My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

I watched LWA way back when there was only the one episode. I remember liking it pretty well. The poison witch was great.

And the magic rainbow laser is a force of purification. Using it against someone already good, like the mane six, would temporarily remove their petty flaws and make them nicer than they already are.

I feel like I shouldn't watch LWA unless I try to learn Japanese.

Also, how's the round robin going?

I plan to watch it once I finish reading my current book.

Coming along, hopefully. I got it late the other night and will hopefully get my chapter done over the weekend (if not before since I'll hopefully get out of work early today).

I could have started it last night I suppose, but since The BFG is out I thought I would get that out of the way instead.

Way ahead of you there. I read the BFG back in elementary school.

Well, so did I otherwise I wouldn't have been half as excited.

I had much the same experience with Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I didn't see until recently. It seems like more people are familiar with the movie than with the book, but I grew up on that darn book and its Food Porn.

I'm not familiar with either.

Story, you do know that there is both a english subtitled version and an English Dub for LWA, right?

Yes, but what is the fun of that?

You'd be better off picking a fight with a Grizzly Bear then trying to learn japanese. But my actual awnser is that you'll miss out on a ton of great anime if you refuse to watch the subs or dubs and instead try to learn japanese first.

Yeah, I'm impressed with people that actually attempt to learn Japanese. I certainly couldn't keep over 15K different characters straight.

I don't speak Japanese, but I do speak a bit of Mandarin Chinese. It is definitely difficult. You have to learn a completely different writing system (and the pronunciation is completely separate. You can read fluent Chinese but not be able to speak a word, and vice versa) It's also hard because, since it shares no roots with English, you don't have any cognates helping you along.

I remember learning in a geopolitics class that the Mandarin language is one of the reasons that China is an authoritarian country. Pictorial language systems like Mandarin that are really, really hard to learn tend to mean that things get concentrated with a higher ruling class. Similarly in Egypt when you had the hieroglyphs, along with a second Egyptian language meant more for the masses (which is how we translated the Rosetta Stone).

Then again, that teacher also thinks that the Treaty of Versailles led to WWII and he also recommended "Hitler's Pope," so I may have to take that with a grain of salt.

edited 1st Jul '16 9:45:55 AM by Pannic

I once heard someone describe learning Japanese as learning a language made by someone who doesn't know how language works.

I wouldn't call that incorrect. It certainly wasn't the only factor, but it definitely played a part in Hitler rising to power

I actually did learn Japanese in college (and I would definitely rather do that than fight a bear, to take Marston's statement literally), but I had an advantage in that I watch subtitled anime frequently, and did so before I took the class, so I get regular practice at hearing the language spoken. I still have difficulty with kanji, but I can read pretty much anything aimed at younger readers (where it's either just in kana (the syllable writing) or has kanji with furigana over it) and it's gotten to the point that I've been able to watch some kids' anime like Pretty Cure and Pokemon without subtitles at all and it's been understandable to me. I've even played some of the Pokemon games in Japanese, too. What helps me, then, is that because of my love of anime, I've kept up on practicing reading and listening to the language.

But that's just my personal experience, and I can understand it if other people find learning new languages to be too difficult or intimidating, especially one that uses a different alphabet system.

edited 1st Jul '16 10:25:00 AM by Rainbow

From my understanding, the Treaty of Versailles gets overstated. Mainly because Keynes wrote a book about how it'd ruin the economy and lead to another war. Well, the German economy tanked and a war happened, so people figured Keynes was right... but they didn't quite happen for the reasons that Keynes said they'd happen.

I would also like to note that societies with alphabets are also prone to authoritarianism. Clearly, this must mean that there is something in alphabets that support dictatorship.

I would rather fight a bear than learn chinese, in part because I'd probably win against the bear. Japanese, on the other hand, is a language I might actually try to learn sometime.

Roald Dahl. The author whose adaptations simply never fail. I liked fox and matilda. Only ever read Matilda and Chocolate Factory. Matilda was a very good book.

@storyyeller, I dunno if you have Netflix but if you do you can watch LWA on Netflix (this is Little Witch Academia we're talking about, right?) in Japanese with subtitles.

edited 1st Jul '16 1:57:23 PM by diyedas

I should watch The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I've heard good things, and I've liked the Wes Andersen stuff I've seen (Royal Tennenbaums, Grand Budapest Hotel).

I've never seen Mr. Fox either, though I did both read Matilda and see the movie.

Matilda is my favorite book of all time. I've read the book at least 20 times, seen the movie, and the Broadway musical. My avatar was Matilda until recently. I've read the entire Roald Dahl canon and am really excited for the movie, but I don't know if I'll see it in theaters. I hate movie theaters, so I only go if it's a movie I really want to see

edited 1st Jul '16 5:39:02 PM by Cailleach

But my actual awnser is that you'll miss out on a ton of great anime if you refuse to watch the subs or dubs and instead try to learn japanese first.

Why? It's not like they're going to stop existing in the next year or two.

I dunno if you have Netflix but if you do you can watch LWA on Netflix (this is Little Witch Academia we're talking about, right?) in Japanese with subtitles.

There's lots of anime on Netflix. The problem is that I don't speak Japanese.

My point is that subtitles and english dubs exist for a reason. Trying to learn japanese before watching anime is going to take forever. What's next, are you going to refuse to read manga until you've learnt the japanese language in writing too? Cause that'll probably be even harder then trying to learn spoken japanese language.