Author Archives: Michael Gakuran

The Japanese Zeitgeist: 10 Buzzwords of 2013

By Michael Gakuran | Published December 1, 2013
As a followup to my popular Top 50 Buzzwords of 2013, Anthony Joh, director at Gaijinpot and producer for the well-known Tokyo Podcast, asked me to hang out for a chat about this year’s zeitgeist. With an emphasis on buzzwords that pertain to Japanese culture, we discuss a ‘top 10’ list of my choosing and […]
Posted in Japan | 2 Comments

Top 50 Japanese Buzzwords of 2013

By Michael Gakuran | Published November 22, 2013
In what’s become something of an annual tradition here on Gakuran.com, I’m back again analysing the Japanese words of the year – new lingo and hot terms from Japan. In addition to their annual compendium, the ‘Fundamentals of Modern Terminology’, Jiyu Kokuminsha publishes the list of buzzword nominees every year around this time and then […]
Posted in Japan | 28 Comments

Ama – The Pearl Diving Mermaids of Japan (Warning: Nudity)

By Michael Gakuran | Published November 5, 2013
One of the lesser-known but fascinating parts of Japanese culture is that of the Ama pearl divers. Ama (海女 in Japanese), literally means ‘woman of the sea’ and is recorded as early as 750 in the oldest Japanese anthology of poetry, the Man’yoshu. These women specialised in freediving some 30 feet down into cold water […]
Posted in Japan | 89 Comments

How to Buy the Things you Love from Japan

By Michael Gakuran | Published November 2, 2013
Have you ever wanted to buy certain products from Japan but found it difficult to do so? You may not have realised, but there is a special space occupied by companies whose mission it is to help you do exactly that! Tenso.com is the largest and most trusted service to help you buy the things […]
Posted in Japan | 21 Comments

Gakuranman: A History Through the Pages

By Michael Gakuran | Published October 15, 2013
Gakuranman is ten years old today! Okay. Technically ‘Gakuranman‘ is much younger, since I only started writing under this alias a few years ago, but my first steps into the world of online web-logging really began on this very day ten full years ago!
Posted in Journal | 7 Comments

Half Cat, Half Hoax?

By Michael Gakuran | Published September 20, 2013
Today a Kickstarter email landed in my inbox entitled ‘Projects We Love: Stranger than Fiction’. As an enthusiast for the obscure, I eagerly clicked the link and was greeted with a book proposition concerning the topic of so-called ‘half cats’. Quite literally, half cats are real cats that are missing the rear half of their […]
Posted in Japan | 12 Comments

Don’t Compare Your Inside to Someone Else’s Outside

By Michael Gakuran | Published August 20, 2013
There’s nothing new here that hasn’t been said before. But, sometimes, it serves us well to be reminded of adages which embiggen and embolden us. While perhaps not the most eloquent way of putting it, the phrase ‘Don’t Compare Your Inside to Someone Else’s Outside’ caught my attention browsing one Hacker News comment thread recently. […]
Posted in Journal | 15 Comments

Armchair Exploration: The Haikyo Story That Inspired ‘Gone Home’

By Michael Gakuran | Published August 18, 2013
Around this time last year, a rather interesting article crossed my radar. It hadn’t been long since I’d moved to Tokyo to start a new job, and my internet scavenging was at an all time low. Thankfully however, I somehow came across the post on Kotaku talking about a curious computer game still in development […]
Posted in Other | 7 Comments