pronouns

i am hearing a lot of pronoun use between the main characters on the fujimi drama CDs, which started me looking for more information.

when i made my first attempt at japanese, i learned some pronouns, such as "watakushi" (i) and "anata" (you) and constructed sentences with them. this turns out to have been a bad approach, because it's a bastardization of how japanese actually speak, tailored to foreigners whose native languages rely heavily on pronouns. lots of japanese intro programs do not actually teach this well, and it's something to watch out for. the first couple of textbooks i picked up originally taught a form of japanese that i never hear spoken now that i am watching anime and jdorama. "watakushi wa gakusei desu" (i am a student) isn't something a japanese person would say, unless there are several of them, only one of whom is a student, who'd say that for clarification (_i_ am a student (the others are business people, frex)).

this time around i am learning that the japanese use pronouns much less than english speakers do, preferring to use the name of a person and zir title instead, or saying "that guy there" or "this guy here", or dropping the pronoun entirely when it's obvious from context who's doing what. and really, grammatically the following aren't actually pronouns, but nouns themselves.

and i am noticing that frequently scanlators don't seem to really grok this either, because their translations into english sound off to me. frex "that guy" should generally be "he" in english; it sounds way too ominous otherwise.

anyway -- damn. :) there i was, wanting more pronouns in english, and here i would get even fewer?

but no. it's actually way cool. pronouns, like just about anything else, denote politeness and intimacy, and it seems their use can be incredibly subtle -- i really like this idea. when i learned english, part of me didn't much care for the one-size-fits-all usage of "you" [1], and i missed the formal forms of german and french. well, i am gonna get that in japanese, and then some. here are some of the ones i have come across as i understand them so far. i'm bolding the ones that seem common to me.

i, me, myself and i:
拙者 (せっしゃ) sessha -- archaic; used mostly in samurai movies
私 (わたくし) watakushi -- very formal
儂 (わし) washi -- oldfashioned formal, used by elderly men
我 (われ) ware -- male, probably archaic; polite or not? i am guessing not.
私 (わたし) watashi -- commonplace, respectable politeness level for both male and female
私 (あたし) atashi -- informal, used by women who want to sound cute
私 (あたい) atai -- archaic informal used by women
僕 boku (ぼく) boku -- familiar, colloquial, used by males
俺 ore (おれ) ore -- very familiar, rough, crude, used by young males
手前 (てまえ) temae -- modest, female. watch VERY carefully because this is an extremely strong insult when used in the second person.
one's own name -- cute speech, used by children and excessively cute females
自分 (じぶん) jibun -- reflexive: myself; oneself;

you singular (these can all be rude if used outside their normally appropriate situations, and it's safer to use the person's name with polite suffix appended if one isn't sure):
汝 (なんじ) nanji -- archaic, something like "thou"
あなた anata -- polite; can also be very familiar denoting "dear" (women call husbands anata)
お前 (おまえ) omae -- this is an iffy one. used from superior to inferior, but is also used between close friends, maybe bantering? i think i've seen it used by couples as well. this one i am the least sure about.
君 (きみ) kimi -- familiar, used for friends and family, affectionate
貴方 (あんた) anta -- very familiar, used by females
貴様 (きさま) kisama -- seems to have mogrified from original honorific (when?) to insulting. don't use this unless you mean to be quite rude.
手前 (てまえ or てめえ) temae, temee -- extremely rude and confrontational; fists might be flying next.

it's really interesting to hear when in fujimi yuuki starts using "kimi" in regard to kei. i think it denotes a big change in their relationship. i am not entirely clear about seme/uke dynamics in that regard; i'll need to listen to it again from the start, and particularly listen for it now that those words "pop" for me. yuuki does seem to use some feminine language when he's protesting.

[1] my inner egalitarian likes it, of course; it's only my inner prickly cactus with the fetish for nuance that wants lots of ways to indicate how i feel about somebody.