Secret Behind Segahatanshiro's Naming

Not sure if there is demand for this tidbit, but I think Sega's bran-new promotional character セガハタンシロー (Segahatanshiro) was named after a Japanese phrase "セガ破綻しろ", which means "Sega, go bankrupt." 

破綻する (hatansuru) is a Japanese verb meaning "to go bankrupt", and its imperative is 破綻しろ (hatanshiro). Imperative is a form of verbs used when you express an order. So 破綻しろ means "Go bankrupt."

Also, Seghatanshiro's role in Sega's recent commercial is a sort of villain. So it's little wonder that his name sounds hostile against the video game company. 

Here in this video, he shouts "セガハタンシロー！" over and over again. 

Vorpal Sword - Sharp Enough to Behead Enemies

A few days ago, during my live stream, I obtained a two-hand sword named Vorpal Sword in the Steam version of Romancing SaGa 2, a remake of JRPG. My first meeting with the weapon was about 25 years ago when I was playing its Super Famicom version. Until this day, however, I'd never wondered what the adjective "vorpal" means. So, for the first time in my SaGa history, I looked up the word in dictionaries.

Unfortunately, none of them gave me an answer. Then one of my viewers told me that the first appearance of the word was in a novel called Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. 

He took his vorpal sword in hand,

longtime the manxsome foe he sought

So rested he by the Tum-Tum Tree

And stood awhile in thought.

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

The viewer also said the sword appears in Dungeons and Dragons as a weapon with a chance to decapitate an enemy.

Actually, Vorpal Sword in Romancing SaGa 2 has a unique sword technique which always critically hits against humans and sometimes kill them instantly.

I guess Akitoshi Kawazu, the producer of the SaGa series, got inspiration for the weapon from D&D. It is well-known among SaGa fans that he would import American board games and play them with his friends in his formative years.

Later, I learned that there were swords with the same name in some Final Fantasy games. I also found out that the swords are called シャープソード (Sharp Sword) in their Japanese version. What a shitty generic name!

Vopal Sword | Final Fantasy Wiki 

Vorpal Sword | Final Fantasy Encyclopeia

Royal Milk Tea

Do you know royal milk tea? It's a type of milk tea popular in Japan. You first infuse 3 teaspoonful of tea leaves with a cup of hot water in a milk pan, second add a cup of milk to the infusion, and finally heat them together until they nearly boil. I always use Earl Grey for milk tea but the choice of tea leaves depends on your taste. Because the ratio for milk is relatively higher than typical milk tea, it has a rich creamy taste, and that's why I love the tea. 

I always thought the cooking method had been invented by somebody working in the kitchen of Buckingham Palace. Because why else would the name include the word "royal"? And I knew British people loved tea.

But I was totally wrong. I found out yesterday that the name was coined by Lipton, a Japanese tea company when they released a product called Royal Milk Tea under their brand of "Royal" in 1960s. Later the term became a synonym of milk tea made with the method mentioned above. I have no clue why they used the adjective for their brand name, but at least, now I've learned royal milk tea is a Japanese-English term and it has nothing to do with the British royal family.

Toughest decision in my life

My father fell ill and got hospitalized in November. He returned home the other day, but since then, he has been bedridden and becoming less and less responsive. Sometimes I even wonder if he can recognize me. Our doctor told us on the day of discharge he would not be as healthy as before. But my mother and I couldn't give up hope for his recovery.


On 20 December, he became ill again. He survived. But our visiting nurse hinted that he would not last long. This time my mother and I decided that we would not ask for active treatments anymore. We believed it would be a torture for him to be forced to stay alive.


It was frightening to imagine that somebody else would make a decision on my life while I was not even aware of that.


That was the toughest decision I'd ever made in my life.

My First Original English Pun

A girl was trying to feed her teddy bear, but he kept refusing. So she asked her mother why he didn't even take a bite.

The mother answered, "Because he is stuffed".

Reference to "Congo"

I found a quest that might be a reference to an American novel "Congo" by Michael Crichton. The quest is called "Chasing A-Me 01".

In this quest, a robotic gorilla called A-Me 01 is dispatched by a female dwarf to collect data of real gorillas in Un'Goro crater. The robot eventually becomes a family member of wild gorillas. 

In "Congo", a gorilla called Amy (not robotic) helps an American expedition party find diamonds in a jungle. In the end, she left human society and starts to live with wild gorillas.

Back to Azeroth

For the first time in 7 years, I am playing World of Warcraft. 

This MMORPG is my English teacher. 

I started playing WoW in 2005. Back then, my English was terrible. I tried to avoid conversations in the game as possible as I can. I was very jumpy in fear of being talked to. 

But I gradually learned how to use English. Eventually, I joined a U.S. guild and started to run raid instances. 

Thanks to WoW, I became confident of my English. Even after stopped playing WoW, I continued to study the language. I played so many other video games from overseas and read so many English books. Thank you, Blizzard Entertainment!