From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   Japanese popular culture not only reflects the attitudes and concerns of the present but also provides a link to the past. Japanese cinema, cuisine, television programs, anime, manga, and music all developed from older artistic and literary traditions, and many of their themes and styles of presentation can be traced to traditional art forms. Contemporary forms of popular culture, much like the traditional forms, provide not only entertainment but als...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in English as rōmaji (ローマ字?, literally, "roman letters") (Japanese pronunciation: [ɽóːmadʑi] ), less strictly transcribed romaji, sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems. The three main ones are Hepburn romanization, Kunrei-shiki Rōmaji (...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   Yamada Tarō (山田太郎), a Japanese placeholder name (male), equivalent to John Smith in English. Jane Smith equivalent would be Yamada Hanako (山田花子). Japanese names (日本人の氏名 nihonjin no shimei?) in modern times usually consist of a family name (surname), followed by a given name. "Middle names" are not generally used. Japanese names are usually written in kanji, which are characters of usually Chinese origin in Japanese pronunciation. The kanji for a name...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Katakana (片仮名, カタカナ or かたかな?) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin script (known as romaji). The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived from components of more complex kanji. Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems; they have corresponding character sets in which each kana, or character, represents one mora (one sound in the Ja...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな or ヒラガナ?) is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and in some cases rōmaji (the Latin-script alphabet). Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems; they have corresponding character sets in which each kana, or character, represents one mora (one sound in the Japanese language). Each kana is either a vowel such as "a" (hiragana あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "k...