Using Gay Sex to Teach Japanese?

Currently, there are people all over the world studying Japanese, and naturally, they would like to learn something more than the stiff conversations found in your average textbook. They want to learn the language that Japanese really use in their daily lives.

In response to this desire, lots of situational educational materials have sprung up, but we’ve discovered one from China that is targeted at a very specific demographic: females who like the homoerotic comics known as yaoi.

According to the description, “you can learn Japanese with easy to understand illustrations and lots of the words girls like you already know.” At first glance, it looks like your usual fanzine, but on closer inspection, you’ll find that it was published by a very respectable publisher in Hong Kong. What gives?

The textbook uses personifications of the five Japanese vowel sounds to teach basic Japanese grammar and vocabulary. And no detail was spared in creating this onomatopoetic characters. For example:

A-kun is 170 cm tall, weighs 53 kg, and is the hot-blooded type.
I-kun is 183 cm tall, weighs 59 kg, and wears glasses.
U-kun is 175 cm tall, weighs 48 kg, and is the daddy type.
E-kun is 175 cm tall, weighs 48 kg, and is a bad boy.
O-kun is 160 cm tall, weighs 45 kg, and is the little boy type.

And it goes on and on. Favorite colors, favorite foods, preferred type of guys, whether they are a top or a bottom… It’s all given in minute detail. In fact, this set-up section takes up the first 13 pages!

After you’ve crammed all that info into your head, it’s on to the storyline. First, the different Japanese writing systems of hiragana, katakana and kanji are introduced, much in the same way they are in a regular textbook. Then, you turn the page and get a really lovely illustration, accompanied by a very natural Japanese conversation and its Chinese translation.

Let me give you a taste:

I-kun: I want you.
D-kun: Don’t bite me!
Y-kun: You are impatient, aren’t you?
I-kun: If we do it like this every night, you’re going to break me!
0-kun: Ooooh…. Oooooh!

Ahem.

The glossary is also something special, with definitions that are somehow on the mark without really being right. For example, “mental delusion” is defined as a yaoi fan’s superpower, “glasses” are a moe boy’s totem, and the shogunate era police force “Shinsengumi” is an organization full of hot young men. You only need to read the definitions once and you’ll remember them forever.

We’ve all had the enjoyable experience of studying something we really liked or were interested in. If you like something, it hardly feels like studying at all. The content in this textbook is actually quite good, and though I couldn’t really comment on whether it is useful or not, I suppose it is what the target audience wants to know. And I suppose Japanese who were interested could use it to learn Chinese.

The book is currently being sold in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and there is a separate hiragana practice book you can purchase. We’re certain it’s going to become a must-have item for female yaoi fans.