Isnt it the same in other languages? At least in spore, its ok to call close friends “Oi” or nicknames, but not strangers.

Atashi, which is said by people such as Sara of “Love Hina” and Capcom’s Sakura, is actually written in just hiragana as in あたし.

Ware/waga/我 is not always seen as a cocky pronoun for I. Now, yes, there are cocky people like “Justice Gakuen’s” Kurou that use ware and waga. Capcom’s Gai/Guy uses this form all the time also.

Boku is actually said by men, regardless of age.

Uchi is said by people in the Kansai region and not just women. I believe Sendou of “Hajime no Ippo” uses “uchi”, but it’s been a few years since I last saw it. I should be right here though.

Atai, which uses the same kanji as “watashi” and the like, is a form that’s hardly said overall and is said by women. The two characters I can think of that use this form are Zaki of “Justice Gakuen” and Ayame of “Power Stone”. Wow. I use Capcom characters a lot, don’t I?

That’s all for now.

Also, it may be important to mention that many of the personal nouns (they’re not properly “pronouns”) can be used to mean either “I” or “you” (e.g. お前) and frequently these ones are, or used to be, humble or polite in reference to one’s self but are quite rude when used to refer to others. å…± (とも) is another example of one that can be humble or rude depending on who you’re talking about.

That said, remember how I predicted that Yuuutsu, the first novel, would last for the entire series? Pffft and people didn’t believe me. >_<

Asuka: I’ve been intending to do one on Japanese names, but I have no idea where I should begin. I don’t even know if it’s possible to teach anything about how to read Japanese names because there are very few general guidelines that you can follow.

With regards to dialects, I can more or less understand them but I can’t explain how they work.