Sinfest

[bur]

I only recently noticed that almost all cartoons have a little sign in some panel, looking like two kanji (I think the first one's "right"), maybe meaning Tasuya Ishida? A couple of weeks ago the sign wasn't used frequently anymore and now it seems most cartoons are just signed "T". But I still wonder if the kanji were Tat's name (probably) or something else (could be). Does anyone know what these kanji really read? Mostly they're drawn rather sloppy and hard to identify but perhaps some chinese/japanese speakers are reading here and can help.

Just choose any of the earlier cartoons from 2000 or so, the sign was rather clearly written then.

[Dusty]

point us to an example of this.

[Natashabi]

See the Kanji in the lower right of the last cell?



Here the T is in the lower left of the last cell.

[bun bun]

Wow I <3 learning Japanese.

Yeah I reco'nized 'em straight away. The first one is ishi, which has the readings seki, shaki or koku as well. This reading means "stone".

The second is the kanji for "rice paddy" or "field", readings den or ta.

Because of the placement of the tongue at the end of saying "ishi", the first sound in "ta" developed into somewhat of an alveolar flap, resulting in the voicing of the "t" to make it a "d".

So his last name means "stony field". Which makes some sense, I guess.

Edit: here's the kanji blown up for y'all. I searched a kanji website for big, prettily written ones.



P.S. these are basic kanji, so they actually look somewhat like their meanings. The first is supposed to look like a plough hitting a rock under the earth, and the second is an arial view of a rice paddy.

Sowwy to Tat if this is wrong/offensive or being wayyy too nosy. (I'll take it down if you like!) But his family were most likely rice farmers at some point way back, who were named for taming particularly rocky/difficult rice fields, thus most likely from a mountainous region of Japan originally. (Though if I remember rightly, Ishida is a really common family name.)

[Halen]

You are cool

[Laughterheals]

Neat! Never noticed that...

[thewaitersitsondown]

[bur]

Thanks for the explanation bun bun! I thought the first kanji was "right", it looks quite similar, if I remember correct.

I learned japanese for 2 years at the "adult education center" (don't know if that's the proper american word for the german Volkshochschule) but as it was only once a week (thus 150 hours all in all) we didn't learm much kanji but focused on learning the basics using hiragana/katakana.

In september course III will begin and maybe next year I'll visit Japan... My brother starts japanology (is it called like that in the US?) this year at University so I think he'll be able to help me out if needed. Unfortunately as the Euro/Yen exchange rate is rather bad, expenses on holiday in Japan are quite high, so we probably only go there for about 2 weeks while I think a month would be better with such a foreign country.

Anyway ...

Sorry for this long off-topic post, but I'm already quite excited and looking forward for that trip since forever.

[bun bun]

I'm coming back to live here the year after next; Vassar has a year-abroad program.

And by the way, spot on, kinda. This is the kanji for right, pronounced "migi", "u" or "yu", depending on whether it stands "alone" (which nothing ever really does in Japanese, but...er...it's complicated *sigh*), or is part of a larger "word":

And this is the kanji for stone again.

I guessed that it would be "ishi", quickly written so that it looks like "migi", because of the way the kanji was placed in the comic; that's a typical place to put a signature in Japanese art, all the way back to ink paintings and woodblock. It could have only been one of those two, really. Of course it was "ishi", because that's the start of his name, for one, and two, "da" is really clearly recognisable.

[maniac_wolfman]

[bun bun]

[bun bun]

[Fhqwhgads]

yeah, tritto. or quitto, I lose track. I'm sorry you have to go though! Have a reasonably tolerable flight OK?
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There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.

[Lemontree]

[bun bun]