Learning English in Japan

Last post before I head back to the UK T_T

Anyway found this English test from a blog of my sister's friend, you can try it out yourself:

Click to view picture in full size

This is the kind of English expected for Junior High School standards ^^;


Image from A Japanese Book

So when do the Japanese start learning ABC alphabets?

According to my sister's friend, a Hongkonger who teaches English as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Japan, one starts learning ABC in Year 4 of Elementary School. Besides, the purpose of learning English alphabets is primarily for romanji, and not necessarily for English. English is not a compulsory subject, which means that it may or may not be available in some elemenatary schools. This is apparently due to the fact that the schools want to keep English easy enough for children to appreciate them as an interest, rather than a proper and serious subject.




But by secondary school (i.e. junior high, high schools), students are required to learn tons of English words, which sounds like quite a grind to me. This is probably why a lot of Japanese are afraid of English and cannot bring them to use effectively. Being afraid of English language is not a rare sight in Hong Kong too, and sometimes when I post stuff in English on a forum some people simply have their minds shut down. This is probably the reason why I see so many advertisments on English language courses here and there lately.



Starting from 2011 all elementary schools will have compulsory English lessons. Apparently students will have at least 35 hours of lesson time per year, which means... About 1 lesson per week. Man, we had a lot more English lessons per week in Hong Kong, yet we still have a huge spectrum on the performance. So how effective will this be exactly? To be honest I don't have a clue :\

So have you met foreigners who are shy of English? If you have been to Japan, what is your experience on Japanese people's English?
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F-Toys 1/144 Hien

Something different for a change :o


This is F-Toys 1/144 scale Wing Kit Collection shokugan. The one I've got for myself is a Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien (飛燕, i.e. flying swallow), which is the top plane that my figma Haruhi is pointing at.

I have mentioned about shokugan toys before (What is a shokugan?), of which some come pre-assembled, and some not. Planes are usually the latter, but they are pretty simple to build. I rarely buy Japanese warplanes as I do not recognise a lot of them, but here I've bought a Hien as it is one of the few I know and that it has large resemblence to German or Italian designs - in fact it was the only mass produced Japanese fighter aircraft that has inline V engine.

Anyway, let's have a look how this one looks like in 1/144 scale~


Opening the box there's the kit as well as small instruction manual. As you can see, even if they come unassembled, shokugan toys are prepainted already, which saves you the trouble of painting if you are not so skilled at it (like me orz).


The whole kit unpacked


Removing the parts from the runners - some of them, like this green one here, are incredibly tiny, and care must be taken not to have them rolled/blown off and lost. I've had parts dropped and bounced off my desk on previous kits before, which took me a while to find them on the floor T_T


The instructions itself - pretty self explanatory and simple. There are options for you to choose between flying or landed configurations. I choose the first as it has less parts and easier to assemble.


Assembling the model is pretty straightforward as seen on the manual in the previous picture. Gotta be careful putting those small pieces in though. That piece on the tweezers (it's a tail wheel btw) is probably only 3mm long ^^;


The completed model in flying configuration without the decals. The plane itself is very well painted already, so you can just have it like so just fine.


Decals are water transfers so simply wet the decal sheet and transfer each decal to the model with a pair of tweezers. Dab off excessive water with something like tissue or cotton bud and leave them to dry off.


Completed model with the base itself.


Underside of the plane.


A quick comparison with the German Heinkel He-100 on the left, of which the Hien's design seems to be heavily based on, although people often compared Hien to the much more popular German Messerschimtt Bf 109.


As an emphasis on how small the plane it is, here's Haruhi holding it. It's like a massive model plane for her! ^^;



Shokugan toys sure are small, but the unassembled parts are even smaller! While they are fairly popular in the Far East such as in Japan and Hong Kong, they are often overlooked outside Asia due to the small size, lesser details, and expensive shipping, which make them seem less valuable. However, their small size and cheap price make them more favourable to me, as I can collect more of these rather than owning just a few larger ones. Besides, I am a fan of 1/144 miniatures, be it Gunpla or military models, and as technology advances in plastic models, even smaller miniature models like these are getting improved too.

P.S. Despite the fact that I am a fan of WWII stuff, especially tanks, I've decided to keep it in low profile here because I don't find it mix well with the other stuff I usually blog about. However, mentioning some now and then without going over those boring facts or technical stuff probably wouldn't hurt. Hope you do find this article on shokugan model planes interesting though!
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Revoltech Reycal Orichalcum

A review due over a month orz. I've mentioned before that I would review Kaiyodo Revoltech's Reycal Orichalcum after 1/100 Gundam Exia Roll Out Colour, and here it is (finally).

I've got it very shortly after its release, and have been playing with the figure itself for some time, but didn't do much to the mecha-looking Knight Eagle until I started doing the review. On the other hand, reviews for it are surprisingly scarce. I've found one English so far. This makes reviewing Reycal a bit harder as I have don't have much guidance about it, until I started looking for some reviews from random Japanese blogs. Anyway let's take a look at this not so well known figure from Revoltech then.


Released on 13th August (2 days earlier than its announced date), Reycal Orichalcum of Revoltech Yamaguchi line costs 2400 Yen for retail price. She is the protagonist from the manga series "Orichalcum Reycal", whose author does the "JINKI" manga series. She doesn't come with much parts as her partner Knight Eagle takes up the majority of it. She does have 2 extra pair of hands, 2 extra faces, a stand, as well as parts for combining Reycal with Knight Eagle to form Knight Reycal.


Other than that she has tiny feet, Reycal can still stand pretty well by herself.



As with other Revoltech figures, most of her joints use Revoltech joints. I've seen a picture where Reycal can raise her leg up even higher, but I can't haven't tried to do that with mine.

The neck actually has two joints, so Reycal can look up and down to a large degree, even more than that for figmas. I do have a small rant with the upper legs though. As the they do not use ball joints at all, the legs can either go forwards and backwards or sideways, depending on how you have positioned the Revoltech joint in the thigh. I had to remove and replaced the joint whenever I want to change the direction where the upper leg wants to bend. Thankfully each joint are easily removable (a feature of Revoltech), or else it'd be a nightmare to do so.



Hair has joints. Still find it kinda strange especially when viewed from behind, but they do add some dynamic touch to the figure when doing action poses.



The two extra faces are an angry face and an embarassed face. Great for having different kinds of poses showing different expressions.






Various action poses. It's great how figma stands are compatible with her, just like Airi's case too ^^


The original stand. The base has two pegs, and Reycal can stand on either or both of them as she has a hole just in front of her heels. The base's arm uses one of them too.

Just like Airi's stand it's a bit too short to do mid-air poses, and the Revoltech joints are not strong enough to hold Reycal up in midair anyway.


However, it can hold up the Knight Eagle just fine, seen her with Reycal standing next to it.


The Knight Eagle is a mecha eagle, which is supposed to be a support for Reycal. It was built primarily to combine with Reycal for a more powerful but temporary form - Knight Reycal.


Due to the seemingly complicated nature of Knight Reycal's tranformation, an instruction sheet is provided on doing the combination.


To start the combination, first the Knight Eagle has to be dissembled, almost entirely.


There are extra parts which are required to use for Knight Reycal, this includes a different hair piece, to elbows, two knee armours, and a spear handle.


Knight Reycal after combination. The claws of the eagle have become gauntlets, and the main body has become the body armour.


Leftover parts that are not used in Knight Reycal.


In order to hold the spear, there's a peg on the handle for a hole on either a left or a right holding hand. Here only the right hand is shown, but the left hand is mirrored and identical.


A side note - exchanging hands is a very easy and painless process. A long but simple peg to insert into the hole in the arm.





Various action poses in Knight Reycal form. Posability is slightly hindered on the hair and arms due to Eagle Knight's armour.


Again, the backpack of the armour fits well with the figma stand.


Size comparison with figma Haruhi - like Airi, Reycal appears a little shorter, but I'd say that she's about the same height as figma Shana. Btw Reycal is actually quite tiny in the manga - I'd say that she's about that size if she were to be in real life too.




A very overlooked action figure from the Revoltech Yamaguchi series, but the Yamaguchi series isn't known for bishoujo figurines in the first place (Fräulein too was under Revoltech but was a different line), and Orichalcum Reycal isn't a particularly well known manga series either. In terms of retail price Reycal costs only 100 yen cheaper than normal figmas, but the local shops tend to sell it much cheaper as it's not one of the hot mainstream stuff out there so far.

Compared to figmas, the paint job on Reycal isn't brill; there are some excess paints spotted here and there, and painting isn't always spot on on some edges. For some odd reasons the Revoltech joint on the left leg is slightly damaged in the first place (but it doesn't seem to cause troubles with articulations at all so far), and I've opened the box at least a week after I bought it, so I doubt I could bring it back to the shop and change for a new one anymore.

Despite the setbacks, I actually find Reycal Orichalcum quite fun to play with, as she actually has fairly good posability thanks to the Revoltech joints and um... Lack of excessive clothings (laughs). The Knight Eagle is okay by itself. Combining it with Reycal at first looks complicated, but it's not too hard to do, though there are quite a few parts to remove and reattach and there are a few leftover parts for Knight Reycal, or even keeping the two seperated.

Overall, Kaiyodo Revoltech's Reycal Orichalcum is not a bad start for the Yamaguchi line to go back on female action figurines. Sure, its overall quality, especially the paint job, could be improved, but there's a good level of playability with durable articulated joints. It's not a bad figurine at all, but you can't compared it too much to Max Factory's figma line. If you can get it lower than the retail price of 2400 yen, then you can give this one a try. Both Hobby Search and HLJ has her in stock.

Reviews from English blogs:

Synergetic Beans

Through the Looking Glass

Reviews from Japanese sites:

水芥

YOの玩具箱


Phew this has been one long review to make @_@ Hope this will give you some insights on this not-so-well-known figure.
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