150006 UE 4th Book Club Popular Culture: Visual Novel (2023W)

THE ENGRISH VERSION OF THIS TEXT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

This course aims to demonstrate that—and how—one can start to read in Japanese even without all that much textbook knowledge, and have fun doing it!

Specifically, we’re going to read a so-called visual novel, an originally Japanese, text-heavy form of popular culture, in which the text is enhanced by pictures, music, and sound effects. More importantly, in newer releases by major studios, spoken lines are usually voiced by professional voice actresses and actors. Stylistically as well as sub-culturally they’re related to light novels, manga and anime; although more serious works do exist; technically speaking they’re computer/video games; and for historical reasons they often include pornographic elements.

The multimedia nature of the form helps alleviate confusion due to the high-context nature of the Japanese language, while the ability to read and hear spoken text at the same time makes it easier to understand, as well as to and link kanji and vocabulary. Because the text is presented line by line and requires user input to advances, it doesn’t overwhelm the you but allows you to proceed at your own pace.

We’re going to focus on understanding the meaning of the text, rather than the finer points of its grammar. The amount of text is so large that an analytical translation in the style of Theorie/Grammar simply isn’t feasible. This is by design. You’re meant to get so much practice that you’ll reach a certain level of fluency as a matter of course.

In principle, students will read a section of the text each week, and be able to ask (and answer) questions at any time. The weekly reading goes hand in hand with one or more assignments, which function among other things as a check students have read and understood the text meaning- and language-wise; followed by discussion.
Depending on the work additional tasks and/or impulse topics for discussion will be provided, especially when the text offers opportunities for exploring something in more depth. For a short work, we may even go beyond simply reading it (e.g. making a playable translation).

PREREQUISITES / TARGET AUDIENCE
* decent grounding in Japanese. Something like an A in Theorie and Praxis 1 and 2, plus plenty of experience in the self-study of Japanese as well as with various adjacent Japanese pop culture media would probably be the minimum; a B in Theorie 4 is more realistic, provided you’ve at least tried to read something that wasn’t from a textbook.
* high motivation. Any shortcomings may be overcome provided you bring enough motivation and invest enough time – whether it’s possible in the time-frame specified by the ECTS rating is another matter.
* Obviously both the above factors depend on the work we choose, so please participate in the selection!
* some German. You should be able to understand it at least. Some or all announcements and assignments may be in German, and other participants may prefer to communicate primarily in German; but it’s perfectly acceptable to write assignments / reply in English.
* Computer running Windows or Linux (maybe MacOS, if you have a lot of experience running games for Windows), stable internet connection, microphone for teleconferencing (camera optional).
* Steam-Account (possibly, depending on the game).

See Moodle for more on the estimated difficulty and time investment required (u:space has a character limit).