Big Voice! Big Smile!

Overpaid: strong yen, hired straight out of college, able to afford pretty much everything I actually want.

Underpaid; seven-year-olds trying to stick their fingers up my butt.

Right to Privacy Vs. Right to Privates

This may be my favorite Demographic Crisis comic, if only for the use of the word "decriminalize." Also, obese anime fan is quickly becoming my favorite character.

And I just realized that my craptastic scanner cut off the word "crisis."

Resumé Stain

This is one of those few solutions that might actually work...if you consider what Japanese students go through to get into an elite universities, I'm sure they'd be more than willing to pop out a few kids. The only question is if the Ministry of Education could manage to make sex as joyless and soul-crushing as the rest of the curriculum. And you know the kids would have to go to after-school classes too...which would bring a whole new level of weirdness to the term "cram school."

Oh, and I forget to mention this last time: this comic ran in the November issue of the Hyogo Times, a monthly newsletter for the local JETs. Which was pretty exciting :)

まわして！まわして！

One of the first things they told us about teaching English in elementary schools is that you're not actually supposed to be teaching English. You're supposed to convince the kids that learning English isn't extremely difficult and miserable, it's fun. So we practice some pronunciation, play games, color pictures, and so on.

Of course, as soon as these kids get to Junior High, English class will become extremely difficult and miserable, mostly because the Elementary classes do nothing to prepare the students for things like, you know, reading and writing, because of all the games and whatnot.

At any rate, I'm not sure if my kids think English is fun, but they definitely think their teacher is hilarious, what with all the piggyback rides and kung-fu battles and noogies and such.


Update on comics: So my scanner and printer are cooperating again, but my computer refuses to accept that Photoshop is a program and not some sort of hideous computer version of super-aids. The basic result is that comics will go up, but they will be of even less quality than usual. So yeah.

Archnemesis: The Sporkinaut

Before leaving for Japan, I took pictures of Jon and Justin eating with chopsticks, just to have proof that yes, some foreigners are indeed capable of performing this task. In terms of student interest, these pictures ranked much higher than, say, the state capital. Then I showed them these:

And told them that they were American chopsticks. Which they believed. One day, when they visit America and can't understand why the restaurants don't have giant novelty chopsticks, they will realize that they have just been hit with the punchline of a ten, twenty year joke.

Temptation, Unresisted

"I'm not a gaijin! I'm an English-teaching alien!"

When You See It, It's Hilarious

Dedicated to all my fellow freshmen and freshladies in the JET Program.

I Say "Tomato," You Say "あぁ、ええと..."

For an update about the comic, scroll down to the bottom.

In JET, we do what's called "Team Teaching." This means that a native English speaker will teach alongside a Japanese English teacher, because the English speaker has no teaching experience and can't communicate with the students in their native language and the Japanese teacher's pronunciation and understanding of the little intricacies of word usage may not be...perfect. Which, in theory, is a pretty good setup.

The problem is, I'm an Elementary School ALT. And the Japanese Ministry of Education decided that all homeroom teachers in Elementary schools should start teaching English, even though they already teach approximately 50 other subjects, are expected to be more involved in their student's upbringing than the parents, and have little to no experience with English.

Which can be just a touch annoying when you're trying to make lesson plans.

I'm halfway decent at Japanese overall, but my weakest area is definitely the spoken language. When forming a sentence beyond the difficulty level of "I like dogs!", I usually end up spouting a slew of incomprehensible gibberish. The worst part is, my listening skills are good enough that I can actively realize how little sense I make in real time.

And even this wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't in the Kansai region. Trying to understand the Kansai dialect is like trying to figure out a fast-talking hillbilly's opinion on immigration reform, while said hillbilly is undergoing a severe stroke. やねん？

I have found away around the first problem though. No matter how confusing my Japanese may be to the other teachers, it's infinitely less terrifying than the alternative: English. After rattling off a few sentences in the mother tongue, they're more than happy to put up with my Japanese. Guess they prefer I be the one who sounds like an idiot?

COMIC UPDATE:

Comics are delayed until I get a scanner. On the bright side, there are plenty of new ones to go up once that condition is met.

Pffff!

Actually, I'm pretty excited about teaching.

Sadaam It All To Hell

The black text for him/red text for her was the best workaround I could think of for a really lazy layout. Oh well.

And I guess they are supposed to be coworkers, which is why they are both wearing suits?

I Like It Hot Hot Hot

Back when I worked at Subway, we would write "Japs" on the drive-thru slips for "Jalapeños." We put the slips in the bags to tell the sandwiches apart, and I always worried that one day a Japanese person would order Jalapeños, see the slip, and sue us.

Not that there are many Japanese people eating in West Virginia Subways, but still...

Hibachuu

Yes, I know how to use chopsticks. GET OVER IT.

Da Ba Dee Da Ba Die

And it WOULD be fun. For me. But what's not so much fun is losing your job for saying "mother effer" in front of a bunch of elementary school kids.

I can actually be quite professional when I'm not on the IIIIINEEEERRRNEEEETTT.

Domo (Domo) Domo (Domo)

I have the vague feeling that I've seen this joke somewhere before, but seriously, whatever.

Yeah, yeah, it's been a lot of yellow fever jokes lately. They can't all be penetrating commentaries on vital Japanese social issues. And this one was just so tasteless, I couldn't resist.

I'm going back to Japan as a JET this year, so maybe that will generate some fresh material.

Duck, Duck, Duck, Goose!

I hope this is self-explanatory.

Three April Fools.

The Man is Quite Nice Once You Get To Know Him

All the fun of self-righteousness, none of the mess of real oppression.

60 Degrees

Watch your p's and q's r's and l's.

I cannot bow for shit and hate you for being good at it.

トイレ立会い

It's a poop joke.

Hey hey hey come to my bar real cheap lots of ladies

So. I couldn't decide if this one was kind of racist or extremely racist. Then I realized that all of these comics are at least borderline racist, so to hell with it.

For those of you who don't get the reference, clubs and bars in Tokyo tend to hire really, really big Ethiopian bouncers. These guys are huge to the point where you wonder if starvation is really a problem in Africa.

Anyway. Gary Gygax of D&D fame died yesterday, and Penny Arcade created what must be the greatest tribute to any human being, ever.

And there go my nipples again

There is a Japanese word for insulation (断熱), but you wouldn't know it from being in a Japanese apartment for more than two minutes, let alone living in one. In the winter, it can actually be warmer outside if you're in the sunlight.

Gaijin Invasion

This comic is a tribute to Adam and Joe Go to Tokyo

Oh God I drank too much coffee last night and now I still cannot fall asleep even though it is almost 9 o'clock in the goddamn morning.

Comic based on a close encounter of the actually somewhat creepy kind.

No explanation needed.


The first new comic on the new site. Horray.

This is it! The last of the Facebook comics! Tomorrow starts the new material, the big, beautiful, shiny, new material. Hopefully, it is enjoyable.

All hail Azrael, inventor (perfector?) of the Gaijin Smash.

My friend Rich actually used the term "Smashter Card," and it was AWSOME.

Bleach/Naruto would also work.

If you do study abroad, please do not be the guy (or gal) who sits in the dorm watching shit he downloaded from the internet all the time.

Another ripped-directly-from-life comic.

Dude flying in background: "Kusooooo!" ("Shiiiiiiit!")

Yeah, that didn't work out so well last time.

Only four more old comics! Are you excited? I am excited! Also: JET interviews this weekend! Are you excited? I am excited!

It's almost impossible for a non-Japanese person to become a citizen of Japan, even if your family has been living there for three generations. Essentially, the only way to become a legal citizen is to marry a native, and even then, it's not a sure thing.

Then again, this is coming from the society that discriminates against ethnic Japanese whose ancestors worked "unclean" jobs. Even though those jobs aren't considered "unclean" anymore. So really, the Koreans are kind of screwed.

Apologies to Red Robot World Domination for using Red Robot...but not being red...or really looking all that much like Red Robot. Yeah.

I seriously want this to happen, at least once.

Come to think of it, I don't even know if I've ever met a Jewtalian honey.

Link.

Click on the image to see its full, glorious resolution.

"The Ex-Exchange Student's Dilema"

Dedicated to Rich.

This is the worst comic I have ever made.

No commentary necessary.

Drinking while smoking reduces the risk of lung cancer. It's an actual fact for real.

Lucky Strikes are actually pretty good. But part of me wonders if people like them for the novelty value. And another part of me thinks that the novelty value kicks ass.

Contrary to popular belief, re-posting all of these old comics is extremely boring.

LOL substance abuse.

Or maybe they just don't want to go drinking with me. *single teardrop*

Not all anime fans are creepy, but there are always creepy anime fans.

This comic is not entirely accurate as in Creepy Anime Guy is actually talking to a girl.

This is only funny if you are familiar with Shinto, the clapper, and are heavily medicated.

In Soviet Japan, porn censors you!

But seriously folks, I misspelled "cencorship."

Maybe the playing with guns would be fun...

Six months of study abroad in in the Osaka area convinced me that I couldn't speak a dang word of Japanese. If I hadn't gone to Tokyo and heard people using standard Japanese during Golden Week, I probably would've given up on the language.

You would think I would be bitter about this, but I'm really just amused.