精一杯生きる seiippai ikiru Live Life

精一杯 seiippai is an adverb, to the limit of one's strength, as much as one can, first cited from a puppet play of 1766; 生きる ikiru is to live, the verb under every phrase in this family. The dictionary form is not an imperative: a Japanese reader hears a resolution, what one does or means to do, not an order, so the line reads without an exclamation mark.

It is ordinary modern Japanese, in print in this form by 1937. Here it is the house's Japanese for the English live life to the full, which the title shortens.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 精一杯生きる.

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