it's been over a full year since i got back into hypmic, i received my official certificate of japanese-language proficiency in the mail yesterday, and my custom list of words i picked up straight from immersing in hypmic content reached 5k today, so i kinda wanna make a personal little reflection about using it to study japanese :-)
i think it was the same before. i used to memorize all his verses in all the songs, generally understanding the lyrics and maybe picking up words i thought knowing would be cool (like 生態系 or 義務教育 or 成長痛, off the top of my head lol), but i wasn't actively parsing the grammar or committing them to memory in an effort to actually be able to use japanese, i just wanted to do my baby's rap lol. i also remember skimming through arb stories or listening to drama tracks and looking words up in the dictionary, then being done with it after without thinking about it again.
before i came to japan in 2023, i had already passed the n3 level for the jlpt. when i think about it, i'm not sure how i even got there... i'll admit i wasn't studying very seriously even after taking a beginner course at my university, and even after i came to japan, i was kind of a little passive about it for most of 2024, just picking up things here and there out of necessity and some natural frequency of encounters. but, when i got back into hypmic last year, i became determined to try studying more seriously so that i could catch up on everything i missed, and, more importantly, i kid you not, understand everything saburo is saying.
i started checking hypmic out again when i heard news about the movie coming out- since i would be watching it here in japan, it wouldn't have any subtitles and i wanted to be able to understand everything. also, i was invited to karaoke with a friend who had watched rhyme anima casually and thought hypmic songs would be fun to do for karaoke. i was so on board- on spotify, i would listen to songs while looking at the lyrics. 3$EVEN and IGWP were the two songs that got me into hypmic in the first place way back in 2018, and i decided i wanted to be able to read those lyrics without the furigana (even though karaoke would have them lol). i also wanted to be able actually understand the songs as i did. anyway that's where it all re-started :)
i use renshuu, an app that lets me make custom lists of words to study. not #sponsored or #affiliated but im a renshuu glazer lol. i would look up every word that i was unfamiliar with, or that i knew but hadn't really Mastered, and add them to my lists manually to study. doing that takes the most time and effort, but the spaced repetition system of the quizzes really worked for me, and the pay-off has been so so so worth it. i've been doing that consistently all this time, and today, my list reached 5k words, which i think is pretty crazy. :)
renshuu also has an Activity heatmap feature that shows you how much you're studying everyday and every week, and above is a screenshot of it from june when i was only a few months into it. you could really see when i started locking in and studying for real lol. by july i had finally properly established a routine where i was actively studying everything i was picking up.
i remember at this time reflecting about how through hypmic content i was picking up a lot of words that i didn't think i would really need or be able to use in everyday conversations (looking at you samatoki and dice) but i thought there was value in the discipline of the process of studying itself, and in my head, it was like how algebra itself might be whatever in real life but the finding solutions part of it was supposed to be good for your brain. as for these days, it continues to give me unparalleled dopamine hits when i find a word i learned from hypmic out in the wild, like some other song or video or even a textbook. the other way around is great too, when i noncommittally study something off the jlpt lists and see it mentioned in hypmic lyrics or stories. it's also hilarious and fun to impress my japanese coworkers with how i know some expressions you'd never find in a textbook (フルボッコ which i learned from ichiro was a good one that they wouldnt stop laughing at) so!
best of all, i'm enjoying it a lot. i'm understanding the smartass things saburo is saying, and learning little facts and tidbits about everyone, like words they would use in things they would say in situations they would be in. it fuels a lot of headcanons and fic ideas that... i haven't had time to spare for, but it's fun to have my own interpretations of the characters. it's rewarding like nothing else, like... everyone has their own interpretations of characters, naturally, but i only have to care about the saburo that i've come to learn about and love more and more everyday by directly consuming content in japanese. it's such a special feeling.
this is my heatmap as of today :) i've been consistent about studying, even when i have little outings, collab-driven or otherwise, or even when i went on a long vacation during my winter break. i'm always, always so excited to learn new words and phrases from saburo, and from hypmic content in general. i even started getting productive things out of it, like my translation summaries (which i'll be migrating over to this main blog in the coming days), and the motivation to continue studying n1 kanji even if i don't think i want to take n1.
anyway i'm in the language-learning Sphere so i see that many people lose motivation and burn out from studying for the jlpt and end up quitting studying japanese altogether. i'm happy to say i'm safe from that. part of it is routine, but a bigger part is the enjoyment. of course, when i decided in august that i would take the jlpt, i had to actually learn practical words, so i used renshuu's premade n2 lists. but i didn't want to stop studying my own personal shit, so i was putting in the effort to study both at once. there was a good chunk of a crossover section there though, i imagine. when i looked up some words from saburo especially, i would see them tagged as n2 or n1 level so it was motivating too lol.
now that i've taken and passed the test, i'm back to just adding new words from hypmic, but i kept the n2 words to study with the spaced repetition so i continue to encounter them every now and then. i'm also studying n1 kanji plus i Might go and study n1 words at some point, but it'll be because knowing more just means that i can understand more when i encounter them while messing around with hypmic :) lmao.
also i enjoy hypmic for studying because there's just so much content out there in different formats. like i can listen to songs and practice karaoke, i can replay the drama tracks from long ago, i can go through arb stories, i can read articles in the fan club magazine, i can skim through the manga- and every time, i would always pick up something new, or find that i understand something i couldn't before because i've been studying. also, because the characters all have their different things going on, i learn a wide variety of things you know?? it's so so so so so much fun. i want to keep having fun like this for a long time :) my sincere hope for anyone studying japanese is to find a series they like this much- in my case, i'm pretty good with this. damn, talk about no better time to say 世話になるぜヒプノシスマイク
p.s. i can hear all the people going "hypmic sucks!!!!" yeah well whatever!!!! saburo's cute and i'm learning smartass things!!!! i just wanna enjoy silly hypmic content on my own!! i dont have to get into it with anyone!! fandoms in general are miserable these days anyways!! dont talk to me!! <3
