Shimazaki is the sweetest professor ever! I loved going to her office hours to talk about the class and getting ideas for the papers we had to write. If you brainstorm early and talk to her about it, she is sooo helpful with fleshing it out and guiding you. The class itself was really interesting and I enjoyed some of the films we saw. We only had to write 5 postings for the entire quarter. You do not have to keep up with all the readings and films, but you should be familiar with a couple for the final paper. Loved her so much! She's amazing and super passionate!

Incredibly knowledgeable and kind professor! Worked with me as my advisor for USIE, it was an honor to learn from her. She was very open-minded and helpful, I'm glad I found her!

TA didn't read our final papers, as everyone got the same grade. Class was easy but was an A- magnet, with the finals being so hard that nobody from my discussion group got an A.

Took this class during winter quarter & it has been one of the easiest classes I've taken so far. There's only one midterm paper, one final paper & you have to do 5 postings for the whole quarter which are short, one page papers that are based on the readings/films. She would post two postings per week and you get to choose which ones you will do. I will say that she does assign multiple readings/films that you should read/watch previous to attending lecture but she does discuss them & lowkey you don't have to read all of them. I would recommend reading enough of them/ watching the movies because the papers will require you to use some of your choice. Attendance isn't mandatory for lecture & they're recorded.

I loved this class. Shimazaki sensei is super nice and bubbly. Reminds me of a mom. She's always like, "You can do it!" and then smiles and laughs. Very cute. While this is a class about classical Japanese, there's no memorization involved. All exams are open note, and if you ever forget what a word means, you can just ask her for its definition during the exam. She just won't help you with the grammar, since that's what you're being tested on. Just make sure you take good, organized notes on the grammar so that when you take the final exam, you can do well.
There's readings for every week. For the first couple weeks, the readings are just chapters from the textbook that go over whatever grammar she wants to teach that week. Then for the latter half of the quarter, you have to read excerpts from actual texts written in classical Japanese. At the start of every class, there's a short 5-10 minute quiz that asks questions about the grammar from the previous lecture. Very easy if you went to lecture and took notes. These quizzes are also open note.