The Last Wave

The Last Wave is a 48 episode audio drama originally podcasted by Tokyo FM from May 2008 to March 2009.

Episode list

No.	Title	Appropriate for low level?	Outline	Comment	Male/Female	MP3	Transcript
1	ゲームオーバー	No	The earth as a game.	Some basic vocab related to computers and environment	MF	[1]	[2]
2	世界の終わりの断章	No	The last kiss	Some slurred speech. Quite funny.	MM	[3]	[4]
3	2LDK	Yes	Two lovers reflect and say goodnight	See #13 for part 2	MF	[5]	[6]
4	カメさま	No	On man speaks to the world		MF	[7]	[8]
5	くまのぬいぐるみ					[9]	[10]
6	Wife Letter					[11]	[12]
7	ハレー彗星					[13]	[14]
8	約束	Yes	Will two lovers be reunited ?			[15]	[16]
9	杞憂	No				[17]	[18]
10	ふたつのボタン	No	Two men are debating whether to press the right or the left button.	I like the way they express their frustration with each other	MM	[19]	[20]
11	夕暮れの町	Maybe	A housewife is wondering what to make for dinner.	Interesting fish vendor speech pattern	F(M)	[21]	[22]
12	星の終わり	Maybe	A man and a woman talk about astronomy and their relationship			[23]	[24]
13	2LDK 2	Yes	The lovers continue their reflections	See #3 for part 1		[25]	[26]
14	落ちこぼれ看護婦	Maybe	How will a nurse spend her last moments?			[27]	[28]
15	地球と花火					[29]	[30]
16	穴		Man trapped in a hole is faced with a difficult decision			[31]	[32]
17	片思い					[33]	[34]
18	最後の雨					[35]	[36]
19	Last Cut	Yes	Getting a 'normal' haircut on the last day of the world			[37]	[38]
20	最終電車					[39]	[40]
21	セーシェルゾウガメ		A giant tortoise talks about his life	Slow speaking speed		[41]	[42]
22	イチゴ風呂					[43]	[44]
23	最後の日の新たな命	Yes	A child is born on Earth's final day			[45]	[46]
24	ビ女とブ女					[47]	[48]
25	地球最後の日ーアリの場合	No	From the point of view of ants		MM	[49]	[50]
26	No Smoking	Easy to follow till last paragraph	Smoker attempts to give up habit during last 2 weeks on Earth			[51]	[52]
27	街頭インタビュー					[53]	[54]
28	お金で買えない夢がある					[55]	[56]
29	老夫婦					[57]	[58]
30	すれ違い					[59]	[60]
31	世界で一番美しいもの					[61]	[62]
32	ラストラブレター		The contents of the last love letter			[63]	[64]
33	愛論					[65]	[66]
34	ラストカボチャ					[67]	[68]
35	せかいがおわるよるに、娘、帰らず					[69]	[70]
36	初夢					[71]	[72]
37	新年早々	Yes	When the world ends, is "money" the key to everything?			[73]	[74]
38	生物多様性			Not sure about the ending on many levels		[75]	[76]
39	タクシーin theレイン					[77]	[78]
40	鬼	No	A red and blue demon talk about setsubun	Fast speaking speed		[79]	[80]
41	最後の大幸運					[81]	[82]
42	幼馴染公園					[83]	[84]
43	ある完璧な男					[85]	[86]
44	人生はお好み焼き	Probably Not	Life's turning point timing	Quite fast		[87]	[88]
45	神になる	Yes	Lab-workers set lab mice free			[89]	[90]
46	穴に		Woman trapped in a hole is faced with a difficult decision			[91]	[92]
47	寝台列車					[93]	[94]
48	千年ぶりの帰郷					[95]	[96]

Tentative outline of how to study with this material

This is taken from GreenAirth's post.

• Steps
  • Listen to the audio a couple of times and make sure you can follow the overall meaning if not every word. You'll probably want to try looking up things you don't know before checking the transcript.
  • Read the transcript looking into anything that's new and attempt to get 100% comprehension. You'll most likely read some or all of it aloud at some point.
  • Listen again. You should be getting near to total understanding.
  • Listen and read aloud. You could try to build up speed and rhythm with particular focus on how men speak, how women speak.
  • Shadow the listening without the transcript.
  • Make use of some of the points you have learned in conversation as soon as possible.

Depending on how engaging you find the content of the episode you are listening to, you can try to skip some of the listed steps, do them in a different order... Other study options include making audio sentence cards for Anki: you can mine the transcripts for new words and extract the audio for just that part and start reviewing it. If you're really ambitious in terms of editing, you can strip out one person from the episode and fill in the missing parts. This is a good way to force yourself to speak more quickly as you've got to get your part out before the other person starts speaking again.

References

• Japanese Wikipedia article about The Last Wave
• Original discussion topic that launched the collaborative project
• Google docs folder with associated documents