Hi, I’m Peter. I’ve been studying Japanese language and culture since I fell in love with the country on a high school trip in the late 1990s. I loved it so much that, as soon as I finished school at eighteen, I went travelling around the country for a year.
This allowed me to tour around the country six times from Sapporo to Okinawa playing music for several weeks at a time between 2014 to present. I’ve been to all the major cities, gotten deep into the countryside, and met a lot of the people you wouldn’t meet as a tourist. You can see some pictures on Pinterest here, or I’ve got a playlist on Youtube of a lot of the interesting musicians I’ve played with here.
Since 2019, I’ve done a monthly segment on Melbourne’s RRR radio, Vital Bits Program, where I translate a Japanese song into English and perform it with my friend Caitlin Sullivan. The Songs In Translation page is here, there’s some clips on youtube here.
Finger-picking in a cafe in Tokyo and some tour posters
Languages are parallel universes. My mission with Japanoscope is to build a wormhole between worlds.
I post translations, look at products and talk about interesting nooks and crannies. I try and write about things or places that I have first-hand experience of. When this is not possible, I research other people’s first-hand experiences online, in English and Japanese, and synthesize this information into something that is useful for others. Hopefully, the result is helpful and of interest to people travelling to the country, or living in the country, or are part of the international Japanese diaspora, or, like me, find themselves having some kind of a fascination with the place.
Collaborations, Profiles etc.
I love collaborating with people on creating different projects. Sometimes people are kind enough to profile my work in different areas.
You can find an interview I did with Tom Czaban about my experiences of living in Japan here. I’ve given comments on sites including Hayk, Soda & Telepaths, and Welp Magazine.
My music has been featured in various media including Pop Matters here.
I appear regularly on Melbournes RRR radio broadcaster performing translations of Japanese songs on the Vital Bits program.
Triple JJJ radio called my music “captivating in all its nervous-awkward-fast-talking-stumbly glory”. Doorstamps blog called it “folk pop music that nails the art of making simplicity sound busy”.
There is more information about the musical side of what I do here
If you’ve got an idea about how can collaborate on anything, drop me a line here
Kimetsu No Yaiba meaning – The full story behind Demon Slayer’s Japanese Name
What does the Japanese name of the cult Japanese anime Dragon Slayer, Kimetsu no Yaiba kimetsu 鬼滅の刃 mean? What does it translate to in English?
This post gives an in-depth explanation of Kimetsu No Yaiba meaning as a phrase, what each of the Kanji mean, and the where the words come from.
The Story Of Miki Matsubara & Mayonaka No Doa – Stay With Me
Miki Matsubara 松原みき Mayonaka no doa 真夜中のドア with English Lyrics and translation sung by Cake Sullivan.
I track the history of the song from the 1979 original version, through to the Rainych Youtube cover, to Mayonaka blowing up on TikTok in 2020.
Along the way I answer questions such as how did Miki Matsubara die? How did her music fit into the larger genres of Japanese City Pop and New Music?
Moshi Moshi Yusuke – 30 Top Japanese New Japanese Words In Japanese in 2020 P.II
Do you know these Japanese words? AI超え おうち時間 顔芸 These are some of the new Japanese vocabulary that entered the lexicon in 2020. Japanese language, like any tongue, is a living, breathing thing. It’s constantly changing. This means the process of learning Japanese is an ongoing one. But a fun one! Each year, the education company U-Can releases a list of the 30 new words, called 流行語 or 新語, that have entered the Japanese for that year. I chatted with Moshi Moshi Yusuke もしもしゆうすけ about the different words on the list. We talked about the different social movements in Japan that have occurred over the year that have lead to these new words coming into the Japanese language.
Hosono House Background and Translation of Boku Wa Chotto
Detailed look at the background of Haruomi Hosono’s album Hosono House.
The 30 New Japanese Words of 2020 日本の新語・流行語２０２０について日本語と英語で話す
Each year the Japanese company U-Can put out a list of 30 new Japanese Words, called 流行語 ryukogo or 新語 shingo, that have entered the
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu Ponponpon Lyrics in English and Japanese
PonPonPon explained! New English translation with complete Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and composer/producer Yasutaka Nakata background information. Full PonPonPon played in English.