Know Your Picture Characters Entry #54
A. アトリエ B. アンケート C. コンクール D. ズボン E. ピーマン
F. ピエロ
Parlez-vous japonais?
Theoman does, at least, to a certain extent. But he decided to put aside his knowledge for the sake of fair and honest competition. If the world was a fair place, this noble sacrifice would have earned him a correct answer. KYPC is not a fair place, and thus he goes unrewarded. I can see what you saw about “agreement,” but I don’t know why you linked that to surveys. Everybody knows that the purpose of surveys is to create divisiveness and spread strife. So yes, suitably shaky reasoning indeed. Well done. In fact, C is konkuuru, or in French concours, or in English, contest. I mean contest. Because as we all know, contests are about working together and making sure that everyone gets along.
A Fan may not speak Japanese, but he knows enough French to make pithy statements when the situation calls for it (or even when it doesn’t). His obsession with flat furniture continues, and this presumably led him to identify not a table, per se, but the only thing on this list that would be likely to contain a table: A is atorie/atelier/studio. His other answers were not quite so close, at least on the Japanese side of things. We’ll have to take his word on the French.
Shirley did her best to channel the grizzled veteran, perhaps in an old war movie, which maybe could take place in France I guess? Whatever convoluted logic you choose to apply, the tactic paid off for her. She nailed D, the pants (Jp: zubon Fr: jupon), B, the survey (Jp: ankeeto Fr: enquete), and F, the clown (Jp: piero Fr: pierrot). Perhaps these katakana characters, which have no reason at all to resemble the things they represent, are more easily recognizable than kanji, which have vague and misleading reasons for possibly resembling the things they represent.
E is the bell pepper (Jp: piiman, Fr: piment). Not much more to say about that, really.
Or maybe there is. Maybe, deep down, I’m hurt that no one paid much attention to this poor vegetable. Maybe I’m torn up inside. Maybe it’s only years of trained stoicism that prevent me from bawling, tearing my hair, and slamming my head down onto the keyboard like a afoj;asjkfaosoug.
Excuse me. I guess I got a little emotional there. But don’t worry: you can all get a little emotional too. Once you’ve recognized the characters for it, that is. Are you sad that it’ll be a whole week until the next KYPC? Or happy? Are you angry about my outburst, or merely embarrassed? Maybe you’re scared about what the next challenge will be. Or maybe you’re simply bored of these antics.
A. 嬉 B. 怒 C. 恐 D. 悲 E. 退屈 F. 恥
Posted in Know Your Picture Characters | 
4 Comments »
May 16th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
B, C, and D all have the same part on the bottom. So I’ll say they’re perhaps the most elemental emotions, happiness, sadness, and anger. In that order, just because it seems appropriate.
May 18th, 2011 at 11:08 am
The second character in E looks a little bit like the bug that Vincent D’Onofrio turned into at the end of “Men in Black.”
So that must be Anger, because, in Japanese, “Bugged” = Anger.
B is Happiness, because it looks a little bit like the Christmas Tree in the original Charlie Brown Christmas Special, after the kids have raided Snoopy’s tree to fix up Charlie Brown’s tree. A very happy moment (and then they all sing, which is nice too).
A is pretty embarassing, because what is something like that doing in your alphabet anyway (and, in fact, it’s not even really an “alphabet” exactly.) So defintiely embarassment.
May 19th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
B.has an angry look about it. It’s probably one of the symbols the Japanese use for a swear word in a cartoon.
C. just looks so silly that it’s embarrassing.
D. is a deformed spider (his lower legs). SCARY! With little effort, you can show a connection with B. because the spider would be angry about his disability and therefore even more scary, and silly looking for the same reason which would be embarrassing. I realize those comments are politically incorrect and am appalled at my rudeness. I hope every body will accept my abject apology. Especially the spider. spider.
E. After all that trauma, it’s a relief to see something as boring as E.
A. Leaving A. which has to be sad, I guess. I don’t think it looks like that, but we seem to have established that in Kanji it doesn’t necessarily have to.
May 20th, 2011 at 6:44 am
D is scared. Its 6 hairs are standing on end.