The Extreme Hard Take Home Anime Quiz is a fun fan-made quiz. It is held twice a year at a few anime conventions in the US, and has been for about 10 years.
It’s an open-book quiz that you have three weeks to complete. It’s not that popular though, only about 15-20 people take it at every convention. Why? Because, as the title implies, it’s extremely difficult.
This is what the questions look like:
- Which of the following best describes the predominant architecture of the church the female titan fell upon in Episode 25 of Attack on Titan?
a. Art Deco b. Baroque c. Byzantine d. Medieval e. Merovingian
There are 50 of these that are not as simple as working out the incorrect answers: a lot of research is required.
An Exercise in Research
As mentioned the quiz is released online three weeks before the convention. I tend to enter Sakura Con’s version.
It is impossible to do this quiz in just one day. Why? Because it took me about one hour to go through 3-5 questions. I spent 30 minutes to an hour a day for about two weeks working on the questions for this quiz. Finding information, working out questions and double checking information.
Allow me to give an example for why these questions take so long to answer.
While the title characters make their vows to each other in the prologue of Episode 12 of Romeo X Juliet, the lyrics of the background music expresses____.
a. the holiness of their union
b. the sublime beauty of their matrimonial setting
c. their devotion to each other in the face of adversity
d. their yearning to be free
e. literally “leave the thorns, seize the rose”
For this question you have to first find the right episode on a legal site (thank you Crunchyroll). Then find the scene with the music. But the characters are talking over the section of music. I used Shazzam to pick up which piece of music it was (Rinaldo, hwv 7 act ii, Lascia ch’io pianga).
But it wasn’t that simple, the question referred to the specific part of the lyrics. So I brought up the opera and compared the song to the piece in the anime. This brought me:
“e che sospiri, e che sospiri, la liberta.
Lascia ch’io pianga, mia cruda sorte, e che sospiri, la liberta.”
Which I then had to find a translation for:
“And sigh, And sigh for my lost freedom.
Let me weep over my cruel fate, and that I should have freedom.”
Some questions were as simple as finding a screenshot and then looking up images on Google. Then eliminating what it is not.
Such as this picture from Spice and Wolf to identify what type of instrument one of the men was playing. (It was the dudy – the bagpipe looking instrument.)
Why Do This Incredibly Difficult Quiz?
Because I really enjoy researching.
I love the challenge of trying to find something out. I love quizzes in general but my general knowledge and memory and slow reaction times can make them frustrating. This quiz allows me to take my time and find solid evidence for a decision.
This is an incredibly important skill for a freelance translator. Especially when working in a particular niche (i.e history, fantasy or modern internet culture). You need to be able to think outside the box to find out exactly what something means in Japanese and English.
You need your wits about you to find the right information. The ability to use bilingual searches, Google images, YouTube, Twitter is essential. As is the ability to think of different ways to word something so you can find what you’re looking for.
Being exposed to more random knowledge can be great in general for translation. You never know when you might need a random piece of information to help with a translation.
The Results
This is the third time I have entered the quiz and the second time I’ve won it. I still hold the highest score and really want to 100% it one year.
However, I am also helping the quiz runner for future quizzes. Both for checking questions for other conventions and marking them for future Sakura Cons.
I plan to still enter if I can, but will abstain from any winnings so others can get the top prize.
If you came to this page interested in taking the quiz I high recommend it. Just… start early.
