I watched a very touching children’s cartoon recently called Stormy Night (Arashi no Yoru ni or 嵐の夜に). It is about the unlikely friendship between a goat and a wolf who struggle against the natural order that keeps them apart. One of my Japanese Steam friends (who goes by the same name) recommended it to me.

While looking for the book that inspired the film, I discovered that there was a DS game. Reviews made it look cute and semi-educational, so I searched everywhere until I finally found it in-stock at JGamers.com.

Although this game was made for children (note the furigana above the kanji in the second picture), I bought it as a learning/motivational tool for myself. The dialogue is rudimentary enough to work through understanding and because it is printed entirely in hiragana (with spaces to show where words begin and end), I can read it. Using a game intended for children to study a language as an adult might sound pathetic, but it really does help me in my spare time! I memorized hiragana by doing the flashcard games in AIUEO Study with Anpanman, which also expanded my vocabulary. Ubisoft’s My Japanese Coach didn’t do squat for me in comparison and that was a game intended for adults. =P Now if only I could get over my shyness and stuttering when I try to speak Japanese. I wish that I could take a class, because I care more about learning how to communicate with Japanese people, than I do about learning to read Japanese. *L*

The game itself is really cute too. The mini-games have different themes (puzzle-solving, RPG, platformer), and achieving a higher score treats you to more dialogue. Some of the sprite artwork is very detailed too.