22nd Japanese Speech Competition

A lot of people have been worried about my negative entries lately so I should really post something else.

I'd been wanting to come see this year's Japanese Speech Competition but it was only yesterday when I knew what date it's held so I went up to UBD today. The usual suspects came along too, namely Ken, last year's winner Bobby, Afi and Haji, and surprisingly Zat too.

Congrats to Grace for winning the Advanced level. I know her since we're both Belait people and she's my junior so I'm glad. Have a fun trip.

Later, after discussing about job stuff with Ken, me and Zat went out to lunch like we always did back in UBD. Sigh, how times have passed.

Here's a lowdown on what I thought about the speeches in particular:-

• That キモオタ actually tried a second time but he really didn't make the effort this time 'round. I passed him by while he was waiting to be picked up (omg so hiki) but I declined to say something. Best not to.


• To be critical of the speeches in general, I now know that they want clarity over everything else. Noted Bobby saying "s/he's gone" whenever a contestant paused. But try to pronounce even proper nouns in the Japanese pronunciation. And don't mention anything about anime :3


• 「そして」は多すぎだと思う。


• There's this girl (and probably another one?) who used a moekawaii voice to talk. It worked for me, who have the opinion that Japanese is a smooth-talking language, but it probably didn't for the judges. Still, I really want her to voice my main heroine for my own er- err visual novel in the future...


• Emo-style ad-lib(?) also didn't work. Still, it was really smart that you could disguise your sobbing (because you forgot your lines/can't make em up) with claiming you were into the feel of the topic of your speech.


• I only knew bits of Ayumi Hamasaki's Voyage and none of whatever the MS students were singing after the Advanced category. Last year they sang Okazaki-sensei's For Fruits Basket which was a great tribute and will always bring tears to my eyes (RIP Ritsuko Okazaki) and I would've even joined in the singing.


• Looks like I'll probably join next year. Bad luck to whoever's in the Advanced Level at then :3