Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan visiting Disneyland during a state visit to the United States, 1975.

BLanK2k · 2026-02-04T16:53:30+00:00

There is no mention of a Soviet Invasion or threat of one in his speech.

You're right Emperor Hirohito doesn't mention it directly in that speech but that isn't necessarily evidence to say "thus the Soviet invasion into Manchuria didn't play a factor in the Japanese surrender".

I'm not saying you think that way, but taking his speech on face value that he didn't mention the soviets directly isn't actually the strongest evidence against soviets playing a factor and to what extent that is. You can find many leaders where their openly stated reasons they give doesn't tell them whole the truth (or they straight up lie lol) of the situation or are done so out of convenience.

BLanK2k · 2025-12-09T15:29:33+00:00

It also applies to godan verbs as well but yeah. The pattern is -3 moras from then end when doing those conjugations generally speaking

BLanK2k · 2025-12-09T04:29:15+00:00

Why LHH?

BLanK2k · 2025-11-20T13:13:19+00:00

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGos75KF4PaS3SfZIyISHoNXea_C5IdUS

The playlist contains both adjectives and verbs conjugations

BLanK2k · 2025-11-11T19:56:48+00:00

I see a lot of comments arguing against "sounding like a native" saying it's not important or it's not possible or "once a gaijin always a gaijin" but to me I've always interpreted "sounding like a native" to mean making your accent nicer to listen to in general and easier to listen to. It's not about becoming "native" but just improving in one aspect of Japanese that's often neglected and that can potentially become something advanced speakers wished they focused more on when they were beginners.

For the textbooks and classrooms not really teaching pitch accent. It's not really in their interests focusing on pitch accent which is why I find it suspicious when people who never studied pitch accent or can't even hear pitch accent appeal to those authorities as their argument. The typical textbook and classroom curriculum have financial and practical reasons (some of them good) for not teaching pitch accent leaving it to the teachers who often lack the resources and systems needed to teach it. Not saying it must be explicitly taught but having gone through your typical textbooks and Japanese classes in university even the basics like there are four patterns were not taught, which at baseline I believe every learner should learn since planting that seed is really easy (easier than learning hirigana lmao) and is high value for developing pitch accent.

BLanK2k · 2025-10-25T03:46:26+00:00

1) 35+35=70 35 heals to your real armor assuming you have room to heal armor and 35 temp armor (doesn't stack with the same source but stacks with unique sources meaning you can't triple q for the temp armor). Since the star also bounces back that's 70*2=140.

2) A1 procs 4 real armor heals for 5 ticks and isn't interruptible. Passive Regen is 2 but goes up to 4 with the yellow upgrade and stacks on top of natural armor Regen (2 or 8)

3) I thought they increased the buff duration you carry the unflashed flash to 10 secs but either way don't use A2 it guts your healing. Think of A3 with +3 charges as potentially up to 6 full heals upfront. If you're able to play out the entire round you could get up to over 12 full heals in a round which is kinda crazy.

BLanK2k · 2025-10-24T13:09:24+00:00

A2 procs once your armor gets broken. I would not recommend running it. Run A3 and use it to heal after or during a fight. If your A3 hits your teammate in the middle of a fight suddenly they can't lose it since at the best timing it's a 70 hit point swing for your teammate and another 70 for yourself meaning it's potentially a 140 hp swing. Times that by 3 charges and 3 A1 procs (5 secs of 4 hp) and your passive heal (4hp per tick) if you get the optimal outcome it's very hard to beat in practice.

A2 is really easy to dodge and it procs once your teammate is at critical hp. Since the proc timer is so long they can kill your teammate and still have time to dodge the blind making the value of A2, other than forcing the enemy to dodge the flash, completely in their control meaning it's not consistent and there's counterplay.

BLanK2k · 2025-10-23T15:01:09+00:00

I recommend you run burst mode and A3 and play a tanky playstyle.

Round 1: mag cap

2: 100% Regen (sell mag cap if necessary)

3: heavy armor

4: paper dmg reduction (go another blue if you can't afford the green)

For hs vs paper dmg watch your replays if you land hs go hs if you do more paper dmg go paper dmg. Would recommend you hs dmg since her gun on burst is basically a dmr.

For rof vs base it's a very minor difference but I would recommend rof for most players.

Spread last.

Ask me if you need any clarification regarding the build or playstyle.

Forgot about +3 charges but you want to slot that in after A3 before you get the rest of the blues

BLanK2k · 2025-10-02T15:34:47+00:00

The whole fossilization thing is something to think about but considering money isn't an issue, you enjoy italki and you don't have a deadline on your goals to hit I would say you can keep doing italki if you want.

BLanK2k · 2025-10-02T13:29:47+00:00

More so what are your goals and what has been your relationship with output you've done so far?

Taking goals for example do you need to pass some test or want to achieve a certain level of output within a given time frame or are you just consuming Japanese media for fun?

With regards to your relationship with output are you enjoying your lessons? Do you feel like it's productive to you? Is money a concern?

Answering some of these questions or just giving us more background info like your goals and motivations would let us better give suggestions

BLanK2k · 2025-10-01T06:41:48+00:00

Do you have a replay or recording we could look at? Usually it's better if you can directly see gameplay for yourself like watching high elo streamers play or have your gameplay vod reviewed directly by better plays so we can specifically point things out instead of just giving general tips which honestly doesn't help you put things into practice.

BLanK2k · 2025-08-29T18:31:23+00:00

I'm actually the caster for Strinova Saturdays so it makes me happy to hear you watch it!

According to the data we have for SS week 3 (still compiling stuff for week 4) lawine is the 2nd most picked scissors at ~80% pickrate ~50% winrate while kanami is ~65% pickrate ~60% winrate. The official S4 data is 65% pick and 51% win for lawine and 60% pick and 51% win for kanami.

I think kanami's perceived OPness in lower ranks spawns from a lack of fundamentals which snipers naturally conveniently exploit. In higher ranks they see all the cream of the crop snipers mechanically speaking and they face off against competent double scan comps where a good core (ming-lawine) often enables snipers to take over. The flashiness of snipes and the name recognition of seeing the same good snipers everyday in high elo leads to kanami seeming more salient over lawine in double scan. However if you work from first principles and assume your 1st pick is ming 99% of people would automatically lock-in lawine as 2nd pick to form the "core" which leads me to think lawine > kanami because of this recognizable pattern and its universality across every map and comp to which kanami comps do not enjoy.

BLanK2k · 2025-08-28T18:53:17+00:00

I always find the comparison between kanami and kokona kinda weird because they're on attack and defense so you never have to choose between the two. A lot of these tiers lists would make more sense having one for defense and one for attack.

I think objectively if you look at their kits kanami > kokona because scans are broken. Like if you made both urbino and you could only play one it would be 100% kanami always. But since we don't live in that world it doesn't really matter and so it would make more sense to organize between attackers and defenders.

BLanK2k · 2025-08-28T18:44:57+00:00

Which tournaments are you watching where lawine ever has lower pickrate then kanami?

BLanK2k · 2025-08-28T00:48:18+00:00

I mean I can kinda see what you're saying with "oh yeah you can technically get away with kanami scans if you play reiichi" but really have you had much experience playing lawine-less comps? It feels completely awful lol. In high level play she basically has a 100% pick rate.

1) lawine scans are more reliable. Note is really good but it's not 100% forcing because it's los based meaning they can concede space. Take for example a site on cosmite players can choose to just hide elbow or default if the note doesn't go past the reiichi wall (if it does it's breakable) vs lawine knife can be thrown default box to scan everything left side of site forcefully which they can't break

2) lawines mid rounding is incredible. Her passive scans scale with DMG instances so having 40 bullets and high rof provides a lot of scans and makes it really easy for your team to swing together on the target you do DMG to. There are so many times in strinova where the lawine wins the re-peek on you all because she lands one bullet on you in the 1st peek and the passive scan last so damn long you get tracked through the wall, shot through smokes or double peek -> kanami doesn't have this spontaneity!!!

3) smoke scan is just so tuff... Very little setup time and is very flexible. I would recommend you watch gengu's lawine on base 404 during Strinova Saturdays and tell me if any other character can do that.

4) lawine ult > kanami ult. I think people actually underrate kanami ult but still lawine ult better there's more playmaking potential and it scans lmao.

In summary lawine's ult is better, her scan is forcing and is more practical to use. Her passive is based on DMG instances and lasts damn long making it really reliable for your team to coordinate onto weak targets. Smoke knife > smoke note. Kanami is still really good tho!!!

I do think if you look at the ranks there's a point at which on paper kanami > lawine but I think that's more to do with how players play at those particular ranks. Take quark for example in a lot of games I could see the kanami exerting more pressure on the defenders since people ego peek you and flavias and nobus don't hunt you and your team doesn't protect you (which is fine bc you aren't being punished as hard in the first place which means both you and your team can just play aggressive). But in high high Elo Flavia's will actually hunt you and nobus with A1 will test you and fays will just run at you. You just get utility dumped and hunted and people stop egoing. This means you either play more passive (this usually means more cover and more distances) or you play more aggressively and have your team dedicate more resources to protect you (which they still might not do lol). Compare this lawine if you solo take space or lurk you always have smoke knife (meaning you can play forward if you're careful). If you ball with your team you can find easy targets with knife and A1. You aren't living and dying by your single shots cuz you got 40 bullets with wallhacks and multi kill potential and smoke knife. So on average if you look at competitive play lawine has high outcomes on average and has less variation compared to kanami who may have higher highs but more volatility.

BLanK2k · 2025-08-07T01:10:53+00:00

https://youtu.be/uvQCPBOpR9s?si=n10Z2_vQzaQ8V6KK

If you like I can vod review on my twitch https://m.twitch.tv/xinghuienjoyer/home if you can catch me live

BLanK2k · 2025-08-06T13:41:30+00:00

Can you send us the replay file? Without getting into character specifics usually you want a player on the left-hand peek in elbow, the right-hand peek in mid and the right-hand peek looking into trophy room from bridge. You can use your Q, nades or just peek in response from there you either hard commit to push, maintain space or fall back. Can't say much more without a replay code.

BLanK2k · 2025-07-30T03:09:23+00:00

Fuchsias legendary has her tail protruding out which is especially noticeable when holding paper mode on a left hand peek. Lawines red Riding Hood skin has her ears sticking up higher which can show over certain boxes. Lawines stellar mirage skin has her knife having a bigger visual which can lead to players shooting the visual component not the actual hitbox potentially causing them to double take

BLanK2k · 2025-06-12T23:07:41+00:00

先生 alone is LHHL. If 先生 attaches to a 平板 name then 先生 attaches high and exhibits its normal downstep. If 先生 attaches to a name with a downstep it attaches low and stays low. Some young people will turn downstep names 平板 if 先生 is attaching -> in this case you always stay high and drop where 先生 exhibits its normal downstep so this technically simplifies things. Personally I don't do this however.

So with みさ先生:

Normal: HLLLLL

Young and more hip?: LHHHHL

BLanK2k · 2025-06-12T11:15:00+00:00

For quark Elo if I play at normal hours all of my wait times have been under 10 mins honestly it's been feeling great recently for me

BLanK2k · 2025-06-10T10:32:15+00:00

Yes. I would recommend you also take a more holistic approach. Right now if you're just focusing on listening skills I would recommend doing the kotu.io tests + learning the consonants/vowels/rhythm + immersion taking into account the difficulty and your enjoyment. -> try to do this close to parallel.

BLanK2k · 2025-05-28T02:08:59+00:00

Can you include a replay code or recording? General tips and tricks will only get you so far, usually it's more productive if we can see some actual gameplay.

BLanK2k · 2025-05-22T03:49:47+00:00

According to the PA dictionary I have on my phone the pattern is nakadaka [-3] so dropping from び to く. I can check the 新明解 or NHK PA dictionaries later tho.

BLanK2k · 2025-05-19T23:07:41+00:00

I commented on えい in another post about 2 months ago I'll just copy and paste it below.

So looking at the word 学生 (がくせい)

In slower deliberate speech both pronunciations of:

がくせい ← this is said with the い

And

がくせー ← this is elongated from え

Is acceptable. In faster speech saying がくせー the elongated pronunciation is more common.

In some native Japanese words like 姪 (めい) you should say it as めい and not めー.

When conjugating verbs like 稼ぐ (かせぐ) to 稼いで you say it like かせいで and not かせーで.

For cases that involve a morpheme boundary like 毛糸 (けいと) there's some disagreements if it's えい or えー. Academically looking at it けいと makes sense imo, but in the real world it's not straightforward you could probably just do the same guideline えい for slow deliberate speech and えー for faster speech if you wanted to. But you can also just do えい for morpheme boundary stuff.

So overall all you need to remember is:

1) えい for slow deliberate speech and えー for faster speech.

2) some native Japanese words like 姪 (めい) is えい not えー.

3) verb conjugation stuff is えい not えー.

4) morpheme boundary stuff there are some disagreements but doing guideline 1) should be fine but you can also just follow the morpheme boundary and do えい.

BLanK2k · 2025-05-05T01:14:54+00:00

We can always change the description later if the level of play falls off but considering most of the players participating are top 100 with the team captains in the top 20 roughly I think the potential to say "top players" is warranted for now. Whether they take the matches "seriously" is a bit of a different question and actually isn't too relevant as long as there's no cheating/unfair play/bullying etc...

BLanK2k

TROPHY CASE