More のぶおさん

This here is Final Fantasy's main theme. It was played in the original Final Fantasy. To give a bit of background story as to how のぶおさん first started making music for Square (the anime and video game company now know as Square Enix).

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, Square was sort of a failing video game company. Most of its games were not selling, and the company's founder decided he wanted to make one last game before shutting down the company. This is why his last game was titled "Final Fantasy," as it was supposed to be the company's last game. The founder of Square had worked with のぶおさん before, and was good friends with him also, so he asked him to make the music to his last game.

As it turned out, this game turned out to be a good game. It was a game that a lot of Japanese people loved (Fina Fantasy 1 didn't come to the US until much later), and the game became a success. のぶおさん's music was also really well liked, and he wrote the music for every Final Fantasy that came after that.

This is just something I found really cool, so I've shared the melody to the first three games above. Below, I'm adding the main theme of one of the most famous of all the Final Fantasies, Final Fantasy VII. Enjoy.

じゃ、また。

ミゲル

Katakana Literary Work Final

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Composition 3

二十年後のわたしはシカゴにいます。シカゴから来ましたから、二十年後のわたしはシカゴにいます。そして、今かぞくはシカゴにいます。二十年後のわたしはいいけんきゅうしゃです。そして、自分のけんきゅうじょがほしいです。そこではたらきます。毎朝うちで朝ごはんをたべます。そして、しんぶんをよみます。それから、車でけんきゅうじょへ行きます。

十二時ごろ会社員とレストランへ 昼ごはんをてべに行きます。五時ごろうちへかえります。自分のかぞくと晩ごはんをたべます。あとで、こどもとゲームをします。それから、つまとテレビをみます。毎晩、十一時ごろねます。

またのぶおさん？？？

わたしはうそでした。I am going to keeping posting stuff about のぶおさん until I get bored. ぬぶおさんはすごいですから。このうたはFinal Fantasy VIIのです。

 

今年の四月、ともだちとブルックリンへのぶおさんのコンサートをききに行きました。のぶおさんは「One Winged Angel]のうたをうたいました。そして、のぶおさんに会いました。とてもかっこいでした。

じゃ、また。

ミゲル

カタカナAnalysis Final Draft

So, as most people know, katakana is used in Japan for loan words and onomatopoeia (sounds that animals make or other sound effects, such as ニャ). The two examples I found of this not being the case, and which are slightly less known, are for the names of Japanese companies and for those words that emphasize words of Japanese origin.

トヨタ、for example, is the name of the Japanese car company that makes cars. Although it is a Japanese company, it's name is written in katakana. I believe this is so in order to distinguish the company from the name of a person, who might use the kanji for of "豊田 (toyota)". The same works for the company スズキ, where a person or family name might be 鈴木 (suzuki).

The other example of katakana words are those that emphasize words. There are a lot of places where this occurs, but the majority of these emphasis words are found in advertisements for pretty much anything. As my sensei explained to me and my class, companys like to have Japanese words written out in katakana so that they sound "cool." めがね is a good example, as it is often written as メガネ on signs and billboards, according to wikipedia (Katakana Usage Wiki).

So, in conclusion, katakana has many uses in Japan. It is used not only for loan words and onomatopeoia, but also to write out company names and emphasize Japanese words.

ミゲル

きょうのうた

このうたは Final Fantasy VIIIのうたです。I think that every Final Fantasy made has a very different feel, and that のぶおさん did a really good job of making that point come across with the music for every game. There are songs that repeat in every game, like the Chocobo Theme (shown below), but overall, each game has music that goes with it really well.

ちょこぼ！！！

じゃ、また

ミゲル

Final Fantasy X

のぶおさんはFinal Fantasy Xのおんがくをかきました。そのうたのなかに、このうたがいちばんさびしいうたです。

Like I said before, のぶおさん writes music for video games. This was the ending theme to one of the best Final Fantasy games made (in my opinion).　The game is what one would call a tragedy (if it were being described as a play, or opera, or something of a similar nature) with a "let's save the world" theme as well.

This song has more to do with the tragic elements of the game than anything else, hence making it sad. Anyway, hope you enjoy this song.

ミゲル

うえまつのぶおさん！！！！

こんしゅうにのぶおうえまつのしゅうですよ。この人はうえまつのぶおさんです。ーーーーーーーーーーー＞

のぶおさんはコンポーザーですよ。ゲームのうたをつくります。Sqaure Enixのかいしゃいんです。


わたしはのぶおさんのうたがだいすきです。Zanarkandのうたがだいすきです。





これは Zanarkandのうたです。とてもすてきなうたです。

 

じゃ、また。

ミゲル

カタカナ Literary Work (Draft)

This is a fake advertising ad for a fake computer company, Ishida. It is still a work in progress, but it will look something like this (with color added later, and probably more details).

ミゲル

Composition 2

山田さんへ、
はじめまして。わたしはミゲルエスコバルです。わたしはコロンビアたいがくのさんねんせいです。コロンビアだいがくでせいぶつこうがくをべんきょうします。それはとてもむずかしいですが、おもしろいです。

そして、わたしはアルバイトをします。月よう日と金よう日にバスでコロンビアのいしゃのがっこうにいきます。そこでラブアシスタントのアルバイトをします。アルバイトはやさしいですから、すきです。

わたしは六月十三日に日本へいきます。よろしくおねがいします。

ミゲルエスコバル

カタカナ Draft

So, as most people know, katakana is used in Japan for loan words and onomatopoeia (sounds that animals make or other sound effects). The two examples I found of this not being the case, and which is slightly less known, is for the names of Japanese companies and to emphasize certain Japanese words.

トヨタ、for example, is the name of the Japanese car company that makes cars. Although it is a Japanese company, it's name is written in katakana. I believe this is so in order to distinguish the company from the name of a person. The same works for the company スズキ。

The other example of katakana words is with emphasis.

カレー！！！

おととい、かのじょとカレーをつくりました。そのカレーはおいしです。Here are some pictures of how we made made the curry. I had never made it before, so it was mostly my girlfriend teaching me, but I think it turned out pretty good. これはしゃしんです。

 
 わたしはかつとごはんをつきました。

かのじょはカレーをつくりました。

 This was the final product. それはおいしいですよ。じゃ、また。Until next time.

エスコバル

まいしゅう

まいにちのあさはちじにおきます。

げつようびとすいようびにQuantitative Physiologyのクラスにいきます。
かようびともくようびにThermodynamicsとFluid Mechanicsとせいぶつりがくのクラスにいきます。
すいようびにBiomedical Engineering Labのクラスにいきます。
げつようびからもくようびまでにほんごのクラスにいきます。
かようびときんようびにはたらきます。ブースでコロンビアのいしゃのだいがくにいきます。

まいばんじゅうにじはんにねます。

それはわたしのしゅうです。

日本語

みんな、こんにちわ。げんきですか？ I'm glad people have been enjoying my posts on Joe Hisaishi. I also haven't kept up with the blog recently, and that's the reason why I'm writing this entry.

If you enjoyed the music of Joe Hisaishi, I'll post more music composed by Japanese composers throughout the year, mostly as I find out about them, since I really only know about two (the second one is also amazing, but in a different way).

Other than that, I'd also like to keep up with how learning 日本語　is actually going, so here it goes.

ぼくはまいにちにほんごをべんきょうします。まいにち、しゅくだいをします。でも、日本語のクラスはたのしいです。I'm learning things I never really understood when I first took Japanese in high school. They may just be small things, like how の is properly used, or whether words like いつ take the particle に。These things may be small and seem fairly straightforward, but when your in higher levels of Japanese, and you don't know how these things work, it causes problems. That's why I'm glad that I'm taking Japanese again, and learning it properly.

じゃまた、
ミゲル

P.S. はうるのうごくしろのうたがだいすきです。

さよなら、ひさいしさん！

Even though its been more than a week since the first post about ひさいしさん、I'm going to post this last song by him. これはもののけひめのうたです。 It is another of my favorite pieces written by him, and a very dramatic one too, so I thought it would be a great piece to finish off the posts on ひさいしさん。

And so, with that, I leave you with yet another one of Joe Hisaishi's beautiful works of art. じゃまた。

ひさいしさん

So, I've decided to dedicate this week (or what's left of it) to ひさいしさんのおんがく。This song, called Summer, is another one of his great works of art. It was not written for a Studio Gibli film, but it is still a really good song.

The reason why I really enjoy ひさいしさん's music is because it is instrumental. I enjoy just listening to the notes, and ひさいしさん composes really beautiful music. So with that, I leave you all with this video. じゃまた。

おんがく

So, I couldn't help myself. I decided that since yesterday's post was on enka music, I would make occasional posts about two of my favorite music composers, both of whom happen to be Japanese. このcomposers がだいすきです！

The first composer I'm going to talk about is someone most people know, since I'm sure a great deal of people have heard his music before. He is Joe Hisaishi, or this guy right here ------------------>

Now, I first heard his music in a movie I watched when I was a にねんせい in high school. The movie was Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, or はうるのうごくしろ. It was the first time I had watched anime.  

As a side note, I had never really been interested in anime until I had watched that movie. It was my first real experience with anime, and I ended up loving it afterwards. It still is my favorite Miyazaki movie to this date, but that's a different story altogether.

For now, I want to talk about the man who composed the music to this movie. The music is inspiring. かっこいです。It is unique, and words cannot begin to describe how great ひさいしさん's work is. I wish I knew more about composing music so that I could compose something as great as ひさいしさん。So, on that note, I leave you with this great piece from the movie. じゃまた

えんか

This post is dedicated to a special style of music that I find kind of cool. This style of music is called えんか, or enka. Now, I'm not quite sure what it is (I've heard very few songs that are classified as enka), but my girlfriend says that it is typically sung by older Japanese women and evokes a sense of loneliness. The video above is an example of enka from Kill Bill.

However, I first realized what this genre was when my girlfriend showed me this video. It is of a black enka singer named Jero. I thought it was interesting because he is the first black enka singer ever. It is very uncommon for young people to sing enka (so I've heard) and I thought it would be something cool to share.

なぜ にほんご (Part 2)

So, because I wrote about why I decided to study Japanese here at Columbia, I've decided to give a better response to why I decided to study Japanese in the first place way back when I started high school.

I was originally interested in Japanese for one reason: my favorite movie was The Last Samurai at the time. I'm not gonna lie, so I'm gonna say that it is still one of my favorite movies today, despite what a lot of people say about it.

Admittedly though, I was also a huge gamer. I loved Nintendo games, I loved Sony (both their electronics and games), and I loved all new technology coming out in the world. I figured since most technology came from Japan, and because I liked Japanese history (mostly because of samurais), as well as everything I mentioned, I decided to learn Japanese. I hope this helps clarify why I wanted (and still want to) study Japanese.

なぜ にほんご？

I'm learning Japanese this year for multiple reasons. The main reason I am learning Japanese is because I once knew how to speak Japanese, although I spoke it very poorly. I studied the language in high school, and although I did eventually end up going to Japan, I spoke it not knowing why certain sentences were structured the way they were, and not retaining very much vocabulary.

Because of this, I ended up forgetting a lot of Japanese. I stopped using it, and forgot the majority of what I learned in high school. However, I still love Japan. I love anime, manga, video games (especially those games made by Japanese companies), and their food. I don't want to forget Japanese because I want to travel to Japan again.

So after 3 years of not speaking Japanese, I decided to take Japanese again. I am very excited to relearn the concepts I only sort of understood when I first learned Japanese. I have not been having a difficult time yet, but I found out that I forgot some of my ひらがな, which was unexpected. However, I am optimistic that this time around, I will learn Japanese well.

はじめまして！

こんにちはみんなさん！
わたしはエスコバルです。コロムビアだがくのさんねんせいです。そしてわたしはせいぶつがくのエンギニアです。

わたしはアメリカじんです。シカゴからきました。

どうぞよるしくおねがいします。