Nine Dragons' Ball Parade: Tucker Report

SIX WORDS (choose what you think is the best one):

• Not foul, not a home run.
• Saying “memorable” a seventh inning stretch

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TITLE: クーロンズ・ボール・パレード

• This is pronounced as “Kuuronzu Bouru Pareido”
• “Bouru Pareido” is obviously the English phrase “Ball Parade,” but what the heck is the first part?
• There is a native Japanese word which means “empty theory,” but that’s probably not what this is going for, especially since all of it is written out in katakana, suggesting that the first word is also likely a foreign word
• “Kuuron” can be the Japanese name for Kowloon (part of Hong Kong). When writing this in kanji (which is identical in both Japanese and Chinese writing, in this case), it is 九龍.
• “Kowloon” literally means “nine dragons” in Cantonese, and the Japanese kanji 九龍 retain the exact same meaning (nine + dragon).
• Just read the first two chapters, still have no idea what the Kowloon/Nine Dragons are referring to….maybe has something to do with Ryuudou’s name (see character area below)?
• FIGURED IT OUT! Apparently, “the nine dragons”/”Kowloon” are both nicknames for the high school they will be going to a little bit later. The actual name of the high school is 黒龍山高校, which is written as “black dragon mountain high school”

Characters:

• Azukida, Tamao 小豆田 玉緒（あずきだ たまお）
  • “Azuki-da” just means “field of adzuki beans”....so don’t pronounce it like “azu-KI-duh”!
  • “Tama-o”....”tama” literally means ball, the “o” is written with character that can mean “cord”/”binding” or “a beginning”....so you could take it to mean “a boy who’s beginning to play ball”!
  • Remember that Tama-o is three syllables! There is no “ow” sound in Japanese! Separate the “ma” and the “o”!
• Ryuudou, Tao 龍堂 太央（りゅうどう たお）
  • Family name “Ryuudou” means “dragon hall/chamber”...
  • The 龍 is the same dragon kanji in Kowloon 九龍, but with a more typical Japanese reading for the character (ryuu) as opposed to the more Chinese reading of “ron.” [compare to name of Dragon Ball’s wish-granting dragon Shenlong/Shenron].....
  • Again, there is no “ow” sound in Japanese, so the personal name is two syllables! “Tah-oh,” not like “Tao” as in “Taoism” \
• Kurotaki, Karin 黒滝 かりん（くろたき かりん）
  • “Kurotaki” means “black waterfall,” keeping in line with the black/white motifs for the rival schools
  • Karin isn’t pronounced like the English name Karen! It’s more like “Kah-reen” or “Kah-leen”
• Yoshitaka, Tsurugi 剣 義鷹（つるぎ よしたか）
  • Remember that “ts” is like “pots and pans”
• Tsubaki, Rinnojou 椿 凛之丞（つばき りんのじょう）
  • The /n/ sound is a long consonant! Hold the /n/ sound for approximately twice as long as you normally would (think about saying “nnnnnope!”)
  • You can think of it as “Rin-no-Jou”
  • Family name kinda sorta means “tough love”
  • “Rinnojou” is the hardest Japanese name to pronounce that I’ve encountered in a long time!
• Kido, Shuuhei 木戸 修平（きど しゅうへい）
  • Family name Kido is both short vowels, given name Shuuhei is both long syllables, so they should be pronounced approximately twice as long as the “ki” and “do”
  • Hei is like “hey,” not “high”!
• Toramoto, Taiga 寅本 大河（とらもと たいが）
  • As I thought, the “Tora” in Toramoto is written as the tiger in the Chinese zodiac, essentially making his name “Tiger Tiger”
• Horaguchi, Iyo  洞口 依夜（ほらぐち いよ）
  • The I and yo in Iyo are separate syllables. Practice saying “ee-yo” without blending the syllables together into “ee-oh,” as you’ll instinctually want to do as an English speaker
• Shiratori, Shirou 白鳥 四郎（しらとり しろう）
  • Family name “Shiratori” literally means “white bird”....get it? White Phoenix?
  • Personal name contains 四 (the number 4) with its especially unlucky reading of “shi,” the same reading that the kanji for death most often receives

OTHER STUFF

• Haku-ou Gaku-in 白凰学院
  • Means “White Phoenix Academy”
• Kokuryuuzan Koukou
  • Means “Black Dragon Mountain High School”
  • Dragons and Phoenixes are fixtures in Chinese myth (matches with the Chinese motif of Kowloon, etc.)\
  • Pronunciation: Looks imposing, but break it up into its constituent partsand it’s not that bad. Koku-ryuu-zan. The “ryuu” is probably the hardest part, but remember that it’s one syllable (like how the English words “queue” and “pew” are pronounced as one syllable as opposed to “key-you” or “pee-you” ), and that the “R” is a sound that is pronounced with a bit more than the tip of the tongue coming into contact with the mouth just a little behind the top front teeth. Closer to English /L/ sound.
• “Koshien-level team”

This refers to 阪神甲子園球場 (Hanshin Koushien Kyuujou), the stadium where high school baseball championship games have been held for nearly a century now