#amachan

[asadoras]

あまちゃん (2013) Episodes 5 subtitles by earthcolors

おむすび (2024) Episode 1

[redsamuraiii]

Rena Nounen dresses as her character in the drama “Amachan” at a train launch recently. 

Pic by Japanese Actors and Actresses

Pics by non_kamo_ne herself!

[toranekooo]

i've fallen into an impossible love... will we meet again next week? ah... mondays are the worst.

[bo1908]

Tsukiashi Amane FRUITS ZIPPER

[oneroomdiscoo]

I am only 3 weeks in amachan and i think this will be my favourite asadora!!! everyone is so fun and entertaining. 

nounen rena might be my new favourite crush, she is soooo cute!!!!

[spiderliliez]

The day Aki saw Yui, for the very first time. ❤

Non / Rena Nounen のん (as Aki Amano) Ai Hashimoto 橋本愛 (as Yui Adachi) From the lighthearted drama featuring life in a rural town in Iwate. This NHK series has 156 episodes, 15 minutes each.

AMACHAN あまちゃん [2013]

Rena (Non) and Ai reunited in the film “Hold Me Back”. Despite the name change, Ai still calls her “Rena” instead of Non.

[meimae]

For a while now, I’ve wanted to share the types of immersion material I use for language acquisition. Personally, I’ve run into short standstills where I did not know what to immerse in next, and I’ve noticed a few people have the same issue especially in the beginning stages. Whenever this happens to me, I keep on dabbling in different things or reusing old immersion material until such time where I hit the goldmine of perfectly interesting and comprehensible material with plenty of new words to learn.

Coupled with the trouble of finding fresh target language media to consume is how easy it is to lose track and accidentally dive back into native/English media. I certainly could not resist the influx of Among Us streams from my favorite Youtubers for the past few months, and while it is perfectly fine to take breaks, this really does not help progress my language skills in Japanese.

So, without further ado, here is my January 2021 immersion overview!:

JDRAMA

花より男子 

An absolute JDrama classic. First watched this show in 2016 with some friends, and really enjoyed it so I went ahead and revisited it as active immersion. It’s so nice to understand some of the jabs at 道明寺 ‘s poor Japanese the way it was intended to!

Also, I might have developed a slight craze over 嵐 afterwards (still really sad about them parting ways), but hey, more passive immersion material! 

連続テレビ小説 (clearly this was an  朝ドラ month for me!)

あまちゃん

This was such an endearing show and I actually did not expect to like as much as I did (initially was really iffy about the whole idol thing). Everything about it worked really well surprisingly, and the soundtrack was pretty good, too!

あさが来た

Ongoing. This is my first taste of a proper Japanese historical drama, and it’s actually quite a breath of fresh air. I was expecting another monarchy type setting as it was almost always the case with historical KDramas that I’ve watched so far. 

Not going to lie, I’m struggling with hearing the words because of the different pitch accent, so it’s throwing me off (lol). The two times I’ve heard 関西弁 (please correct me if I’m mistaken) in my immersion was in ちはやふる (若宮 詩暢) and カードキャプターさくら (ケロちゃん) and those were few and far in between. This was a pretty extreme immersion choice for that reason alone, because I could not exactly appreciate the story enough since I’m too busy trying to parse what’s being said. It is still a pretty inspiring story though (heck yeah, girl power in highly misogynist times!), so I’d still recommend it especially for those who like historical dramas.

半分、青い

Ongoing...second attempt. I dropped this once, and I’m still not convinced that I will like it now. There’s just something...off about it. Can’t tell if it’s how the story is progressing or the acting from some of the characters itself that’s not clicking for me. Shame, because the intro gets you really hyped for a somewhat bland plot and mediocre characters. Still, I’ll try to give it a chance.

なつぞら

Compressed audio. Technically my first 朝ドラ right at the very beginning of my immersion journey, and the whole reason I became obsessed with long haul dramas lol. I really adore 広瀬 すず, so it was a no brainer for me to pick up 156 episodes just for her alone, but my goodness, the story was amazing, and every character had so much personality, that even though I’m only listening to the compressed audio of it now, I can still see every scene so clearly in my head.

Listening to compressed audio of shows you’ve already watched is so awesome especially when you’ve sentence mined from it. To hear every word clearly and understand so much even without the visual aspect feels so great, and I’m definitely counting it as active immersion! This was such a different experience compared to 3-4 months in and trying to passive immerse in compressed audio. I am able to understand more, save for a few words here and there that I haven’t mined, even when doing something else. It really feels crazy to be able to do this in such a short span of time, and I’m excited to try it more now!

BOOKS

君の膵臓を食べたい

Ongoing. Should have read this first before watching the anime/movie, because now I’m really unmotivated to finish since I know what’s going to happen. Whoops.

キッチン

Ongoing. This is a way shorter read and also very underwhelming than I expected. Not sure why this keeps getting recommended in a lot of language learning forums, aside from being a short read, that is. There is hardly any build-up and barely any character development, so you really don’t have time to feel attached which frankly won’t work well if its trying to sell itself as a sad story. Will still finish it though, because again, it’s short so why not.

MANGA

夏目友人帳

Watched the anime adaptation and really enjoyed all the seasons. Fairly easy read and a nice introduction to the vocabulary in 妖怪 themed genres. 

オリミヤ

Only reading this because everyone else is hyped about the anime adaptation that I can’t watch yet. A light read. Really enjoyed the sweet bad boy look trope, but why does it feel like that ended in like two volumes...please don’t come for me. 

鋼の錬金術師

Picked this up for obvious reasons. Really trying to break into more fantasy genres for the vocabulary. Might have to watch FMA:B first though, so I can sentence mine with audio.

VISUAL NOVELS 

クラナド

People keep screaming about the anime adaptation, so might as well look into the VN, because it’s like 70 hours long, and I need more reading immersion. Can’t tell if I like it yet since I’m only an hour in. 

ATRI My Dear Moments

Again, only an hour in, and already encountering a ton of new words. Shorter than most VNs apparently, so I might continue with this one first.

アイランド

Probably a little complex for a first VN, so I’m keeping this for when I actually have gotten the hang of things. The plot sounds interesting though, so I’m intrigued at the possibilities of properly getting into VNs.

Really trying my best to hit my reading goal for year one, so it’d be great if I can find something I could really get into. I was debating whether I should just pick up another Murakami, but it feels a little too soon since I’ve read the English translations that I might end up relying heavily on what I remember of the translation instead of trying to parse the Japanese on my own. 

That’s it! A lot of these I’m still watching/reading, and some of it I’m still testing out. Please drop your recommendations especially for recommendations for female protag visual novels that are for all ages because I want to explore more reading options and I’m bored  and motivate me to finish any of the above that I’m unsure of but you’ve liked.

[marsgunlugum]

Rena Nounen ☕️ . . . . . #能年玲奈 #renanounen #renanōnen #nounenrena #nōnenrena #japaneseactress #lespros #yaplog #jactress #jdrama #japanesedrama #japanese #amachan #karasunooyayubi #hotroad #princessjellyfish #あまちゃん #カラスの親指 #ホットロード #海月姫 #summer #flowers #bloom (Japanese Tea Garden)