots are compared to the anime. As mentioned, I was pressed for time, but even if I wasn’t, I didn’t want to hang around looking suspicious and bothering residents. Beyond just being a nuisance, in the school area you could get arrested. It makes me realise the sacrifices, determination and risk people go through in their pilgrimages. Most of the shots were from memory (I did so much preparation that I naturally memorised them), a few were random photos that managed to match, and some were from looking at the website on my mobile phone. Using a mobile phone is not recommended because the screen is so tiny and I took some shots that I thought looked right but were completely different (also the size of the images on the website is low to begin with). I’m not sure what the best way is though. Memorising only gives you the approximate shot, and you tend to forget things so it is not reliable. Carrying a phone or tablet is hard to juggle along with a camera and takes time to keep switching, but I suppose it can be done.
One last thing. I was wandering around every dodgy alley (at night) for a while looking for Tsubai Market and never found it, so that is one major location I missed. I found it later on Street View.
Without further ado, here is my masterpiece, of which I am very proud.
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