A Word On Romaji

Since this site is in English, representing Japanese names, song, and album titles in a way that reasonably preserves the essence of the language can be rather difficult. This goal is achieved through the use of romaji (or romanization of Japanese words normally represented by kanji and/or kana).

There are numerous different romanization systems in use, but the three major variations include Hepburn, Kunreishiki, and Nihonshiki. The system used by this web site would probably be best described as a Hepburn variant. In this site, Japanese names, song, and album titles (those written in Kanji and/or Hiragana) are represented in romaji. Japanese representations of English and other foreign words (those written in Katakana) have been replaced by the actual English (or other foreign language) words.

Throughout these pages, I tried to adhere to the following rules (my apologies in advance for any inconsistencies that may have crept in):

• The long 'o' sound represented in Japanese as おう is represented as ou to differentiate it from おお (oo). (Other romanization systems fail to differentiate between the two, opting to represent both as oh or ō.)
• し is represented as shi.
• しゃ is represented as sha, しゅ as shu, and しょ as sho.
• じ is represented as ji.
• じゃ is represented as ja, じゅ as ju, and じょ as jo.
• ち is represented as chi.
• つ is represented as tsu.
• ちゃ is represented as cha, ちゅ as chu, and ちょ as cho.
• ぢ is represented as ji.
• づ is represented as zu.
• ぢゃ is represented as ja, ぢゅ as ju, and ぢょ as jo.
• は (ha) when used as a particle is represented as wa.
• ふ is represented as fu.
• へ is represented as he to differentiate it from え (e).
• を is represented as wo to differentiate it from お (o).
• ん is represented as n.
• Geminate consonants are represented by doubling the consonant following the っ. For example, もっと is represented as motto, げっか as gekka, etc.
• Exceptions to the preceding rules would include those well-known Japanese words that have a commonly accepted English spelling (Tokyo, for example). For those words, the commonly accepted spelling is used.

Please refer to the following web sites for more information regarding the various romaji systems:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaji
• http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_romaji.htm

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Regarding Browsers

The appearance of these pages will tend to vary slightly depending on the browser you are using.

For best results, I recommend using either Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x (or higher) or Netscape Navigator 6.x (or higher). Other browsers may work as well; however I can make no guarantees as to their level of compatibility (in which case, you will just have to experiment to find the best settings).

Here are some other suggestions to improve your viewing experience:

• Specify a screen resolution of 800x600 or greater (1024x768 recommended).

• Use true color (24/32-bit) or high color (16-bit) color depth.

• This site makes use of cascading style sheets (CSS) and javascript. Make sure your browser supports these standards.

• In order to preserve the intended site design, avoid using user style sheets and overriding colors, font styles, and font sizes.

• If you are running on the Microsoft® Windows® platform, verify that Verdana and/or Arial true-type fonts are installed. Mac users should have the Helvetica font installed.

• I'm sure a lot of you would agree that printing pages from web sites can be an exercise in frustration. I've tried to make printing from this site easier and more predictable by providing a printer-friendly version of each page. Just click the "Print This Page" link on the left-hand navigation bar. Even with this provision, you may still have to do a little bit of experimenting in order to get the best results.