Andy is back YAY!

I'm not going anywhere you old sea-dog. : ) at the very least, i'll last longer than England at the Euro.

Was more a statement of intent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O_aa0QSZ1A

i disagree. The initial post was of course tongue in cheek. Has everyone lost their sense of humour? But from the very first reaction onwards, the responses have been negative and i don't think any amount of tweaking my tone would have changed that.

I think people here share their knowledge all the time. May be it's time to read more than 4 or 5 threads.

Because I guess having an entire forum in english dedicated to one of the most independent and "obscure" hobbies isn't good enough?

People in Japan don't even have a forum as elaborate as skullbrain (from what I know).

true!
some of the japanese sofvi fans that i know personally envy SB community and would love to join and contribute to SB if there's no language barrier.

I say they should join on in. I'm sure we can all learn to use Google Translate. Event though it's not always the most accurate translator.

Google translate is crazy. I could only imagine all sorts of fun on both ends of those conversations

in first place its their toys, their culture, their hobby. i can not see how any kind of participation on here isnt a win!

I could not agree more

I hope you didn't take my comment as me not wanting them to participate. I just know that I get some pretty crazy translations from google. I love and welcome all

I've always wanted to actually create one - though it may be even better to create a Japanese language forum here. There's quite a few of us that can speak Japanese, and judging by how into other social medias a lot of Japanese fans/creators are, there's a good chance they'd participate here as well, no? Mods! Let's do this!

This is a great idea

Really great idea Oli. Since we are somewhat on the topic, I'd love to hear some recommendations for quick translators (instead of Google) from folks who are fluent. I feel really sorry for the horrible emails I have to send on YJA

Well, fluent people might not need the translators...

Just kidding, I still use Google Translate once in a while. As good as it is for French (and not so bad for Chinese), I find that it's horrible with Japanese though. It often makes no sense whatsoever (which is funny to play with, but not useful if you're trying to be understood). I tried "I was wondering if you shipped overseas" and the translation came out as "I thought that there was an occasion when you were shipped overseas".

If you're just looking for word translations, Wiki and sanseido.net (geared towards Japanese speakers) are pretty good.

When my band was on tour, we used to kill time on the long drives by using the OSX "Translation" widget to translate sentences into Japanese and then back into English, and read them out loud. It was hilarious, and the fun lasted for HOURS!

^ http://ackuna.com/badtranslator

best one so far: "all we have to fear is fear itself" became "fear fear head"...
have fun!

^^ What you said

Actually, aside from diving for info on Parababies, my favorite old threads all involve Kozik. Before everyone got pissed at him, he contributed some real first hand accounts at length on getting toys produced in the Chinese Factories that were fascinating. I also like the threads about sofubi manufacturing. The videos from Mark Nagata and Baikin looking at actual slush casting in operation and painting at M1Go are a lot of fun.

I wish Gargamel would make a video of them working on painting their stuff, but maybe that would reveal some trade secrets. I dunno. I would also pay good money to just watch a video of Kiyoka sculpting.

Hahaha

"You're not qualified to collect Bemon toys."

became:

"Middleton collectées."

James, you've reminded me of a great blog begun by a close friend of mine a couple years back, called Stairway To Poetry; he would take classic rock lyrics, put 'em through multiple passes in Google Translate in various languages, then back to English. He struck gold a few times:
http://stairwaytopoetry.blogspot.com/

This project was mostly abandoned from the time he learned he would become the father of twins…

EDIT: HA! Was flipping through the archives- forgot I had sent him the pic to use for his “Thriller” post!
http://stairwaytopoetry.blogspot.com/se ... %20Jackson

Hahaha

"Girl, but all the time
You've heard of reptiles"

Okay, sorry about derailing. Carry on.