Saturday 24^th March, 2012

The tentative JAFWA program for Saturday 24^th March 2012 is below. To be held in the Collins Street Community Center on Collins Street just off Canning Highway in South Perth.

Things of Note:
1) Because Swancon and Easter are on the weekend of April 7 this year, Westlodge is wanting to do their session on afternoon of April 14 before JAFWA. In fact they are asking if they could get about 30 minutes of our session so that they can finish up. So JAFWA will be a little short that evening. But we are looking to make it a themed night rather than a regular program. So please give us suggestions as to what them we should go with (Note JAFWA is mostly family friendly, so don’t even bother with any adults only theme).
But we are thinking of holding a themed night. What do people think of “worst of anime” as a theme?
2) A Japanese Film Festival to be held by the Hyoga Prefectural Centre at Perth Library later this month. Details here.
3) Last week’s episode of “Dantalian no Shoka” proved less family friendly than usual, so as punishment we are putting it on later in the night.

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Dale’s Suggestive Remarks, based on suggestion sheets handed in at JAFWA:
A JAFWA feedback form from 17 March 2012 with nothing other than:

Soul Eater

Obviously JAFWA is succeeding in it’s mission to introduce Japanese culture to us round-eyed barbarians. A feature of the Japanese language is that, between people who are aware of the underlying context, it is typical that large portions of a sentence can be omitted.
In English a sentence is generally constructed along the lines Subject-Verb-Topic phrases, such as “I give you advice”, where “I” is the Subject, “give you” is the Verb phrase, “advice” is the Topic. Japanese grammar is organised such that sentences usually go Subject-Topic-Verb phrase, and context between speakers often means Subject is dropped, and not uncommonly either Topic or Verb can be dropped, leaving only a Topic or Verb phrase, which can be incomprehensible to a 3rd party who is not aware of context.

Which seems to be what has happened here. “Soul Eater” appears to a Topic (I certainly hope it is not meant as a Verb phrase), but I am lacking Subject and Verb, so I do not know what is meaning is to be implied. There is not even any punctuation like a full stop, question mark or exclamation.
For all I know you are asking that JAFWA do a repeat screening of the entire “Soul Eater” TV series. We last did this a couple of years ago, screening the last episode in June 2010.
Or perhaps this is a suggestion that JAFWA’s upcoming theme night be “Soul Eater” related, but is this a request for a night of “Soul Eater” episodes, or for a night full of episodes of the same genre as “Soul Eater”. Actually, what genre is “Soul Eater”?
Or are you just giving the world your general disapproval of “Soul Eater”, on the principal that the least said the better. Elegant, but I may not agree.

And also from 17 March 2012 is a simple suggestion signed only by something that looks like a cross between an onigiri and a flying egg from “Angelic Layer”:

oven roasted Baked Potatoes

This is apparently a fundraising suggestion for JAFWA.
In Japan during Autumn it is traditional that vendors would push around carts that provided baked potatoes.
So our angelic onigiri writer is apparently suggesting that JAFWA provide oven roasted Baked Potatoes for fundraising sale this autumnal season. Well, the Collins Street hall does have a kitchen with oven attached, but who knows how to bake a potato properly and deliciously? Perhaps we could ask Ella or Jacqui who have produced so many sumptuous delights from that kitchen previously….
Signing off now. Drooling too much over keyboard.

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All items in the original Japanese language with English subtitles