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June 17, 2014 11:49 PM   Subscribe

Childhood - a hand-bound book of Japanese styled illustrations paying homage to nostalgic activities and toys. From artist Chet Phillips.
posted by Lou Stuells (6 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I have two young boys. The author must have a camera in my house, because how else could he have this picture of them?
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:01 AM on June 18, 2014 [1 favorite]


This is great. I think I know what someone is getting for Christmas.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:49 AM on June 18, 2014


Ack, so close, but....he couldn't find anyone to handle the Japanese parts?
posted by Bugbread at 5:01 AM on June 18, 2014 [1 favorite]


I love the style, I only wish it was for my childhood (70's-80's) and not his, which seems like he grew up in the mid-90's.
posted by ericbop at 6:44 AM on June 18, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm not a japanophile, so inaccuracies of text or language in this context wouldn't be on my radar (Romanes eunt domus is more my milieu) I could see an added layer of silliness playing off the history of mutual bad translations though - referencing stuff like bad kanji tattoos and engrish. What are you seeing, Bugbread? Not that, huh?
posted by Lou Stuells at 12:25 PM on June 18, 2014


The problem with the reverse Engrish idea is that even though some Japanese realize clothes have weird English on them, the Engrish concept itself isn't a big established concept. So if I were to get this book for my kids, they wouldn't laugh and say, "Hey, Dad, this is like the English on those clothes at Nishimatsuya, haha!", they'd say "Dad, this book is kinda funny, but what's with the Japanese parts? They don't make any sense."

That, and a few of the characters are accidentally rotated 90 degrees. Like, in the following sentence, "ターンは一度", if you print it vertically, the second kanji would become a vertical line, but the fifth kanji would remain a horizontal line. Which, you know, there's absolutely no reason for Chet Phillips to know, and that's cool, but I wish he could've gotten even a single Japanese speaker to check it.

Not that it makes this a bad book or anything. I like it, and thanks for posting it. It's just so close to "Hey, I could get this for my kids!", but...
posted by Bugbread at 3:31 PM on June 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


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