📆 Hobonichi 2021・Translating a quote a day

[Phryne]

Hobonichi 2021・Daily quotes

Translated quotes

January

January cover page

新しき年の初めの初春の今日降る雪のいや重け吉事

This is a poem by Ōtomo no Yakamochi (大伴家持), which I shan’t pretend to be able to translate precisely. I did manage to get the general gist of it, because there are many websites that offer a more modern version of this poem, for example:

「新年を迎え、初春も迎えた今日、降る雪のように良い事もたくさん積もれよ」(source)

A very fitting poem for the first month (and day) of the new year. I love the comparison between the piling up of falling snow and the (hoped for) piling up of good things in the new year. When I saw this aptly picked quote, I knew it would be rewarding to try to read all of them!

January 1st

I believe the spirit of poems has continuously been handed over from the time of the Manyoshu [to the] Meiji poets and finally to us today. In short, both 1300 years ago and now, the feeling of “I love you” that is composed in love poetry hasn’t changed.

January 2

I want to make a note of things that it would be inconsequential for me to forget if I don’t write them down on the spot. When I realise “this thing is inconsequential!”, my face lights up and I quickly try to make a note of it. Things like “children of this age hold their legs like this when they sit”, or “my uncle usually puts the cup here when he stops drinking”.

January 3

Things that are unpleasant, but also feel good at the same time.
Times when you should be sad, but the sadness just doesn’t come.
A feeling of increasing loneliness even though you were laughing the whole time.
Feelings that you can’t name, feelings so insignificant, but you still can’t ignore them.
~ @Myria!

January 4

On the first Monday of January, [I think] “Thank God It’s Monday”. I find it’s a “what a welcome Monday, let’s get to it!” kind of day. From this day on I reckon there are many people who start their jobs. Together with a sense of “let’s get to it!”

January 5

I have been using a Hobonichi Techo for 12 years. Without change, the thing I do first every year is to copy the holidays of my husband, who works as an auctioneer at the market. Even during Golden Week it appears that the market is often open. I note down the wish “do your best at your job with good humour this year as well”

January 6

In rugby, you get excited before a match and raise your spirits, stirring up your team mates as you stand on the pitch. However, it’s an interesting thing, it’s actually problematic to feel the same emotions during the kickoff moment. Although you have to be in an excited state, the game proceeds in an exceptionally strategic way. Because you have to input the strategy into your head and issue instructions to your team mates. There are many cases where you fail if you go in with an excited mentality similar to [the one you feel] at the kickoff site at the start of the game.

January 7

Since I have grown older, I’ve reached the point where, if someone – be they younger or older – is an amazing person, I can truly recognise that “this person is amazing”. Since some time or another I’ve become truly able to think like that.

January 8

Rather than going somewhere, I like to digest places I can’t go by making a drawing of them. There are also places where it is better not to go, rather than seeing how it differs from the real place, because there are many times when I let my thoughts expand too much into a direction that differs completely from the real place. In short, it’s ok if the places you want to go to only exist in your heart.

January 9

Upon entering a restaurant with his family and being asked by the waitress “would you like a seat in a tatami room or on a couch”, my father said with a loud voice “at a table!”. I think both options come with a table, dad.

January 10

Calligraphy is a tactile art. It is not a visual art. If you can sense what sensation you are trying to write, what kind of sensation of the brush you are feeling as you write, you already know how to do calligraphy. Calligraphy is a representation of feeling [something].

January 11

The things I made at a time when I was young and trying to bloom, were things that had more vibrant signs of life than necessary. I am glad that I got the job done at that time without grumbling. I am truly glad I didn’t say prodigy-like things, like “[I’ll do it] once I’ve improved, once I have carefully amassed proficiency”.

January 12

A researcher prioritises reading the passages that are closely related to the hypothesis of their thesis, right? A translator cannot afford to do that, though. He translates both the famous line from Hamlet “to be or not to be” and a single word from a part however small the same way: diligently word for word. Towards the original work, towards all of the characters, the translator is in the most fair/impartial position, I think.

January 13

When I think “I can’t draw very well”, the thought becomes stuck in my head. That is why when I draw, it might look like I am not thinking about anything at all, but I am thinking. And it might look like I am thinking, but I am not thinking.

January 14

Even if I simply asserted that “in order to be happy, you shouldn’t compare yourself to other people”, I have a suspicion that there are truly barely any people who can do so perfectly. But even if it’s little by little, I feel it is important to create a place where you don’t compare yourself to others. It’s very difficult though.

January 15

[I want to tell you about] an important stretch I want you all to do every day without fail. That is the ‘while stretch’. For example, try writing in your Hobonichi while doing a leg opening stretch. That’s doable, right? In this way, do stretches while you’re doing things during your daily life. Doing it like this is quite effective.

January 16

“The process of creating your role” is often talked about, but as for me, I don’t think that “roles” are things that you “create”. To what extent you can start up the character from the screenplay, that is not an act of “creating”. You felt it from the screenplay and you made a mental picture from the text. If you can get the thing that must be described as the ‘presence’ of that person, the thing that is like the manifestation of that person’s energy, in your belly, it means that you can go out onto the stage.

January 17

Sometimes I want to see people because I feel lonely, other times I don’t want to see people because I feel lonely.

January 18

I think you can truly only understand the world’s origins and how it’s made deeply by actually moving and standing there and experiencing it with your entire body. That’s how I learned it. By actually meeting people, by actually climbing mountains. So far, by making these journeys, that conviction has gradually grown stronger.

January 19

When dogs and children make something their own, they protect it carefully, love it and treat it with care. The sort of feeling with which a dog hides its snack, the sort of throbbing of the chest of a child who is looking at a toy at their bedside. That kind of vigour is something I wish I had.

January 20

We can all wish for a positivity to direct ourselves towards our dreams and goals and carry a hope for the future. But, humans can’t always be go-getters, they suffer the occasional setback. Even at such times, it is not a bottomless pit, there is a bottom limit. At such a point, science can be very powerful. This lower limit is still solid. It is scientifically guaranteed. When we reach this point, there is no other option than to bounce back up.

January 21

You and nature are opposed to each other one-on-one. Moreover, that is sufficient. It’s being alone, but it’s not loneliness, it’s solitude. That is the original perspective on nature.

January 22

Daughter: “Dad, which do you like more, Perfume or mum?”
Father: “Ehhh, I think your mother. I feel embarrassed…”
Daughter: “Mum, which do you like more, GLAY or dad?”
Mother: “GLAY.”

January 23

One of the interesting things about the laws of nature is ‘the beauty of formulas’. Mathematics-based physics was born when the pioneers Newton and Einstein tried to explain all things in nature in as few steps as possible. It is very beautiful and fascinating.

January 24

In New York everyone is in a good mood. I mean, even the shopkeepers aren’t like ‘good day’ or ‘welcome’, but like ‘hey, how are you?’. When I asked my friend, who is a writer and editor living in New York, he said ‘they think being in a good mood is a sign of maturity’. That being in a good mood yourself is a sign of maturity.

January 25

In my case, I have been drawing manga ever since I was 5. Because the time when I draw manga is the most fun, in my student days, whether I joined the track and field club or the light music club, I was always drawing manga on the side. To me, manga is the biggest type of play.

January 26

“Hey, do you know this?”
“It’s a Carnegie quote!”
“We can read it!”
I didn’t understand Nepalese, but it was already written all over their faces. I became happy and shouted out to the children “let’s read it together!”
‘Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday!’
O my god, that’s exactly what I was like before I came out here to travel, isn’t it?

I couldn’t make any sense at all of this quote and I thought it was due to my Japanese. Turns out it needs a fair bit of context. Here is the original article it appeared in. I think he means that he is inferring what they are saying based on their smiles and behaviour.

January 27

Among failures, successes are mixed in together with the failures. There is no such things as a complete, total, utter failure; among the failures are good things that are hard to find even when you look for them, such as creating roads and relationships that lead to the next step, making discoveries along the way and gaining ability (skills).

January 28

In my case especially, there is no point in looking back and thinking ‘why did I fall ill?’. I also don’t know about the future. Yes, I can only look at ‘the now’. I only look at that. Everyone is so enslaved by the past and future. I mean, that is all they look at. That’s probably because they will live a long life. Because they assume they will live a long life.

January 29

I had spent a day at a department store and it was exhausting. Finally, I did some shopping in the food department in the basement and after that I went to buy some meat and go home. But since I couldn’t find the meat department, I asked the clerk: ‘where is the meat plaza?’.

January 30

I first met the pianist Spike Wilner the day before the live performance. So it was like “Nice to meet you, by the way, can you play this song?”, rushing through the introductions and handing him the score to ‘Ringo Oiwake’. Then, while looking at the score, Spike started playing ‘Ringo Oiwake’ veeery slowly, in the empty store before it opened. It was impossibly slow and felt like an entirely different chord.

January 31

To this day, I am a devoted handwriter. Even when I was writing a series for the same magazine, my deadline would be one day earlier than other people’s deadline. “What’s up with that?” I used to wonder, but it was because the editor would type it into the computer for me.

February

February cover page

It’s not snowing. Rather, the world carrying us is going higher and higher through a cosmos filled with snowflakes.

February 1

I’m not worried. What is there to be worried about? I think I can think about worries when I get there. There are also people who worry about things right from the start, when they haven’t even occurred yet and get stressed. It’s fine to toot your own horn a little, isn’t it?

February 2

February 2nd. In France, it is called ‘crêpe day’. This day is also called ‘La Chandeleur’ and ‘candle procession day’. Light is the symbol of Christ. Because of the fact that light is something that is brought about by the sun, it has apparently come to be that they eat crepes, which represent the round golden sun.

February 3

If you feel ‘that was good’ about the time you were doing it, I think that’s called ‘a good time’. Even experiencing unrequited love, though it is in my opinion surely the worst feeling, might some day be counted among ‘good times’. Isn’t happiness ‘having a good time’?

February 4

When we try to understand things, even now, ‘separating’ and ‘joining’ are the things that provide us with a ‘way of thinking’. If you write it in kanji, the one becomes 分類 ‘sorting’ and the other becomes 系統 ‘grouping’. We’re not just talking about science here, but all living things and non-living things taken together, whenever we try to understand all sorts of things, without exception we are looking at it from either of these viewpoints.

February 5

There are times when those who listen to my music are reminded of something and cry in the audience, and I cry in sympathy with them. ‘Cut it out’, I think, but still I cry.

February 6

From now on, I want meet the elderly people who came and survive in Alaska and listen to their stories. If I don’t listen to their stories now, the tales that are stored within them will be forever lost when those people are no longer there. Hoshino Michio said this at some point. In my opinion, one person dying is the same as one library burning down.

February 7

Something that happened at my part-time job at an izakaya. I shouted, repeating the order, but while I should have shouted ‘one opened mackerel!’, I shouted ‘open one mackerel!’. I was laughed at by the boss: ‘the mackerel is already opened!’

February 8

When I was a police reporter for NHK, I was suddenly entrusted with being newscaster for the capital region. When I was promoted to the position of reading the news, I was shocked that the copy was so difficult to understand. Moreover, I couldn’t hold my breath because the sentences were too long. So I rewrote the copy so that I would be able to read it. Because I couldn’t hold my breath, I cut down the long copy. When I cut it down to the level where I could hold my breath, it became easier to read.

February 9

The things that enrich our lives, in my opinion, are curiosity and the power of imagination. The world is overflowing with things we don’t know yet.

February 10

There isn’t really any way to recover from a cold quickly. However, there are ways to make sure it doesn’t get worse: diligently doing things such as resting, sleeping, drinking water. Also, make sure your body doesn’t get too cold. It is also important to change out of your clothes properly if they’ve become wet. So the necessities of life are important: living environment, food, clothes. By taking proper care of these aspects, I believe you can make sure that you don’t make the cold worse.

February 11

‘Living by oneself’ and ‘being able to look after people’ are actually almost the same thing. When one is young, one is only thinking of becoming successful, but as one becomes an adult, one’s flower won’t wilt before one knows it when one has a sturdy vigour for the sake of others.

February 12

I think people who wear the things they’ve knit themselves are charming. The sweater or scarf shows off the personality of the person who made it and, in addition, the happiness of wearing it emanates from that person. Furthermore, hand-knitted clothes give a sense of maturity when a young person wears them and a sense of youth when an older person wears them. Why that is, I am still figuring out.

February 13

There isn’t a single thing that doesn’t have anything to do with design. Things that can be turned into motifs are scattered all over the place. Anything whatsoever can be applied to any sort of shape and one could propose “this is also design, isn’t it?”

February 14

If you feel like you really want to tell something to a person you care about, I think you can only stand up honestly like a person who doesn’t have anything and return to the starting point of the embarrassment: what do I want to tell, to convey, at this opportunity?

February 15

Because consciousness is an orderly activity, garbage naturally accumulates in the brain. That’s why we sleep.

February 16

When I was waiting on the platform, thinking that once I got on board the shinkansen I would read the mystery novel that I had started on, a passing shinkansen stopped 100m ahead of me. The people behind me had started saying “what’s wrong?”, but I ー the rest of that detective novel on my mind ー answered, without thinking and on no grounds whatsoever “maybe there has been a murder?”. My mind was full of that detective novel.

February 17

I think it’s a little strange, the notion that one is only a good person or a bad person. There are people who have both elements, who are neither good nor bad, neither black nor white. That’s why my pro wrestling became the way it is.

February 18

The Tale of Genji is a long story, but there are hardly any descriptive narrative parts in which the feelings of the characters are described. People’s feelings are only described in poetry. Basically, poetry is the best way to express your own feelings. That has continued to be the case to this day, I believe. What can’t be said face to face between a husband and wife or a parent and child, can be communicated through poetry.

February 19

When your interests increase because something unexpected leaves a deep impression on you, that’s as if your friends in this world increase, I think. That’s why I am currently editing the series かがくのとも while keeping that feeling in mind, that you too could become a friend.

February 20

Tomizawa: “It’s because when you are holding the ball and you’re standing in front, it becomes a 15 against 1 situation.”

Nakatake: “Because they aim for the opponent that is holding the ball and go towards him like ‘waa’. It gets like ‘waa, here’s one, here another one, here’s another one!’”

Date: “I don’t want to carry it, the ball. It turns into a feeling of ‘I don’t have it anymore! I don’t have it anymore now!’. The foremost position is especially scary.”

Some googling told me that this one is about being scared while playing rugby. The original article is here.

February 21

What I recently learned and made me think ‘that’s lovely’, is the concept of ‘competence’. If I were to translate it liberally, it’d be something like ‘the capacity of being familiar with many things’. Or if I put in in another way, like a song: ‘I smile at the world, the world smiles at me’.

February 22

When I’m ill I get dizzy. When I am living life bumping my body into various things, delusions take over reality. But I don’t like it when my daily life becomes full of delusions. Eventually I started feeling like the expressions my pet cat Rocco made were like a movie scene. No, if I didn’t think that, it might have been boring. That’s why I suspect that I brought myself to think in that way.

At first I thought this was a very strange little quote, but after some seeing the original article (here) I’ve figured it out. Key information:

ながくパーキンソン病を患いながら、愛猫ROCCOを、まるで俳優みたいに撮り続けた星野正樹さんに聞きました。

So realising that his cat had a bit of an actor vibe he started taking ‘dramatic’ pictures of his cat as a way to cope with his Parkinson’s.

February 23

When I was watching figure skating with my wife’s family, the music from ‘Phantom of the Opera’ オペラ座のかいじん came on. Without delay, my mother-in-law said: ‘Member of the Opera!’ オペラ座のかい い ん. So the opera is membership-based, huh?

February 24

What I want to say to those who are entering university, is that they should study, but not just study. I want them to eat delicious things, listen to good music, look at good images and, by doing that, develop your appeal as a human being. What is worth the name of ‘youth’, after all, are reading, travelling and loving.

February 25

The best way to support restaurants. It’s by going to restaurants. Going to the restaurant, eating some food, saying ‘thanks for the meal’ and paying them with money. That is the basis of support, right?

February 26

Ambergris 龍涎香 can sometimes be extracted from beached sperm whales. It is written like ‘dragon drool scent’. A different name for it is ambergris アンバーグリス. It is a calculus that is formed inside the intestines of sperm whales and it is thought that it consists of hardened, undigested parts, such as octopus and squid bills. It is highly prized as a perfume.

I had the hardest time with this one, because it uses the word 採材 and I couldn’t readily find a decent definition. Weblio EN gave me ‘wood conversion’, which didn’t seem quite right. I imagine it means something like ‘resource extraction’, but I am still very curious why I can’t find this word in any dictionaries.

February 27

I am sometimes asked ‘what is the knack to taking cute pictures of mushrooms?’. Get your face close to it, if possible do a 360 and search for an angle at which the mushroom looks cute. Then, just by carefully removing the ‘debris’ that is stuck to the mushroom, it looks 50% better. That’s also a very important point.

The original article is delightful!

February 28

The hammer throw is difficult if you not only lack physical strength, but also technique. The hammer is heavy, because it’s about 7kg, or 16 pounds. It’s no good throwing a heavy object far with only your physical strength, you also need technique. That’s why it’s an event where one’s development curve as an athlete is slow, or rather, comparatively gentle. This means that there is also the joy of spending time on it. It’s an event with a long life span for athletes.

March

March cover page

While I was sleeping like a log I missed the first storm of spring. What a shame! I like those spring storms. That moment when sweet dust touches your nose is to die for. For some reason it warms my body from the inside.

March 1

In the rocket business, the things we’re moving are absurdly important and expensive. That’s why the thought ‘we absolutely can’t fail’ is foremost [in our minds]. But because there has been a failure in the past, the success rate will never become 100%. Our current success rate is about 97.8%. Even if we pile up successes, we will approach 100% without end, but we will never manage to reach 100%. That’s why we are at least aiming for a perfect score at every launch.

March 2

Even if I had a single flash of personal and poetic inspiration, it’s not like I could give expression to it on my own, because the source material is the many things I have lived though up to this point. The self that I arbitrarily think is my self is a container with the name ‘self’ and inside of it it is full of other people, nature and irrelevant things.

At first I didn’t get this at all, but now I think it’s kind of deep and it does ring true; we are an amalgamation of our surroundings, cause our surroundings impact and shape who we are.

March 3

The only plastic models that my father, who was a truck driver, bought for me were plastic models of deco-trucks. So then… once I became like this, there are times occasionally where, when I unintentionally look at myself on stage, I think ‘ah, I look like a deco-truck!’. That’s life like a rolling stone. My dad was a weird guy and there were times where I kind of avoided him, but as I am drifting along and taking on this form, I sometimes think that in the end, I became a deco-truck.

Yet another one I didn’t really get until I looked for the context. The speaker is a guy who looks like this when he performs:

So that’s why he thinks he looks like a deco-truck!

March 4

The important thing when you’re thinking about ‘just right’ is understanding what ‘just right’ looks like and, at the same time, knowing that there are cases where ‘just right’ is good and cases where it’s bad.

March 5

I have been influenced by the roles I’ve played so far, and I have changed, and then a different role comes along and I am changed again, and so I move foward a bit… I feel like I’ve made it to this point because I was guided by those roles. The roles I’ve played up to now, all of them, exist within me. King, Peko, Kinchijiro.

The characters he mentions are from Ikebukuro West Gate Park, Ping Pong and Silence respectively.

March 6

I am a childcare working. During the lunch service, I accidentally said to a kid who was sneaking food: ‘Not yet! After we’ve had a toast!’. It’s not a reception.

March 7

The Manyoushuu is a cultural asset of words. And the reason it has value, is because there are people who think about history because of this cultural asset. If there weren’t any people thinking about history, stone tools would just be rocks and Buddha statues would be no more than wood or stone. When we read the Manyoushuu, lend an ear to it, we come to be able to hear the voices. Through writing, we can have a dialogue with the people who lived in ancient times.

March 8

When I leave on a trip, I always encounter a moment where I stop being me. The life habits that I am clad in don’t apply at all anymore and I encounter myself naked. The time that I have passed and the time that has passed in that place are swapped, and a new time begins to pass inside of me.

March 9

With everything, there are things to put away, things to leave in place and things to forget about, I believe. But everything doesn’t go that smoothly. I think it is also important at times to nonchalantly put the things you don’t understand right now away for a while and to move on to the next thing.

March 10

The phrases “I won’t forget”, “I can’t forget” and finally “don’t forget!” have been repeated for a long time, but now one can be confident that “I won’t forget what I won’t forget”. That’s why my friends in Tohoku seemed to be advising themselves “let’s forget what is best forgotten”.

March 11

In the years up to now, I think I’ve learned to have a ‘look on the bright side’, ‘let’s do something fun’ attitude. The force that pulls your backwards is really strong. Moreover, it’s easy. If you look backwards, there are people who help you. But you cannot rely on that and keep looking backward.

March 12

The secret to a long life is to live confidently, it would seem. Man, it is really difficult! Especially for magicians, because they are always fearful that their tricks will be found out. “But the Napoleans boldly reveal their tricks, right?” It seems that I will have a long life.

It’s a member of the Napoleans speaking here, I believe.

March 13

I’m always thinking things like ‘why does this have this shape?’ or ‘if only you were more like this’. About the shape of the table legs, or for instance the opening of a cup, the texture of the ceiling that I catch sight of when I’m in bed, the feel of the things I’m wearing. Due to those various things I miss my stop on the train.

March 14

Before I thought she was lovely or cute, there were a lot of things I had to do. I did a lot of things in order to try and make the milk come out well, but a nurse came to me and praised me: ‘with breasts like yours, it’ll come out’. ‘I’m so grateful’ I thought.

恐縮 can mean a lot of different things, but fundamentally it seems to imply a sense of social obligation. I imagine she was very happy to be reassured, so I went with ‘grateful’.

March 15

The people who live on the Japanese islands, how did they get here, I wonder? The history of the changes to the topography and sea level have been largely studied and understood. It is also understood when the people of Japan got here originally. It is clear that they came across the sea more than 30,000 years ago. They were people who faced a tremendous challenge. So the stage that opened up a new world was there.

March 16

Because a phone call from Kominami-sara had come in for Nomiyama-san in the same department, I tried to convey this and shouted ‘Nominomi-san, there is a phone call from Komikomi-san!’. Before I said it I though I would fumble my words, but to think that it actually happened…

March 17

I have thought about ‘me dying’ a lot, but it’s impossible to think about it seriously from morning til evening. My wife probably can’t either. When I go through the ticket gate at the station, I suddenly remember ‘ah, I’m going to die, aren’t I?’ It’s like that repeatedly.

March 18

Not thinking is the best. It’s no good, thinking too much. Then again, thinking too little is also no good. If you don’t think, that’s not good for you, it’s not motivating and it’s not interesting.

March 19

The fourth winter after deciding to live as a falconer, was the first time I could catch a wild rabbit with a falcon I had trained myself. For the rest of my life, I will never forget that feeling. I was so happy. I cried while shouting “This is the day I have been living for!” and “This is the moment I’ve been chasing!” in the snow.

March 20

It’s really difficult to keep telling lies. Not from the viewpoint of ethics, but if I were to summarise it in my own way, it is because lying makes you lose your own freedom. The bother of not telling lies is the price of freedom. It’s very high, but you’re better off paying it.

March 21

Usually, I can tell from the first brush stroke that something bad is bad, because I’ve come to be able to observe instantly by touch how it will progress next. At the first beginning of a brush stroke, I start to write a bit and realise that it’s off. Or it is one stroke and then one character. With bigger works, once I’ve written two or three characters it’ll go fine. After that I can modify it while I’m already writing.

Hobonichi sure likes their calligraphy quotes

March 22

When his father and mother were talking about the dream he dreamt last night, their 6 year old child woke abruptly. Then he said ‘I dreamt I was smiling’ and fell asleep again. Monday morning. The melancholy atmosphere was instantly covered in tenderness.

March 23

The joys of writing are threefold: liberation, understanding and creativity. First, when they really write down their thoughts, a person is ‘liberated’ from the bottom of their heart. Moreover, you gain the ‘understanding’ from people who read it. When [your thoughts] are conveyed, it is a delight as if there are blossoms of understanding falling down. Finally, ‘creativity’. People can also write and create things that are not yet real. The written things will go on to become reality. If you train your writing skills, you can write and create a life that lives up to your thoughts.

March 24

In the end, there’s no other choice than to find out the fun, cute or interesting things for yourself. Discovering fun, cute or interesting things is the joy of being human. I think that is the point of life.

March 25

In rugby there is a strong sense of respect, also for the opposing team. Even though we do such violent things, after the match is over we all go drinking together. Drinking after a match is not very good for an athlete, so it runs counter to the times, but there is something in rugby that goes beyond that.

March 26

When you’re trying to create innovative things, you have to turn the thing you think is most impossible upside down. I want to compete on a technical level, where any further differentiation from other companies is said to be extremely difficult.

March 27

You’re in a river and you’re being chased from behind by a bigger fish. You have to get away to the right or to the left. At such a time, a fish doesn’t think, but instantly makes a clean getaway. Such an instinct is not random. Only individuals whose instincts were correct survive the process of evolution without being eaten, without being weeded out. We all came this far by continuously making the right decision while in a haze.

March 28

Even if there are always things you don’t understand, if the other side is bright, go.

I figured ばかり means ‘always’ or ‘constantly’ rather than ‘only’ in this situation

March 29

Even when someone comes to me, [saying] they want to be my apprentice, I say: ‘stop as much as possible!’ and ‘give up as soon as possible!’, because it still feels a little strange, the fact that I am able to make a living off manga series. But I think that you can’t suppress that feeling of wanting to do it. So you should give it a try yourself anyway and reach a point where you realise something.

March 30

I am often asked “didn’t you feel nervous about overseas work?” and I did feel nervous. But because it was something I wanted to do, doing it was the only option. There wasn’t the option of “I’m not doing it because I am nervous.”

March 31

What is necessary for young people, for one thing, is to read. I want them to read even if they grit their teeth. What I say to students is to do an overwhelming amount of reading. Through ‘dialogue’ with an author, they come into contact with things they didn’t know and they learn that there are thoughts different from their own. The world of a twenty-or-so-year-old is by all means small. I think it will expand their world, little by little. No matter what sort of job they will do in the future, that intellectual training will certainly come in handy somewhere.

April

April cover page

I have gradually growing feelings. A piece of notepaper one chooses in sakura season.
~ @Jonapedia

April 1

Simply put, ‘The Pillow Book’ is a ‘search for good things’. From the first paragraph, which is the most famous opening paragraph in all of Japanese zuihitsu, she selects ‘the best time’ from season to season and jots it down. The capacity to look at the same things, and notice in them many ‘wonderful things’ and ‘strange things’. ‘A search for good things’ increases the resolution of the vision we look at the world with.

April 2

If I consider it to be school that enumerates the proper views of the world, I think it is art that enumerates the expansion of the world.

April 3

Yoshioka, our (Ikimonogakari) vocalist, also says “what is singing?” According to her, she sings because she feels like she wants to convey the world view that we have written like a story. She said: “I feel strongly that it has to pass through my own body, or I can’t create. But in the end, I don’t know what the meaning is myself.”

April 4

In the world of martial arts, there is the following saying: 'Don’t mimic the ways of your predecessors, but pursue the direction they pursued." If you don’t imitate them, but pursue a direction from that standpoint, ‘what were those who came before me pursuing?’, then a road will open up for you as an expressive person.

April 5

When I go out with my high school age son, sometimes I’ll think ‘my son is gone’ and he’ll be standing beside me, or I think ‘this unknown young man seems to stand quite close’ and it turns out to be my son, or I think someone is my son and I try to start a conversation, it turns out to be some unknown person. The growth of my son, who has entirely surpassed the height of my husband, makes me happy, but I am also not used to it yet.

April 6

If you don’t start it, it won’t begin. It is impossible to feel a pleasant feeling like it’s interesting or you’re riding high before you have started. Whether you like it or not, if you start it, something will begin. So the first step is ‘you have to start it’.

I couldn’t really find a reference for いやでもなんでも, but it turns out it is probably not a ‘correct’ saying? It also took me a wee while to find ノってる.

April 7

I have a bit of a resistance to the word ‘communication skills’. Of course, I am sure there are many cases in which it is useful as a model, but ‘I want to listen to that person’ and ‘he has excellent communication skills’ are different things, right?

April 8

You should get to the point where you can understand English, because you can compare information from English media directly at the source. If you want to get correct information, you should get to the point where you can do such a triangulation properly.

April 9

There was a time when I thought that if I only drew pictures that I liked to draw, I wouldn’t be able to get orders, so I only drew easier to understand, pretty pictures. But at some point, [I realised] I was wrong after all and because it’d be fine if I got less work, I decided to draw pictures I truly wanted to draw. And once I had decided this, the work didn’t decrease… rather, it increased!

April 10

The sort of people who are actors may do the most work before they enter the set. Once ‘those people’ are properly up there on the set where they’re filming, all ‘those people’ do is talk and move about. It can be said that not a lot of work is being done.

April 11

Because I founded Lifenet Insurance, I am often asked “what is important for starting a business?”, but essentially it’s luck. In almost all business books it says “you have to consider carefully, have a business plan and have ambition”. If you were to say what the greatest act of entrepreneurship in history was, it would be to create a nation, but would I say that the people who created great nations had ambitions and plans? Of course not! It’s all luck.

April 12

A dad and his son were travelling on a crowded train. Because it was packed too tightly, the dad said “grab my knee!”. The son frantically tried to squat and grab his knee… “I meant my elbow!”

I can never keep those words apart in my brain, so I love that it happens to natives as well

April 13

The one thing I remember of the things my dad taught me, is “what it means to be a manager”. He said that “the number of things to worry about will increase, but being absorbed in thoughts when you’ve gone to sleep is no good. Don’t think when you’re in bed. You won’t think of anything good. If you really do want to think, get out of bed and sit on a chair. Then turn the lights on. Then think. If you do this, you’ll realise that there’s nothing important to think about.”

April 14

“All alone. A room with just me in it.” Even there, there are both you and solitude. Just because of that, that room is a place that comes to life.

April 15

During middle school or high school, I really didn’t read any books. But I kept thinking that I would read a lot of books some day. So shortly after I entered university, I ended up reading nothing but books. I was interviewed the other day and when we were talking about my middle school and high school days, it was said “at that time, books were already your unseen lover”. I thought “that’s exactly right”.

April 16

Lately I’ve really been thinking. Being alive is interesting. That’s why, when Itoi wrote “Tsurubesan doesn’t spare himself”, I thought that was a good statement. When I read that, I thought “I shouldn’t spare myself”.

April 17

Birds are dinosaurs, as far as science is concerned. That’s why, there are even people who say that the modern era is a very prosperous time for dinosaurs. Once, weak and small dinosaurs really wanted to live on land, but because there were scary dinosaurs out there, they fled up to the trees as a last resort. And when they were jumping from one tree to another, before they knew it they were flying in the air. These inferior ones somehow survived and as a result, they are thriving this much in modern times. If you take a long-term view, inferiority and superiority are not absolutes.

April 18

I am not aiming to build muscle when I do it, you know? Because I am building a body that can throw a hammer far, or rather, [because] a body that can throw the hammer far is good, the way of thinking “if I build muscle here, it will fly far” is backwards, in my opinion. That’s putting it too simplistically.

April 19

In germ cells, that is to say in sperm and egg cells, gene mutations occur in the base sequence at a rate of about 1 in 100 million. Even when this happens, the impact is minimal, but very occasionally, there are some ‘very good’ ones born among them. Those come to have a great impact on evolution.

April 20

Children have to live their lives being surrounded all the time by things that don’t have meaning. From there, they gradually go on to discover their meanings, and sometimes it’s fine if they are eternally unable to discover the meaning.

April 21

Personally, I think that my job is to collect ‘sorrow’. Like picking up other people’s sorrow, my own sorrow, the pain and sadness of things not turning out as hoped and digesting them inside of me. Whether I am looking at a leaf or whether it’s a city view, even if it is a trivial thing, I pick up the faint sorrow and try to feel it.

This one was a doozy! Thanks @Jonapedia and @Myria for helping me figure it out!

April 22

When you are fighting at a disadvantage, become a trapped rat. If you can no longer flee, put your life on the line and bite them! And if you’re fighting at an advantage, absolutely don’t let your opponent become a trapped rat. A cat can’t win from a mouse that is biting like hell.

April 23

Suppose there is a big earthquake while you are out at work. If you are unable to contact your wife, who is supposed to be at home, leave [a message on] the Disaster Emergency Message Dial. Those saying “Disaster Emergency Message Dial, what’s that?” should remember it by all means. “Ah, my loved one isn’t there (い・な・い), let’s call 171 (いち・なな・いち)”. You should remember that the number you should call when your loved one isn’t there is the Message Dial 171.

April 24

I had a friend, Suzuki Megami. In primary school, when he was taking a computer scored test, he accidentally filled in his answers off by one. The test was returned to him with the name ‘Sezeku Mogera’.

April 25

I am always looking for things that remain interesting when I draw them. By continuing to draw, I have come to understand the things that become interesting when I draw them. Just like a cameraman’s “shutter chance”, there are “illustration chances” scattered about, so I want to record them without leaving anything out, as part of what I am responsible for.

April 26

As far as I’m concerned, the colour white is close to words like ‘dignified’, ‘pure’ and ‘refreshing’ and it is a colour that I want to advance in that direction. Maybe beyond that point, there could possibly be a realm that has shimmering white, pearl-like white or a diamond-like sparkle.

April 27

In the scolding genre the scolding is the life of the story. To mention an easy example, the pinnacle of this is Kinpachi-sensei. The scoldings in Kinpachi-sensei are wonderful, and the reason I watch it is to listen to them. How beautiful those scoldings are! That’s why, I think, I want to write good scoldings for scolding-centric school drama’s.

April 28

There was an internationally published study about ‘what sort of people live long lives?’. In that study, rather than measures against metabolic syndrome or smoking bans, it was published that it is whether or not one has strong human connections that is most important in order to live a long life. In order words, that human connections contribute the most to longevity.

April 29

The thing that is most effective when you are studying, is to learn things with an awareness of “let’s explain this to someone”. For example, if you study while keeping in mind “if I explain it to my children or my parents, my grandfather or grandmother, how should I put it to get it across?”, then it will enter your mind in an interesting way.

April 30

I am often surprised by the ‘double breakfast’ (eating breakfast twice), but if you’re not eating double breakfast, what the hell are you guys doing during your trip? You have the time, right?

May

May cover page

Among the myriad green leaves, my child’s teeth begin to come in.

May 1

I think that the reason I don’t hate being on an airplane, even though I dislike cramped spaces and heights, is because there is something fun waiting for me ahead.

May 2

I understand why Van Gogh is so popular. He is already the idol of the world. Sure, he is dead, but in the long run he will be longer-lived than any idol and generate more money than any idol. In addition, the name ‘Van Gogh’ is good, huh? It has a ‘popular use power’. It’s very different from a name like Wada.

When I went to the original source for this quote I was super hyped to see it’s a travel log of a guy named Wada visiting my country (the Netherlands) to look at Van Goghs!

May 3

In the middle of some shopping with my friend, after I had asked them while they were trying on some shoes how they liked the feeling of them, I was told “ふぃったし!” and I understood that they must really have fit their feet well. フィット + ぴったし (‘exactly right’)

May 4

My personality has many layers, like ‘positive, negative, positive, negative’, but fundamentally I am very positive. That’s why one time, when I was a little tipsy and saw myself in the toilet mirror, I thought ‘huh, I am not so different from Tomoko Yamaguchi’ and I was suddenly overflowing with confidence.

May 5

Very young people who don’t have the capacity to live all by themselves live their days on the assumption of help from adults. Please, no matter how good of a person you are, no matter how bad of a person you are, don’t treat children horribly. Whether it’s out of love or for whatever reason, just don’t.

May 6

Some students from New Zealand came to my team to observe our training. The instant our training had ended, they enthusiastically entered the grounds and began to play with the ball. It looked like they were having a lot of fun. Without even asking “is it ok?”, they were like “let’s goooo!”. “That’s why they are so strong”, I thought. There wasn’t any feeling that they were forced.

May 7

When it comes to the aroma of Japan, it is the smell of dashi broth and soy sauce wafting about the airport. In the airport that is full of the scents of international foods, those two smells strike home. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that for me, Japan begins with those smells.

May 8

I never really talked with Matsuda Yuusaku about acting theory, but he did teach me one thing. And that is that “when the time comes that you will play ‘the centre’” ー ‘the centre’ being ‘the leading part’ ー “don’t do anything”. “When the day comes that you will play the leading part, don’t think ‘I will be doing something’. In the centre, don’t do anything. The people around you will do it for you.”

May 9

The ones who can become a breakwater for the baby in your belly are your family and the people close to you. If the group that you belong to or your company can form a breakwater, it will become all the stronger. The people around a pregnant woman should become a double or threefold breakwater.

May 10

It’s important to enjoy your knowledge, not to be competitive about such superficial knowledge as the various types of birds you know. You should be able to enjoy butterflies and birds by yourself even in places where no one is watching, don’t you think? There is a poem that goes “If I see a rainbow, my heart dances”. That kind of enjoyment. The kind where you’re happy when it’s you and the rainbow, even if no one is watching.

May 11

It would be more accurate to say that time and space originally did not exist in this world and that time and space were born because mankind developed eyes and ears.

May 12

When it comes to evacuating together with your pet, it is important to make preparations for each step. Make an ‘environment where you can wait in your home safely’. Put the names of your pet and the owner on its collar and take care not to take it off, even indoors. Prepare a crate for the occasion you are fleeing together. Give your dogs its vaccinations and rabies shot. Do trainings habitually. It is also useful to make lost dog leaflets at a normal time, in case your dog gets lost.

May 13

I believe that when we are in pain, sad or lost, that is where thought begins. If you were to ask why I think that way, it’s because I am like that. I think questions don’t occur from a place that is too comfortable.

May 14

When I am translating Shakespeare, I sometimes encounter a very complicated passage. I can’t understand it just by reading it. That’s why at some point I have started copying the original text. When I copy the original text and organise it, I can see the thread of it. Then it suddenly hit me: “Shakespeare himself also wrote this text by hand, with a quill.” By writing out the same passage, I felt like I got closer to Shakespeare’s thoughts.

May 15

At the steak restaurant where I had a part-time job in my student days, when I carried some food on a hot griddle to a table, I made a mistake when I was supposed to say “the oil from the meat splashes, so please be careful” and said “the meat jumps up, so please be careful” instead.

A ‘pun’ based on the multiple meanings of はねる.

May 16

When I write while being aware of verticality, the written characters start looking like a staff. Quarter and eighth notes are born and music is played from the calligraphy. Calligraphy is silent music. Because it is like composing on a staff, a scale is born there. This is why you should never play music when you are holding a calligraphy exhibition.

May 17

If you are made to accept a lot of responsibilities as a middle manager anyway, you should work while doing the things you want to do. That is all I want to say to people in their 40s.

May 18

I sing in American jazz clubs, but I don’t feel daunted, because of a sense of “what have I come here to do?”. I came here to seize an opportunity. If I feel daunted, falter or deprecate myself it is no use. Continuing to sing only the same songs every year and even the end result being clear already, that is pointless to me. I want to seize an opportunity somehow. That is why I am continuing.

Quite a bit of discussion about this quote here.

May 19

When I look at earthenware that I have unearthed from the soil, there is no way I can understand ‘the heart of the Joumon people’, if I’m being honest. But, even though I don’t understand it and even though it is difficult to get to the bottom of it academically, I hope that somehow, when I am chewing on the traces, I can get closer to the ‘heart of the Joumon people’.

May 20

Both someone who isn’t here and someone who has left are thinking something like “ah, I have become alone again”. The choice of staying behind here is equal in all respects to the choice of going away, in my opinion.

May 21

Cherry blossoms are falling
Mambo strawberry bavarois (seasonal)
sales are coming to an end…
The first skipjacks are lined up on the dining table
The azaleas are beginning to open up.

May 22

We live our modern lives pleasantly, cheerfully, while experiencing, saying and doing various things, but sometimes we [should] try to reflect on the root of our hearts and return our thoughts to the original source. If we don’t have a deep sense of trying to pursue the source inside of ourselves, wouldn’t our future be lonely?

May 23

Finding a source of short-lived elation and being able to jump up and rejoice at unreliable things is natural and important, in my opinion. Aren’t feelings like short-lived elation the driving force behind ideas too, and behind things such as the love we all like?

May 24

I’m a farmer’s wife. At tea time, my mother-in-law was holding my ten month old daughter, but I noticed I had forgotten to put a スタイ (bib) on her. Saying “I’ll go and get it!”, I quickly went to the car to get it and when I got back with it, I moved to put it around my mother-in-law’s neck. After a few seconds my in-laws and husband exploded with laughter. I went red. They said: “Are you preparing for 30 years from now?”

May 25

The other day I went to a sushi place with a woman who said she loved sushi. It was a funny lady. She suddenly blurted out “Takadasan, I’m going commando (ノーパン) today”. After that, I don’t remember what I ate.

I imagine this is supposed to be some sort of garbled speech scenario. @rodan’s suggestion of ノープラン seems to fit well.

May 26

Before I entered primary school, there was a family who kept gamefowl. I was deeply impressed by how many parts there were to their feathers, so I went there to ask them to let me draw them. For me, taking a picture would be less meaningful than that. I think that by drawing them a relationship with those feathers themselves could be created.

May 27

When you touch it, you know that soil is a world of microbes. It is gradually decomposing. The fingerprints of hands that touch the soil for a long time gradually become fainter. That is why I make lumps of soil out of clay particles that are alive in such a way, sticking them together and combining them, while I am dissolving my fingerprints.

May 28

Since I have been sick, I have been living my life thinking “my life is my own”. But, for example, when it turned out I only had three years left to live, there were many people who arbitrarily tried to decide for me how I should spend those three years. “Do that, do this, stop doing that.” Now, I just do what I want to do and choose only fun things. When I did that, there was friction at first and it was hard, but it turned around and I have come to enjoy my life.

May 29

At the register at my part-time job, I was about to ask “do you want separate checks”, but I mixed up ‘separate’ (別々) with ‘disconnected’ (バラバラ) and said “do you want wrong (バツバツ) checks?”. When I got flustered and tried correcting it, I said “do you want flimsy (ベラベラ) checks?”.

May 30

The timing of putting the meat in when making ‘beef butteryaki’ is when, on a heated frying pan, the butter is about half melted and half solid. If you add it once the butter is entirely melted it can get burned, so I suggest you put it in when the butter is partially melted.

May 31

I don’t chat at all. It’s because I don’t have any friends. When I go to sing karaoke or the like, after singing just one song I immediately get hoarse. Even my vocal cords are probably becoming weaker.

June

June cover page

Runrun rurunbu
Rurunbu rurun
Tsuntsun tsurunbu
Tsurunbu tsurun

The moon sliding around on the kappa’s dish.
Splash splash, it’s splashing the water.
Sticking out just his face.
Dancing.

June 1

Before, I could “work at it until I was finished”. These past ten years or so, I haven’t been able to do that… or rather, I don’t feel any value in working at something until it’s finished. When I’m at it, it’s like “oh well, I’ll do it tomorrow!”. I feel like it might be better to do it after I have had a break.

June 2

Maps are things that are drawn with ‘even scaling’ and ‘even projection’. The information in a map is always nothing but impartial, uniform and completely objective. In a map, good and bad don’t even exist. A map is just objective data. That’s why maps can be trusted.

June 3

The methods that people who are strong or already capable teach often seem too strong to me. I think that there are methods special to weak people or people who have not been blessed by an innate flair.

June 4

I want to encounter young outstanding people, but I will not continue to be a designer as a veteran. While continuing the toing and froing by pencil, like ‘shall I go 0.1mm to the right or to the left?’, I also want to have a bird’s-eye view of things like ‘what should I design for society?’ and ‘couldn’t this have a useful application for the society of the future?’.

I think 選手 must be used figuratively here (as described in Weblio), because ‘athlete’ doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; this guy was never an athlete, as far as I can tell.

June 5

When it isn’t going well, I try time and time again without changing my objective. When I try again and again and again, I do it to the limit of what I can manage based on my present ability. I have decided that I will absolutely, through thick and thin, carry it through to the point where I grasp it.

June 6

We need both to be able to rely on ourselves and to be able to surprise ourselves.

June 7

While having a chat at the company, I had a slip of the tongue (言いまつがえました) with the famous Thai soup, Tom yum goong, and called it Tomkun Yankun. I was laughed at: “Is that a Southeast Asian comic duo?!”

June 8

The pleasures of the Manyoushuu are boundless. Even by reading just one poem a day, you can enjoy it for many years. Start from the poems. Start from the people. Start from the historical background. There are various approaches. Someone among the people who left these poems behind may be your ancestor. If there is a poem that clicks with you, perhaps it is a poem by an ancestor. Maybe it is a person deeply connected to an ancestor. Japan is so small, after all. It would be fun to think of it like that.

June 9

At every rocket launch, the wind speed limit is different, but when it seems like the maximum instantaneous wind speed will surpass roughly 20 meters per second, the launch is delayed. In other words, when there is a rocket launch, right after it goes up into the air, it is momentarily at ‘zero speed’ and if it is struck by the wind in that instant, the machine is set adrift sidewards.

The ‘instantaneous wind speed’ (瞬間風速) is a 3 second average, as opposed to the general wind speed (風速), which is measured across 10 minutes.

June 10

Sometimes ‘your body gives you advice’. For example, just by holding something, [it tells you] whether your senses are working correctly. Because your body is a sensor, it perceives whether it is soft or hard, heavy or light, hot or cold. Your body tells you if you are doing such things properly or not. This is very useful when you are sensing the atmosphere in a game, for instance.

June 11

Because they enter into the world of a story, not its superficial parts, children see the make-up of a story. Children that come into contact with stories have various thoughts in their minds. That is why I think it’s actually bad when parents wrongly forestall [something] and say “isn’t this bad for children?”

June 12

The pianist Uchida Mitsuko had invited her father to a concert. Apparently she got her father, who was reluctant to go out because he was already quite old at the time, to come half against his will, as if she had to drag him. In the car on his way back from the concert, her father turned towards his wife (in other words, Ms Uchida’s mother) and said: “How could she be our daughter?”

June 13

I want to be a traveller who is always in a good mood. I want to have ample ability to find the good aspects and even if I have the sensitivity to find the bad aspects, I think ‘let’s try not to be influenced by it’. I’ve never felt bad because I have such an attitude.

June 14

I think that wearing clothes is fun for everyone, but for me that enjoyment is probably deeper than average. I think the fact that I haven’t had any problems knowing what clothes suit me, just because I am not young, must be because I worry a little every day and I keep coming up with solutions. So that act of worrying a little is fun to me.

June 15

When I am hungry, mixed in with the usual heavy base sound of ‘guuu’ and ‘gorururu’, there is the ‘poin!’ sound that Mario makes when he jumps, I am sure of it.

June 16

I think that a healthy democracy can only exist when everyone has the ability to think and make decisions for themselves. That’s why I don’t express a particular opinion. My job is to make available materials so that everyone can have their own way of thinking. From there on out, my stance is ‘please go ahead and have a think, everyone’.

June 17

As your voice can’t be seen, you will be caught out if you borrow it. A radio DJ needs to be like a shucked shellfish. You humanity spills out. There is no choice but to bare yourself, because if you’re wearing armour, you will be found out by the other side of the mic.

June 18

There is a member of the shrew family with the scientific name ‘Crocidura desperata’. As it has not yet received a Japanese name, at a certain point I called it the ‘desperate shrew’. I had heard that they were probably extinct. But, about three years ago, a new habitat was found. Thus, hope was born. Such things happen as well, huh?

June 19

I think that the feeling of ‘loneliness’ itself is not in the least a bad thing. When you return home after having been boisterous with your friends and become alone, it’s ok for there to be a ‘loneliness’ that feels like ‘ah, I’m a bit alone’, isn’t it?

June 20

When I passed the department store’s handkerchief counter with my mother-in-law, she picked up a bright orange handkerchief and said ‘I’ve been looking for something like this for お父さん’. When I said ‘For お父さん? Isn’t it a bit flashy?’, she told me that he picked his handkerchief every morning to match the news programme’s fortunetelling section’s lucky colour. To think that my father-in-law has such a girlish side to him!

June 21

If you take one piece of clothing, many people have been involved by the time it is lined up in a shop. That is why I am always keen to convey as much as possible that ‘it has taken the hands and time of this many people’.

June 22

I think it was about three months after the earthquake when I found a place at sea where the things that had been washed away by the tsunami had got stuck and piled up. There were some boats left and when I went over, many of our wakame cultivation rafts were stuck. There were some mekabu left. Wakame seeds are produced from mekabu spores. We immediately gathered all the wakame farmers and we all did the work of gathering the seeds.

June 23

From sentences that start with “speaking of which, I…”, one derives a ‘discovery’.
Speaking of which, I have been eating yoghurt every day for over two years.
Speaking of which, I have never had anko unabe.
Speaking of which, I haven’t been to Shinjuku in years.
Speaking of which, I have never painted an oil painting.

June 24

I think the fact that I have come not to fear the voices of haters that much anymore, is because I have grown up emotionally. Furthermore, I think it’s important to turn your haters into fans. Up to now I have only been pursuing the positives. I was only collecting a tailwind and it was like the negatives were outrageous. But now I think that there are positives and negatives. This is the world of competition.

June 25

Everyone gives various reasons [for paving everything], but they absolutely don’t like ‘nature au naturel’. It’s like that with grass, for example. Plant it yourself and it’s ok, but if it grows of its own accord it’s a weed.

June 26

Rather than waiting patiently for the happiness that might come some day while working like a workhorse, I came to think that it would be better to become happy in advance. First, I hoped I could create a small space that could be considered happy and expand it together. That is why my wife and I quit our jobs completely. I became single-mindedly focused on manga and my wife became a shrine and temple tour guide.

June 27

When I wanted to refer to the kanji 邪 through a word, I should’ve said ‘the ya from Yamataikoku’, but I said ‘the ya of the Maya civilisation’. It’s the same atmosphere though…

June 28

At a certain point I started trying to walk around town without a disguise, even in my private life. When I did that, somehow it was a better feeling than when I walked around sneakily. When I was called out, I would say “hey, hey” and it would be mentally easier to walk around normally. Maybe that’s why my body is feeling good.

June 29

When I am feeling worried I try to draw thick lines with a thick pen. When I draw thin lines when I am worried, somehow I draw too much and the worries show up in the details.

June 30

Living beings adapt to their environment and change their form. That is the standard way of thinking of Darwin’s natural selection. In contrast to this, ‘niche construction’ thinks the opposite way, [that] living beings change their environments themselves. Depending on the circumstances, it is eventually applied to itself. In other words, it means that there are also cases where it changes the forces of natural selection.

July

July cover page

A beer chilled by the mountain stream was sad like youth.
I looked up at the mountain top and drank as if I were sobbing.

July 1

The world we know isn’t that big. We’re living in [a world] of at most 100 people and we have roughly one friend, right? And so we don’t have an opportunity to know what ‘normal’ is. That’s why ‘acting normally’ is actually very difficult.

July 2

There is a phrase, ‘you are what you eat’, but it’s ‘your heart is the people you meet’. Humans include gods, and dogs and cats as well. Let’s try to remember this or that person occasionally.

July 3

How to lose? How to conduct ourselves when we’ve lost? Can we make memories resolutely and beautifully? In these cases, I feel Sei Shonagon’s ‘resignation’. I think it gives us strength in our lives, in which we probably lose more often than we win. When we suffer a severe defeat, what to say, how to behave ourselves, what to leave behind? I feel like The Pillow Book, which itself is not a winner of history, teaches us that attitude.

July 4

When I look at my own work and compare it to the quality I want to reach, if there is some part that doesn’t suffice, I improve it by analysing it and studying it with concentration. Because the basis of the world of CG is rational thinking, so if I analyse and study it rationally, it will usually turn out well.

July 5

Because hiragana are something that was born in Japan, they are made from vertically linked structures. あ, お,す and め are such typical forms. The fact that the ends turn clockwards, is for the sake of linking up at the bottom. The cursive style of the western alphabet is born from the fact that they are written linked up horizontally. You’ll understand if you try to write ‘n’, ‘m’, ‘l’ and ‘e’ in cursive.

July 6

I’m in an extracurricular club that values aisatsu. There is a rule that you say aisatsu with a loud voice when you meet a senpai or sensei. The other day, I happened to meet a senpai after morning practice and I got frazzled. The aisatsu that came out of my mouth was: ‘Good morning Gonchi, good night!’

July 7

The great thing about Shinshou is that when his listeners were loving it, he would stop on purpose. He could have just kept going like that, but he would suddenly abandon [a story] and move on to the next one. He could have got carried away more, but he didn’t get carried away at all, he just went to the next one. That was truly amazing about him.

July 8

It is perhaps the feeling of wanting to know something that is the urge that most makes us human. Things like eating or increasing one’s offspring, even other animals can do that. But continuously thinking about things that have nothing to do with living in the present, I think that is a characteristic ability that is only given to humans.

July 9

I have friends who ask me to go here or there, so there is a factor of uncertainty mixed into my trips. My friends are always the horizontal lines in Ghost Leg. They guide me into different directions along a vertical line that would have gone straight down if I had been by my own.

July 10

When I meet friends I haven’t met for a while, I would like to be someone who earnestly says: “I want to do this”. Rather than using the time for reviewing and critiquing, I would like to have a chat about “I want to do this”.

July 11

Partially because I was a hunter, I thought that I had thought a lot about dying. But when I got terminal cancer, I was able to heard the opinions of people in the same position and I have recently come to think a lot about living. It changed from “What is dying?” to “What is living?”.

July 12

The way I do the interviews in “Can I Follow You Home”, is that while I am basing it on ‘normalcy’, I am trying to delve into things that feel out of place. Like “what is this pencil sharpener doing on top of the fridge?”, everything has a reason.

July 13

I think on the basis of both words and pictures, but if I had to say which [I am thinking from] recently, I think the proportion of words is bigger. Because the design of my pictures is very simple, it is utterly impossible for me to attempt something like wanting to present a lyrical scene or wanting a draw the world’s most beautiful sunset. Wanting to convey “isn’t this an interesting discovery?” comes first.

July 14

I am in the hospital. I thought I had written in my email “Bring me about ten cotton swabs”, but I had accidentally written “Bring me about ten rolling pins”. My husband said: “Are you planning to have an udon class in the hospital ward?”.

July 15

There were about four ice cream parlours near my high school and I went every day in order to master all types of ice cream. When I ate them one by one, one day I crossed the boiling point like a pointer going off the scale. Sometimes you can get to know things through quantity. You know “this is what ice cream is like”. Through quantity “one’s relationship with ice cream can become more intimate”.

July 16

Resorting to violence is the most easily noticed lack of intelligence. Violence, war, acts that injure people, such things can not be held in check with the same violence and there is, fundamentally, a limitation even when you restrict them by law. I think the intelligence of man and the power of culture are the sole deterrents.

July 17

When it’s no one’s fault but the wine turned out bad, that is apparently called “bouchonné” in France. A wonderful expression, isn’t it? The notion that it’s bad, “but it’s no one’s fault” is awesome! In that case, I am ‘Mister’, no, it’s French, ‘Monsieur Bouchonné’. Because it’s no one’s fault, but I am a somewhat bad magician.

July 18

“I don’t know if it will go well, but I want to have a look what will happen”. Such a feeling is always the driving force behind my creations. I enjoy frantically trying to give shape to it through trial and error, and the things I make are fun as well. Otherwise I lose interest halfway through.

July 19

If you want to be kind to somehow, please, be kind to me. I will always make sure to accept your kindness. I will always make sure to wait eagerly for your kindness.

July 20

These few decades, technology and machines have accomplished a marked improvement, but in the world of the embryo there still remains uncharted territory. The inside of the womb is a mysterious world, like the cosmos or the ocean depths. For a long time hereafter, the embyo will probably continue to be something that is unknown.

July 21

When you touch a glass with your hand, it arrives with a ‘beep beep beep beep beep’ at the nerves on your skin. Then the feeling that you touched a glass arises. It is just the brain thinking, of its own accord, “this is a tactile sensation”. From your brain’s perspective, it is no more than a mere ‘beep beep beep’ signal. “There must be a glass here” is just a self-reference of proving your own supposition with mere rationalisations, of going around in circles, so to speak. So that means that its correctness has not been proven.

July 22

Since a few days the living room AC has been in bad shape. For about an hour my husband had been grappling with it, opening it here and there. When I said “Well? Do you know the cause?”, he turned to me dripping in sweat and said: “まったりサッパク”.

He meant to say まったくさっぱり (‘absolutely not at all’).

July 23

Because Kesennuma is originally a fishing town, there is a mentality of ‘I don’t want to lose to my neighbour’. Because of that it is a town that came to be very energising. But recently, when they see a neighbour, they’ll ask “Ah, that’s good! How did you do that?” or say “That guy is coming next time, do you want to listen to him together?”. That sort of thing has started happening.

July 24

Everyone has a reason when they buy jewellery, right? Like a reward for a job well done or a present to oneself. That is why, when I look at my jewellery, I am reminded of myself and the events of that time. Like “that’s when my child was born” or “I got that from my husband”. There are as many stories as there are pieces of jewellery.

July 25

In the novel a character called Nanase says the line: “In the most important moments in our lives, we don’t get any choices.” That is also my cherished opinion. In that sense, I think that human life is ‘que sera sera’. We should leave it to the flow of things. I feel like we don’t need to make a judment of the future or when our lives will end. Before long, it will come for us from the other side.

July 26

It’s fine if you think “I don’t really think about what’s cool”, but you shouldn’t ignore the fact that quite a few people actually care about “coolness”.

July 27

I stick with a 0.7mm B pencil without fail. Everyone should try to start from a position where they have first looked for the ‘mm’ that best matches them. Mechanical pencils are like pants. That’s because it’s more comfortable to wear trousers that fit you perfectly, rather than trousers that are baggy and look like they’re going to fall down or trousers that are tight and look like they’re digging into you.

July 28

I have come to understand where the elliptical rugby ball will bounce better than in my childhood, but even now I don’t fully understand it. That’s why it’s so interesting.

July 29

Since 1500 AD, more than 320 species of vertebrates have gone extinct. When you hear that, you understand that our ecosystem has become quite problematic. Perhaps right now, all around us, an event as grave as the extinction of the dinosaurs is happening. There are actually a lot of things we can learn from the age of the dinosaurs.

July 30

On a morning that was still rainy, in the middle of the pavement, a banana peel was standing up so straight, I thought it was a Mario Kart item.

July 31

While I am writing poetry, writing essays and living off my translations, I have nevertheless always continued to have an interest in science. By reading science books and reading science magazines, I have continuously maintained at least an interest in science. In the process, I’ve come to look at my surroundings with a somewhat scientific eye and that continues to this day.

August

August cover page

The first star has come out.
It is like the eye of the universe.
Aa!
The universe is looking at me.

Some interesting information about this poem.

August 1

Loungewear? I get a bunch of t-shirts from work. They’re called staff shirts. I wear those t-shirts around. For the bottom, I don’t want it to be too tight, so I wear very loose short pants that look a lot like yuba. In summer, that is.

August 2

Even when you don’t think it’s good the day after you have taken it, when you look at it five years later, it’s like “huh, why didn’t I include this picture?”. I wonder why that is, the fact that pictures sometimes look better after you have given it some time?

August 3

We casually say things like “I read Dostoyevsky” or “I read Hamlet”, but when it comes to translated literature, what we’re actually reading is the writing of translators. Moreover, the preferences and choices of the translators as to what they want to translate and how are reflected in it, and the aims of the editor, who is mindful of the trends of the market, and the strategies of the publishing company are also woven into it. We readers read the sum total of all of this without realising it.

August 4

It’s a mistake to think that we can get affirmation for anything we are doing. At the same time, it is probably also a mistake to think and talk while being afraid of constantly being made uncertain. Everyone ought to be somewhere in between those two extremities.

August 5

“This kind of exercise is pointless” is something my dad knew well. Actually, when my dad was an athlete, he once tried to keep throwing anyway. When he was in a slump, he said “practise won’t betray you” and he tried to throw 300 hammers over the course of 12 hours, but his record actually went down. Because of that, he stopped all practise that relied on quantity. He filmed himself, looked objectively at himself and when he fixed his form, his record improved.

I wondered what object 本 was counting here. It turns out it’s hammers!

August 6

At a yakiniku restaurant, I wanted to ask for sanchu. I couldn’t think of the word ‘sanchu’, so I intended to say “the vegetable you wrap the meat in”, but what actually came out was: “the wragetable you vep the meat in”.

August 7

The difference between America and Japan is that when America creates a new product, other companies don’t immediately make an imitation. It is because there is a feeling of respect. For example, when Twitter was made, they didn’t make a Twitter-like thing. When Facebook was made, they didn’t make a Facebook-like thing. In Japan, things are created side-by-side. There is a culture of “if it’s profitable, I’ll make an imitation” and it becomes a war of attrition. That is another reason why creating a global company is hard.

August 8

I think humans are the creatures that have changed their looks the most. 500 million years ago, we were probably closer to coelacanths. It’s no wonder they stay like that, they’re coelacanths. There were creatures who were like “I don’t want to change” and because of that, they are alive. Humans have gradually changed and changing has become their strategy.

August 9

Rather than wanting to sing a nice song, I want to play. I want to play around here. To play is, in other words, to relax. Showing relaxation or playfulness from the beginning is impossible. You’ll come be able to do something like “working really hard, but looking like you’re slacking”.

August 10

When I’m covering a story, it’s fun to think about how to express it in writing. The so-called polishing, like “I wrote it like this, but it’d be better to reverse it” or “if I do it like this it’ll be easier to understand” is fun.

August 11

In museums, rather, we leave things behind with such vigour, that nothing is thrown away. We don’t know where and when a person will pop up after a few years who wants to research that thing, and the things that people of the past have left behind for us are sometimes very helpful for research. It’s like nothing is a waste.

August 12

It’s fine if the tradition of using hawk eagles comes to an end with my generation. Even if the current techniques die out when I die, if there are people afterwards with a great passion that want to become falconers, it’s possible for the hawk eagle techniques to be revived, I think.

August 13

This morning, when my daughter got up, the back for the earring she had been wearing had disappeared. We searched her pillow and around her bed, but didn’t find it. Thus we passed the rest of the day and nearly forgot about it, but in the evening, we heard a cry of joy from the bath. “It popped out of my belly button!” Apparently, when she was soaking in the bath tub and inadvertently touched her belly button, the back came falling out.

August 14

Whether it’s a sports team or a company working on a project, I think it’s a senpai’s job to make sure that everyone’s abilities improve. The senpai talk to each other about their thoughts and skills. The kouhai see this and the senpai teach generously. At the heart of this, the teacher stands with his head held high.

August 15

The children who will live in the future might forget about us. It might be hidden in a faint, dim mist of recollection. They will gradually forget. That’s what I think. Let them meet many people, let them see, hear, feel many things, let them fall in love many, many times and let them thoroughly wipe out their memories of us.

August 16

When we make our dog do “wait”, he steps backwards while quivering, I imagine because he can’t supress his desire to move. He looks exactly like a smartphone receiving a message.

August 17

It goes without saying that beautiful things are made under the influence of money and power. There are cultures that were born due to this. But the beauty that is born from everyday life has a different brilliance. The embroidery of certain Asian minority peoples is, for example, something a mother made for her daughter.

August 18

The local high schools’ baseball best 8 had been decided. The day before the match that would enter us into the best 4 if we won, my mum said to me excitedly: “If you win tomorrow, it’ll be the ‘eight four’ huh?” That’s a deodorant, mum…

August 19

The are players who just joined and players who are leaving. There are people who say that you become stronger through addition and those who calculate through subtraction. It’s a question of what it is in total. It’s ok if it’s not a total of +10 or +20. If it’s a total of +1, I feel like I am going to win.

August 20

Words are not all-powerful and [can’t express] everything. I like that inconvenience.

August 21

Whales came from a different direction than fish, but became the same shape. This is called ‘convergent evolution’. The tail fin of fish is vertical, the tail fin of whales is horizontal. Because they once lived on land, their body shape became like that. I mean, it is often said that the way a whale moves its tail is the same to the movement of a dog’s tail when it is sprinting.

This is fascinating! Here’s more info about the dog tail thing.

August 22

Actually, when your contact with society declines, at the same time, your calves and thighs will become thinner in the blink of an eye.

August 23

Even now, I think there is nothing as nice as time [spent] writing letters. There is also something very good about the ‘roundaboutness’ of a letter. For example, when one begins writing something like “How are you doing? Summer will soon be over” in a letter, the writer is thinking things like “It’d be nice to go fishing together in autumn” while they are imagining the image of being together with the addressee.

August 24

When it comes to drawing, it’s better if there’s a line that only that person has, or a colour only that person can produce. But there was an instant where I clearly understood that I didn’t have that. That’s when, with an approach close to ‘defiance’, I shifted to a method where I draw with shapes that anyone can use, such as straight lines or arcs.

August 25

Actually, in a scrum even a lightweight team can jostle if they’re bunched up together. If they try to push while they’re scattered on their own, their force is not transferred well. A good team cares about how to huddle together, rather than how to push the opponent. In the end, you are better able to push if you are huddled together.

August 26

On my PDA I had enabled the mode that turns off the notification sounds and notifies you by vibration. At home, I put it in the window sill to charge it. One night, there was a “bubububu” sound coming from the window sill, so I thought “aah an email”. When I turned it over, it turned out a drone beetle had flown in through the window screen.

August 27

Pokey in ‘MOTHER’ is a perfect heel (baddie). Whether people like him or laugh at him, he is a person who does purely horrible things. However, for whatever reason I like him. Maybe that is what being a ‘good baddie’ is all about.

August 28

I have come to think of shame as an asset as well. The embarrassment that I experienced due to my youthful indiscretions, I can’t experience that anymore. If I imagine that the embarrassments of that time or another had not been there, then to my surprise I can think that I’m glad they were there, that it’s better they were there.

August 29

Because a poem is born when the heart is stirred, the emotional uplift of love is very compatible with tanka. So when love is not going well or at times of a broken heart, overwhelmingly good tanka are being born. However negative the emotion, the instance they become 31 (misohito) characters, they become a positive legacy. I would be happy if you learn this method of making the most of that [tanka] expression.

August 30

I have gradually become able to draw what I was thinking of little by little. I think it was around the time of “Ping Pong”, I think, that I began being able to think “Ah, so this is my place”. I have come to feel very at ease because of that.

August 31

Even in the evening of the day of the earthquake, there were people who were trying to say something even somewhat interesting. That evening, even though I was gazing upon the city dumbstruck, I calmed down when [someone] told me something kind of funny. There was a “balance”. It wasn’t like “there’s only this”.

September

September cover page

When [he] strikes the fish gong it emits midday mosquitos.

September 1

The disaster prevention officer Minoru Kihara’s bag to bring with you in case of emergency (Pattern A: items needed for eating):
Rice, water, gomashio, canned food, gas burner, a gas cartridge, outdoor cooking utensils, tableware, food wrap, plastic bag.

The disaster prevention officer Minoru Kihara’s bag to bring with you in case of emergency (Pattern B: items that enable you to spend one night warmly):
Sleeping bag, space blanket, blue plastic sheet, packing tape, nylon band, radio, candle, lighter.

September 2

My middle school daughter called ‘otaba’, that excellent sweet from Kyoto, ‘doyasa’.

September 3

Okamura: My own interpretation is that as far as human life is concerned, happiness is important and marriage is probably one way of becoming happy. But, because all the people I look up toーnot only John Lennon and Yoko Ono, but all of the Beatles, and you as well, Mr Itoiーare married, I feel like I want to try getting married.

Itoi: But the people whose names you mentioned just now, they all experienced both marriage and divorce.

September 4

I think that what makes life fun is, ultimately, finding longing. It’s also finding it by yourself.

September 5

When I’m writing, the friction between the material of the paper and the lead of my mechanical pencil, in other words, the course or smooth feeling, goes along my fingers and I can sense it. It’s not just visual, it’s important information reaching me through my fingertips. I feel like the such a delicate sensation doesn’t readily reach me when it is expressed through using a keyboard and mouse for input.

September 6

People live towards their hobbies. So what is a hobby? A hobby is “what makes you feel like you want to be alive tomorrow”. Being happy because that hobby is there, is why people feel like they want to live.

September 7

In the case of a standard size, 53 meters tall H-2A rocket, its weight when it is not carrying a satellite is about 289 tonnes, but when the fuel is empty, its weight is about 8-10% of that. What I often put forth as an example, is that it’s like an aluminium beer can. When you’ve drunk the beer that’s inside, it becomes completely light, it’s that image. The fuel tank, too, [is made] of a 25mm thick aluminium sheet that is shaved down to 2mm.

September 8

This is something I say as a joke, but you can just write lies in your notebook or diary. When as much as 30 years have passed, even you yourself can no longer recognise which things are lies.

September 9

Most likely at some point everything will become a memory. No, ‘everything’ is an exaggeration. You will mostly forget both the good things and the bad things. They will most likely become mottled memories. That’s why I want to live my life digesting each day well.

Bit of a liberal translation in the last sentence, but I think that’s what the author meant.

September 10

The other day, as I was shopping I got the idea of making jelly, but I couldn’t readily find the gelatin. When I was looking about the shop while thinking “gelatin, gelatin (ゼラチン)”, I saw a shop clerk so I thought “let’s try asking them”, but the word that came out was “suimachin”.

September 11

It’s not like humans think of such great ideas one after another, right? But by making a note of the things that you think “that’s great!” in an unexpected moment, it is sometimes useful at a later time. Words, like those you write in a proposal, with the power to persuade people, don’t come out when you are facing a computer. The ‘raw’ keywords that you will forget if you don’t write them down when you think of them are actually more important.

September 12

I feel almost no desire to go on a trip or have a holiday. But when it comes to drawing, I think “I want to draw more like this” or “I want to draw this way” a lot. That’s why, fundamentally, time spent drawing is relaxation.

September 13

It is science that ‘translates’ nature into words that humans can understand. If humans can’t understand, it can’t be called science. Science is the act of explaining nature. Furthermore, you have to explain it using a human brain, with such eccentricities. That’s why translators have come to be important. Those translators are scientists. So science is a very human-like behaviour.

September 14

The fact that not one person, but multiple people are reading [my work] means that, actually, I can put my mind at ease when I am writing. It’s also fair to say that it’s very helpful that I am writing for people who have the freedom not to read [my work]. I want to thank both those who read [my work] and those who don’t.

September 15

What sort of things did the Manyou people eat? It goes without saying that it was a time without fridges, so fermented foods emerged. Narezushi. It’s amazing. There are things that don’t go off even after 30, 40 years have passed. Or pickles. Even in the mokkan of Nara’s Heijo-kyo, there are descriptions of pickles. In fact, there were already as many as 27 kinds of pickles.

September 16

It’s difficult to make a small difference. In fact, there are a great many leathers that look similar. It’s fun to find the one among them that’s like “this is it!”. In the end, that is also conveyed to our customers who like leather, and it will be loved and become a ‘staple’ that will be used for 10, 20 years.

September 17

The reason I like hotels is because they always start from zero. In the room, the necessary things are neatly placed where they should be. Every day they put them in order in the same way. Sheets and towels are freshly laundered. I am wondering if I can’t do this at home as well. When I start something, I don’t want to start once I’ve tidied up, I want to have it in the same state every time.

September 18

At home I asked my child to give me a hand, saying “please poipoi (meaning: toss) this!”. The other day at work I accidentally asked a colleague “can I poipoi this?”. My colleague, who has a kid the same age, responded “you can poipoi it!”.

September 19

From my point of view as a performer, it would be a big mistake if I showed Kunimura’s face. If the role is an old man running a Chinese restaurant, the old man running a Chinese restaurant has to be there. If he isn’t, it’s just Kunimura doing cosplay. Watching something like that isn’t interesting at all, or that’s what I think anyway.

This is Kunimura himself speaking.

September 20

When Darwin decided to reflect on the evolution of living beings, he had no choice but to climb to a higher perspective and look at the whole issue, and he grappled with it resolutely for his whole life. I am also very impressed by the breadth of his perspective and his bravery and mentality to surpass society’s received wisdoms.

September 21

If there aren’t any new discoveries, it’s no fun at all for a writer. If there are no discoveries, it rapidly spoils it and they starts feeling fed up with writing. If they are writing while they’re fed up with it, less and less will come out. That’s the sort of vicious cycle they’ll enter. After all, you they to evolve. In order to evolve, they have to be constantly progressing in new directions. Such a person moves up aiming for their own route and come to know the past more widely and deeply.

September 22

If they are made to do a side job, they can’t do it well and they can’t do it in numbers either. But with art activities, there are no directions, no quotas, no failure. Moreover, they can get recognition that they are amazing. In other words, their environment up to then had made those people into disabled people. If they do what they are good at, they are truly amazing people.

September 23

When we’re looking at a picture book, or reading a novel, or listening to a song, or watching a movie, or watching a drama, or eating food, or listening to someone’s rubbish story, in all of those cases, we’re being deceived. We love the time spent being wonderfully deceived and we spend that time asking the maker to deceive us more and more.

September 24

Because rugby is the sort of sport where ‘the winner wins and the loser loses’, there are no miracles. That’s why, in the interview after the 2015 game against South Africa, I said: ‘This wasn’t a miracle, it was an inevitability’.

September 25

If we’re going at a very energetic pace at this point, why have we been [working on it] little by little for 4 years? That’s the way it is though. You should finish it up in one go. Otherwise, you hardly finish anything at all.

September 26

I think that cats know all about what humans expect from them or think about them and things like that. You can use whatever metaphor for them, but to call them gods, that would be an exaggeration.

September 27

I was working part-time at a convenience store. When I was serving customers at the register, there was a nostalgic smell I had smelled before somewhere coming from an old man. While I was wondering “where have I smelled it before…?”, I handed that old man his change and accidentally said “it smells like 300 yen.” The old man with the nostalgic smell let it pass, accepted his change and went home.

September 28

For example, they sometimes say “live your life thinking that today is man’s last day”, don’t they? That’s not possible. For me, at any rate, it’s not possible. Life or death, that word alone takes on a life of its own.

September 29

Perhaps people who don’t desire to express themselves are more adept at impressions. It’s not like “listen to my song”, but it is like “listen to this person I’m playing”. “Cause I’m doing it on that person’s behalf”. That’s because when I was in my teens, those people made a deep impression on me.

September 30

‘Not being lazy’ becomes a wonderful quality for a person to live well.

October and the rest can be found in the next post (stupid character limit )

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Original post:

I got a Hobonichi Techo Cousin and I’ve been trying to read the daily quotes. The first two were easy, but I’m struggling with the third one. That made me wonder if there are other people out there reading the daily quotes who may want to read them together?

For what it’s worth, here’s the quote for 3 Jan (I assume they are the same across all models):

気持ちわるいだけれど、気持ちいいようなこと。悲しいはずなのに、悲しさが降りてこないような時間。ずっと笑っていたのに、さみしさが増えていく心持ち。名付けようのない、しかも取るに足らないような感覚は、ないことにするわけにいかないものである。

[Aislin]

I needed to google what it is.
It seems like a calendar/planner…? Is there anything special about it? I assume a good quality cover/paper/design?

[Phryne]

@Aislin

I needed to google what it is.

Ahh sorry about that. It’s a pretty popular planner among stationery enthusiasts. It has high quality paper, so you can use a fountain pen. I personally really like the design as well; I find the layouts very pleasing to look at. What sets it apart from other popular (Japanese) planners is that every daily page features a quote from Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun (the planner’s parent company). I am enjoying the daily ritual of trying to read the quotes, though as it turns out some are a bit difficult

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October

October cover page

Autumn has become brighter
In the depths of this brightness
There seems to be a quiet echo

October 1

I have been looking at Van Gogh for a while, and I feel like I understand just a little what sort of person Van Gogh was. For a mangaka it’s like that as well, it’s important to find one’s way to one’s own personal touch.

October 2

As for ‘get together!’ in dramas, don’t get together! Grit your teeth and endure. Good patience. Old BL was like that. Gritting your teeth and enduring was the aesthetic of old BL. Like, enduring and thinking hard. Enduring, enduring, that’s what BL was about. If I were asked ‘please make a BL’, they would endure. A pretty boy and a pretty boy, I would make them hold out. I wouldn’t even let them kiss.

Man, this one took a lot of context to figure out!

October 3

Human life [tends to] get progressively sadder if you leave it to its own devices, and music might be like that as well. If that’s the case, something intelligent is required in order to make it more fun.

October 4

There is a double-edged sword kind of aspect to training your power of imagination. Thanks to your power of imagination you can be rescued from anything, but you can also get very depressed from completely irrelevant things. I have to persuade myself continuously that “there is sad news, but depending on your way of looking at it, it can also be so interesting, right?”. I make drawings for that reason.

October 5

One day, when I was in middle school. At recess, I went to the class next door to return a textbook I had borrowed. Intending to call my friend Maichan, I said with a loud voice “everyone!”. The whole class turned around and I was so startled that I stopped thinking.

October 6

The shape and colour of insects show the climate of a region. I have come to think this as I have been watching Japanese and foreign insects from morning to evening. You could say the same thing about birds. So, for example, even if you’re kidnapped, blindfolded and taken somewhere by plane, you can make a rough estimate of where you are if you look at the insects that are there.

October 7

I often say “if you feel like you are going to cough, stop it with your elbow”. Because if you stop it with your hand, there is a possibility of transmitting it from that hand to another person. If [you stop it with] your elbow, well… you’re not really going to touch people with it, right? I hope cough etiquette will become more widespread.

Amen to that!

October 8

Well, it’s because he doesn’t know how to use the right amount of force yet. He tries to pick at my nose with incredible force or he tries to crawl while using his face as a base. Oh well, it’s fine, whatever he does. Whatever he does, being in a good mood is a great act of filial piety.

October 9

Curiosity means that you have a readiness (or a subconscious urge) of “it’s ok to change”. [It’s like that for] dogs, poets, athletes, managers. I blunty say “changing is being alive”. If that’s difficult to understand, I’ll say it the other way round. “Coming to a halt is dying”.

October 10

As for the etymology of ‘art’, it basically means ‘skill’, from the Latin word ‘ars’. So the skills used to live are at the origin of art. For example, in the olden days, the skill of medicine that healed people’s illnesses was considered an art. So however many times it is said “it’s an art!”, if it doesn’t have the slightest relation to ‘skills for living’, I am not all that interested.

Had some trouble figuring out the meaning of かする. Turns out it’s 掠る and it’s used in a somewhat figurative sense.

October 11

To the generation that is about 60, I really want to give some advice. When you want to find a new passion yourself, you should have a rest. Take a rest where you don’t think about anything. If you do that, a passion for new things, things you like, will come out. That’s why I’d like to say “rest creates energy”.

October 12

Ito: I say something like “rugby is made out of Pythagoras’ theorem”. In rugby, you throw the ball diagonally behind you, right? So that’s the base times height divided by 2. If you watch [a game] and apply this concept it will be more interesting throughout the game.
Tomizawa: I don’t really know what you’re talking about.
Date: You get it, right?!

October 13

We were talking about cream puffs (シュークリーム) and when I was supposed to use some “そうなの” aizuchi, I accidentally said “シューなの”. When I continued to have my conversation without change and with an unconcerned air, after an interval, they said “did you just say シューなの?”.

October 14

I saw the musical “The King and I” starring Ken Watanabe in London. When I left the theatre, the stage door was open and right when I thought “o, let’s go in!” I could see Ken in the back, saying “good job!”, surrounded by his co-stars and staff. In that moment Ken’s smiling face was amazing. So I stopped myself going in. I felt like I would be able to work harder if I went home like that. And I thought “one day, I too will go there”.

October 15

50 years ago, around the time when I started following the path of a drag queen, I didn’t have an image for how I was going to make a living. But this is how our lives became movies and books. It’s not like we came to do something in order to become people who would go down in history. All [we did] was just continuing to be ourselves.

October 16

The secret to continuing with your knitting enjoyably is “not to be too disappointed when you’ve made a mistake”. For me there are often times where it doesn’t go well. Naturally, I think “aaah” a little. But while I have been creating I have reached the point where I can accept that such things happen. [Taking] the things that went well as encouragement, I overcome the times when it doesn’t go well. Taking all of those things into account, that’s the real pleasure of knitting, I think.

October 17

Before winter truly arrives, humans (as animals) begin preparing for the cold season little by little. We become increasingly accustomed to wearing thick clothes. In the long nights that don’t become light indefinitely, we start reading books. In the coldness of our futons, we think of people we want to meet.

October 18

When we read stories, we enter a world different from the real world and return after having fun for a while. On the other hand, with science picture books like our ‘Friends of Science’ you enjoy the real world itself. When you live in this society, there are many things you don’t like, that you think you don’t like. Even if, for argument’s sake, you consider that to be true, I wonder if it’s possible to cultivate the ‘power to affirm’ this world that you’re living in in this instant.

October 19

Although I am a fortune teller, that doesn’t mean I know everything. If I took a position of “I know all the answers because I tell fortunes”, I don’t think words would ever reach me anymore.

October 20

When you look at other people, [do so] individually and carefully. Look at their irreplaceable individuality. For example, when you discover a talent for writing, before giving coarse praise like “you are a prodigy” or “you have literary talent”, stop and read that person’s writing well and try to tell them honestly how your heart was moved, concretely, part by part, like “In this passage, in this part, these sort of feelings surged up”.

October 21

About our son, a working adult, my husband said earnestly: “He’s a manifesto. He is in raptures about himself.” “Ah, a narcissist, right?” I conjectured, having been married [to this man] for a long time.

October 22

I think that God gave this to me, this role of singing songs. Being this age, it’s something I think about. When I was young, all [I wanted to do] was making hits out of my songs, competing in the Red and White singing contest, winning the Japan Record Award, just those things. It’s was recently when I realised that this “is my role”. I think God gave me the role of singing songs, the ability to sing songs.

October 23

When it comes to faith, we tend to think that it is something that has been established with very clear demarcations and principles. However, faith is probably something with more of an amplitude. There are some that are more unconscious, some that are multilayered. There are cases where one might say that activities suck as folk customs are also a creditable faith.

October 24

Secrets to continuing to eat food in a delicious way.

• Eating something salty after something sweet (not eating things with the same flavour successively)
• Eating western food after eating Japanese food (eating food from different countries after another; the same goes for sweets)
• Eating something with a different temperature (like oshiruko, which isn’t ice, after shaved ice)

October 25

There are times when we think about things assertively, focussing on “conservative measures”.

October 26

In all translations of “Romeo and Juliet” made by men, Juliet humbles herself. But in the original text nothing like “〜くださる” is written! Romeo and Juliet are on an equal footing. When I was asked at one time “There are already loads of interpretations of Romeo and Juliet in the world, why are you translating it, Ms. Matsuoka?”, I reflexively answered “That’s because I am a woman”.

October 27

I am of the opinion that “animals don’t have the same general ideas”. There is no ‘equals’. For a monkey, [a=b] and [b=a] are different.

October 28

In the words that were said to me by my maid, who had been coming to my house for a while: “Sir, you live really conscientiously, don’t you?”. That made me happy. That’s how I want to be. In my own Soraidoufu I included the line “People are hurt by people’s words, people are saved by people’s words”. Living conscientiously. This is a good phrase, isn’t it?

October 29

When I was doing some shopping at the convenience store, the total came to 777 yen. I got change for a thousand yen note and when I looked into my wallet, there were 7 thousand yen notes and when I counted the small change, it was 777 yen.

This probably has something to do with 7 being considered a lucky number in Buddhism.

October 30

Let me tell you an unscientific story. Once I started polishing my hammer, my records have improved. I use various detergents. So while I am polishing, I think. When I am polishing throughout my thinking, the hammer comes to feel like a part of myself. I think, polish, clean, repeat. From that moment onward, gradually my records started improving. Somehow, I wonder if the act of polishing and thinking hasn’t been having an impact on a unconscious level.

October 31

Generally kitty cats cling to their owners or occupy their owner’s space, but it seems like Menma prefers for her body to slightly be touching the edge [of the bed].

November

November cover page

You, for example, couldn’t you go and snatch me away like one would scoop up rustling fallen leaves?

Written in slightly more modern Japanese:

たとえば君 がさっと落ち葉 すくうように 私をさらって行ってはくれぬか

Some interpretations (1, 2).

November 1

Just thanking someone with a ‘thank you’ when you get something may be inconvenient. Being told ‘thank you’ by someone is a human right. At that time time I truly understood something important from the bottom of my heart.

November 2

The efficacy of striped pajamas is enormous. From way back, I have continued to be called “a type who starts with the looks”, but starting with looks isn’t a bad thing. But, strangely enough, when I wear these, I get a feeling like “I’m going to bed” or “let’s get up”. I guess one could say that my mood and the way I demarcate my time have become more gracious.

November 3

Ceramics is a cycle of decisions. While the clay hasn’t hardened, there is too much freedom. But when it has completely hardened, you can’t move it. So you have to make all the decisions one by one. It’s a constant cycle of decisions. A series of decisions.

November 4

The question of “what was there before the big bang?” itself presupposes existence. Let’s just assume for now that things exist. “What was there, before the thing that brought forth that existence was made”, that’s the question. To begin with, doubt existence itself. Existence, what sort of thing is that?

November 5

While I was out with my family, I was really hungry, so we decided to go to a Chinese restaurant. I was asked “Your name?” by the waiter and I said “It’s ramen”. It seems there was nothing but ramen in my head. “Name” sounded like “ramen”.

November 6

When I was 19, I don’t think I ever would’ve been on Insta or anything like that. Because I was certain that actors should be mysterious, so I thought that actors sharing their private lives was unseemly. But once I got a family, that changed. My private life is an uncontained leak, but I think it’s ok if I perform [my acting] to a degree of perfection where I’m not letting [the audience] sense it even for a moment.

November 7

When a hawk spots its prey, its tallons are firmly filled with strength. The feeling of tension before a hawk takes off is transmitted through the glove that I wear on my arm. So even if I close my eyes, I can tell whether it flew towards a prey or whether it flew for fun by the difference in the tension of the force that’s exerted onto my arm.

November 8

It is easy to forget, but everyone is living for a limited timespan and we don’t know when that will be snapped off. It’s easy to forget though.

November 9

In middle school I came to imitate the handwriting of Takurou Yoshida, and later Makoto Wado, and I perfected my current handwriting. “I want to have the handwriting of people I admire”, so I avoided the matter of whether my handwriting was good or bad.

November 10

Before you know it, people come to be remembered more by their date of death than by their birthday. As I thought about this, suddenly I realised. I don’t have a date of death yet. “I am alive. I don’t have a date of death yet”. That’s right. One day, when my date of death is decided, ladies and gentlemen, please think of it something like “Did he live until this day?” My birthday is mine, my date of death is everyone’s.

November 11

Although it is an old poem, when it comes who interprets it, it is us who live in the present. That’s why Manyoushuu research is also scholarship that probes ourselves, now living in the present, in relation to the past.

November 12

When I’m deciding on the advisability of a launch, I can give a mechanical OK if various parameters and values are within a certain range. But sometimes I have a bad feeling about it even though the values are within range… ‘Something’ is different from usual. In such cases I stop for a moment. In cases where I can’t be technically confident that the value I feel somewhat uneasy about is normal or ok, we stop the launch.

November 13

The time my friend had an offer for a promotion. My friend, who isn’t confident, meant to say to the superior who brought them that offer “you give me too much credit”, but ended up saying “you give me too little credit”. Ultimately, they ended up accepting it.

November 14

When I am giving calligraphy instruction, my students sometimes become monotonous. Even though they are convinced they are thinking about development, the brush erosion itself is not developing and it becomes the same tone. There is a little change, but it hasn’t changed substantially. At those times I say “have a break”. But even if the same person tried to sleep, think it over and change it overnight, it doesn’t amount to much. However, if they don’t build up such things, a person can never change.

November 15

I woke up in the middle of the night. Somehow it had been a long time. It such a time as this, the best thing is to read the book I have left at my bedside. Getting up and waiting for dawn is fine. Going to sleep a little longer works as well. Sometimes it is also ok to wander about at night. Everyone occasionally wander about at night.

November 16

Why do I go looking for wild hen-of-the-woods, pushing through the forests of the roadless wilderness of Akan, to the point of risking a bear encounter? Most of all, my motive is “because it’s fun”. In order to look for wild mushrooms, you need knowledge, strength, experience and luck. Isn’t the smell of adventure strong? The act itself of looking for mushrooms is fun, but actually, whether you find hen-of-the-woods or not, that’s secondary or tertiary.

November 17

If there’s an environment where good people can demonstrate their abilities, good people will probably be able to demonstrate their abilities. People, and creating a ‘space’ where people can play an active role without worries. I think that’s the most important thing. People, and [such a] space. That is the root of ‘creation’.

November 18

When I think about it once again, the common words ‘developing country’ and ‘undeveloped country’ are careless. There is nature to look up to, there are environments suitable for living in, there is history from ancient times, there are towns built in the Middle Ages, there are the smiling faces of the people who live there. They are an equal asset, that mankind has pursued and cultivated roughly equally, regardless of race or ethnicity, since civilisation was born. Each region and ethnicity has equally sufficiently ‘developed’.

November 19

When you go and look at the nature that’s in the area where you live, that’s fun. I think it’s ok to start with going outside and looking around.

November 20

We have no choice but to make a smiling face first. If we make a smiling face, the other side will also smile. The person on the side of dying has no choice but to ellicit a reaction in the person on the side of living. For example, take my wife, what makes her smile is the fact that I am smiling. Thankfully, I am only doing things I want to do now and I am living every day enjoyably, and as a result I really get a sense that this is leading to my wife’s and son’s smiles.

November 21

“You can eat that cheese tert that’s in the kitchen.”
“Cheese tert?”
“No, cheese torta, huh? Cheese terta, cheese tarte!”
The correct word is ‘cheese tart’.

November 22

When I draw with as little effort as possible, it also become more peaceful in my head. Conversely, when I accidentally put in effort, my head becomes too aware and it’s no good. So I have to relax my mind and not put in any effort. If I do that, it goes smoothly.

November 23

With the popularisation of smartphones, the general public has also come to take good pictures. When it comes to children’s pictures, it’s surely best for parents to take them. I wonder if, in such cases, it is the professional who takes pictures that convince the viewer in any situation.

November 24

I have become increasingly embarrassed to react like “ouch!”. The pain I experience during my practice, my team mates might also be feeling. Even so, we are all making a calm face. I have come to think that what makes a rugby player is making a calm face and remaining on the pitch, even when you’re feeling pain.

November 25

For life, instability is important. Why is that? Because once it’s become stable, it’s a corpse. All living beings are moving barely at just the right spot, while being unstable.

Within the context of growing tadpoles into frogs and the ‘just right’ temperature that it requires.

November 26

What’s fun is trying to read in a Kansai accent. There are the Kantou folk song, but the greater part of the people who left poems in the Manyoushuu were basically people from the Kinki region. That’s why, when you try to read the poems in a Kansai intonation, there is yet another charm. On the whole, it makes it whoaaa. There are also ones that become unromantic. Discover a whole new Manyoushuu!

November 27

The shouting and clapping, those are by themselves songs and pictures. It is true that even in the shouting, one’s imbued experiences from the past come out. Sometimes the clapping is doing the editing, sometimes it makes the instruments of the other members sound better.

November 28

In the case of illustrations, of course I myself am important, but the person who commissions me is equally important. In other words, I think illustration is something that guides the project of the person who is commissioning me to a point of “how they want it in the end”. At the same time, it is the person who commissions me who expands the range and possibilities of my images.

November 29

At my part-time job, an izakaya, a customer that had drunk warmed sake said: “This sake becomes warmer when you heat it!” … “It becomes mellower when you heat it” is what he probably meant to say.

November 30

In the Nara period, it is noteworthy that the imperial court managed salt production. And then, there is sake. Before then, sake had a strong “sake for the gods” character, but in the period spanning 130 years between the Asuka period and the late Nara period, sake became “sake for the people”.In the Manyoushuu there are various settings in which sake makes an appearance, such as Ootomo no Tabito’s ‘Cloudy Sake’ or Yamanoue no Okura’s ‘Sake Kasu Drink’.

December

December cover page

Are the tips of the winter trees’ branches, naked because their leaves have fallen, cold and lonely? No, they are smiling cheerfully. Because spring, summer and autumn are gathered in the tips of those branches and they are enjoying themselves while waiting for their turn.

December 1

At the site of my live radio broadcast, no matter what important sponsor is on the other side of the glass, or director or producer, it is my mouth that becomes the final ‘flood gate’ or outlet for everything. I have no choice but to decide whether the words coming out of my mouth will sink of swim.

December 2

The Joumon people being clever means, in short, that they possess the power of survival. For example, in the coldest period snow piles up to 3, 4 meters in this region. It is under such circumstances that the Joumon people lived as well. They had the ability to survive.

December 3

Mr. Itoi was watching television, and he thought that the word 'ochitsuke (calm down)'ーthat was written on the set of 'Sanma no Manma’ーwas interesting and it seemed that if he got a famous calligrapher to write it and made goods with it as a joke, it would sell very well. I think I too should talk more calmly soon and I should do something for young people and middle aged people soon as well.

December 4

Though you could call it a fantasy map, that doesn’t mean that you’re drawing an ideal neighbourhood. If you are single-mindedly including your ideals into the map, it is no more than a visualisation of simply ‘what do I desire?’ by means of a map. That quest will soon be put to an end.

December 5

Mr. T had turned 101. While I was helping him get out bed, I was hugged really tightly. However old people get, there are always times when they need a hug. Mr. T didn’t even know my name. But I was chosen by this person, who looked me in the face, smiled at me and squeezed me. When I squeezed him tight in return, he laughed “hehehe”. In my job I can be the one who gives someone their last hug.

December 6

Every day there are numerous things that aren’t fun. There are things that I may be bad at or not good at, but still have to do, as well as things that I feel I have to do because of my position. But I do them while thinking ‘how can this become fun?’. Continuing to do this is actually fun.

December 7

Japan’s 2015 rugby delegation was even preparing for ‘listening’ to the South African anthem before the match. At the 2011 world cup match against France, we heard our opponents’ anthem for the first time before the match, and when I told our coach Eddy that I had been emotionally engulfed by it, it was established that “well, let’s listen to South Africa’s anthem beforehand, then”. I was proud that I had done everything I could do to prepare for the South Africa match.

December 8

A magazine (雑誌) is certainly 雑, and that 雑 isn’t a bad thing. It is placing its feet in real life. It feels like it is properly standing on its own feet in this 雑 (that is, to be mingled) situation.

December 9

“What is Kesennnuma like now?” may well be the question I have been asked the most since I came to Kesennuma after the earthquake disaster. And it was also the most difficult question. “There are people who are doing well, and people who are doing badly”. Even now it hasn’t changed that it varies depending on the person, so that is the only way to put it. So in short, it means that there are sad and difficult things, but there are also many fun and bright things.

December 10

I repeatedly show even my work in progress to other people. I show it and instantly asked for advice. Even when I was at my parental home, I was always showing it to my mother. There is, after all, a limit to how objective I myself can be.

December 11

Ayaya: “For a factor that seems irrelevant to a drama, but that is actually important, there is the quality of the official website.”
Arai: “In my past experience when I have gone to check out a drama, that’s not irrelevant. For a carefully made drama, the official website is also carefully made.”
Morishita: “Whether various things like the preparatory period, the budget, the number of staff have been done properly becomes apparent in the quality of the official website.”

December 12

On a certain day, close to my daugher’s wedding, I said to my daughter who was getting married: “Seems like your mum has been getting a marine bridge, huh?”. “What bridge is that?”, she said. I didn’t know what she meant, and only when it was explained to me did I understand.

マリンブリッジ ➝ マリッジブルー

December 13

For one’s health it is best to be pampered. A warm house, warm food, a proper bed, you can live longer if you grow up in such an environment. People in the olden days being healthier is no more than an urban legend.

December 14

I want it to be possible for our children to be able to do things as a matter of course that aren’t to their advantage. Even if they aren’t parents and children, I want it to be like that for my friends as well. People who attempt to gain only advantages, are easily found out for it, and become only that sort of people.

December 15

It goes without saying, but even when we didn’t have modern sports, people exercised. For example, in the Edo period there was the profession of express messenger. Every profession had exercise or skill to it. I think it was originally some kind of “handing down of senses”, but now that has been cut short. I think that sort of thing is very important. I learned how to throw a hammer from my father and I think that is also a “handing down of senses”.

December 16

I am often told things like “Mr. Urasawa, you live such a life of leisure, you’re entrusting [everything] to your assistant and don’t draw anything yourself, do you?”, but it’s exactly the opposite. It is precisely because this turned into a career that I have finally come to be able to take the time to draw by myself.

December 17

Because the speed with which evolution progresses is considerably impacted by things like the make-up of the group, or its size, a long time period may not necessarily be required. Having said that, I may not be able to see it within my lifetime. Nevertheless, if I leave [my collection] behind now, perhaps a researcher can make use of it 100, 200 years later. So I think it will turn out that I did it with that sort of goal.

December 18

I don’t want to do it myself. I sing what I am given and I have them change it. It’s all I can do, having them change it.

December 19

If you make up your mind at the stage where you have formulated a hypothesis and go “I’m not budging!”, your hypothesis may be wrong. What I am putting forward is, after all, a hypothesis. I am letting my anchor down here for now, but if I try looking into it and think it is slightly off, I raise the anchor and drift a little more.

December 20

After the old lady managing the set meal restaurant had ended a takeout order phone call, she shouted to the kitchen “Karaage set meal, hold the side dish!”. “Ah, hold the rice!”, she corrected herself in a frenzy. She customers who were there errupted with laughter.

December 21

One job… Whichever job it is, from a pianist to a carpenter, people who have been in that world for dozens of years must certainly have accumulated some things. Of that much I am sure. That’s why, if only you could meet them, you could certainly hear some interesting stories. If I’m doing an interview and it turns out uninteresting, that’s the listener’s problem.

December 22

One way or another I feel like I am preparing for the end, so I have become stingy with things like time and significance. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s no use not having the allowance. If you don’t mix in the fact that you intend to live in good health indefinitely, you will give being useful too much of a priority.

December 23

The times change. Circumstances change as well. Power is prone to wane, and in the midst of it many people live and die. Still, that short but beautifull and noble time should be left for eternity, it’s valuable. None other than I, who was named there, who found a purpose in life there, will leave it behind. That is why I was born. Sei Shounagon might have thought so, I think.

December 24

At work, I naturally come into contact with guys that are 20, 25 years old. Even though I tell them “I am already old enough to be your mother”, given the chance I do definitely keep company with them, though… I am afraid of myself thinking that. Ah, when I get a little older, perhaps it’ll get easier.

December 25

When you’re a bookseller, Christmas unintentionally becomes all about the store, and you forget about your family or children. Though, assuming there is something like an invisible thought of “I want to deliver something important”, I thought of something convenient, that it’d be good if what I am doing for the shop, the books, the customers, bounces from one place to the next and is delivered from somewhere to the kids

December 26

A trip is fine just as a trip. Just by setting out on a trip, the trip’s purpose is already pretty much accomplished. It’s fine not to take the trouble of trying to bring anything back. Put your time into that place and it will exchange with the time that has been flowing in that place all along. That’s all you have to do.

December 27

It is the season of the night watch. This year too, the neighbourhood association officials make the rounds in turns. The sound of their wooden clappers clattering. My daughter, who heard it from inside the house, said “ogre extermination!”. The correct phrase is “watch out for fire!”. It seems like she has come to want to say “ogre extermination!” without thinking whenever she hears the clattering.

December 28

Someone very close to me was having a baby, and when I looked at it as a third party, I felt that when a baby is born, at the same time a mother is born. To put it more broadly, a father is born as well, and a world with new people in it.

December 29

To love someone else, you first have to love yourself. And to love yourself, you need to have self-confidence. You being alive and existing here right now, the reason you are able to do that is because not only your parents, but also the people around you treated you with loving care. In other words, you being there now is the result of you having been loved. In that much you can be self-confident.

December 30

When once a year the job of proofreading the English text for the Hobonichi Techo, I feel relieved. The daily quotes I read while proofreading encourage me. It allows me to think “another year, let’s do this!”.

December 31

The person who is the scriptwriter of your life, who is also the author of your biography and who is also your best reader. That person is none other than yourself. What a luxury!

[Aislin]

Thanks for explaining!

[Belthazar]

Ah, this is some sort of poetic philosophy. Or… philosophical poetry. Not sure if I stand a chance at this.

Like, I get each clause on its own, but when I put them back together, it’s just a collection of deliberately paradoxical sentences. That said, not quite sure what definition of 降りる is being used in the second sentence.

[Myria]

I‘ll have a go.

「Things that are unpleasant, but also feel good at the same time.
Times when you should be sad, but the sadness just doesn’t come.
A feeling of increasing loneliness even though you were laughing the whole time.
Feelings that you can’t name, feelings so insignificant, but you still can’t ignore them.」

Well, I don’t really know how to translate the nuance of ないことにするわけにいかない… „You can’t just explain them away.“ „You can’t just pretend they don’t exist.“ Something like that.

悲しさが降りてくる: sadness comes down on you

[Phryne]

@Myria

悲しさが降りてくる: sadness comes down on you

Ahhh, that makes a lot more sense! Like @Belthazar I had trouble figuring out 降りる. I thought it meant that the sadness wouldn’t ‘go down’ (i.e. ‘lessen’), rather than wouldn’t ‘come down on you’. With this translation it is appropriately paradoxical rather than maddeningly paradoxical

The quote is really quite lovely now that I get it!

[Mokey]

Joining to say I am so glad someone wants to do this!! I love my Hobos, but sometimes the task of reading the quotes gets a little overwhelming.

[Phryne]

I think I’ll try to do a daily post to keep myself accountable and to allow for some discussion. My only fear is that it might be copyright infringement to post every daily quote? On a moral level I think it’d be fine, because it’s a planner, not primarily a quote book (no one buys the Hobonichi Techo just because of the quotes), so I doubt people would be dissuaded from buying a 2021 planner if the quotes appear online one day at a time. @admins, what say you?

[Belthazar]

@Phryne

@admins, what say you?

@Mods

[RachelG]

Heya! Sorry for the delayed response. We think daily posts that include a quote may be too frequent for copyright, like you mentioned, so is there a way for you to summarize these quotes in English in your check-in instead?

[kyazumaa]

Hey, I also have a Hobonichi Techo and I just want to say I love this idea! If we can figure out some way to do this with the copyright issue, I’ll totally be participating.

[EmmaGoto]

I’ve got a Hobonichi as well!

[Phryne]

Thanks for your consideration. Just to be clear, is it ok to post a daily translation (integrally) and to quote the odd Japanese sentence here and there for the sake of asking language questions?

[friedchicknfairy]

paradoxical inner experiences or emotional states that can’t be sufficiently described in words.

[RachelG]

@Phryne

ust to be clear, is it ok to post a daily translation (integrally) and to quote the odd Japanese sentence here and there for the sake of asking language questions?

That’s fine, yes!

[gabruoy]

I bought the English edition of the Hobonichi Techo. Although it looks like the quotes are completely different in the English edition and Japanese edition, as I can’t find anything similar to what you posted in mine.

I am also feeling somewhat demoralized at the difficulty of the quotes stumping even experts here, as I planned that I would be able to buy the Japanese edition next year and I would understand the quotes by then. :(((

[Phryne]

In that case, I’ll make a catch-up post

January cover page

新しき年の初めの初春の今日降る雪のいや重け吉事

This is a poem by Ōtomo no Yakamochi (大伴家持), which I shan’t pretend to be able to translate precisely. I did manage to get the general gist of it, because there are many websites that offer a more modern version of this poem, for example:

「新年を迎え、初春も迎えた今日、降る雪のように良い事もたくさん積もれよ」(source)

A very fitting poem for the first month (and day) of the new year. I love the comparison between the piling up of falling snow and the (hoped for) piling up of good things in the new year. When I saw this aptly picked quote, I knew it would be rewarding to try to read all of them!

January 1st

I believe the spirit of poems has continuously been handed over from the time of the Manyoshu [to the] Meiji poets and finally to us today. In short, both 1300 years ago and now, the feeling of “I love you” that is composed in love poetry hasn’t changed.

January 2

I want to make a note of things that it would be inconsequential for me to forget if I don’t write them down on the spot. When I realise “this thing is inconsequential!”, my face lights up and I quickly try to make a note of it. Things like “children of this age hold their legs like this when they sit”, or “my uncle usually puts the cup here when he stops drinking”.

January 3

Things that are unpleasant, but also feel good at the same time.
Times when you should be sad, but the sadness just doesn’t come.
A feeling of increasing loneliness even though you were laughing the whole time.
Feelings that you can’t name, feelings so insignificant, but you still can’t ignore them.
~ @Myria!

January 4

On the first Monday of January, [I think] “Thank God It’s Monday”. I find it’s a “what a welcome Monday, let’s get to it!” kind of day. From this day on I reckon there are many people who start their jobs. Together with a sense of “let’s get to it!”

January 5

I have been using a Hobonichi Techo for 12 years. Without change, the thing I do first every year is to copy the holidays of my husband, who works as an auctioneer at the market. Even during Golden Week it appears that the market is often open. I note down the wish “do your best at your job with good humour this year as well”

January 6

In rugby, you get excited before a match and raise your spirits, stirring up your team mates as you stand on the pitch. However, it’s an interesting thing, it’s actually problematic to feel the same emotions during the kickoff moment. Although you have to be in an excited state, the game proceeds in an exceptionally strategic way. Because you have to input the strategy into your head and issue instructions to your team mates. There are many cases where you fail if you go in with an excited mentality similar to [the one you feel] at the kickoff site at the start of the game.

I’d love to hear about any alternative interpretations or translations

@gabruoy

I am also feeling somewhat demoralized at the difficulty of the quotes stumping even experts here, as I planned that I would be able to buy the Japanese edition next year and I would understand the quotes by then. :(((

Don’t worry about it, most of the quotes I’ve read I could understand just fine after looking up some vocab. It’s just that sometimes a poem is a bit… poemy

[atomicalex]

@Phryne

It’s just that sometimes a poem is a bit… poemy

This is so true. As a kid, I had a copy of Little Pictures of Japan (My Travelship) and now I am finally starting to understand some of it, even though it was fully in English.

[gabruoy]

Ah, some of these are the same as the English edition, but some are different. Also does every single day have a quote? A lot of the days on the English version there’s only one quote for two days with the attribution on the other side. I think the English edition might have mostly the same but with less quotes maybe moved around a bit. I’ll give the two that are the same for what you just posted, but I’ll probably stop after that for copyright reasons.

January 2nd:

I like to write down things that, if I didn’t, would be forgotten, because they just aren’t important. When I find something like that, I think, “That really doesn’t matter at all!” and it makes me smile, so I hurry to make a note of it. “When kids that age sit down, they fold their legs that way,” or “When that old guy puts his glass down, he usually puts it right over there.” Things like that.

January 4th & 5th:

I’ve been using the Hobonichi Techo for twelve years, now. My husband is an auctioneer at the market, and every year the first thing I do is mark in his days off. It looks like the market will be open a few days over the spring break. “Be well, and do good at work” - that’s my wish, as I write.

So, good job on the translation. Yours’ is a bit more direct, obviously, although I think some of the things the official translators did maybe could have more literal. When I read “spring break” my mind immediately said “That’s definitely a cultural translation of Golden Week”, so it’s good to know things like that are correct.