three two one
we found one
PLEASE STOP!!!
Hey guys and girls on Ask Japanese it's Cathycat!
It's summer and you might already know this but i love playing animal crossing!
Now animal crossing was first released in Japan and so are most of the creatures that
you can catch in it.... based on japanese creatures you can catch in Japan
Which means this is not a coincidence that pokemon or animal crossing kind of go
around the topic of young people going out and capturing things in the wild.
This is a favorite, more like a little hobby here of many japanese people in summer
Like this big moth here.... to go.... is that a butterfly it's huge??
To go and catch creatures in the wild and one of them
a very very famous one and a symbol of summer are the Japanese cicadas.
So this time i'm gonna give you five surprising facts
about the japanese cicadas, so let's go!!
and then maybe we can go catch some
Number one "ephemeral life", now actually cicada is one of those super
families of insects they have over 2 000 species
...on planet earth and 35 of them exist here in Japan
They don't only exist in the warmer tropical climates
but they can also go all the way up to slightly colder climates such as Hokkaido
Now cicadas before you can actually see them, do actually live underground
as nymphs for many many years before then they wriggle their way up
they wriggle their way up
and they come out and out of the earth and they only live a few months really
What they do is: they come out they shed their extra skeletal skin
and that marks the transition into adulthood
Director: Look - Whats up???
What is that?!??!
Is that the empty cicada shell we talked about? - Yes
That's cicada shell?
Wow that's something. We were just talking about the extraskelllletterallll
Extraskelletoral ..... al al
So that one here must have come out of the ground and then
shed the extra skeleton
oh ....do i have to??? Oh god um
It does feel like the movie alien but it's surprisingly light...
but i almost expect it to start moving ... which is kind of creepy
but at the same time it looks kind of crunchy
Some extra facts for you
Extra facts?
The circada skeleton? - Extroskeleton?
Which anime character is inspired by cicadas?
There's an anime character that looks like this?
From Dragon Ball! - Dragon Ball?!?!
The green one ....the big green one ? - Answer is Cell
You can see where it popped out ...alien i tell you guys alien
eepeepeeep
the director said it's funny to crush them and i should crush them
and that that it's taken some.....
i don't want to do this ....
oh my god this is so gross
3...2...1...
I HATE THIS!!!!
Okay now we get one minute is the time limit to see how many
of those cicada skeletons we can find so go
There's the one over here we started with right? .... one
two four three there's another one here
oh four ...nice one how did you see that?
Oh five... oh my gosh everything looks like a cicada now
five oh six
What's that up there though?
Finished! - Oh but what is that??
That's a Kamemushi.
I found another insect for our collection though kamemushi!
I'm sure they have them in animal crossing too
Because it looks like a tortoise.
Ah because they look like... they're mating
Hello... sorry sorry this has suddenly become the discovery channel
Now adult cicadas live for about one month
after all of these years underneath the surface
and in that one month they make sure that their presence is known
now who creates this loud noise that we can see and hear?
It's the males, they rapidly construct and relax a part in their
abdomen that creates the sound here so they
really want to make sure that the females hear them while they're around.
Number two japan's summer symbol now...
if you ever watched an anime and it was
summer you're definitely bound to have heard the sound of the cicadas
They're so iconic you cannot un-think of them, they are the sound of summer here in Japan
Think of the start of Neon genesis evangelion...
the sound of the cicadas is deafening and there are different types
of sounds as there are different species here so if you have 30 to 35
ones there are some iconic sounds here
One is the Minminsemi
okay let's hear their voices
One is the Higurashi
and one is the Tsukutsukuboshi.
That's like manga onomatopoeia
Number three... boys make the noise
so it's the guys that are making the sound the females
don't they use the thimble a corrugated extra skeleton
to create the noise that we hear right now
so the sound is created somewhere else the crickets for example create the
sound by rubbing their legs against each other,
why the cicadas use this hollow part of their own body to
amplify and bounce the sound back
They're also the loudest insects in the world. They can come up to 120 decibels
which means they woulddeafen themselves if they didn't have a
mechanism in which they just can switch their hearing off
If there is a human and they happen
to right off start singing right next to your ear they can actually
make a human go deaf they are very very powerful and very loud
Again they use their abdomen and that hollow in the abdomen
to amplify their own sound
If a sound on your phone goes over 80 decibels for example on the iphone
you do get an alert because it's so loud
now guess what the japanese cicadas
here they range from 70 to 80 decibels
so that's the sound where generally the alarms go off
that's the same as if you're standing right next to the train tracks
and the train goes past or as if you are inside an airplane
So all those boys are giving their best to make the greatest noise and
the sounds are different in order to only attract females of THEIR species
So the boys they know what they're doing with the different
sounds but if you can hear it all around us right now
Japanese summer is a constant attack on your ears. Ear alert!!!
Number 4 the semi bakudan - the cicada bomb.
Now this is a common sight around this time of the year
when you maybe step accidentally on a cicada shell it's bad enough
I hate this!!!
But when you're taking a walk and there seems to be a cicada lying on the
floor which becomes a common sight....
But then suddenly that cicada will twitch into life and go skitting across the floor
even grown men in Japan, as well as dogs anyone can get absolutely shocked
by a random cicada bomb going off going BZZZZZZZZ
and you really don't expect it
It happens. It has happened.
it might actually happen to you too when you come.
(coming shortly)
Real Life Animal Crossing!!!!
Go Cathy!
I got it!!!!
Gotcha!!!
YAAAS
(director throws the net away)
What?
What does that mean?
Are you using your hands??!?!
Whaaaaaaat
You are a professional.
No do you know what I am called?
I am the SEMI- Professional (Semi means cicada in Japanese)
Nooo
Number 5! Metamorphose I mean....
the time after it gets dark here in this park
when the cicadas actually come out from their sleeping state under the
earth climb finally on top
finally finally get out and then
shed the first layer.... their their childhood shed off....
their childhood and become adults we're gonna try and find that here in
this park so stay with us we're gonna go....
it's gonna get dark and we're gonna hunt and see if we can actually see this
wonderful metamorphose.... life for real
Hey guys on Ask Japanese this is Cathycat
summer's the time for creepy stories and
today we're gonna go and tell you the creepy story of the hunt of the metamorphosis
and hopefully hopefully we'll find some of them....
Did you find one??? - Wait Cathy....
Part 2 of Director's Reptile Series! - Reptile Series?!?!?
Oh my gosh you got another reptile?!?! Hoooowwwww????
Oh my gosh - It's called Yamamori
He is adorable.
Yamori... Are written with the letters for "protection and house"
Is that so? - They are said to eat the bad insects in your house for you.
So it's a good thing to have them in the house!
That's right.
You are protecting the houses! Thank you!
Aaaah Park number 5
We kind of... i'm not sure have we missed the right timing???
Will we get the chance to see the metamorphosis?
Oh noooo (empty)
Is that one? - It is!!!
We found one!!!
oh my gosh I don't wanna touch this...
so how many cicadas do you think we caught in the end?
...to be honest i don't want to open and count right now
...this is like out of some horror film... i'll tell you
Willy! Go you are free now!!!
Noooo I hate this!!!!
There's a Japanese saying that says "seven years underground and seven days overground"
meaning for such a long time they live
underground in the darkness and then when they come up they really need to
make it count and maybe this counts into the whole...
making the most out of summer here in Japan... it just belongs to Japanese summer
to have the sound of the cicadas all around you and
Japanese people do love catching them.
While we were out there were so many families with their kids trying to catch
the cicadas .... it was really fun and none of the cicadas we had
got injured or damaged while we were here and while we were out catching them
because we had a semi-pro with us
who who told me how to hold them properly and so we don't injure them we
let them all free and they're now out and making the most out
of their summer here. So i hope you enjoyed this video please
let me know if you enjoyed this kind of new style of video
with loads of information, extra little things, so please please give us give us
a like always so more people can find this and i hope
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I'll catch you soon for more stuff here on Ask Japanese and see you soon! Bye!