AJATT QRG: The Movie Review

This post is all related to learning another language based on the AntiMoon or AJATT way. If that’s not your thing, you can safely skip this post

It’s been awhile since Khatzumoto from All Japanese All the Time released his Quick Reference Guide, which I reviewed here. Since then, he released a fantastic sentence pack, which I reviewed here. Now he has decided that simple PDF files and text are simply not enough to explain his awesomeness. He decided to do a full blown 80 minute video explaining in finite detail his method for learning Japanese. He has dubbed it, QRG: The Movie.

Yes, 80 minutes. It’s damn long. Like, really, really long. Like 4 times longer than it took me to digest the original QRG PDF. It also costs a hefty $25.95 for the video alone. There are plenty of discounts if you buy his other stuff, which I won’t go into right now, you can check it out on his site. I picked it up for $17.96 because I own his previous products.

Yup, I paid real money for it. As I’ve said before, Khatz and I honestly don’t know each other. I’ve never emailed him. I tried contacting him on twitter a few times, but I think we’re from two different worlds (I like Beer), so he was happy to ignore me. But I digress… Anyway, the point is this review is only biased to the effect that I love his products. To the review:

Khatz gives his usual sales pitch as such:

No special effects
No hot chicks
No hot guys
No hot anything, really
No 3D animation
No popcorn
He hadn’t shaved
His posture was bad

Etc. ‘Basically, you don’t need it’. But I’ll add a few to the list:

It’s long. It has trippy Acoustic Bass Jazz Combo music going on the background. He mumbles, rambles, and slurs a lot of his speech. He’s quite scatter-brained. The first 20 minutes of the video is mirrored with text you can’t read. It has a lot of jarring edits. He uses the phrase ‘you know…’ approximate 562 times. It has a sleeping cat in the background for 17 minutes. His ‘time-boxing’ alarm goes off during the video several times.

But really, he kinda warned of those things, so I can’t be disappointed.

On the flip side, here is a list of excellent things it does have:

He really does have newspapers of current events in Japanese (Chinese actually, but whatever) plastered all over his walls. He has a crapload of books on the shelf, all in Japanese. Self-deprecating humor. Khatz is actually quite a funny guy.

And without giving away the content of the video, I’ll highlight some brilliant nuggets of wisdom which struck me:

There are no short-cuts, but Fun-cuts. Basically, if it’s short, but not fun, it’s not worth it. But if it’s fun and short, it’s tastier.

Belief that you have a right to know Japanese. This one is really powerful when you think about it.

Khatz only studied about 25 Kanji a day with Heisig. That was his ceiling. Even when he tried more, he would just get burned out for days. But 25 a day over time still adds up to the 3000 or so you will know.

There is nothing wrong with speaking like a girl. Girls do it. Even your Mom does it.

Filling dead time with technology. Personally, this hit home as I deleted ALL of my music and video library that wasn’t Japanese, and I listen to it all the time. I still wish I were as smart and resourceful as Khatz to be able to have everything automatically come up in the morning (via programming it into a simple scripting language), but I make do with what I have.

He touches on Input Theory, which wasn’t in the original QRG. This is really, really, important.

Setting up Mini-Games and Aiming to Fail. Hard concept to grasp if you’ve gone through any educational system.

He currently only has 13,000 sentences in his current SRS deck. (which makes him 30% more fluent than 10,000 sentences?)

He has failed over 6000 times in his SRS deck (probably more).

You need media censoring and control of information in your own personal life. Don’t be open minded when it comes to learning Japanese. Only listen to positive stuff when reading about learning Japanese. Basically: don’t watch stupid TV shows.

There are stupid people in Japan who speak Japanese perfectly. Just as in any language. Think on that.

He also sucked really badly in Japanese. Very recently. (On a long enough time-line he was even worse than you are now).

Context is the explanation. If a lady’s purse gets stolen during the J-dorama you are watching and she screams ‘泥棒! どろぼう! Dorobou!’ She is probably not ordering a pizza.

So… all of that said. Is it worth it?

One thing is for certain: It makes absolutely zero sense without having the original QRG. It is not a replacement. If anything, it is complementary. Like an add-on pack for a video game. You can play the original game without it, but you cant play the new add-on without the original.

Honestly, $25.95 alone is a hefty price for what the video offers. If you already own the original QRG, and you need some more wisdom and clarification, and don’t mind shelling out the extra cash for it, I’d say do it. Although if you have been following the QRG since its release, you may be beyond its level already.

If you have none of the AJATT products, the combo pack with the MSFP (which is underpriced, in my opinion) and the QRG, and the Movie for $35.95 is a fair price. I would absolutely recommend that route.

Would I buy it if I didn’t get the discount? Sure. I think what Khatz is doing is wonderful, and I will continue to support him and his products until they suck.

However, considering the products he has put out so far, I don’t see him sucking anytime soon. So no worries there

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