Maggie Sensei's Job Hunting Vocab

It's been a while since we wrote about job hunting here, although it always seems a continuing point of consternation for some number of our readers. If you're like me, anyway, when you're out of a job or nearing the end of a contract, finding a new job is always on the mind.

Recently I happened across another resource that you may find useful. Maggie Sensei's short, but helpful guide to Job Hunting in Japan comes from a blog whose humor is just a little bit over the top for me, but nonetheless its info is solid, and I'd sincerely like to see it more widely circulated. Maggie has put together an excellent guide to common terminology you'll encounter in the Japanese job-searching world, as well as resume examples and a compendium of questions you're likely to hear from traditional Japanese interviewers. Don't miss this page. In fact, don't miss the entire blog. It's a new site (about the same age as AccessJ, in fact) filled with quality, detailed lessons on a wide variety of Japanese language subjects.

Furthermore, remember to check out the resources we've put together here at AccessJ. On the most basic level, we've prepared Japanese resume (履歴書) forms that you can download, and some of our own lists of job hunting vocabulary, including detailed explanations on meaning and usage of the terms. Take a look also at our Job Spotlight series; many of the jobs in the posts are relisted annually, so if one appears to be in season, we think it's certainly worth checking out.

Any good resources of your own to share? Let us know about them in the comments!

Japanese Pen Spinning Tricks

If you work in a school in Japan, you've probably seen your students flipping their pens around their thumbs or some other such trick. When I was at school, we just punched each other for fun... ah, well.

Anyway, I was curious and looked it up. I like sharing, so here you are.

Read on to not only watch some funky videos, but also find out how to do some tricks yourself.

First thing I found out: there are tons of these tricks.
Second thing: it's kind of dorky. A bit like those mini finger-skateboards that used to be popular.

Here's a popular video of people spinning their pens:



There are tons of instructional videos out there, so just follow this link for a selection on YouTube.

Here's a summary of some of the basic moves to get you started, from some pen nerd going by the name KTrihn93 on YouTube:

Thumbaround

Finger Pass

Sonic

Charge

How to Take a Poop in Japan (Kids' version)

...here are some videos teaching you all about the wonders of taking a poo in a grown-up toilet.

For adults having trouble, don't forget to check out our "How to Take a Crap in Japan" post.

Wiping troubles, too? AccessJ's got you covered...

How to use a toilet for wees and poos

How to get all that pesky poo off your bum

Alternative to the first video, featuring a kangaroo...

Q&A: Dating Younger Men

Last time on Q&A, we talked about lecherous old men and how they will pay young women to do terrible things like write friendly e-mails for money in this country. Today let's turn the tables a bit and look at a self-help guide for Japanese women hoping to make it with a younger guy.

How to Skillfully Date a Younger Guy

1. Don't Hurt His Pride

Guys are prideful things, huh? And for a couple with an older woman, it seems like the woman is always taking the lead.

But at the same time, she'll accidentally say things like "I can't count on you," or "It's not like you'll be able to anyway, so just let me handle it" without thinking about it.

Especially in front of other people, be absolutely sure not to take an attitude that makes him feel unappreciated. If you look down on him, you'll deeply wound his pride.

2. Don't Overdo Anything

Younger boyfriends are cute because there's something helpless and uncertain about them. If he's troubled by something, most of us just want to give him a hand and help him out, right?

At first, he might smile, and you'll feel happy for making him feel that way. But if you continue helping him at every problem, he'll start to take it for granted that you'll do everything for him.

Then rather than being a couple, you'll be like his mom. No matter how overjoyed you were to be taking care of him at first, you'll find yourself dissatisfied and saying things like, "I'm not your mother! And I'm not your maid!"

This isn't a good relationship to be in. So, to make sure it doesn't happen, you need to be careful about lending him a hand or taking care of things for him too often.

3. Get Good at Depending on Him

In a couple with an older woman and a younger man, the woman always seems to be the stronger one in the relationship. And among those couples there are some where the woman is clumsy about finding ways for herself to depend on the man.

Guys like to be relied upon! They want you to let them take care of things! When they spend time with a woman that lets them do those things, they think you're cute and want to protect you.

So even if in daily life you're taking the lead in your relationship, you need to let yourself be coddled.

Conclusion

Not only for couples with an age difference but for all couples it's important to think about each other's wants and feelings. We all want to be in relationships that make both people feel good, right?

...
......

So there you have it: The #2 Google ranking and one-stop-font-of-knowledge for "How to Date Younger Guys" in Japanese. If you haven't encountered the Japanese in Point 3 before, this might be a good chance to take note of it:

The Japanese verb 甘える (amaeru), loosely meaning "to express dependence on another," is a cultural phenomenon discussed extensively by Japanese psychoanalyst Takeo Doi in his book The Anatomy of Dependence (甘えの構造). Among Doi's insights in the book is the idea that Japanese are born into then aspire to an ideal state in which they are indulgent in the goodwill of all those around them. Doi suggests that the Japanese language reflects this ideal with its customary use of keigo and teineigo used to address both infants and people in position of high social status, from grandparents to company executives.

Whether you think Doi has some good points or dismiss it as a bunch of bunk, 甘える remains a well-known and well-used word and concept in Japan that can be difficult to express concisely in English.

Have any thoughts about it? Screams of rage about the slanted views on older women babying oedipal boyfriends only to later scold them for acting like an actual child? As usual, we welcome you to share in the comments below. :)

Exclusive Preview of New JHS Textbooks!

Here at AccessJ we're always one step ahead of the game. We tear the competition in two with our cut-throat professionalism and unstoppable momentum. Out of the way "Gumper ALT Life Stories" and "JipanGU" sites, AJ gone crazy.

Anyway, so we got hold of a copy of next year's JHS textbooks (at least, for selected schools). It's a reworked version of New Crown - that series I got so angry about last year with my "5 Most Annoying Pages in New Crown", "4 Stupidest Characters in New Crown", and "3 Appalling Stories from New Crown" posts.

Here's your chance for a sneaky peak before 2012!

Well, first things first. Wang Ming has had a sex change! Someone finally helped him take the last step towards becoming Yang Meling. Ratna has slithered off back to India, too, unless her eczema got so bad that she just crumbled into dust and was rebuilt as a boy called Raj. Speaking of Emma (does that even qualify as a bad pun?), she's still there, but along with the rest of the cast has had a massive face-lift. The retarded, camp watercolourist from last issue has given way to the elite skills of some anime-savvy whipper-snapper.

In fact, and I may alienate half of our audience for saying this, but it actually looks quite good. Not only was New Crown dated this year (and every previous year it was used), but it had so much nonsense content that either didn't teach anything useful or made little to no sense at all (like the bizarre re-tellings of Alice in Wonderland and the Whale Rider). The new edition seems to have deliberately targeted the problem sections and made them into something useful, and, low-and-behold, actually entertaining (sort of).

However, there's also a hell of a lot more material to cover. This probably has something to do with the upcoming change in the education system. Japan's education functions on a 10-year plan, after which the previous decade is analysed and the results used to formulate the next. Last time this led to massive changes in how children were taught. The high levels of suicides and stress were attributed to the huge workload on school students. The proposed solution was to drastically cut that workload (no school on Saturdays and a dramatic drop in expectations) and focus more on involving the personalities of students in every-day school life. The result of this change, however, was (predictably, I guess) a drop in achievement. So, looks like it's back to the old method... More on this in a future post.

Today we'll treat you to character comparisons. Next time, we'll have a closer look at how the same chapters/pages have evolved in the new edition.

Kumi

Paul

Wang Ming

Ratna

So it's all change, huh? Paul has also acquired a physically handicapped brother (presumably to balance out his own mental retardation). More details in the future, folks.

Bonus picture: Ms Sasaki trying to screw up Paul's shodo. 

You may be interested in these posts:

• 3 Appalling Stories from New Crown
• 4 Stupidest Characters from New Crown
• 5 Most Annoying Pages from New Crown

How to Take a Crap in Japan

Japanese toilets come in three guises.

1. a toilet
2. a hyper-toilet with loads of buttons etc (well founded stereotype)
3. squatty potty

In times of old (20 years ago or something), most number 2s were done in number 3s. Nowadays, you'll still find squatties in most train stations, country schools and other public facilities. Some people go on about squatties being good for your rectum or something, but to be honest I think you'll be fine either way. At least with a regular toilet there's little risk of urinating in your own pocket.

Anyway, below is my deftly illustrated guide on how to correctly operate over such a thing.

Step 1: Get totally naked. This is optional, but my friend couldn't go any other way for fear of messing himself up.

Step 2: Squat facing the raised end and fittings.

Step 3: Poop. Peeing is also acceptable.

Step 4: Flush. Wiping is also a popular preceding step.

Job done. Get dressed if necessary.


As an addendum, you would do well to note two things:

1. We Westerners are not well adapted to the flat-foot squatting which Asians do a lot. Luckily, the metal fittings on the front of the toilet serve well as handles should you need them.
2. Those same metal fittings are reflective. Do NOT look at them unless you want to see the very worst your body has to offer.

Happy shitting!

Q&A: Runaway

This guy saw some programs on TV about underage girls who run away from home, a social issue that gets significant media attention in Japan, and now he's got some questions about them. It's for research purposes. Purely out of curiosity. Promise.

On TV recently there is a lot of coverage about girls who run away from home. Are there any people like that in Tokyo?
Like, they lived in the countryside, but being at home was unbearable so they come to Tokyo. Then not having anywhere to go they stay with men, moving from place to place in exchange for their bodies.

---

Yeah there's a ton of them.

If you hang out downtown in like

 Shibuya or Shinjuku you'll see.

By the way, 

there are like 

100,000 missing persons reports filed every year,

and most of them are from underaged kids 

running away from home.

---

They probably run away after finding someone to stay with online, right?
But, when things don't work out with that person they're left hanging.
Or, like, they were living with their boyfriend but broke up or something.


The reason they can't stand being at home is something like the parents got divorced and the kid is left to fend for herself, or there's stress from living with a new stepparent, or there's too many kids in the family and so they're desperate for attention, etc.


I don't think they're selling their bodies for a place to stay. It's more like the two of them are just using each other.


And, it's not just limited to Tokyo. The big city just makes for a good story so the TV programs give all their examples from there. I think the girls move around to places they're familiar with.

---

If you leave your house you're a runaway.


For example, even if you're just sitting on a swing at the neighborhood park, not even one mile from your house, and you're telling yourself that you've run away from home then you're a runaway.
There's a million of kids like that, both girls and boys.


But of all the "girls" posting online that they're looking for a man to "save" them, probably 90% are fakes.


Pretty much all of the dating sites with cons and decoys on them have been wiped out now, so SNS sites and bulletin boards are the new place where that type gathers.
Because SNS and BBS are still shady sites of course they can't be openly advertised, but if a TV program comes along that says "there's people like this out there!", then of course a bunch of viewers are going to wonder about it and try to find out about it online.
And when they do that, that's when the lines and lines of results for "girls waiting for you!" show up.

Q&A: Look it Up Yourself

In today's Q&A, we learn, yet again, that the Internet makes people lazy. And those lazy people are a driving source of fuel for other people to get spiteful and go out of their way to write long, angry rants. Apparently this fact of Internet-life applies no matter what language you use.

Let's get right down to our venting!

Hi.


I got a e-mail.


It said, "I'll let you know in a 一両日."


What does "一両日" mean?

---

For questions like these, you should get into the habit of searching for the answer yourself.

If you're able to use this site, then you should be able to use a dictionary site, too.

If you look for a word or a phrase in a dictionary, it'll certainly be there.

It'd be good for you to have at least enough of an appetite for learning to open a dictionary by yourself.

Anyway, some people don't know about the existence of dictionaries, so I'll leave the address for you below.

If you click the link, the answer to your question will appear, OK?

---

Thanks.


I see. I should use a dictionary function next time, huh? When I did a normal Google, it was hard to find the answer. Thanks for the good idea!

---

By the way, for those hoping and not clicking, 一両日　（いちりょうじつ） means "a day or two." :)

Q&A: Daddy Long Legs

Welcome to the first installment of our Q&A series.

Today we hear from a young woman who received monthly bank transfers over 6 years from an absolute stranger she met over the Internet in exchange for sending him daily diary entries. After breaking off communication with the man, she wonders if she should feel obligated to repay the money back to him even though he hasn't asked her to.

Let's hear what the Internet has to say!

Hi, I'm posting for the first time. I'm a female university freshman.

When I was a first-year junior high school student, I was bullied a lot. I couldn't say anything to my parents about it, and instead I confided in an older man who I met through the Internet. He was in his 50s and told me he had a strained home life.

My hobby was reading, and the man I met taught me more about how to escape into the world of books. He started sending me money so I could buy new books. (I didn't have a good concept of the danger at the time and freely shared my personal info. I wish I hadn't now.)

He was so happy when I started e-mailing him daily to talk about the things going on in my life or my thoughts about the books that I read. Soon he was sending me about 10,000 yen ($100) per month. I managed my own bank account, and my parents were always busy with work, so I was able to use the money without them noticing. I used it to purchase books and later even enrolled at a juku when it was time to prepare for high school entrance exams.

I became a high school student and got a lot of new friends. When I told the man how it was hard to ask my parents to pay for me to go on field trips with my school club, he sent me the money. My club went on a lot of field trips, and between that and the tuition of a prep school I attended in the evening, I was receiving 30,000 yen ($300) per month.

The man loved to hear about my daily events as a high school student, and he told me he thought of me as his daughter. The relationship reminded me of Daddy-Long-Legs, but I didn't think about it too much.

After high school, I moved to Tokyo for college. Other girls at the school were big into fashion and it was a bad influence on me. I started asking for extra money from the man, which I used to buy clothes and accessories. At some point I think he got fed up with the way I was acting because he stopped replying to my e-mails.

When I realized this, I rethought my spending habits. I feel like I've forgotten who I really am. And now I'm just overwhelmed with self-disgust.

From now on, so I can be truly independent, I'm going to start working part-time and use scholarship money to pay for school, no matter how hard it is. I don't want to accept any money from anyone else ever again. I see that the way things are now isn't good for myself, and my warped sense of money is only going to hurt me.

So I want to ask: If my benefactor demanded I return the money I accepted from him all those years, am I obligated to return it? We have had no physical relationship, and we've only met each other one time.

Maybe this story is hard to believe, but I really need an answer. Just assuming this kind of situation, what are my responsibilities in regard to the money?
Thank you.

---

First post. 

If you really wanted to give the money back, you wouldn't have made a post like this in the first place. I think you're just being inconsistent.

Sorry if I offended you.

It's OK. I'm not offended. When I first drafted the post, I didn't think it was very coherent. I felt like I needed to explain the parts that were hard to understand. So, that last question was me trying to be more clear.

You're right. If I'm worried about whether I'm obligated to return the money, that must mean I don't want to return it. I'm just making excuses now, but the total sum of money I received from this man is enormous. If I'm obligated to pay it back then there must be some kind of deadline to do that by, and if that's the case I have to think about stuff like revealing this to my parents or quitting school to work full time so I can pay it off.

---

The money was a gift and you don't have any legal obligation to return it. Besides, it's not like a guy with that kind of personality is going to demand you return it in the first place.

But, the way you feel means something. Are you a mooch?

There was a part of me that thought it was natural for him to be sending me money. I think that's why I was able to use it to buy clothes and stuff. I should have been thinking about what it meant that he was giving me his hard-earned money.

I want to become the kind of person that he can feel glad he invested in. I don't think I have any value to be thought of like that now.

That's why this is so painful for me!

---

Well, Internet, you certainly never fail to impress! I hope everything worked out OK for this girl, especially after everyone blatantly ignored the fact that she spent her entire teenage life supported by a man 40 years her senior and this arrangement was completely concealed from her parents and teachers. And she intends to keep the secret barring impending financial disaster.

I want to express nothing but support for the trending of her strong moral compass; I just wonder why it was so easy for everyone to get past the initial premise of her situation. It never dawns on the parents that she never asks them for money but goes on every school trip and brings home an armload of books every month. The secret benefactor, who was romantic in Judy's case (in the book Daddy Long Legs) because she didn't have any parents, is played down by all the respondents as if relationships between adolescent girls and middle-aged men are as a rule totally natural, innocuous affairs. (That's foreshadowing for a future Q&A post, by the way!)

If you have any comments or screams of outrage, please share below!

Q&A: Introduction

I admit it. I have a guilty pleasure: I like reading the Japanese version of Yahoo! Answers, or Yahoo! Chiebukuro. Judging from the content quality of its English counterpart, I'm afraid this admission speaks volumes about the level I operate on when using Japanese. It's probably akin to an ESL learner proudly indicating reruns of the Jerry Springer show as her favorite leisure activity.

At least Chiebukuro members write in full-formed, polite sentences and tend to thank other users for their responses. I'd say that's two full steps up on the social competency staircase from "How can do u drift with an automated car?" But, again, content-wise, it's not like the Japanese site has any lack of step-by-step drifting lessons.

So, yes, I need to tell the world about my love of Chiebukuro about as much as I need to punch myself in the stomach. But that's OK, because I'll get over both the humiliation and the aching gut thanks to a healing combination of schadenfreude and an endless stream of absurdities people ask about from behind the protective curtain of Internet anonymity. (Which curtain is, as the recent university entrance exam cheating scandal and subsequent arrest showed us, a gauze one at best.)

Starting this month, I'll be rolling out on AccessJ a new series of Q&A posts which examine useful (or terrible) questions posed on Yahoo! Chiebukuro, Oshiete Goo, and similar sites, as well as the answers provided for those questions. Some of the questions may actually help you learn how to do something yourself in Japan. Others will be chosen for entertainment value only.

If you have any such Question & Answer type pages that you're dying to see translated into English, please contact the AccessJ Team! Comment here, or check us out on Facebook or Twitter.

In the meantime, stay tuned for the next post in and official start of our new Q&A series!

The 4 Stupidest Characters in the New Crown Textbooks

My new hobby is picking numbers out of thin air and getting angry about them (see my 5 most annoying pages and 3 appalling stories from New Crown), so here are the 4 stupidest characters in the New Crown textbooks.

I've had just about all I can take of this awful cast. Praise the lord I haven't been subjected to the CD version of these total puppets yet.

Anyway, whatever, here they are, and apologies in advance for my anger.

Paul Green

"I know, right?!"

Future acne-scarred, Bill S Preston look-a-like, Iraq war apologist, jock Paul is my first figure of hate. His douchey blonde-haired stereotype is straight out of Home Improvement or 90210 and scrapes a toothbrush hard against my gag reflex. What's in your bag Paul? Is it something stereotypical? Oh, an American football! I was expecting, I dunno, a gun and 2 kilos of coke? You cracker bitch.

"To the douche-mobile!"

His brief appearance in NC3 is only embarrassing, but at least he found out how to use the Internet. Let's just hope his child-grooming father knows how to work the parental lock. Unlikely. I bet the only kanji they know between them is 休 and 友達, thanks to Ms. Sasaki and Poor Kumi.

I don't know what happened to Paul when he came to Japan. At least, I presume he wasn't born here, otherwise he'd be playing down his American-ness somehow, right? And maybe he wouldn't dream so hard about playing American Football with black guys (not going to happen). But anyway, his first appearances in NC1 are pretty butch. He looks like he's been doing some lifting and bench presses. Turn the clock forward two years and he's just another tender-hearted featherweight. Fast forward to the teary-eyed walkaway at the end of Chapter 8 and he's even put on a bit of weight. Whatever, forget Paul.

Ratna
Matted-haired, suspiciously-stinky Ratna and her Special-Olympics-clap-along to every goddamn thing in the book deserve no more mention than this, if only because she has nothing to talk about except the fact that she's from India.


Poor Kumi
And then there's Poor Kumi. Clearly just trying to make friends and be nice, she annoys the living hell out of me. My only moment of comfort is when she openly wets herself on the opening pages of NC1.

Ta-daa!

Her ferociously annoying chirpiness grates against everything I stand for. "Oh, a kite! That's nice!" "I have a tennis ball!!!!!" "This is my rainbow coloured knitted jumper!!" "Do you want a break?" God, yes...

The only respite from her awful kid's TV personality is at the end of NC3 when she's clearly grown into a fine figure of womanhood. She and her friends walk off misty-eyed together across a map of the world and you just know she cried at graduation. The best part is: I bet no one ever calls her. All her "friends" leave her to stew in the psychological crash that surely follows her entry into Best High School in the Region. She descends into a deep, dark depression eventually chronicled in minute detail by Natsuo Kirino, the fruit of whose labor gains a steady cult following.

Take that, keener. Keen bean. Try hard. Twat.

Wang Ming or Ming Wang or Wing Mang or whatever he is

I hate to even get started on Wang Ming; the obscenely dull Chinese kid who thinks "Wonder Rings" are some genius invention which defy all logic, rather than the most pathetic opening to any textbook in the history of government-supported education. Someone definitely isn't from the big city. How many more times must I slog through painful classes where the JTE forces the children to actually follow Ming's instructions and make those terrible attempts at magic?

Kumi :  Just a minute. Wonderful!

YEAH THANKS A LOT KUMI.

Things go from bad to worse for Wang, or Ming, or whatever we're supposed to call him; in NC1, he desperately needs the toilet but can't find it. It's behind you, moron. The writers give him one more chance to prove himself with a cultural insight into China in NC3, and the best he can come up with is the Great Wall. Yeah, great, but what have you done lately?

All of this helps to explain why he only manages to be on one page in NC2, and even that was only because Poor Kumi felt sorry for him.

No-one wants to hug you.

And god-dammit that's the end of this stupid blog and I hope you all hate it!!!

..sorry :(

Oh... hi guys. These are my, uh, friends.

3 Appalling Stories from New Crown

After getting so angry about the five worst pages in New Crown last month, and then later the 4 most annoying characters I thought I had let off just enough steam to get on with my life.

Unfortunately, when I next picked up New Crown 2 it flopped open to Pot of Poison and I realised my work was far from done. "You're bad," I thought, "I must punish you."

Without further ado, here are some terrible editorial decisions from the NC team.


3. Zorba's Three Promises

Sepúlveda, unimpressed

Based on a reportedly beautiful book by award-winning author (not to mention humanitarian superstar) Luis Sepúlveda, NC2 manages to capture absolutely none of the skillful writing and scene-setting which earned the original book sales of 2 million copies.

Simple stories are fine for learning English, so why not pick one? Why chose a novel famed for it's emotional content and reduce it down into 4 half-pages of vacuous rubbish? Why would you do that?

Perhaps my next project will be re-writing Philadelphia in 4 words:

Guy gets AIDS. Dies.

How's that? Or how about Inception:

Guy dreams. Wakes up?

In this story, an oil-covered Gull splats into the ground next to a cat (Zorba). The cat doesn't like the taste of oil, and is just lazy enough to listen to the gull's life story. Turns out she's dying, but has an egg up her arse which must continue her family legacy of stealing food from infants and picking at the carcasses of pigeons. After making the cat promise not to eat the egg, she dies and farts it out. The cat looks after it, defends it from rats etc and it's all very lovely and darling.

My biggest beef with NC's terrible retelling is it's daringly touching acceptance of individuality. "Cats do cat things. Gulls do gull things." replies Zorba to Lucky (the baby bird)'s complaint that she can't spend all day sleeping, crapping in my flowerbed and pissing on my sofa. Oh how sweet, how educational. We're bringing our children up right! No more war! Free Tibet! Eating endangered species of whale is barbari...

Then the bird flies off leaving out feline hero to murmur "I love you" to the empty sky. What a heart-warming story... "Lucky" didn't even stick around to hear Zorba's last words! Lucky? More like Bastard, am I right?

It only affirms my view that seagulls are the rude-boy gangsters of the bird world. But what else can you expect from a foetus which fell out of the lifeless corpse of it's mother. Summary: It's like that manga Berserk, except with no massive sword and everyone's a dick except the black guy.


2. The Whale Rider

The award-winning film becomes a four-page epic in NC3. And boy, is it a good one.

Not content with just dumbing-down the story, NC decided to change the main character's name. Joseph Gordon-Levitt lookalike Paikea inexplicably becomes Kahu, and things relentlessly cartwheel downhill from there; eventually reaching the lofty heights of trying to teach 3rd year students grammar such as

"Come, Father. Come." (see pics).

How on Earth do you explain that?

The story itself isn't so bad, apart from giving women ideas above their station (right fellas??), and probably strikes a chord somewhere within Japanese society. But come on. Something a little more fun?



Whatever, I don't even care anymore. This crappy story full of crusty old goats and predictable Ocean Odyssesy morals can go to hell.


1. A Pot of Poison

NC2 decided to teach grammatical structures for "going away" and the ever important "full of" through the medium of a bad Three Stooges remake. Perhaps I should apply for a job. I'm full of ideas. How about a Chuckle Brothers remake for first graders? We can laugh at the frantic spazzy flailing of total morons while learning the immortal constructs of "to me" and "to you". Or perhaps we can use Roadrunner cartoons to illustrate "died from" and "killed by".

A Pot of Poison is awful. Our three anti-heroes are trusted with not touching their master's pot of poison whilst he's out of town. Down's-Syndrome inflicted An manages to knock it over during cleaning time and spill the poisonous contents, which total prick and ever-ready ADD opportunist Kan immediately shoves in his mouth because it resembles honey. It turns out it actually is honey, which is good news because Huey, Duey and Luey have eaten it all. Sly fox Kan then smashes the pot and smears blood on An's face to make it look like an accident (without the blood), while desperate drama-queen cave-painting Chin relentlessly freaks out like he's auditioning for Will and Grace.

Inevitably the master returns, and is understandably pissed off by the fact that he can't trust his disciples not to knowingly kill themselves if given 72 hours alone. All's well that ends well, however, when Kan deftly reports how they've punished themselves for breaking the pot by eating the poison! Kan, you joker! Of course, it turns out the only person dying today is Master when he realises what a terrible trainer he is and commits seppuku to an aging portrait of his grandfather.

The only good thing to come out of these three pages is the alteration my student made to page 42; which shows the three douches vomiting red and black gunk all over Master's wincing face.


That's all I can bring myself to write today.