I bought myself a Nintendo DS last January, after completing my first week in sobriety. My instant addiction to the newfangled Super Mario World turned out to be a very useful distraction. New versions of retro video games sell pretty well among people in their 20S and 30S here in Japan, if only because they make us feel natsukashii, or nostalgic as we play them. I was last seduced by Super Mario when I was between the ages of seven and ten, I think.
Since saving the princess this time around, I mostly use my DS for studying kanji. I don't know about the US, but the Japanese market is flooded by educational programs for the DS. Aside from the programs that teach history and mathematics, there is also software that teaches its owner to cook, to garden, to practice yoga and to care for the eerily cute "nintendogs".
However, just when I start to believe the Nintendo DS is the best thing to hit Japan since white rice, a new series of software appears.
The game below is designed to teach Japanese salarymen (white collar workers) to mind their manners.
Users are assisted in their etiquette courses by "manner man," a game hero who comes complete with yellow spandex, a cowboy hat and barnyard animal companion. If you ask me, "manner man's" attire doesn't seem to embody the conservative behavior that the software encourages. But I'm not very important, so nobody ever asks me.
To make matters even more ridiculous, "Manner Man" also has a female counterpart. An entirely different game is so obviously needed in this case, because social expectations of women differ so greatly in this society.
Because, you know, everybody wants to be like that (literally!) robotic chick with her nose stuck up in the air. The back of the cartridge even displays lessons on proper table manners:
Who would actually want to receive these games as gifts? Talk about getting socks for Christmas! There is only one game that I would loathe to open even more than I would the 'feminine manner' game, and this is it:
The calorie counting software!! If ever misused as a present to me, the "calorie game" is enough to terminate any supposed friendship at first glance. Consider yourselves warned.
Oh, now you got me curious. What software do you use to study kanji? I have a DS and pretty much all released games from all regions that I can transfer to an SD card and use with the DS. But the only kanji-software I found were crossword-puzzles and those are bit too advanced for me! (but I haven't bothered trying out all the japanese games with titles I don't understand... I have tried both of those manner-programs but I didn't understand much without a dictionary... heh)
Thumbs up on getting sober btw!
Posted by: Matt | August 15, 2007 at 04:42 AM
a good program is called 漢検DS (kanten DS). if you can't find that one, I can recommend some others as well. . .
Posted by: Lea | August 15, 2007 at 11:38 PM
Hm, I'm guessing it's the same as Zaidan Houjin Nippon Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Kyoukai Kounin KanKen DS... not sure which is correct... ken or ten... =)
Now if I could only get that car to stand still so I could actually read I might learn something... =D
Posted by: Matt | August 16, 2007 at 06:23 AM
oh yeah, it's kanken i think. gomen ne. i usually just do the drills and try to level up. that taxi pisses me off. i also swear by my ds dictionary, called kanjisonomama rakubikijiten. it is amazing.
Posted by: Lea | August 16, 2007 at 12:48 PM
Unfortunately, Many Japanese educational games for the Nintendo DS will never hit the US stores.
Posted by: Sudoku Print Puzzles | January 01, 2010 at 11:17 PM