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INTEREST: Newest Anthro Mobile Game Imagines Hiragana as Boys




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kiminobokuwa



Joined: 18 Sep 2015
Posts: 547
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 5:07 pm Reply with quote
Where do we draw the line?? Now Hiragana??
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 5:26 pm Reply with quote
Once you've crossed into the anthropomorphic zone, there is no other line.

I'm confused:
Quote:
"A," voiced by Yūki Kaji. ... "A" ... voiced by Yō Taichi


This seems like it'd be a great way to permanently lodge hiragana into my brain, but none of the personifications seem to have their hiragana anywhere on their clothing or accessories (that my eyes can pick out).

I think it would also be interesting to get some insight into why they assigned the traits to each that they did. It probably makes sense to native speakers.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
Location: australia
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 5:45 pm Reply with quote
kiminobokuwa wrote:
Where do we draw the line?? Now Hiragana??


We don't just draw lines, we draw curves too. This is hiragana after all.


Ba is so different looking, is he literally just a shimochan self insert.
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Fenrin



Joined: 19 Dec 2015
Posts: 693
Location: SoCal
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 7:12 pm Reply with quote
oh dear lord

Why are there two "A"s? As far as I know there's only one "A" sound.
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marshmallowpie



Joined: 22 Sep 2009
Posts: 300
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 7:40 pm Reply with quote
I don't understand how these characters are connected to the written characters at all, but they certainly do have some good voice actors involved with this.
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Neko-sensei



Joined: 19 Jan 2007
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:25 pm Reply with quote
Fenrin wrote:
Why are there two "A"s? As far as I know there's only one "A" sound.


Great question—I looked this up, and after checking out A and the other A I discovered that the "A" paired with I is actually the very rarely-used smaller version. (Maybe he should be Romanized as "a"?) The same is true of "I"; pretty much the only time you'd use these smaller vowels is when being irritatingly clever and writing foreign words in hiragana, as "ふぁみりー" for "family" or "ふぃっしゃーまん" for "fisherman."
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Mr. Oshawott



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
Posts: 6773
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:26 pm Reply with quote
Fenrin wrote:
Why are there two "A"s? As far as I know there's only one "A" sound.

I think in the case of little boy A, when his name is combined with I's name, they form the word "Ai". Perhaps that's why he got that name, despite that there's already someone whose named that.
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Fenrin



Joined: 19 Dec 2015
Posts: 693
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:09 pm Reply with quote
Neko-sensei wrote:

Great question—I looked this up, and after checking out A and the other A I discovered that the "A" paired with I is actually the very rarely-used smaller version. (Maybe he should be Romanized as "a"?) The same is true of "I"; pretty much the only time you'd use these smaller vowels is when being irritatingly clever and writing foreign words in hiragana, as "ふぁみりー" for "family" or "ふぃっしゃーまん" for "fisherman."

Aaaah, I see now, I forgot about the small versions, makes sense since they are anthropomorphized as children haha.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
Location: australia
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:49 pm Reply with quote
Neko-sensei wrote:
Fenrin wrote:
Why are there two "A"s? As far as I know there's only one "A" sound.


Great question—I looked this up, and after checking out A and the other A I discovered that the "A" paired with I is actually the very rarely-used smaller version. (Maybe he should be Romanized as "a"?) The same is true of "I"; pretty much the only time you'd use these smaller vowels is when being irritatingly clever and writing foreign words in hiragana, as "ふぁみりー" for "family" or "ふぃっしゃーまん" for "fisherman."


Ohh, good call.
So there'll be a normal size I at some point too.
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:54 pm Reply with quote
At this rate mobile games will end up like bad LNs, Mobile developers in Japan have to be running out of ideas by now.
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connysanada



Joined: 04 Apr 2015
Posts: 100
PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:22 pm Reply with quote
What's next? Cars? Hotel lines? Companies?
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EmpyreanBlaze



Joined: 14 Jul 2017
Posts: 44
PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 12:45 am Reply with quote
kiminobokuwa wrote:
Where do we draw the line?? Now Hiragana??

Naturally, the line is drawn right before dark web territory. But yeah, moe is near-infinite.
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lostbirdinatree





PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 6:22 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
I think it would also be interesting to get some insight into why they assigned the traits to each that they did. It probably makes sense to native speakers.


I'm not a native speaker, but after thinking about how No is a farmer and Hi is heroic, I was able to find a bunch of words that could have informed their personalities using my Japanese knowledge, the website and tools at my disposal. (Feel free to correct me on anything, though.)

A = aikyou (charming), akarui ("bright" in regards to personality), anpan
U = uranai (fortunetelling), udon, usankusai (shady), utau (to sing)
Ko = konpeito (star shaped sugar candy)
Ta = tankenka (explorer), taikaku (physique)
Chi = chishikijin (intellectual), cha (tea), chottoshita (petty)
Hi = hi-ro- (hero), hikarimono (sliced fish with skin left on)
Ba = ba (place)
Note: Ba is used as one way to express a conditional statement (i.e. if X, Y) which may have informed his ventriloquism (if he uses his bear, he speaks) and his ability to appear out of nowhere (if you try to look at him sometimes, he may not be visible).
Ne = neru (to sleep)
Note: Ne is used at the end of sentences to go "okay?" or "alright?". Girls use it more than guys so it makes sense that Ne is popular with girls.
No = nougyou (agriculture), nouka (farmer) or noumin (farmer/peasant), nori (seaweed), nouson (farming community)
Note: No is used for possessives (i.e. X no Y can translate to X's Y). Unfortunately, I didn't find anything to attribute to the hiragana danshi with this knowledge.
Nu = nuritsubusu (to paint out), nuta (vinegar miso sauce)
Small a = akkerakan (looking like one doesn't know what's going on), azatoi (sly), ame (type of Japanese candy)
Small i = ijippari (obstinate person), ika (squid)
Note: The small characters use the bigger versions of their letters to associate words.
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Haterater



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1727
PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:48 am Reply with quote
Nothing is going to be off limits with this. Laughing Perfect DLC is doing alphabets for other languages.
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