This class is an easy and interesting GE!
Professor Duthie is GOAT. I don't know how his class will be like during normal time, but during covid time, we only have 10 weekly assignments to write about the topic discussed in that week. No quiz or exam. We can also revise the assignments and resubmit. TA's discussions are really helpful, since your TA grades your assignment. TA goes over the topic and explains how to write the assignment for each week. Since I got other tough classes, this class literally saves my life. I didn't have time to read the textbook and just watched recorded lectures and attended discussions, but this didn't affect the grade of my assignments at all. So if no time to go over the textbook, lecture + discussion is enough.

The professor’s lectures were really engaging, you can tell that he enjoys teaching. I wish we could’ve gone deeper into the material, but there just wasn’t enough time to do so. I had TA Suong and she was the best, super nice, encouraged participation in a way that didn’t make things awkward, and very understanding about everything going on. Definitely recommend this class, it’s super easy and fun.

Great GE especially if you're interested in Japanese history! Super interesting. Even if you're not interested in Japanese history, still one of the easiest GE I took. No midterm, no final, just an essay every week that you can rewrite for better grades.

If you are contemplating taking this class with Duthie let me put it short for you TAKE THIS CLASS.
As an incoming STEM freshman having no clue what they are doing and having absolutely zero writing skills, this class was the only thing keeping my GPA and my sanity together. If this class was in person I would have made sure to buckle up on the drive to school and use my turn signals all the time.
Homework wise the class only has a weekly 500-700 word essay based on the content of the week. Personally I never once opened the textbook, the class lectures and slides proved sufficient. But i will strongly advise that you attend the discussion where the TAs will give you practically an outline of how to write your essays. With this if you at least give yourself two hours and some knowledge of the topic you can get a A on every essay.
Most important part, NO MIDTERM AND FINAL. Instead of tests the Professor uses these weeks to allow for revision and regrading of the weekly essays.
If I had to take any class at ucla ever again it most definitely will be this one hands down. Shout out to TA Yueying.

I took this class for a GE and overall it was very very easy. There were no exams and all we had to do each week was write a long response answer to a prompt every week with 500-700 words. They weren't essays and the prompts were always very straightforward (basically just summarize that weeks lectures) and only took a few hours to complete give or take depending on how fast you write.

That being said, your grade/experience in this class depends entirely on the TA you have. My TA, Victoria, was amazing and every week our discussion sections were basically summing up the main points of that weeks lectures. She gave us a blank note sheet/diagram to fill out as we went over each point and then on top of that at the end of every discussion she gave us the same exact note sheet with all the notes pre-typed just in case we missed anything while writing...which we never did because it was all written on the board. This meant that I never had to attend lecture and I would just write my responses based purely off the notes from discussion and I pretty much always got 94+ on the writing assignments. However I know some of the other TAs graded harder and people were still able to get A's they just had to work a little more for it. Also, even if you score bad on an assignment you can rewrite it so overall very very low stress class and highly recommend to anyone.

Professor Torquil was a very nice man. He did get a little boring sometimes and there were times when I didn't see the point in learning what we were learning (maybe I lacked the passion for the things we were reading, who knows). He's very knowledgable about old Japanese culture and is very passionate about the material that he teaches, which is great.

I took Japan 110A and 172 with him. Both were hard classes that I had to work hard in, but I ended up with A's in both. Classical Japanese is hard to learn in general, but it's good to know if you're seriously interested in Japanese culture. Likewise for 172; the literature gets weird sometimes but it reveals a lot about Japanese culture that, in the long run, proves to be insightful. They're not exciting, glamorous classes, which was honestly the only downer.

This was a pretty easy and straightforward class. An essay (500-700 words) each week over the lecture material. The professor seems to have a genuine interest in the content and is a decent lecturer. Would definitely take to satisfy the GE requirement.

this is regarding the A portion of the class in the A/B series. you're supposed to study both grammar AND classical texts in this class, but in lecture he barely goes over the grammar (maybe about 10 minutes) and you're supposed to learn a new chapter of grammar for every single class. the rest of the class is devoted to translating the assigned texts. i wish he'd teach the grammar more because it's very difficult, rather than spending almost the whole time on the text, which you can look up translations for and explanations online.

When I took this course freshman year, it was his first time teaching it. Even so, he did a great job! The lectures were interesting and he mixed it up a lot so there were videos too. The material was not hard, just memorize what's on the midterm and final review sheets and you'll get a good grade. What you put in will reflect your grade in the class.

You TA will pretty much determine your grade, since they grade your responses, participation and your tests. The only thing Duthie grades is you response paper, which he admits he will give you full credit if you turn it in (barring that it is no complete BS.)

Nice guy, though lectures can get pretty boring. A pretty easy GE course.