If I used “Rain… Ah man!” as a mnemonic, that would make me remember it as あま :P And “yucky” would make me think やき; neither of them sound close enough.

ゆき sounds more like “You key” (and by “more like” I mean “exactly like”) – you could say something like “YOU KEY-ed my car!?” “It was an accident! I was running to get to my own car, slipped on the SNOW, and crashed into the side of yours!”.

あめ sounds more like the start of the word “America” (and by “more like” I mean “exactly like”, again! Seriously, Koichi’s mnemonic skills suck) – you could say something like “There’s been an explosion at the flag factory! You look up and see hundreds of A-ME-rican flags RAIN-ing from the sky!” or “Captain A-ME-rica doesn’t like carrying an umbrella, so when it starts RAIN-ing, he just holds his shield up high instead.”

Whether or not you consider those new mnemonics good, surely the choice of keywords is better? No idea why he chose “Yucky” and “Ah man” when there are much better options out there.

… I’m sorry :S If those are just amateur mnemonics, that’s totally fine; handcrafting them in such a way that works for you is great, whether they work for other people or not. Koichi, however, needs to be held to a higher standard: he does this stuff for a wide audience (and gets paid), so should be making mnemonics that are most likely suitable for everyone. That’s why I took issue with the keywords used, because I thought they were the work of a professional :P God knows I’ve come up with my own mnemonics that aren’t dead-on, that wouldn’t help other people for being too abstract or “roundabout”, but work for me because my brain happens to interpret them in a very specific way haha.