https://thoofan.neocities.org/blog/index.xml

I will layout resources in chronological order that I use them/ plan to use & how you should approximately too.

Note: this page may update in the future, and the resources within may also change.

• Learn Hiragana
• Learn Katakana
• Kana Quiz

Tofugu has some great resources available for learning Japanese in general. But, I recommend as the starter to use their Ultimate characters guides.

If you didn’t know, there are 3 writing systems in Japan:

1. Hiragana: used for native words
2. Katakana: uses for using foreign words
3. Kanji: Chinese characters borrowed to turn words into single characters.

You need hiragana as the base, katakana builds on top of it and kanji turns those words into characters. Furigana is Hiragana placed next to Kanji to know how to spell it or for children who are still learning.

Use the kana quiz to practice what you learn, do it whenever you have time to drill those characters into your head.

I personally think Kanji should come at the very end once you have mastered a nice amount of vocab. Some people say you can even get by without learning it outright, but if you are planning to travel to Japan, specially for work, you should learn some Kanji later.

• 100 words This is great if you are planning to travel to japan. I haven’t read the whole thing myself. You could maybe read this before you learn characters if you yearn for learning some vocab.

• Kaishi 1.5k (GitHub)
• Anki
• YT Video by Trenton explaining what and why

Rather than using a Green Bird’s gameified, surface level learning app. You should use a Flashcard based system, it helps with better retention of vocab and it helps in pushing vocab into long term memory. I recommend watching the YouTube video by Trenton, as it goes in depth into why use this system, how to setup (specifically for this) and ways to sustain your learning.

Anki is the most well know application using a spaced repetion algorithm. If you can’t download a desktop app you can use ankiweb and add the Japanese deck by using shared deck option. You can also download ‘anki droid’ on android, or ‘ankimobile’ on ios for offline experience and sync with the desktop app using ankiweb. Or use ankiweb on mobile.

I use the Kaishi 1.5k deck as it is a well made vocab deck with sounds, images and example sentences. By default the front of the card in Kanji (if available), so you can also learn Kanji from here, I have modified my deck to show Furigana to speed up my learning but loose out on Kanji learning. There also the well known Core 2k/6k. I personally haven’t used it, but have heard good things from other.

I would also recommend looking at Trenton’s channel for tips on learning Japanese.

• Jisho.org

A Japanese dictionary. Gets the job done for Japanese to English & vice versa.

• WaniKani

A great place to get started learning Kanji for those who has got some vocab under their belt. There is a free tier with 2000 characters. I am yet to use this.

If you have watched enough videos explaining this, you will probably know what I am saying. Watching some simple Anime or listening to Japanese Music will probably help you pick up on words you are learning and add context to them and, even help with your pronunciation.

That’s it for now, will update this in the future.

So, it’s a new year (around 13 days ago), where humans celebrate one rotation around the sun. So, I want this year to be a bit different (hopefully). This year I want to get into Visual Novels.

(offtopic): So, most of the time, from a young age, I have mainly played adventure, action, simulation and creative games with a heavy emphasis on story games. I barely play multiplayer, and even if I do I play with friends. So, a few years ago I decided I wanted to diversify the genres of games I play. It was mainly because I saw everyone enjoying rpgs with beautiful graphics (mainly octopath traveler), yet I couldn’t play them because I didn’t like turn based rpgs (however, I play Pokemon). So, I finally decided to force myself to play them, hunted for some nicer rpgs like ‘Mario & Lugi’ series, and a few jrpgs that seemed fine, mainly trying them out on my psp.

Then I stumbled upon ‘Sakura Taisen’ and learnt about tactical rpgs and found out how fun they are, and I recently started trying a few of them out.

I had also tried getting into rhythm games and succeeded with ‘Project Diva’ and ‘A Dance of Fire and Ice’.

Anyways, getting back on topic, recently I decided to get into visual novels due to them having beautiful visuals and also scratching my itch of games with anime graphics (while not being a free to play gacha). I did play a visual novel before, ‘Sakura Taisen GB’, which was more of a dating sim and I quite liked it (+ I finished it) and I did start ‘Sakura Taisen’ for the Sega Saturn.

So, now I am hoping this year I will be able to play more VNs as I haven’t been as successful with rpgs. To start the year of I bought ‘ATRI - My Dear Moments’ on JAST USA, I bought it on JAST instead of Steam to make sure it is drm free and it was cheaper. Hopefully by the end of the year I should have at least 1 play through. I have also thought of maybe playing some eroge games, been scrolling Steam and JAST to see if something really draws me.

That’s it for now, hopefully you might see a post from me on here or on mastodon about me finishing the game this year, lets see.

So, I recently decided to open a misskey (sharkey) account on my 1 year anniversary on the fediverse. You can check it out here on @thoofan@sakurajima.social.

So, because I have an account on a different platform I wanted to do a small comparison of what is it like between the both. Another note is that while I am referring to misskey, I am actually using Sharkey, a fork of Misskey, on my instance of choice.

The first thing that hits is that this thing is not designed to work with other fedi software. This is to be expected as Misskey originally didn’t have ActivityPub and was added at a later date, thus a few social features that misskey has only works on the same instance or other Misskey instances. For example the Misskey quoting feature dosen’t work show on Mastodon and often breaks quoted posts and features like avatar decorations are a misskey only feature.

The next thing that hits is that this thing is designed for the power user. There are some features that you have never seen before and some you have only seen a few of. For example a customisable bars and menus. The right bar can be customised with widgets. The navigation bar can be customised with what buttons you actually want. You can customise your timeline functionality and behavior a ton, which you only see in 3rd party clients like Moshidon in Mastodon. You can add plugins, I haven’t tried it. There is a drive, which allows you to upload and organise you files and then share from those files. Liking a post? We react to posts, you can use the default react which just a regular like in the ActivityPub protocol, or you can react instead. Anntenas are customisable feeds, which filters feed by keywords. There is more, but this post highlights some things I was intrigued by, you can find out more by searching.

So, what is the vibe between both? Misskey feels polished, modern, feature rich and a bit bubbly. Mastodon feels polished, modern and clean.

So, take what you will from this. If you just want the fediverse with a software that most other software plays nicely with, is the most supported by third parties clients and is the most popular, then go Mastodon. However, if you want a spaceship for a social media and lots of bells and whistles, then go Misskey.

I personally feel like if I had gone with Misskey at the start, Mastodon would had felt a bit lacking. But, because I used Mastodon first and I am just going to stick with it.

That’s it for now, see ya.

So, I have now updated the main site (again), this one being the largest revamp.

The update moves further away from the blog first approach, to a more of a personal place on the internet with a website with sub pages filed with content, and the blog acting as a blog.

I mainly use the blog a more quiet space to put out thoughts and things that I don’t want to post on mastodon for everyone in the moment to know.

Anyways, the new site now has buttons which I have wanted to have for a while; a slightly longer about section, a cleaner landing page (which I am still on the fence about the design); A new shrines and interests section which goes into some detail; the shrines have not been built as of know, as I have to fill them out with things; the only shrine as of now is the wallpaper shrine which has a collection of wallpapers I use.

One very inefficient thing I am currently doing right now is writing all the content on the page in raw html in svelte. No markdown syntax. This is a habit I have from my beginner web dev days of just copying the markup and replacing things. I will probably convert it to a markdown rendered content, at that point I will also convert my blog to be part of my main website and be rendered in svelte.

So that is it for now, I will post an update when I get the shrines done.

So, recently (5 months ago) I started to watch vtubers, which is also very weird for me, as I have never been a stream watcher. I usually don’t watch streams, doesn’t matter if they are my favourite YouTuber, I would usually watch clips if anything interesting happens. So, the main way I got interested was watching clips of Hololive members, and seeing the silliness that goes down in their stream made me very interested.

This actually started when I learnt about Hoshimachi Suisei and her concert at the Nippon Budokan. And after learning that she is a VTuber and watching her clips, slowly, I started watching clips of other Hololive members and started recognizing characters and their personalities. So, one day I decided I shall dive into this rabbit hole. I absorbed all the characters, their lore and their design, until I learnt it all.

So, now I have picked a few favourites that I watch sometimes.

• Koseki Bijou: First vtuber I got interested in, haven’t been able to follow them due to her streaming schedule not mathching my European time.
• Cecilia Immergreen: Second vtuber I followed and watch most of her streams due to having a good timing for Europe time and also is quite fun watching the silliness that goes down.
• Ninomae Ina’nis: Watched a few streams, love her more calmer back attitude.
• Otonose Kanade: Quite fun to watch, always up to antics, have dropped by a few streams.

There are also Japanese ones I sometimes tune into to see what is happening. Most of the Japanese streamers I watch are through clips though.

So far it is quite fun following them and specially when it is a collab it is more fun watching the interactions that take place.

That is it for now, I might update later down the line.

feat. Haru

Love the different vocals, and the beat is really catchy. I am also trying to find more songs featuring Haru in it but can’t find much (that catches my attention). If you know any, let me know on mastodon (@thoofan@urusai.social).

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

Also, an update I am making this a biweekly post as I can’t keep up the output of 1 a week. Edit (13/01/2026): I have stopped this series right after this post as I don’t have the time to post as much.

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

Great beat, that’s all.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• Listen on Soundcloud
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Kasane Teto

Great Kasane Teto vocals.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

TAK makes another appearance with a food based song. Really love the catchy melody.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• Listen on Soundcloud
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. KAFU

Kafu’s vocals with repeated words sound amazing.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

The beat sound amazing and the vocals sound cool.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

I wanted the highlight my very complex process of how I listen to music, whether that is at home on my computer, on the go or even on obscure devices.

Lets first describe what I listen to. I listen to mainly J-pop, some J-rock and Vocaloid. Mainly a mix of Japanese music; though, recently been adding some K-pop. I organise my songs into 2 playlists. ‘Sekai’, contains J-pop and similar, and ‘Melody’, contains Vocaloid

Rule No. 1 no streaming. Now streaming has its pro and cons. It is very easy to get started listening to a new piece of music. But, I prefer having control over my data and specifically metadata.

Actually, when I first started listening to Jpop I used to listen using Soundcloud, allowing to me to access a larger range of music and more obscure ones like lesser known vocaloid songs that weren’t on Spotify. Also, to to just not use Spotify as I wanted to be different. The main reason I went to local music was to skip the minimal ads on soundcloud, use less Mobile Data on the go, and also allowing me to control the metadata. The one thing I didn’t like about Soundcloud was that the music cover art were up to the uploader to decide the cover, some of which I didn’t like or were not the original. Also, some artist were behind Soundcloud go+ subscription.

I usually use YouTube to find new music, I get recommend music and I will click it, and if I like it I will save it to a playlist for later. Most of the time, if it’s a new artist, I will go into the artist’s channel and try to find music that I might like.

Recently, sometimes I would open Spotify in the browser and play a curated playlist, based on what I listen to. And, if I like it I might save it for later. Right now, as I am writing this, I am listening to the ‘Gacha Pop’ playlist on Spotify. I have added 3 songs so far.

A few times a month, using a little tool known as ytdl, I would download the music I saved earlier from YouTube. I then add them to a m3u file using a small script I wrote.

To add metadata I will use the Musicbrainz Picard. I try using the auto tag, but sometimes I use the MusicBrainz website to search for the recording and tag it.

Also, as I love hoarding files, I download the lyrics. I use lrcget. When it can’t find the lyrics, I than go to the source, lrclib.net.

I mainly listen to my music on Mobile and Desktop. On Mobile I use Gramophone. It was love at first sight. Every other music player I have tested since this one, I have had a small nitpick with it. The only other one that was close and I daily droved it for some time was Retro Music Player. I just love Gramophone for it’s simplicity and great minimal features and the Material You design support; it isn’t as powerful as other apps and it’s equalizer is a bit lacking in terms of amount of control. But, still a solid choice in my opinion.

On desktop I use MusicBee, with a catppuccin theme. This has a ton of features in it and quite a customisable UI. But, the only features I use is the playlist view, shuffle and now playing.

I also scroble my music for statistics purpose, to see my data and trends over time. I use ListenBrainz (My Profile) to scroble, as it nicely integrates with MusicBrainz database. On Mobile I use Panoscrobler, to upload data from my phone.

On desktop, I use a plugin in MusicBee.

I love seeing every week the amount of data points increase and seeing who I am listening to the most and how my listening habits change over time.

One of the big reason for local library of music was the fact I can put my music on my psp. This is kinda useful, I mean I don’t use it often, but when I do, it feels good. I also found an old ipod nano 6g my parents had. So I decided to load my library on it, but I rarely use it. As the convenience of wireless earphones and scrobling just outweigh it’s cons.

I download and store my music on my Computer, which has Syncthing running on it, and I have Sycnthing on my phone which pulls music from it. I also back up my library to my Raspberry pi using the same Syncthing.

And that’s it, that is my music listening workflow. I rambled quite a bit here, but I love nerding out about my setup and how I do things because, my setups aren’t always simple like normal people used to, and I love that charm.

I hope I might have taught some people about new things, or even introduced them to have a local library.

Any way see you next time.

feat. Hatsune Miku, KAFU

Very similar to another song by Mimi, I posted earlier, Random Vocaloid Song 8. Love the instrumentals and the vocals, Mimi does an excellent job at this.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

So I wanted to write a small post on how I write posts for my blog, also I love nerding out about my setup.

So firstly my blog is made using Hugo, a static site generator. I use the PaperMod theme. I kept it simple in terms of theme (I run another blog for my programming and I use a much more fancier theme there). I write my posts in markdown, as that is what is supported by Hugo and I like it’s simplicity.

For editor, I use LunarVim, an IDE wrapper for NeoVim. I use a markdown plugin for better markdown support. On desktop Neovide, for a nice graphical interface; and termux on mobile and on the go editing. I use the same configuration on both systems. However I have been having problems with LunarVim recently, so I might be swapping it out for something else.

My posts are backed up to a git repo, I used to store on a git provider; but, now I self host git.

As of writing, this site is hosted on neocities.org. On desktop I am too lazy, thus I just drag and drop the files into the neocities interface to update my site. On mobile I have the neocities CLI installed that I use.

When I started of the blog, I started using bear blogs as I thought this is a bit of a chill blog and will be a friction less writing experience. However, I soon learned you can’t use images on there unless I paid. And I wasn’t ready to pay for just uploading images. So, I decided I’ll self host, as I have the skills.

Sometimes coming up with ideas is easy. But, putting down into a post is hard for me. This post was literally the same.

Anyway, see you next time!

feat. Hatsune Miku

Amazing the instrumentals paired with good vocals.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• Listen on Soundcloud

I can’t find the song.link for this one.

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

Found this while playing a Project Diva clone, love the vocals and the beat.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• Listen on Soundcloud
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

Found this in my YouTube recommendations one day, and the song sounds colourful like the visuals.

• Watch MV on Youtube

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

Been into City pop ever since I heard this song. The vocals are so soothing and such a beautiful melody.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

Hello Mina-san (everyone)! I made a page (on this site) for everyone to learn Japanese, it aggregates resources I use and how I use them, and how you can use them too.

See you there: thoofan.neocites.org/jp

feat. Hatsune Miku

Love the repetition and the vocals. That’s it; I don’t have much else to say.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

It’s a new Year, another orbit around the sun with time for new experiences, releases & memories to make.

Made this commemorative art in blender (First time making an animation).

Hope you have a wonderful year.

feat. KAFU

The instruments and the vocals complement each other. This was the first song featuring KAFU I heard and fell in love with the vocals;

Also I didn’t know until recently that I was listening to the Artist (KAF) who provided the voice for KAFU and was not able notice the difference between them in a song featuring both of them; kept wondering why, until I found out recently.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

Also, yes the last song and this are not Vocaloid. However, I am just going to tag them under the same title too make it easy to understand.

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

So this week I decided to download Infinity Nikki. It seemed like a pretty chill and light open world game which peaked my interest.

So I decided to install it on my phone, and then it had to take a long time to download 20gb of data and then a really long time to compile shaders. I played the tutorial, but was getting around 20 fps on my phone. So at the end I decided to install it on my new laptop. This time it took 50gb for the initial game.

Thanks to the cloud save, I was able to pick up where I left off. And with my AMD internal GPU I was getting some good frames on medium settings.

I haven’t got far in terms of the story of the game, but loved what I have played so far. I haven’t explored much, but it seems the map is quite big and I will have some fun exploring. There is also so much to collect, another thing I am interested in. There is a bunch of resources spread across the map that I can collect and use to craft clothing items; there is also this star thing (I think it’s called a whim star) you collect which is either in hard to reach places or complete a small mini game to collect, this is also used in crafting.

One of the other big part of the game is the Dress up part. You mainly collect clothing by unlocking them and crafting them using the aforementioned resources collected. You can craft sets of clothing and individual items. Some of the sets you craft are ability sets which can be equipped in-game and used to complete an action like collect insects, fish and fluff from animals. The dress up part feels like customizing your character (I mean it literally is), and I quite like collecting and customizing.

There also seems to be some kind of gatcha feature, where you roll to get clothing items; I mean its a fun thing to do but not my bread and butter.

You also get a camera you can take pictures with in-game; you can pose the character, apply effects and change camera setting. I will attach some images I took bellow.

There is also a lot of in game currencies, I don’t even know what I have.

I am not that good at being critical when it comes to reviewing, so I have just placed down some thoughts I had and things I remember from the game.

I might post an update on this game in the future, you may can catch me posting about it on mastodon.

Cya next time!

feat. Rime (裏命)

Love this song for it’s soothing tune, instruments and the vocals sound good. Also, as I promised, it’s not Miku this time.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

I would also like to add to this post that I am terrible at rating or being critical on anything, so most of the things I like, I just like them with very little reason.

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

Love the instrumentals in this song.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• Listen on Soundcloud
• song.link

Also as a bonus, here is cover by WaMi.

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

The beat slaps here.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

Also as a bonus, here is cover by WaMi.

If you are wondering if I don’t listen to anything else excpt Miku, don’t worry, I do; maybe not next one, but I will post one with other Vocaloids.

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

Solid tunes, and Miku sounds amazing. Also this is the same artist behind the famous Mesmerizer song.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

feat. Hatsune Miku

This is such an upbeat song, and the tuning to make Miku sound so realistic is amazing.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• Listen on Soundcloud
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

I recently decided to hop on the fediverse. There was 2 reasons.

1. I have a main account (persona: developer) and I didn’t want it to mix with my other interest, because I wanted to have a persona that is more chill and shares a bit about life.
2. I wanted to test out the fediverse/ blogging in a more chill environment. (I made my own blog before this one, yet I post on here more than there)
3. Also a silly third reason, to see how feasible it is to be purely restricted to the fediverse, and thrive.

• Created this very blog (actually tested for a month on bearblog, but migrated to self-hosted as I wanted to host my own images)
• Hoped on Mastodon with out any prior social media related to this persona.
• Posted a few things.
• Bridged my mastodon to Bluesky, so I can flex to my friends that I am on their favorite corporate-backed platform while being purely on the Fediverse.
• Created an anilist.co to track what I watch and read, rather than it being stored in a note on keep notes. Also I get some stats.
• Started a somewhat-weekly series of posts on the blog where I try posting a random Vocaloid songs.

I am having so much fun exploring and finding new people, websites and posts that share new things. For example while cliking links I found tamaNOTchi, a virtual pet you can grow through your blog. Here is mines: Taiyo & Miku.

To add to the experience I think rss feeds are really cool. You simply subscribe to the feed and you get updates about what they posted. Also it really cool where I just open my rss reader and it has pulled together a bunch of posts, but unlike the mastodon home timeline it is has more content to read.

I can’t wait to see what happens in the future, what new online socializing we will do. I also plan to maybe launching my own group of services for the fediverse; as of now I have planed Mastdon, Pixelfed, an IRC for some fun chat and maybe an IP Radio.

Also maybe we would want socialize using emojis on a pager

I also want to highlight, even though I plan to stay exclusive to the fediverse for as long as possible, I still might one day need to join a corporate-run site in the future, as many things still haven’t yet moved, e.g.: any sort of fandom for anime or music.

Any ways, that’s it. I might write a future post on any updates regarding Me and the Fediverse. Until then c ya.

feat. Hatsune Miku

I have got this song stuck in my head for the last few weeks and sometimes listen to this a few times in the row. The mv is also amazing.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• Listen on Soundcloud
• song.link

If you have any song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

I am going to start a new series where I post new or lesser known Vocaloid songs from my playlist, I am going to omit well known and old songs (e.g: The world is mine or Rolling Girl).

First song which I have got stuck in my head for some time.

feat. Hatsune Miku

I have recently added quite a few Yunosuke songs to my list, and they have some good beats.

• Watch MV on Youtube
• Listen on Soundcloud
• song.link

I am going to test this format a bit, If you have any suggestions on how to improve or song recommendations @ me on mastodon.

Today I borrowed my friends second drawing tablet since he bought a new one and had the old smaller one lying around. I am always in awe at how artists just blindly runs their pen across the tablet and can make beautiful art. It’s such a cool skill in my eyes.

So, I decided to sit down in front of my laptop, plug in the tablet and launch Krita. I then started hovering the pen over the tablet and played around with the pressure sensitive pen which draws lighter and darker with pressure.

I quite like drawing strawberries, not sure why, but maybe because they are simple yet complex looking to draw. So, I started drawing but didn’t like my lines being wonky; I searched it up and found a line smoothing option in Krita and enabled it, and after that my lines were smooth.

It turned out pretty good for a first time, the only problem I see is the shape is not perfect it just looks too round.

Lets see what else I can draw.

I am thoofan (あらし), I recently started delving and enjoying Japanese media, its only been 11 months since I have invested some of my time into exploring Japanese media and culture.

So, what am I going to present here that might interest you. Well firstly, quite often spelling mistakes, yes it’s really bad and is contagious. Except that you will find:

• Games. Mainly Japanese, though I play others, I want to present games that were designed and developed in Japan, mainly ones that are in Japanese and need fan translations.
• J-Pop. I got into j-pop some months back and wanted to share my favs and my thought on them; also some vocaloid, I mainly listen to Miku, but am trying to diversify.
• Anime. One of the main things which sparked my interest in Japanese media. I mainly watch rom-coms and slice-of-life.
• Manga. Started reading manga after watching some anime and wanting to know what happened next and can’t wait for the next season. Now I mainly read a varied selection of rom-coms and slice of life.
• Learning Japanese. I recently started learning japanese by my self from scratch, I might post some tips, resources and stuff I have learnt.
• Maybe also some cool cultural facts I learn from time to time. So, yeh I hope I can make a small corner on the internet for my otaku character to share my thoughts.

Also you can connect, chat and share your thoughts with me on Mastodon.

Bye.