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Frequently Used Terms (FUT)

Contents

Introduction to the FUT
Terms A-Z
Japanese Guide

Introduction to the FUT

The FUT is a glossary of frequently used terms of anime/manga fandom (hence the name). The terms are followed by a guide to Japanese pronounciation. It is intended to be useful not only to "newbies", but to more knowledgable fans as well.

The FUT is not intended to replace a Japanese dictionary, not is it intended to cover any particular title, medium, or genre in special depth. Instead, it's meant as a general reference, equally useful to everyone who reads it, and needing little or no knowledge beforehand. The FUT has been extensively cross-referenced for your convenience.

The FUT is maintained by Xplo "Endymion" Eristotle, and was originally created at the suggestion of Iskandar Taib, owner of the Indiana Sailor Moon Discussion List. Ed Sanford was the first to HTMLize the FUT; later versions were HTMLized by Xplo Eristotle. A copy is hosted by Stephen Congly. Contributors have been too numerous to mention; you know who you are.

You are free to quote from the FUT, as long as you source your quote properly; likewise, you may feel free to link to it, as long as you do so in such a way so as not to make the FUT seem to be a part of your site. If you find any errors in the FUT, would like to have something added, or have any other comments or questions, please contact the maintainer.

Terms A-Z

Anime

The Japanese word for animation. While technically it refers to all animation, Japanese animation is quite different from Western animation, and so English-speaking Japanese animation fans often use the word to refer specifically to Japanese animation, reserving the word "cartoon" for the mindless, low-budget merchandising vehicles usually produced in the West. (The FUT also uses the word "anime" in this way.)

The word "anime" is a shortened form of "animeshon", the Japanese phonetic spelling of English "animation". (If anyone tells you it came from French, they're wrong.) Most anime fans now use it instead of the older "Japanimation", which some consider to be racially offensive (i.e. "Jap animation") and/or a really lousy pun. The rest of Western society still seems to be catching up, though, so don't be surprised if you see "Japanimation" in comic store windows or video shelves.

See also Manga.

Arigatou

Japanese for "thank you". It's commonly used by fans on the Internet.

BGM

Short for "background music". Rather than just using some cheap, simple synthesized musical track as background noise, the Japanese use REAL music (often written and performed by professional musicians) to enhance their animation. Anime BGM styles range all over, reflecting rock, jazz, pop, orchestral music, techno and more; soundtrack compilation CDs are quite popular.

See also: CD, Son May.

Bishounen

Technically, this word means "beautiful boy", and can be used to describe someone as handsome. However, it usually refers to an effeminate-looking man (with degrees ranging from slightly androgynous good looks to "that's a GUY?"), a character design commonly found in shoujo material. It is rarely (if ever) considered insulting.

Cel

A cel is a thin, clear plastic sheet used in animation. Characters and moving objects are painted on cels, and then the cels are laid on top of background(s) and other cels before being photographed to produce a frame of film.

The price for a single anime cel can vary from five to literally thousands of dollars, with most falling in the $10-$100 range; the cost may seem ridiculous, but it gives a fan a chance to actually own a piece of their favorite show. Some fans have large collections of cels, all carefully stored to prevent them from damage.

CD

Short for "Compact Disc". Everyone already knew that, right?

Japanese CDs (especially anime soundtracks) are hot items among anime fans. Unfortunately, most Japanese CDs start at around $30 when they leave their native country. Import fees and profit margins can add as much as $20 to the cost, making them ridiculously expensive by the time they get to the West. As a result, many people buy their CDs from Son May, a Taiwanese company that produces $9 bootleg copies of Asian CDs.

Recently, a few companies have imported genuine anime CDs for sale in the US; these typically sell for around $20, which is still more expensive than ordinary domestic CDs, but they're legitimate, and cheaper than getting them from Japan. The vast majority of Japanese music remains in Japan, however.

See also: Son May.

Con

Short for "convention".

See also: Convention.

Convention

Anime conventions are noisy, chaotic events, typically held yearly, where anime fans gather. Typical convention features are dealer rooms, where you can buy almost any kind of anime merchanise imaginable (prices range from desperate to outrageous), anime screenings (sometimes in several rooms at once), cosplay contests (dress as your favorite character), panels where you can talk to well-known anime fans as well as big names in the industry, and one or more special guests (seiyuu, artists, directors, etc).

Cosplay

A contraction of "costume play". To cosplay is to dress up in a costume; most cosplayers wear costumes resembling characters from anime or video games. Cosplay is more common in Japan than in the West, though one can always find cosplayers at anime conventions.

Doujinshi

Manga produced by fans of other manga or anime. None of these are legitimate products, since doujinshi artists aren't licenced to use or publish the material. They are much smaller than real manga; many are only several pages. Some mangaka got their start by writing doujinshi, and doujinshi artists are rarely (if ever) subjected to legal action for their infringement. In fact, Japan holds a doujinshi-selling convention ("Comiket") twice a year.

They are famous for being pornographic, though the majority of them really aren't. Some of them aren't even based on existing material, and are more like fanzines or "underground" comics.

See also: Fanfic, Manga.

Dub

Dubbing is the process of recording over a video's voice track with another voice track, in a different language and timed so that the voices more or less match the characters' mouths. The result is usually called a dub, to distinguish it from subtitled ("sub") and untranslated ("raw") versions.

Dubs are popular with casual, mainstream anime fans; the English voices allow them to do other things while they listen, and they don't have to become accustomed to the "weird" sound of a foreign language or spend time reading words on the screen. Because of this relative popularity, dubs can be sold at a cheaper price than subs, which only adds to their popularity.

However, dubs have a number of flaws. They're more expensive and difficult to produce than subs, because of the necessity of paying writers to make the translations fit the mouth movements, and of paying for voice talent and studio time. When the script is changed to match the mouths, the translation usually suffers.. and the voice talent is often composed of unknown, second-rate actors far inferior to their Japanese counterparts. Even worse are dubs intended for broadcast, since they're usually slapped together with little attention to accuracy (or even the original story), and they're edited for time and content.

"Dub" can also refer to the process of copying tapes. A person might say they want "a dub of anime X", by which they mean that they want a copy of anime X, but not necessarily an English language-dubbed copy of anime X.

See also: Fandub, Fansub, Generation, Raw, Sub.

DVD

Originally an acronym for "Digital Video Disc", it quickly became "Digital Versatile Disc" and stayed that way for a while before degenerating into meaning nothing specific at all. DVD is widely hailed as the video technology of the future, being able to cram hours of near-laserdisc quality, MPEG-2 compressed digital video and sound onto a single CD-sized disc. Like CDs, DVDs can also be used for computer data storage ("DVD-ROM").

One concern with DVDs is that since they ARE completely digital, bootlegging may become a serious problem; besides simple piracy, it will become possible to get a copy of the latest Hollywood blockbuster while - or before - other countries are showing the movie in theaters. To deal with this problem, someone hit upon the idea of "regional encoding" which would prevent a DVD from being played in a DVD player from the "wrong" country. The decision to incorporate regional encoding into DVD has met with a lot of criticism, particularly from Western anime fans who are used to simply popping Japanese CDs, tapes, and LDs into their Western players. Fortunately, companies have the option to NOT encode their DVDs, and it seems that a number of them prefer free information and worldwide markets to compartmentalized control.

Oddly enough, the Japanese - known for their love of new technologies - seem to be lagging in their adoption of DVD technology. This is probably because compact, high-quality video technologies (LD, SVHS, and Hi-8) are already established there, and they don't really need another one.

See also: Laserdisc.

Ecchi

This rather vague word can mean sex, sexual arousal, a lecher.. exact meaning is based on context. For example, when a girl screams "ecchi!" it generally means "you pervert!" Though technically a noun, anime fans often use it as an adjective as well.

The word comes from the Japanese pronounciation of the English letter "H". "H" is the first letter of "hentai", another word relating to sex; ecchi, then, is a little bit of hentai. ("Hentai" tends to be more hardcore in connotation; for instance, tentacle sex is hentai, while gratuitous nudity is merely ecchi.)

See also: H, Hentai, Lemon.

ED

Short for EnD (or perhaps EnDing). ED usually refers to the song played while the end credits roll, though it can also refer to the visual sequence during the end credits.

See also: OP.

Eyecatch

A short animated sequence that plays before and after going to commercial; basically, the Japanese equivalent of "we'll be back after these messages" and "now back to the show". Eyecatches are usually a bit snazzier, though.

For reasons that should be terribly obvious, anime not originally intended for TV broadcast - movies, OAVs, and so on - don't have eyecatches.

Face-fault

A typical anime shock reaction (similar to what's been called a "cartoon take"). Much easier to see and understand than describe, but generally involves the jaw contorting or hanging slack, eyes becoming like saucers, that sort of thing. Generally caused by someone saying or doing something surprising or incredibly stupid.

See also: Face-vault, Nosebleeds, Super-deformed, Sweatdrops.

Face-vault

A typical anime shock reaction, similar to a face-fault but less common and more extreme; specifically, the affected character(s) falls over on his/her face, usually with limbs sticking out in all directions.

Some anime fans use "face-vault" to refer both to face-vaults and face-faults.

See also: Face-fault, Nosebleeds, Super-deformed, Sweatdrops.

Fandub

Anime dubbed by fans, rather than by professionals. Fandubs are usually produced by a guy in his basement working with a couple of VCRs and his computer (or sometimes just a tape recorder), and the voices are usually provided by friends of the producer or volunteers from the Internet (or the street!). The inevitable quality of such a production is left to the reader.

Almost all fandubs are parodies.. some of them intentionally, and some of them by virtue of simply being that bad.

See also: Dub, Fansub, Raw, Sub.

Fanfic

Short for "fan-written fiction". Fans of anime and manga sometimes write their own stories based on the characters and/or settings. None of these are official, of course, and often invent new characters or other features as needed for the story. An intimate knowledge of the original material seems to be optional, as is having any actual writing talent.

See also: Doujinshi, Lemon.

Fansub

Anime subtitled by fans, rather than by professionals. Quality varies widely, but a dedicated fansubber with good equipment can produce near-professional results. Of course, some fansubbers aren't too dedicated to quality, and some don't have very good equipment... Many anime which haven't been released by Western anime companies (and some that have) are available in fansubbed versions, and can be found on the Internet.

Fansubs are illegal, as they constitute copyright infringement. Companies who license titles that are being fansubbed tend to take a dim view of the fansubbers, so most fansubbers stop production when a company announces a new title, and some people recommend that only titles which are never likely to see commercial release should be fansubbed.

Fansubbers are generally expected to operate under non-profit conditions, as are distributors; the point of making a fansub in the first place is to help the fans by personal sacrifice, not to get rich off of people who can't understand Japanese. Never pay more than five dollars for a fansub tape (not including shipping costs); if you do you're getting ripped off pretty badly.

See also: Dub, Fandub, Raw, Script, Sub.

FAQ

An acronym for Frequently Asked Questions. Many special-interest subjects have obscure terminology, are too broad to understand all at once, or are inherently confusing. When this happens, people who are new to the subject start asking questions, and eventually someone writes a FAQ that these people can be referred to, in order to save themselves the trouble of answering the same questions over and over.

Furigana

Small kana written above or to the right of kanji, in order to help Japanese children read kanji that they have not learned yet. Of course, it helps the non-Japanese as well, since kana is much easier to learn than kanji.

See also: Kana, Kanji.

Generation

When analog material (such as a videotape) is copied, tiny imperfections in the copying process can degrade the quality of the copy. Generation is a measurement of how many "ancestors" a copy had, and provides a rough indication of quality; for instance, a first generation tape is a copy of the commercial release (and therefore high-quality), while a tenth generation tape probably looks and sounds like a blurry blizzard.

Digital storage media (CDs and DVDs) don't have this problem, since digital copies are exactly like the original. Unfortunately, CD and DVD recorders are still too expensive for the average consumer to own.

Gomennasai

Common Japanese apology, often used by fans on the Internet. Shorter forms such as "gomen" and "gomen ne" are also common, and mean basically the same thing.

H

Short for "hentai", and meaning the same thing as "ecchi". H is sometimes used to form descriptive compound words: H-anime, H-doujinshi, and so on.

See also: Ecchi, Hentai, Lemon.

Hentai

Literally "pervert" or "perversion", and usually refers to sexual perversion. If it's twisted, kinky, and/or obscene, it's probably hentai.

See also: Ecchi, H, Lemon.

Hiragana

One of the two phonetic alphabets native to Japan, hiragana is used either by itself or in conjunction with kanji to write native Japanese words. Hiragana tends to have a lot of curves and squiggles.

See also: Kana, Kanji, Katakana, Roumaji.

Honorifics

An honorific is a short title used after a person's name, and denotes the social relationship between the speaker and the subject. Sometimes an honorific is used after something that's not a name, as in "o-kyaku-sama" ("esteemed customer/guest") or "minna-san" ("ladies and gentlemen").

Failure to use an honorific after someone's name shows familiarity if the speaker and subject know each other well; otherwise it's insultingly disrespectful. (It's a little bit like walking up to some corporate head on the street, slapping him on the back, and yelling "Hi Bob!" Better hope he's an old friend...)

Some honorifics are listed below:

-chan is only appropriate when used for children (up to mid-teens) or animals; you could also call your girlfriend or boyfriend -chan, but only if they permit it. Otherwise, it's an insult (like calling a man on the street "Poopsie" or "boy") and the speaker is probably asking for a slap in the face/fist in the mouth/fireball in the gut.

-kun is used mostly for teenage boys who are younger than or inferior to the speaker. Occasionally it is used for girls, particularly tomboyish ones. (Can someone give me a better definition for this?) It's also used for subordinates, particularly in offices and other places where there's a clear sense of hierarchy.

-sama is deeply respectful. It is often translated by preceding the name with Master, Lord, and so forth. If the speaker is socially equal or superior to the subject, -sama might be seen as sarcastically insulting.

-san is equivalent to Miss or Mister, but sees almost constant use, generally between social equals. Anyone who you don't use some other title for is probably a -san, including most of your friends.

-dono is an archaic form of -sama.

See also: Names.

Jap

An abbreviation for "Japanese", and one which many people consider to be a racial insult; for this reason, most anime fans don't use it.

See also: JP, NA.

JP

An abbreviation for "Japan" or "Japanese".

See also: NA.

Kakkoii

Though literally meaning "(the) form/appearance (is) good", modern usage is more similar to the American slang term "cool", and the word is occasionally used by fans on the Internet.

Kana

Refers to both hiragana and katakana. Basically, any written Japanese that's not kanji or roumaji is kana.

See also: Hiragana, Kanji, Katakana, Roumaji.

Kanji

A complex pictographic writing system where each character means one or more words. It was borrowed from Chinese centuries ago, back when Chinese was the highly-educated court language, and even though the characters are identical, the pronounciations have changed. (This means that the Chinese and the Japanese can talk to each other.. IF they have something to write with!)

There are roughly three thousand kanji in use in Japan today, two-thirds of which are required study in Japanese schools.

See also: Furigana, Hiragana, Kana, Katakana, Roumaji.

Katakana

One of two phonetic alphabets native to Japan, katakana is used for writing words which have been borrowed from other languages, and it's occasionally used for emphasizing words that would normally be written in hiragana. It's also used for writing sound effects (Japanese equivalents of "whoosh", "thud", etc). Katakana is made up mostly of straight lines and simple curves.

See also: Hiragana, Kana, Kanji, Roumaji.

Kawaii

Japanese for "cute". Applies to children, teenage girls, animals, toys, and anything else that people usually think is cute. Often used by fans on the Internet; sometimes confused with "kowai".

See also: Kowai.

Kowai

Japanese for "scary". Sometimes used by fans on the Internet; sometimes confused with "kawaii" or incorrectly spelled "kowaii".

See also: Kawaii.

Laserdisc

A laserdisc (or "LD") is similar to a CD, but much larger (LDs are the size of old vinyl LPs) and containing video as well as sound. LDs are usually more expensive than videotapes, but they have a much higher picture quality (450 lines of resolution compared with 240 for VHS) and (sometimes) digital audio.

Most original, untranslated anime is sold on laserdisc, and hardcore anime fans tend to collect a lot of them, if they can afford them.

See also: DVD, Laser Rot.

Laser Rot

The degradation of an LD's picture quality over time, caused by oxidation of the metallic elements inside the LD. Sometimes an affected disc will change color slightly, becoming yellowish. Laser rot is caused when air gets between the two outside layers of the disc, which can happen if the disc is bent or mishandled.

See also: Laserdisc.

LD

Abbreviation for "laserdisc".

See also: Laserdisc.

Lemon

Generally refers to a pornographic fanfic; apparently, the word comes from the pornographic "Cream Lemon" anime series. Other fruit-names ("apple", "pineapple", etc) denote different kinds of lemons (apples are less explicit.. I think), but hardly anyone knows what all of them are or exactly what they mean.

See also: Ecchi, Fanfic, H, Hentai.

Manga

Japanese comic books. They are usually printed monthly like American comics, but are printed very cheaply, on recycled newspaper and such, and in black-and-white. Most (all?) manga are actually compilations of several different stories, a little like the multiple strips of newspaper comics. Some manga are hundreds of pages thick. The term is also used to describe the individual stories themselves.

Many anime movies and series are based on manga; some are more faithful to their source than others.

See also: Anime, Doujinshi, Mangaka, Tankoubon.

Mangaka

A manga artist.

See also: Manga.

Mecha

An abbreviation of mechanical, mecha (pronounced meh-kuh, not may-chah) are giant anthromorphic fighting machines. The term also describes those anime and manga which prominently feature mecha; examples include Gundam and the infamous Robotech.

According to some people, anything that is mechanically oriented is considered mech, regardless of whether it actually features mecha. (Confirmation, anyone?)

Minna

Japanese for "everyone". Refers to everyone in a specific group (such as an audience, or a team), rather than the entire sentient population (unless of course the speaker is speaking to the entire sentient population). Often used by fans on the Internet.

NA

An abbreviation for "North America" or "North American".

See also: JP.

Names

The Japanese name order is opposite from that of English, with the family name coming first and the personal name coming second; the Japanese don't have middle names. This is often confusing as many Americans reverse the order to make the names conform to English standards, and without an intimate knowledge of Japanese names it can be impossible to tell which is their family and given name. Occasionally, one of the names will be written in capital letters; this is always the family name.

Japanese with personal names ending in -ko or -mi are almost always female. This is one way to tell whether a name has been reversed.

The Japanese often refer to themselves, or to the person they're speaking to, by name. For instance, a hungry Japanese person named Akira might say "I am hungry", or he might say "Akira is hungry". They don't consider this strange; it's just part of the language.

See also: Honorifics.

Nani

Japanese for "what". Often used by fans on the Internet.

Ne

Usually, this Japanese word means "right?" or "isn't it?", and is used very similarly to Canadian "eh". It can also mean "hey" when used to start a sentence. Ne is often used by fans on the Internet.

Nosebleeds

Normally these occur when a relatively unpopular guy (read: nerd/geek) sees a really attractive (or nude) girl, or gets "turned on" in some other way, though they can occur to girls or in other situations when a character is under stress.

Supposedly these actually happen to the Japanese; I can only guess that the wildly shifting climate wreaks havoc on one's nose, and the sudden rise in blood pressure bursts a vessel to produce this rather bizarre biological effect.

See also: Face-fault, Face-vault, Super-deformed, Sweatdrops.

NTSC

Acronym for "National Technical Standards Committee" (or something similar) and is the television standard used in America and Japan. Because we use the same standard, their LDs and tapes will work in our LD players and VCRs, and vice-versa. In some parts of the world other standards (such as PAL) are used which are not compatible. It is possible to get a multiscan VCR which can read multiple formats, but these are rare and expensive.

Supposedly, the NTSC standard requires 565 lines of resolution (this is vertical?) and a scan rate of 30 frames/second. (Again, can someone confirm this?)

OAV

Short for "Original Animated Video". An OAV is an animated video that's released directly to video stores, without seeing theaters or television broadcast. Sometimes entire series are released this way. They're more common in Japan than they are in the West, but Disney's "Aladdin" and "Beauty and the Beast" sequels are a good example.

OP

Short for OPening. OP usually refers to the song played while the opening credits roll, though it can also refer to the visual sequence during the opening credits.

See also: ED.

Otaku

A Japanese word denoting a fanatical fan. When first used this way in the early '80s (?), it referred to fans of anime and manga. Unfortunately, a few otaku committed crimes and blamed them on their hobby, so the word has a negative connotation in Japan. In the West, the only people who mind being called otaku are the ones who don't want to be associated with the image of the nerdy, reclusive fan-boy.

Otaku can also be translated as "your house"; I've heard that the word otaku began to be used because the fans supposedly never left their houses, but I don't know if it's true.

OVA

Short for "Original Video Animation", and the same thing as an OAV.

See also: OAV.

Raw

Slang term for untranslated material. If you're watching anime in Japanese without subtitles (or reading original Japanese manga), it's "raw".

See also: Dub, Fandub, Fansub, Sub.

Roumaji

Literally meaning "Rome (or Roman) characters", roumaji is Japanese written in.. well, the Roman alphabet. All the Japanese words in this FUT are written in roumaji. Other spellings of the word exist, such as "romanji", and mean the exact same thing.

See also: Hiragana, Kana, Kanji, Katakana.

Script

A line-for-line written translation of foreign-language video. Some scripts have been timed, allowing someone with the appropriate equipment and software to make their own subtitled copy. This is how fansubs are made.

Some scripts aren't actually written by the fans of the material being translated, or sometimes the fans aren't too picky, and so the quality suffers (poor grammar, bad translation, typos, and timing errors are common).

See also: Fansub, Sub.

SD

Short for "super-deformed".

See also: Super-deformed.

Seiyuu

A Japanese word usually used to refer to voice actors, the word "seiyuu" actually describes anyone who has a job using their voice; a radio DJ, for instance.

See also: VA.

Shounen

Japanese for "boy", shounen is usually used to describe anime and manga aimed at boys.

Shounen Ai

Shounen ai means "boy love", and refers to a kind of manga in which the main characters are boys or men with a homosexual relationship. Shounen ai typically deals with the emotional aspects of their relationship, rather than the physical ones. Shounen ai is highly popular among Japanese girls and women.

See also: Manga, Yaoi.

Shoujo

A Japanese word for "girl", shoujo is usually used to describe anime and manga aimed at girls.

SM

Short for "Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon", a popular manga/anime series about a group of girls who fight evil with magic powers. It also stands for "Son May", a Taiwanese maker of bootleg CDs.

See also: Son May.

Son May

A Taiwanese company that makes bootleg asian CDs. Since Son May's CDs are as easy to get as Japanese originals, a lot cheaper (Son May sells them for as little as $9), and have identical sound quality, they're popular among anime fans; however, they are illegal outside of Taiwan, and some fans decry them as unethical and tantamount to theft.

Note that Son May CDs found in comic stores, at conventions, and so on, are often more expensive, sometimes as high as $20. Also, some unscrupulous types try to pass off Son May CDs as originals; don't be fooled! Son May CDs are clearly marked as such on the packaging, and sometimes on the CD itself.

Sub

Subtitling, or "subbing", is the process of overlaying text onto video, usually to translate foreign writing and/or spoken dialogue. The text is timed to appear at the same time as the material that's being translated. The result is usually called a sub, to distinguish it from dubbed ("dub") and untranslated ("raw") versions.

Because subtitles are under relatively few technical restrictions, a sub can be much more accurate than a dub. For this reason, and also because the original voices are retained, subs are the favored translation format of serious anime fans. Unfortunately, the foreign dialogue and the need to read the titles tends to drive away casual fans, resulting in better sales for dubs (and higher prices for subs).

Subs are actually much cheaper and easier to produce than dubs, so much so that the technology is within the reach of the individual. As a result, numerous people have made their own subs from raw Japanese footage (these are called "fansubs").

See also: Dub, Fandub, Fansub, Generation, Raw.

Super-deformed

A style of drawing. Super-deformed (or "SD") characters have short, stubby limbs and disproportionate heads (usually the head is nearly as large as the entire rest of the body). Though super-deformed characters usually only appear on merchandise, sometimes anime characters are drawn SD (usually when they're freaking out) and a few anime have nothing but SD characters!

See also: Face-fault, Face-vault, Nosebleeds, Sweatdrops.

Sweatdrops

The huge sweatdrops that appear on a character's head from time to time usually indicate that the character is nervous or embarrassed. Frankly, I can't understand why so many people need this explained.

See also: Face-fault, Face-vault, Nosebleeds, Super-deformed.

Tankoubon

Collections of one story from several issues of manga, with higher-quality printing and better paper. (Many manga are so cheaply made that they are recycled or thrown away after being read.) Similar to many graphic novels available in comic stores and bookstores.

See also: Manga.

UFO Catcher

The Japanese version of the crane game, where players control a mechanical arm and try to grab prizes at the bottom of the machine. Many UFO catchers (most? all?) are filled with plush dolls of anime characters or animals (called "nuigurumi"), which some people collect.

It is possible that the name comes from the UFO shape of the mechanical grabber, designed in response to an alien abduction phase that Japan apparently went through. (Can anyone give me details, or at least confirm this?)

VA

Short for "Voice Actor".

See also: Seiyuu.

Yaoi

Yaoi is a kind of manga in which the main characters are boys or men with a homosexual relationship. Unlike shounen ai, however, yaoi are generally very explicit in their depiction of the characters' physical relationship (ie sex).

The term comes from the phrase "yama nashi imi nashi ochi nashi"; "no climax, no meaning, no resolution" but some jokingly translate it as "Stop my ass hurts!."

See also: Manga, Shounen Ai.

Japanese Guide

Contrary to what you might think, Japanese is actually very easy to pronounce. All Japanese words are made out of short, distinct syllables, and the syllables are almost always pronounced the same no matter where they're used. This means that - unlike English - there are only five vowel sounds, instead of a couple dozen. Pretty convenient, ne?

A always sounds like "AH", E always sounds like "AY", I always sounds like "EE", O always sounds like "OH", and U always sounds like "OO". As examples, "anime" is pronounced "AH-NEE-MAY", and "otaku" is pronounced "OH-TAH-KOO". When different vowels appear consecutively, sound them out and cram them together; thus, "hentai" rhymes with "necktie", and "aoi" sounds like something you would say when you hurt your finger (try it!). When the same vowel appears twice consecutively, the doubled vowel is held for longer; this is often referred to as a "long vowel".

The G is always hard, as in "gum", so manga sounds like "MAWN-GAH" and not "MAWN-JAH". The R is not like an English "R". Try saying "UHLLLL", just to feel what your tongue does; the Japanese R is sort of pronounced by saying an "L" very quickly, so that your tongue only flicks your teeth. Alternately, try saying a "D", quickly and without too much stress. It's difficult to explain, but easy once you get the hang of it; if all else fails, use a normal "L". The CH part of CHI, CHO, and so on, is always soft as in "cheese". When the same two consonants appear consecutively, as in "ecchi", there is a short catch between the consonants, similar to the "K" sound in "bookcase".

Sometimes, a word will contain a syllable made of a consonant, a Y, and a vowel. In these cases, the important thing to remember that it IS one syllable. The only good example in English is KYU, which sounds just like the letter "Q", and not like "KEE-YOU" or "KYE-YOU".

There are different ways to romanize Japanese, and some of them use different spellings. Sometimes OO is written OU or OH, EE is written EI, and UU written UH (the FUT uses these spellings, as they seem to be the most popular). The pronounciation remains the same, so don't get too confused. Very rarely, SHI is written SI; again, it's still pronounced "SHEE".

There is no real syllabic stress in Japanese. Every syllable should be pronounced with about the same speed and emphasis, if possible. This doesn't mean that they speak in a monotone, just that they don't emphasize certain parts of words the same way we do. (If you're really curious, Japanese stress manifests as changes in pitch.. but since you don't really need to know how different words change pitch to speak Japanese, I won't go into it.)

For the most part, Japanese nouns are both singular and plural, just like "sheep" or "deer". Of course, many Americans ignore this, or don't know any better, resulting in incorrect words like "ninjas"...