This week, we've got some more Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song, some Tales of Legendia, and even something about a game called Final Fantasy.  Find out what's going on in Kitamura no Kamera.

Column can be found here.

J_Sensei-san:

Magic: the Gathering is pretty big in Japan. Either that or they have a disproportionate number of really good Pro Tour players to scrubs, take your pick.

Five tons of Red Mana,
Davis

P.S. Free Arcbound Ravager!

Just to be anal the title of the Hanjuku games are actually "Hanjuku Hero" with the "hero" pronunciation instead of "eiyuu."  It's written above the title. Sometimes kanji are given alternate readings just for fun, and this is one of those cases, since it's such a goofy game.

Your column is good though. Very nicely organized and often with info even I don't know (I live in Japan and have close ties to the game industry). I could never do it myself. Very nice

The dot which the person was asking about in the post is almost certainly the large middle dot used to separate words in katakana, most often to separate the first and last names of Western names written in katakana.  See here, for example.

Also, I dislike your romanization scheme ("jyo?") which doesn't conform to any known standard, whether Hepburn, Kunrei, or anything else.  In addition, you seem to imply that one always adds a u in hiragana to make a long vowel, which is only true for lengthening the u vowel and the vast majority of the time (but not always) for lengthening the o vowel sound.

My god, you blokes are anal.

Dracos
Really has nothing more to say than that.

Out of curiosity, how can you download a fix to a disc-ROM-based game, especially on PSP?

At least, I thought UMD's were read-only.

For starters, I'm going to have to agree with Dracos...  That said, let me address these in the order they were received.

Magic: The Gathering.  As has been stated before, I live in a pretty small town.  My point of view is slightly different than someone in a large metropolis.  No where in Niihama have I seen a single Magic: The Gathering card.  Do they exist?  Quite possibly, but I've never seen them, so from the best of my knowledge, I answered his question.  I appreciate that so many people read my column, but I am NOT the definitive source for all knowledge.

Hanjuku Eiyuu.  I use what my translator sends.  It IS true that I have seen it both ways, but when in doubt I go with what the fellow staffer says.  It does not promote healthy relationships among us for her to go out, translate something, and then us not use what she gives us.  I am much indebted to her because she spares me the time of having to translate websites myself.

My romanazation scheme:  I have studied Japanese formally for the past four out of five years.  In those five years, I have had six different sensei, five of which were native Japanese.  My name was romanized as I put in my column, and it looks surprisingly like the word 'jyoudan' meaning 'joke.'  I am very much aware of this.  But I was told by five native speakers (and a person that lived in Japan for something like ten years) to use this spelling, and it is the spelling that is used on any of the bills that are sent to me in romaji, namely my gas bill and my internet bill.  

So, I feel pretty confident that I am using a 'correct' or at least an 'accepted' spelling because that's the best you can get with romaji.  I will also note that when I am typing in Japanese, both on my Mac or on any of the PCs I've used, 'jyo' produces 'ji' with a small 'yo'.  

I do not mean to be rude, but I do not like the way you sent in your reply to this thread.  Your reply most certainly WAS rude.  So, since I do not like your way of writing, I will suggest that maybe you take a look at the following taken from the Merriam-Webster Online:

Main Entry: tact
Pronunciation: 'takt
Function: noun
Etymology: French, sense of touch, from Latin tactus, from tangere to touch
2 : a keen sense of what to do or say in order to maintain good relations with others or avoid offense
synonyms TACT, ADDRESS, POISE, SAVOIR FAIRE mean skill and grace in dealing with others. TACT implies delicate and considerate perception of what is appropriate <questions showing a lack of tact>.

Of course, the irony of this is that my reply wasn't very tactful, but sometimes, you just don't care.

Bug fix on PSP: It's actually not that hard.  You wouldn't download it to the disc, but rather, it would go on the Mem Stick. It should be pretty simple for the bug fix to be an automatically executing program when the game plays.  Something that just inserts the proper lines of code where they are needed.

From a developer standpoint, you'd have to anticipate such a thing occuring, which isn't out of the question, but highly unlikely in a console setting...   I mean, if what you say is true, which my own programming and computer knowledge tells me is not(I'm not an expert, just using my own knowledge and experience), then the bugs in games like SO3 and Xenosaga way back when could have been fixed with a download to the memory card of the PS2.  Well, they weren't, because they weren't expected.  

As far as I know, the only thing the memory stick can do is hold game saves and data files like music and pictures.

What I'm saying is, the only thing they could do to fix this is a trade-in offer.

The types of patches that are generally offered would not be fesiable to distribute and load by memory card.  Assuming that they fit the patch on there.

Dracos

Man the romanization gripe person really is anal O.o but not me! It really is Hanjuku Hero ^^ (runs off)

My word is official, trust me on that ^^ (runs off again)

It's no surprise.

I can't think of many English courses that demanded anywhere near the rigor of my math or science courses.  English, you get a line wrong, so what?  Maybe a point off?  Not even in most classes?  I had AP level English classes give me a B for papers that have incomplete sentences in them and missing chunks.

Think back on how many of you had serious grammar testing?  Formal proofreading training?  Serious work tearing apart English at the formative levels?

We get poor English usage because folks are given a choice.  It's up to the kid to learn to exercise the muscle.  Up to the parents, who usually aren't too hot themselves, to teach beyond the basic cheerful writing done in school.

Dracos
Who once used to finish over a hundred books a year.

I think the main thing is that grammar is not taught in school.  Like many people, I didn't know what conjugating a verb was until I took a foreign language.  I sure as heck didn't know that the 'past participle' was a conjugation of a verb.  We are expected to learn grammar from reading, but sadly, we do not.  I'd estimate that less than 5% of the English speaking population knows the correct conjugations of the 200 most common irregular verbs.  Throw in the fact that pretty much no one knows the proper usage of commas, and I even see homophones popping up.  Usage of 'summery' when 'summary' is needed.  And don't even get me started on its versus it's.  

I actually DID get to diagram sentences in school, but how many of you guys did?  Probably few.  It's sad.

I suggest that you take a look at this entry on romaji as well.  I concede that I may have offended by taking too seriously your claim to be a "sensei," when clearly it was meant only half-seriously.  Upon reflection, surely no one would seriously attempt to learn Japanese from a gaming website, nor trust it for accurate answers about the language.  I apologize for foolishly thinking that your column deserved to be taken seriously as a teaching effort, rather than as a lark.  Given that, I grant that it is acceptable to perpetuate foolish common misconceptions and incorrect usages.  I can only hope that your English teaching does not suffer similarly.