About

alice-avatar[Nicknames] 本屋, Honya, Honya-chan
[Date of Birth] January 17 1989
[Age] 17
[Origin] Philippines
[Languages] English, Ilocano, Japanese (learning), French (3 years high school)
[Location] Virginia, USA
[Occupation] Full-time NEET
[Likes] Anime (and other otaku stuff), Singing, Drawing, Translating, Computers, Learning
[Dislikes] Bullying, Boredom
[Idol Color] Purple
[Theme Song] Happy Girl
[Word] Embarrassing

I’ve been told that despite being such a laid back person, I am quite ambitious even though sadly the time is not always there to make it all happen. I am easily influenced by anime so I end up doing strange things to satiate my boredom like Nagi from Hayate no Gotoku! Then again, even without those influences I still end up being a weird person weak at socializing and immersed in watching too much anime and singing Japanese songs all the time although it is quite embarrassing to do so in front of the mainstream public.

I’m a recent graduate of the University of Virginia earning a Bachelor of Science in Biology. When goofing off from school I served as the very first Director of the Comics and Anime Club, CAINE, which was quite time-consuming but very rewarding. After serving for more than 3.5 years, I am now retired and you can find me as a secret boss fight EX Director Honya.

When I have the time I also work on various doujin projects. Currently my main project is my original story ATCG which I first started working on during my last semester of high school. I’ve taken a long time on it since it essentially connects all of my past works together and constructs the basis for any future stories I come up with. I’m an artist drawing character portraits for the Touhou doujin game Story of a Lost Sky as well.

As an artist I also want to continue to improve my computer drawing skills and one day learn to do 3D modeling. Ideally I would like to pursue my dreams of working at a video game company or having my own “manga” published without worrying about other things. Of course exploring new realms of biological understanding is fine too though I just want to stay at home and do otaku things or be a pro otaku idol.

You may also want to check out these posts, Taking a Decade Old Anime Otakuness Test and OreImo: Reminders of My Otaku Past, to learn more about me. By the way I’m also a fujoshi, an idol and an awkward game dev (possibly).

tl;dr lol Honya

My Favorites

[Properties] KEY, 07th Expansion, Touhou, K-ON!, Precure, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, iDOLM@STER, Muv-Luv, Tales of game series, Metal Gear, Phantasy Star Online, Pokémon, Xenosaga
[Seiyuu] Noto Mamiko, Hanazawa Kana, Mizuki Nana, Toyosaki Aki, Tomatsu Haruka, Kugimiya Rie, Tamura Yukari, Horie Yui, Chihara Minori, Sugita Tomokazu
[Music] K-ON!, Mizuki Nana, I’ve Sound, SPHERE, Yousei Teikoku, iDOLM@STER, ave;new, Kuribayashi Minami, Chihara Minori
[Artists] Hinoue Itaru, Noizi Ito

About Lyrical☆Spark!

Lyrical☆Spark! was launched on September 11, 2007 originally as an assignment for my Japanese 101 class hosted on Google’s Blogger Service. Before entering college and enrolling in Japanese, I had never thought about starting a blog and only occasionally read anime blogs. When blogging started to take off, I initially blew it off as nothing more than a weird trend. However after writing my first anime-related post and getting comments back from like-minded classmates, I fell in love with blogging and soon quickly outpaced the output of my classmates.

I didn’t realize that my new found obsession with anime and blogging was getting attention from outside my school sphere until I noticed that some other anime bloggers had commented on my articles. I had done nearly nothing to attract other anime bloggers besides adding the blogs that I did read to my blogroll and keeping up with them.

Soon afterward I decided once and for all to join the greater anime blogger community. After struggling with the limitations of the Blogger platform for several months, I decided that I would have to switch to WordPress and get my own domain if I really wanted to get serious about blogging. On February 18, I took the plunge and bought honya-ch.com and two years worth of hosting from BlueHost.com.

That brings me up to the current state of Lyrical☆Spark! I tend to blog about otaku stuff in general though much of my focus currently is in transliteration and translation of anisongs and other Japanese songs I like. As such I’m not really in the larger Aniblogger Sphere so much as the Lyrics Translation Sphere which I am perfectly fine with. My Japanese knowledge still has plenty of room for improvement but I will maintain Lyrical☆Spark! with joy keeping it a fun experience for my readers!

「リリカル☆スパーク!」を読んでくれて本当にありがとう!

Why “Honya” and “Lyrical☆Spark!”?

Honya literally means bookstore in Japanese and comes from the nickname of my favorite anime/manga character, Miyazaki Nodoka from Mahou Sensei Negima! She is referred to by many of her classmates as “Honya-chan” due to her love of books. She is very shy but despite this is able to express her true feelings to Negi. I really admire her and in many respects wish to be like her. My love for Honya-chan can be seen in many aspects from my various online usernames as well as the domain name under which this blog is hosted.

Lyrical☆Spark! is taken from a doujin of the same name which is itself a reference to two of my favorite series. The “Lyrical” obviously refers to Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha while “Spark” comes from the Spark line of spells from Touhou. My love of Nanoha is most evident in Lyrical☆Spark!’s logo which is heavily modeled after Nanoha A’s and Nanoha StrikerS’s logos while my affection for Touhou is most clear in this blog’s Touhou-themed headers.

My Wish List

(Current as of Jan 1, 2014)

My Other Accounts

(I mainly use the first 2)

Honya's MAL Card

Honya's Backloggery Sig

Permanent link to this article: https://honya-ch.com/about/

35 comments

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  1. Hi Honya Can we do a link exchange ??? You have a lovely site 🙂

  2. This site is very wonderful.
    I’d like to teach for my Peru’s Youtube friend to this site,
    because she like to sing the anime-songs of Japan.
    Thank you so much !

    このサイトはとても素晴らしいです。
    私のペルーのユーチューブフレンドは
    日本のアニメの歌を歌うのが好きなので
    彼女にこのサイトを教えてあげたいと思います。
    どうもありがとう!

  3. Hey Honya, take the mypersonality test:
    http://www.mypersonality.info/personality-types/

    I was actually shocked on how accurate they are (IMO), given that it’s rather short for a personality test.

    • furu on November 7, 2009 at 12:23 pm
    • Reply

    Hey Honya, what means the -ch in the name of the domain?

    Just curiosity or pure ignorance :3 Well, i though it would be -chan not sure at all haha

  4. The -ch stands for two things. It’s -chan like you guessed or Channel.

    • rmdichos on April 20, 2010 at 11:20 pm
    • Reply

    Hey!

    I was shocked to find out that you are a filipina… just like me…
    Do you still remember me…?

    I’m rmdichos from Mangahelpers…

    You told me you will be translating Zettai Joousei…

    Just want to know if you still are going to translate it…?

    🙂

    please contact me:

    rmdichos.29@gmail.com
    or
    rmdichos_29@yahoo.com

  5. Yep I do. I’ve been busy with school lately so I haven’t had much time to work on it but I have about half of chapter 0 done. I’ll see if I can get the rest done as soon as possible.

  6. Huh? Ur also pinoy.. I didn’t read earlier..

    I’m also a Filipino..From Taytay, Rizal

    by the way , Thnks 4 posting Angel Beats! insert song lyrics translation..

    it will help me a lot..especially, coz i can’t read Kanji..XD

  7. Heya, nice to see a person who’s as hardcore about Key as me, though i live in Singapore. I’m the leader of Singaporean doujin group Collateral Damage Studios as well.

    Nice to meet you.

  8. Nice to meet you. You have some nice illustrations. I hope I can get back to work on my own doujin stuff sometime.

    • rmdichos on May 2, 2010 at 9:12 pm
    • Reply

    @Honya

    Thanks for your reply Honya…

    that was a relief…

    Anyway, you can send me the first half of chapter 0 if you want or you can send it as a whole chapter…

    suit yourself…

    Thanks for the update…

  9. I’ll send it as soon as I can.

    • Clim03 on May 15, 2010 at 8:01 am
    • Reply

    Thanks for your website Honya, I find it really amazing. =)

    • Tony on June 1, 2010 at 4:33 pm
    • Reply

    Your site is seriously grade ‘A’ stuff, your art is also quite amazing, thank you very much. Thanks especially for your translation/transliteration of ‘Brave Song’ from “Angel Beats”, it helped me a lot to have the lyrics to such a great song. Cheers.

  10. Thanks for the compliments! I hope you continue to come back for more!!

  11. Hi there ^~^ I just found your site when i was looking for English lyrics for “My Soul, Your Beats” and i have to say i really like it. I have an own little blog which suffers under my laziness so seeing your dedication to yours is sure an inspiration^~^ P.S.: I like your art style

  12. I’m glad you like my blog and art. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up regularly posting but by pushing myself I can manage somehow.

    • LilyDream on June 17, 2010 at 12:22 pm
    • Reply

    Hi! I’m a rising first-year student at UVA (class of 2014!) and I’ve always wondered if there was a club like this at the school. I’m proud to say that I’m definitely joining and I thank you. 🙂 When do activities usually start for this club?

    Thank you!!
    -LilyDream

  13. The first meeting will be the first Thursday after classes start. I’ll send you an e-mail with info and if you want we can discuss things over AIM/MSN/Yahoo.

  14. Hi Honya, I write here as I can’t find any link to your email address. I would like to request for a link exchange. I have a website about anime and manga, an active one since 2001. I also doing manga scanlation. Reading your blog, seems like we watch similar types of anime. If you agree with the exchange, I will add your blog to my blogroll. Let me know, thank you.

    • sakurangel08 on July 16, 2010 at 8:18 am
    • Reply

    konnichiwa Honya-san!~ ^__^
    i would just like to say that your site is really great!
    and thanks for sharing your lyrics & translations on Angel Beats! songs.
    i can’t agree more on how great this anime is,
    and they really have great songs, especially when you realize their translations.
    i also agree that your art is really nice~
    i somehow like to create my own blog, but laziness always takes over me.
    and btw, i just noticed that you’re a Filipina as well.
    anyways, nice to meet you and have a great day to you!

    *sorry for the long post too~ ^^;;*

    • Hitsugaya on October 14, 2010 at 5:59 pm
    • Reply

    I was looking for lyrics and translations for Angel Beats! songs and found your site. Great site! No others like it. I was a little disappointed about the number of songs your site has but after reading your bio, that went away pretty fast. Quality beats quantity any time and your site has that in spades.

  15. Thank you for the appreciation. Hopefully when I get the time I’ll get back to translating songs.

      • Hitsugaya on October 29, 2010 at 2:53 pm
      • Reply

      No “Thank you” needed. I just said what I think to be the truth.

    • Catherine Meyers on May 12, 2011 at 10:16 am
    • Reply

    Hi Honya,

    My name is Catherine Meyers, I’m the admin of a web blog directory, while reading your blog and it’s reviews and articles about anime and manga, I was wondering if you might be interested in a link exchange (no money involved), I would add your blog in my directory so my visitors will also visit your site and in exchange you add my website to your blogroll or links. Please let me know if you are interested and the best of luck with Lyrical☆Spark.

    Cheers!

    Cathy

    • Teruaki Sofue on June 22, 2011 at 6:21 am
    • Reply

    LOL

    • Lionel on July 14, 2011 at 4:23 am
    • Reply

    Hey Honya, stumbled upon your site while looking up Idolmaster info! I got to say, very nicely done blog, and I like your articles you write up! Can I ask you a question (or two, heh)?

    1) Do you have email or messanger for contact?
    2) How hard is it to learn japanese? And I know in Japan there are many dialects and such, but what is the official ‘written’ language? Is that mainly kanji? Something I’ve been curious to know for imported games, as well if you have any good recommendations for an English speaker/write to learn to at least understand spoken and written Japanese?

    1. 1) I do have e-mails and messengers but not for the general public. Those are only for private use. However you can use Twitter to converse with me freely.
      2) It’s fairly difficult to learn Japanese but the consistent grammar rules and such make the job easier at times. Standard Japanese is the “default” you see for national broadcasts and the one you hear around Tokyo. There are about 2000-3000 commonly used kanji that should be learned which takes a while.

      The last part of that question is a little hard for me to answer concretely. I took Japanese classes in college and once I had a solid foundation I started studying it on my own. The textbooks we used were Genki which are pretty good for learning beginner Japanese and relatively inexpensive. You could possibly use this to self learn but it really helps to have a teacher to explain some subtle intricacies which may not be obvious. If you want to use something else the one thing I suggest is to find a book that isn’t written in only Romaji as I find most of them to be garbage. Romaji is fine when you are first learning hiragana and katakana but using them after that is counter productive to learning. Find something that uses kana and kanji. What I like doing for practice is making studying an active experience. The reason I started studying Japanese in the first place was to be able to translate Japanese songs and now I use that to practice. I also like to play games and watch anime in Japanese without subs. If you don’t understand a word or phrase you can just pause what you are doing and look it up which I find a good way to learn. Reading Japanese-language manga also works. It also gives you a look at more colloquial Japanese and more varied sentence patterns which textbooks don’t always cover. That was kind of long but I guess just take a class, read some textbooks and practice a lot with a media you enjoy.

    • Flowright138 on November 9, 2011 at 4:46 am
    • Reply

    I hit your cite by accident when googling for minamo insert song of Amagami SS. Just passing, I want to say that you site is very beautifully designed, clean and easy to browse. Particularly love the fact that you upload the album pictures in full makes it easier for me to crop them to 500 x 500 pixel in which google sometime do not have.

    1. Thank you very much. I try my best to keep the site a pleasure to read for all my visitors.

    • Wolfeh on December 27, 2011 at 9:17 pm
    • Reply

    Ahoy, Honya. I just found your site and was browsing around. It’s seriously awesome how much you cover here. The lyrics and artwork are especially impressive, but the resources you provide are flat out incredible. I want to thank you for putting so much effort into making and maintaining it. It’s the first one like it that I’ve found and it’s already helped me out in a lot of ways. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some lyrics from you sometime as well. You rock.

    1. Thank you. I really appreciate the gratitude. It’s often hard to keep up with everything but I really love working on this.

    • Genokiller on July 29, 2012 at 6:47 am
    • Reply

    Great

  16. I dunno if this is the place for this, but can I ask what exactly the Imperium Project was, and what happened to it? It’s only recently that I found about about its existence.

    • Rior Archnemias on June 11, 2019 at 10:04 am
    • Reply

    >> Is this website still active??

  1. […] 在黑板上用粉笔画出华丽的’百合’场景会是什么感觉呢??最近正好发现了一套图,全部是依照原图手绘到黑板上的,由作者Honya一人独立完成,完成度相当高,目前作者打算一周完成一幅,如果对此系列有兴趣的可以关注一下作者的博客,原图也可以到作者的博客下载. […]

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