10 March 2005

Engrish Magazines

Last night I went to Tsutaya (my local video shop) to drop back a DVD I rented out ("Calendar Girls" - great movie, highly recommended, though it made me feel a bit homesick). I had a bit of time to kill, so I thought I'd browse round the magazine section.

That's when I spotted "Whizzman".

Japanese magazines are particularly excellent examples of the Engrish phenomenon. English is seen as "cool" by Japanese people, in much the same way that western people think Chinese characters are "cool". And in much the same way that many western people tattoo themselves with kanji declaring "My mother's got a penis", when they meant to write "Peace is the virtue of humanity", many Japanese magazines get it horribly wrong.

After I spotted "Whizzman" I thought I'd do a quick tour of the rest of the magazines to see what other gems I could find. Let's very enjoy pictures with me!

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