waku waku = excitement (Japanese Sound Effects)

One of the things I love about the Japanese language is how they have a lot of sound words or onomatopoeia. In English we have only a few of these, such as bang or pop and such. In Japanese there are hundreds, some that mimic real sounds and some that even represent bodily/psychological feelings. If you’ve ever read manga, you will have noticed these. However, for us non-japanese these sound words tend to be quite hard because the sounds often don’t exist in our language. A very simple example is the cat’s sound which is “meow” in English, “nyan” in Japanese.

Some examples from manga are:

Pin pon= doorbell sound

puchi puchi = pop pop, crackle crackle (as in eating cereal or something)

biri biri = tearing, as in ripping cloth, opening a potato chip bag (see also bari, piri)

hyuuuuu = cold wind, lonely wind

shiku shiku = sobbing, whimpering

Anyways, the entry today is actually about pieces of art that Japanese artist Atsushi Fukunaga made which are sculptures of these manga-based sound effects. Ech sculpture shows the katakana for the sounds, just like it is in manga. I though it was quite interesting, have a look. (Go to his website for more)

"ビリビリリリ / BIRIBIRIBIRIRIRI" The sound of electric current runs

The sound of pencils breaking

"ドロドロー/ DORODOROOO" The sound of flowing drainage
Ame no oto-the sound of rain "チュウー / CHUUU" The squeaks of the mice from below the floor

That’s the kind of art I like, something creative not a painting of a bowl with fruit in it! LOL no offense to all those great artists who draw bowls of fruit..

Cheers everyone.