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Post by caucasoididiot on Feb 27, 2010 22:45:59 GMT -5
Glad you're OK, friendly. From the earthquakes I've known it does always seem like the further away they're reported the scarier they get, but you never know.
So you guys are checking out the Coji-Cojis? Cool, I kind of figured unless someone was studying Japanese or something they probably wouldn't want to sit through them.
It's a show I watched my first time in Japan, and though I didn't follow it very well them the bizarre imagery kept me coming back. That point on appropriateness is an interesting one, especially for a show like this that had kids in the audience. The boundaries are really different. One show I only ever saw in Japanese was Dragonball Z, but there were a lot of things in there I'd be really surprised if they made it onto US TV.
I talked about the show with a bunch of Japanese middle-schoolers one time, and one of the funny things was the question of what Coji-Coji was supposed to be. Most thought some kind of monkey, but some thought that she was a vegetable of some kind (they interpreted her "hat" as a squash-shaped appendage). There wasn't even total agreement on her gender.
As for how typical the show is . . . I never saw anything else quite like it, but there are a lot of animated series of varying levels of weirdness. A lot of them come from manga, so if you're familiar with the sort of range it has you can perhaps imagine.
I actually found it totally by accident; I'd mentioned it in Mad Plumber's anime thread and got to thinking that maybe someone had posted a few clips. Then I found the eps and was pleased to find that I could follow them much better than before. So it's been a mixture of nostalgia and language practice, but if you guys are getting a kick out of it that's a definite boost.
I keep hoping to find the one where Ryosuke the Snowman hides his porn collection at Yakan-kun's house. The visuals are such that you could speak Urdu and it'd be hilarious.
Heh heh, baka's a good word to know! (^_^)
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Post by caucasoididiot on Feb 28, 2010 0:23:58 GMT -5
Oh man, I just found this! "Cooking with Dog" doing shabu-shabu:
Unless I'm completely on glue, this is "Ken Tanaka," the alter-ego of LA comic David Ury. "Ken" is a white kid who only learned at age 30 that his Japanese family had adopted him. Anyway, "Cooking with Dog" seems to be a pretty complete exploration of Japanese cooking. Enjoy!
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Post by spackle on Feb 28, 2010 10:03:24 GMT -5
Oh, whew! When I saw "Cooking with Dog", my mind went a whole different place. Shabu-shabu looks fun, and the ingredients look delicious.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Feb 28, 2010 10:35:48 GMT -5
Heh heh, that kind of cooking with dog is Korean. As long as he's come up, let me link to some of my favourite Ken Tanaka bits. The concept is that he's come to LA in search of his American birth parents. The material is a kind of guerilla theatre, and some of the bits do rub me wrong. However, he does a spot-on impression of a certain type of geeky Japanese guy with an enthusiastic but not crackly English. Here are some bits with his beautiful assistant, Remi February. I love when she goes off on him at the end of the last one! Let me also turn you on to TokyoCooney, who does an excellent vlog. A funny thing about the Japanese is that while they're usually rather shy (you see a lot of TV news interviews that only shot the interviewee from the neck down or are conducted through the front-door intercom) you also see things like the stellar moment he caught below: And here's his presentation of some of Japan's more imaginative ice cream flavours: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9HbI2LkVkw&feature=PlayList&p=C9508681A54BFF14&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=46www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJvJPBzdeG0
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Post by caucasoididiot on Feb 28, 2010 13:29:44 GMT -5
I've posted these before, but I must include them here: The cover just has the titles in Japanese, but here's the translation of the back: Ounen no kessaku SF eiga o bakushou komento de metta kiri!Old SF movie blunders* are recklessly cut up with explosively humorous comments! *Interestingly, the kanji for "blunder" also means "masterpiece." Now that's diplomacy. Maiku: "Ohhh! Uchuujin to ningen no sankakukankei no motsure ka?"Mike: "Ohhh! Is this turning into a human/alien love triangle?" Kurou: "Kenka ha yamete! Watakushi no tame ni arasowanaide nanchatte."Crow: "Stop the fight! For my sake don't quarrel, not!" Zenbei keeburu TV no chou ronguran hitto shiriizu o eiga bash(i)ta kisoutengai SF shikkomi? Komedii!The long-running American cable TV hit series that cut up movies with bizarre SF performances? Comedy! Hmm, that's how they punctuate it. To a native speaker it maybe comes across as "a movie-cutting . . . kinda weird, y'know, SF . . . performance with the . . . thing and, umm, comedy!"
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Post by afriendlychicken on Feb 28, 2010 17:54:57 GMT -5
We had Dragonball Z on NGN here throughout the 90's. I only remember the planet, which resembled a Roger Dean drawing, with high gravity. The cooking with dog (poor dog, he can do nothing but sit there) spot shows 2 local favorites. Soy sauce, or shoyu, and steamed rice. It looks delicious. And Filipinos also eat dog. There was just an incident here last year where a new family from the Philippines ate their neighbors dog. They didn't know that wasn't allowed in the US. I like the Ken Tanaka videos. Remi February is beautiful, and very funny. In the second, she had me cracking up over her answer to the, "I'm dating an older guy", line. I see how Ken can rub the wrong way. Thankfully, he does have Remi tease him about it. As you mentioned earlier, she goes off on him in the last one. In the second video, what figure is that next to Ken? Voltron? Rydeen? It looks familiar. The man who mistook his umbrella for a hat. Actually, he has great balance.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Feb 28, 2010 18:11:15 GMT -5
Hmm, that's how they punctuate it. To a native speaker it maybe comes across as "a movie-cutting . . . kinda weird, y'know, SF . . . performance with the . . . thing and, umm, comedy!" It's okay Ijon...it's okay.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Feb 28, 2010 18:32:57 GMT -5
It's okay Ijon...it's okay. Heh heh, if I could only make sense of it in my mind! (^_^) Unfortunately, I can't help at all on Ken's background character, though I think he does identify it in one of his clips. As for Kevin's sarariman he is impressive, isn't he? One of the things I love about that clip is how almost none of the Japanese around acknowledge his doing it. While there is much good "third-party" stuff to link to, I'd like to share some of my unique experiences as well. There's a bit of a problem though: most photos are either of things you can find better pictures of elsewhere or have other people in them. My wife has explicitly asked that I not post any of her or Yuuto. I probably will break the rule on Yuuto occasionally, as I figure I have some say there. But one thing I would like to do is share thumbnail sketches of some of the individual Japanese I've know. Blanket statements about a whole nationality can be totally true and yet all the more misleading because of it. Pictures really help with that, but I'm trying to think which among them wouldn't mind. My first time in Japan I was living in Ogawa-machi, which means "little river town" and is pretty much the "Springfield" of Japan. This particular one is in Saitama, almost to Gunma. It's about an hour from Tokyo by train and is in the foothills that border the Kanto Plain. I was one of only two Americans there, though there were also about four Indians living nearby. Walking around it on my first full day, I came across this mother and daughter playing. I asked if it was OK to take these shots and the mom agreed. The kicker was that they were the family of the guy who owns the town's film-developing shop (as I'd have known if I was paying attention to the sign behind them). When I went in he asked if I'd mind his making prints of those two for himself, and I told him I'd be honored. Off to a good start! My second time living and working in Japan was more urban, but managed to be on the same rail-line. Heh heh, when in Japan it is my destiny to live along the Tobu Tojou-sen! Anyway, unlike in Ogawa I was teaching adults in this job, one among whom was Rika. She had been nick-named "Danger-girl" by another teacher, though when introduced to me she rejoined, "Now I am become lady." There's a story about the one in the background too, but that's for another time. That's me, by the way, in one of my poorer pictures. My good head was at the cleaners that day. Rika was amazing. Her grammar was always haphazard, but she took great joy in communicating and was a delight to teach. One time she came in early, during a period she knew I had free. She told me she was sending me on a treasure hunt and gave me a note, which led to another and another, finally back into my room where she had hidden a box of doughnuts. I still have those notes. Another time some friends of hers were getting married but couldn't decide on Western or traditional style. Rika made up a new marriage ceremony for them and held it in the Shinjuku train station. We corresponded by e-mail for a quite a while, and she'd send things like a pic of herself wearing a weird hat captioned, "Transform myself to hero!" followed by one sprawled on the floor captioned, "But can't fly!" I really regret having lost touch with Rika. Lastly we have a slightly better pic of me (though the Johnny Long-torso song does come to mind) at a shrine in Nikko famous for its hydrangeas. No camera could ever really do justice to the location though. As you stroll the path it leads you from vantage point to vantage point, each with a carefully crafted presentation of foliage, rock gardens and the occasional small structure. Truly magnificent.
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Post by spackle on Mar 1, 2010 10:11:25 GMT -5
Maiku and Kurou? Love it! Like in Howl's Moving Castle when the character Michael becomes Markl. What would Joel and Servo become?
Johnny Longtorso... did you have to assemble yourself? That shrine with hydrangeas looks beautiful.
Speaking of beautiful, I watched the beginning of Kwaidan last night. Loved the Woman of the Snow. What's the significance of women with black mouths (inside)? Both the second wife from Black Hair and the Woman of the Snow had black mouths. Too much licorice?
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 1, 2010 11:41:50 GMT -5
Heh heh, Servo's 9,000,000,001st name is Saabo, and Joel is credited as Joeru Hojjison. I'd estimate that you'd come out Suppakuru. (^_^)
It was the style for women in Heian Japan (at least the high class ones) to blacken their teeth. I'm not sure what they used, but I can tell you first hand that squid-ink spaghetti does a pretty good job.
That is a gorgeous movie, isn't it? Still haven't turned up my copy.
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Post by spackle on Mar 1, 2010 12:17:14 GMT -5
spackle = suppakuru? As long as it's not seppuku! Does suppakuru have a meaning?
Squid-ink spaghetti? Eating Japanese is such an adventure. Er, I think I mean eating Japanese food.
More Kwaidan tonight! Do you know anything else from that director? If they're all as beautiful as Kwaidan...
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 1, 2010 13:12:59 GMT -5
Hmm, friendlychicken may be better on that than I am. If I remember rightly the director was named Kobayashi, but I'd have to double-check even that.
Seppuku, that is one you don't want to get confused with! (@o@)
I checked my dictionary just to see if "spackle" might have made it in as a loan-word, but it didn't come up. I'll look and see if suppakuru or anything close has a meaning.
Adventure is right! Did you check out TokyoCooney's ice cream adventure? I once had squid-ink soft cream. Bit salty, but better than you'd think. Actually, with all the black sesame flavored stuff you come to view mid-grey as an appetizing color if you stay there long.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 1, 2010 17:31:27 GMT -5
spackle = suppakuru? As long as it's not seppuku! Does suppakuru have a meaning? Squid-ink spaghetti? Eating Japanese is such an adventure. Er, I think I mean eating Japanese food. More Kwaidan tonight! Do you know anything else from that director? If they're all as beautiful as Kwaidan... It's Masaki Kobayashi and Criterion has three more films from him, and they are all good. The Human Condition which is a three part, 9 hour epic about a man who's a pacifist that is forced to fight in World War 2. He goes through one degradation after another until, well, you'll just have to watch the movie. HaraKiri is a lot like Throne Of Blood. Samurai Rebellion is about a peaceful man who's forced to fight for the rights of his family. The first 2 star Tatsuya Nakadai and the third stars Toshiro Mifune with Nakadai in a supporting role. They are in b&w and the films are social commentaries on Japanese culture and society. I can see why Kurosawa liked him and joined forces with Kobayashi, the director that made Twenty Four Eyes (His name keeps changing to Kinopoopiea when I do my preview!) and Kon Ichikawa to create films that Kurosawa sadly killed with the reception of Dodes'Ka-Den. I would love to have seen what would have come next. PS: Dear Criterion Collection, when are you going to release Ichikawa's Makioka Sisters on dvd or blu-ray? I'm waiting...
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Post by spackle on Mar 1, 2010 22:23:06 GMT -5
Wow! More for my Netflix list. I think I'll try Samurai Rebellion next.
I finished Kwaidan tonight. They were all amazing! I can't pick a favorite.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 1, 2010 22:37:45 GMT -5
I can see why Kurosawa liked him and joined forces with Kobayashi, the director that made Twenty Four Eyes (His name keeps changing to Kinopoopiea when I do my preview!) and Kon Ichikawa to create films that Kurosawa sadly killed with the reception of Dodes'Ka-Den. I would love to have seen what would have come next. Don't you hate that? I've started writing it Kinosh(i)ta. So, Do Desu Ka Den was a collaboration? That's another favourite of mine.
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