Say it one more time.
Niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga itta.
Is how you say it in Japanese. So this is the title of the first episode.
A Couple Clucking Chickens Were Still Kickin' in the Schoolyard is also a funny title,
but it doesn't sound funny in the same way that niwa niwa niwa niwa.
Welcome back to 2AM OTTACK! I'm your host Mayu, a born and raised Japanese non-otaku, and...
I'm Cisco, an American otaku.
In this podcast, we share our reviews of anime and manga through our distinct
perspectives with commentary on Japanese culture, history, and language.
Cisco.
Yeah.
We just finished watching half of Tatsuki Fujimoto before Chainsaw Man.
The manga is entitled Tatsuki Fujimoto before Chainsaw Man.
I think the anime might be titled Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26.
Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot. I always loved like one-shot type of manga and anime,
so like I had a great time. It's like I can finish, like I can stop watching whenever I want,
right? And it's so satisfying.
What?
No, it's just very you.
Yeah, that's very me. That's why like I keep reading like only Kochikame on Jump, like forever.
Yeah, I just think it's funny because it's so the opposite of what attracted me to anime.
Most American media is episodic, right? Where there's sort of a setting and then like,
I think it's true, especially for sitcoms, like there are different things that happen
within that setting, but the setting never really changes. There's very little character
development. It's just like more stuff every week that's completely self-contained.
And anime in particular, like the anime that I got really into as like a teenager,
the thing that I liked about it was that it was a story that went on often for quite a long time,
but had a true narrative arc like a book, not like these little sort of bite-sized things. So
I like one-shots as much as the next person, but I think I don't necessarily prefer them
to longer form media. I'm just saying it's funny because like we're opposites in that way.
We're very opposite sometimes. Anyway, so now you can watch
Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man on Amazon Prime. I think only on Amazon Prime.
We had to think about it, how to watch it because we don't have Amazon Prime at home.
Currently.
Currently, we might get one, but hasn't. Anyway, so we all going to talk about it.
There might be a little bit of spoilers.
There's definitely going to be a lot of spoilers.
Okay.
You can't even talk about these without spoiling them. They're only one episode long. It's not
like we're going to be like, oh, I'll only tell you the first half.
Okay. So watch out before listening to this episode.
Yeah. Consider watching these first and then hear our takes on them.
Before we start, we'd like to hear from you. Share your thoughts, ideas, questions,
or even suggestions what we should talk about. Send us a message to the email in the description,
or you can use Spotify and the YouTube comment section as well.
All right. Let's start from the very first episode.
The title is Couple Clucking Chickens Were Still Kicking in the Schoolyard.
Are they kicking or are they kicking it in the schoolyard?
Kicking in.
Kicking in the schoolyard. Okay.
So I think this is your favorite.
I think so too. Yeah.
Why is it?
Well, it's my favorite of the ones we're going to talk about today. I don't know that it's
my favorite of this whole series, but it's yeah, my favorite of the first four.
I think there are a couple of reasons why this is my favorite.
One, the story is both interesting. It seems like it's got some things it's trying to say.
And funny. It's kind of a parody.
And the animated version probably had the biggest budget of the ones that they animated.
So it feels the most like a regular anime episode.
So I think all of those things made me like it.
Okay. What did you think about the story perspective that humans are kind of like
getting the weaker side and the aliens are taking over and they're like eating humans,
blah, blah, blah.
Yeah. So it really reminded me of a manga that I read years ago called Gantz,
which was actually, I think, probably out at the time that Tatsuki Fujimoto was writing this,
because he wrote the story in 2011, right after the Tohoku earthquake,
before going to college in Yamagata.
And I remember reading like the end of Gantz,
right around this time, I started working my most recent job, which was in 2011.
Although the earthquake is in March. I don't know. And I don't, I think I was reading Gantz
after like it actually ended its run manga in the end has an alien invasion of earth.
And a lot of the humans start getting used for food by the aliens.
So there's some real parallels with what happens in this story in that manga,
but this one's, I mean, it's not lighthearted.
They're eating humans and humans like lose the alien invasion war,
but the alien society that gets created after they exterminate humans is basically just human
society, except with like super powerful aliens that can transform and fight each other.
So I like the sort of bleakness of the setting for humans that still has all this sort of,
you know, slice of life, anime, high school comedy in it.
I couldn't help thinking from the perspective of being vegetarian.
Yeah.
Yeah. I'm not vegan, but I stopped eating meat because of environmental aspect.
And then started thinking about like a kind of more like a animal rights way a little bit.
So I could see if that's the position is reversed, what would you think?
And it's like a great way to question about it.
Yeah. And then the story moves so fast.
Right.
Which I liked and there are twists and twists and here and there.
And then it's so easy to understand.
What do you mean?
It's like, I mean, like straightforward.
It's definitely very straightforward.
Yeah. It's not a complicated metaphor.
It's like a satire or a parody.
Right.
And then like, you know, like it's the alien was pretending to be a human
so that the alien could know how human feels like.
And then he was like, I was going to eat you anyway.
Actual human left.
I'm like, there's a tears from alien on like a little bit.
So did you see that?
Yeah.
So like there was like a feeling developed in the alien and try to save the human.
But yeah, it's easy to get it.
And so fast and so much like action going on.
And each alien looked really funny.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you think that Tatsuki Fujimoto is really questioning meat eating in this?
I mean, when there's like an episode we are not going to talk about today,
but like a fifth episode is about mermaid and the human.
Like there's like, you know, there's a scene of conversation.
There's a part where the mermaids accuse the humans of eating mermaids
because they can like make them immortal.
This is like a reference to like an old Japanese cultural belief
about eating mermaids, making you be able to live forever.
And there's like a bunch of anime and manga about this,
too, including one by Takashi Rumiko, actually.
Yeah. And then they're like, well, you used to eat us too.
I don't hear you apologizing for that.
And they're like, well, you're still eating us.
You don't apologize for that.
So there's like there's definitely some some questions about
like the ethics of like eating other types of sentient beings.
But the reason that I ask this question about like,
do you think Fujimoto Tatsuki is actually trying to make a comment about this?
Is like, I am not sure.
No, I don't think so.
OK.
I don't think so.
And I've never heard of him being vegan or vegetarian.
Yeah, I don't think it's not the point.
But because I'm vegetarian.
Is he making fun of people who are vegan or vegetarian?
Oh, I didn't see that way.
Well, so I ask because I think like the way that the aliens are drawn
is comical, right?
They're supposed to be funny and like weird looking and stuff.
They you know, it is really straightforward to read it as
a sort of, you know, a fable or a morality tale about
why it's unethical to eat other sentient or conscious animals.
Right.
Like humans, for example.
But because a lot of the story plays like a parody,
you also kind of wonder what's what exactly is being made fun of here.
Is it just tropes of anime and manga about like being a hero or whatever?
Or is it like a more elaborate, you know, sort of like mockery of
people who try to like argue for veganism or vegetarianism?
Or is it neither?
Right.
Like it's exploring that question, but it doesn't actually have a position or an answer.
Open.
You think it's open?
It's open.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I feel like conflicted about it, actually.
Like on the one hand, it really doesn't seem like the kind of thing the author would do
to try to be like, and therefore everybody ought to be vegan or vegetarian.
But there are a lot of those questions was like, is it OK?
Just because we're stronger that we eat them?
Like, isn't that the same thing that you do to animals?
And I think like there you have to either you'd have to take a side, right?
And be like, no, it's not the same thing because like we're better than animals.
Or, yeah, it is the same thing.
Right.
We eat them because we can and they can't make us stop.
And like as someone who does eat meat, but would be happier if all agriculture was like more humane.
Right.
I recognize that it's not.
And I am constantly eating stuff that's produced in like a factory system.
I mean, not constantly.
I think I've cut down a lot of my consumption.
But I don't I'm not so wedded to the belief that like I can't eat anything that isn't ethically
raised that like only eat, you know, meat bought from farms I've personally inspected or anything
right like that.
That feels like too high a bar.
But if I could, I totally would.
Even if it meant that meat was so expensive that I only ate it like three or four times a year.
Like if that was a realistic option, I would choose it.
I think I'm on the fence in terms of my own answer to like how ethical is it to eat animals?
I think like at some level, maybe it's not.
And I still do it.
But do I have a problem with people like PETA, like trying to read ethicals more fairly,
even via like, you know, acts of, I don't know, resistance against like corporate agriculture?
Like I don't really.
And we're agriculture to change drastically and become like more expensive and less accessible.
Or maybe not all agriculture, just meat.
I would be like, I'd probably actually be happy about that.
I would think it was a good thing.
Maybe my own ambivalence about meat eating is reflected in my
inability to interpret whether this is just a parody.
The other thing is I like, I think it's possible.
I don't know that I'm trying to say that it is, but I think it's possible
that it is a parody of people defending animal rights by being like,
that's ridiculous and won't make any difference anyway.
Also, the way that the aliens eat the humans in this story
is arguably like even less interested in like the ethicality of eating humans
than humans are in modern animal agriculture.
Because like, they were not even trying to preserve them.
They just like eat them all.
And then they're like, okay, with like completely wiping them out,
which is something that we would not do.
But I think what I'm really trying to say is Gantz,
the manga that I mentioned at the beginning,
is a much more interesting exploration of this question.
That was a lot for the first episode.
Sorry.
Let's move on to the second episode of which is Sasaki Starved a Bullet.
This is Tatsuki Fujimoto's favorite story from this collection.
What do you think?
That's a great question.
To me, the sort of meaning in this story is the most clearly expressed
and the one that I also like the best.
He, the tone that Fujimoto uses in the ending, especially,
is still like right there on that sort of line between parody and sincerity.
But it works really well in this story because of the way that it ends.
And I like the way that it communicates its message,
which I think is not at all muddied or unclear the way much of his other work sort of is.
So I don't know if that's why he likes it.
That's why I like it.
I thought it was funny at the beginning because this student,
like a kind of typical beginning of story,
student likes teacher and then like fantasize, like a lot of things.
Just like a 40 year old.
Yes. Yeah.
Tojima wants to be a Kamen Rider, right?
Yeah, I think that's the English title.
Yeah. There's a student.
Right.
Yeah. It's kind of typical.
I don't know how typical it is in America, interestingly.
Like, I feel like it's less of a trope in the U.S., not that it doesn't exist at all,
but it's like really common in Japan.
And it's like not as common in America.
I don't think super young women typically go into high school education in the U.S.,
even middle school, like maybe sometimes.
But I feel like elementary school is where, like,
you have like more of this trope of like a hot young teacher.
Elementary schoolers don't care.
But like middle school, I feel like probably a lot of American women would be like,
I'm definitely not going to go work in that kind of environment
because of like legitimate concerns about getting sexually harassed.
You know what I mean?
Taboo.
Maybe not. Anyway, yeah, it's a trope in anime
that I don't think is like a trope in American culture to the same degree.
Okay. And then what was funny to me was like main boy with glasses can't get over the idea of
his favorite teacher has to have sex so that she can save her student
because he is probably in middle school.
Probably never had a sex before.
Definitely never had sex before.
So like he did whatever he could do to prevent her having sex with
teachers like a former classmate or whatever.
Right.
I think that that part of was really, really funny.
Yeah.
And also, I like the message of like having common sense.
Right.
And then people can get kind of like brainwashed by the statement people make.
And they're like, I can't do it anymore because this is common sense.
But like, you don't have to have that.
And you can there's still possibilities for everything.
There's no like zero percent and then do whatever you want.
You can even stop a bullet with your bare hand.
Or become a manga artist.
Yeah.
So I like this, again, straight message.
I like anything, any TV drama or movies with straight forward message.
This one does have a pretty straightforward message.
I really liked the idea.
The like afterward comment in the manga is that he considered drawing the final scene
where the main characters on the moon with instead of the earth in the background,
meteor.
And I think the implication of having drawn a meteor would have been that
he's now on the moon as an astronaut and he's going to stop a meteor with his hand.
And like having it like one upping the joke of like stopping a bullet with your bare hand by
going to space to stop a meteor with your bare hand.
I think that would have been really funny.
Maybe it would have undermined like the actual thing a little bit by making it more hilarious.
And, you know, by having it be the earth, it's a little bit more of like a sweeter ending.
But, uh, I, I loved reading that note from the author because it made me think of like
how funny it would have been to have like the alternate.
I don't think it was the wrong choice to have it be the earth.
Like, I think it changes what the ending feels like.
But, uh, it felt very Tatsuki Fujimoto to have been made.
Like he thought about making it a meteor.
And it just, it reminded me a lot of the Yonkoma manga at the beginning of look back
where the guy gets reborn as a meteor and comes to the earth to like destroy it.
Right.
In order to like kiss the girl in their next life, that idea of somebody out in space,
like trying to stop a meteor with their bare hands, um, kind of same idea.
So I was like, Oh, I really see some of the parallels here.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's move on to the third episode of which is love is blind.
What did you think about this?
Uh, I really liked this one.
Um, talk about straightforward though.
Like this is one really simple joke with like three back to back iterations and like no
other progression of the story.
Um, the author's note at the end of this one is he drew this because the editorial staff told him
that he took 31 pages to do to accomplish what should be accomplished in 16.
And he's like, looking back on it, it's still true.
And I think that's like, especially true in this story.
I really liked the art style of this one.
Um, this isn't a criticism of Fujimoto, but I didn't love the way that, uh,
Sasaki stops a bullet got animated.
I think it is pretty, I don't even the actual manga, I think is like kind of a step up from
the anime in terms of it's like visual quality.
And so if you watch Sasaki stops a bullet and you're like, I don't really like the look of this
production.
I say, I would say definitely make a point of reading the manga.
Cause I think it's actually better.
But this one, I feel the reverse.
I think the animation really pushed up the quality of the design of love is blind.
Love is blind is the thing that Fujimoto won his first award for, right?
This is like his, his sort of like first breakout one shot.
Um, and I think he's written 2013.
So he was like 19 years old.
He's very young.
Anyway, this one is really playing with an anime trope around confessing your feelings
for somebody else, but it's very funny.
And it does like a great job of using like color and like the character's eyes and like,
I don't know, shadow and light and stuff.
And there's also a whale for no reason.
Yeah.
Right.
Like there's some like fun things in this one.
It's got like callbacks to a lot of the other ones.
Like there's an alien who appears at the end and there's like, you know, I don't know.
I think this one's really funny.
I liked it.
Tatsuki Fujimoto's work can be random, but this one is especially pretty random.
In what sense?
Why random characters appear towards the end when the main character is trying to confess.
Totally.
Yeah.
I mean, this one feels like a Yonkoma manga, right?
Yeah.
It could be much shorter.
You'd be like a 16-koma manga, right?
Like, I want to confess.
Oh, no, the teacher stopped me.
I want to confess.
Oh, no, a homeless guy like attacked me.
A mugger attacked me.
Oh, no, like he stopped me.
And then like, oh, no, an alien attacked me.
And then she's actually like, actually, we should do something about the aliens, right?
Like, or then he like just goes through the confession anyway.
Like it's the plot is extremely straightforward, but I think it does like all the gags are visual
or like audio, right?
Yeah, I don't know.
I liked it.
I mean, probably this is not true.
But like, maybe this is like when Makima was like a little or like younger when she was.
No, no.
I don't.
I mean, like, I think the character design does look like Makima.
And her ability to like casually like murder and hurt people is like Makima.
But I think like her characterization, her personality, stuff like that is not Makima.
Is really different.
Yeah, I know.
Okay.
But I say like, this could be on, you know, different like Sekaisen or like.
Oh, no.
Or the line.
Yeah.
I mean, I think I don't know.
I think he was experimenting in this story with some of the qualities that he eventually gave to
Makima, like the hairstyle and the eyes and some of the other stuff.
Yeah.
It was interesting.
And then how she was like falling in love with the guy, especially she was like basically abused
by her parents because she was different.
Right.
From other kids.
And sadistic.
Sadistic.
What's this?
Taking joy in other things.
Pain.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
She rips legs off things, you know.
Yeah.
That's like disturbing.
You can try to tell people that's wrong.
Right.
But she clearly enjoys like killing and like, I guess not hurting.
Maybe she isn't to say this.
She doesn't seem to enjoy hurting people.
She seems to know that's wrong, but she's so good at it that she keeps doing it.
Yeah.
What did you think about this episode?
Um, in some ways, this feels like a very traditional anime in that, like the art direction,
the animation quality and some of the other things like and, you know, there's a really
sort of erotic scene, right?
Of her like feeling like love for the first time.
But like she's in like the Scarlett Johansson from Lost in Translation outfit, right?
In a bed.
And you're sort of like, was this necessary?
Right.
Even in the anime too, yeah.
Yeah.
Just like arching her back and stuff where you're just like, like really gratuitous.
And it's not quite that over the top in the manga.
There's like one page of it, you know, as opposed to like several different cuts.
But it like it like the first story.
I think it feels more like a like a regular anime the way like two and three really feel
like experimental sort of translations of somebody's early manga into an anime.
Whereas the number one and four feel more like somebody else could have made this.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think I, it doesn't feel as uniquely, you know, Fujimoto Tatsuki as some of the other
stories, but there is some elements of it that you can kind of see reflected later in things
like Chainsaw Man or Sayonara Eri.
One of the other things that is really notable from reading the book is how much manga it
feels like Fujimoto Tatsuki produced in order to make money that like he is someone who has
often been financially precarious and needed to like create stuff, not necessarily for the
like pure joy of creation and art, but because it was like, I need to put food on the table.
I need to, I need to make some money.
And so that for me adds like another element to considering some of his work as like the
desire to make something that is popular or sells can't always be divided from what is the
message or what are you trying to say here?
Sometimes it's just what will be funny or what will people like?
And this story in my mind has some of those elements.
She's killing people for money, right?
That's like pretty direct.
And then she sort of falls in love with this guy who's a vampire.
I don't know.
It feels like a little bit more commercial than some of the other ones to me.
All right.
Let's do today's word of the day.
Otaku, word of the day.
What is today's word of the day?
Or should I say it?
It's a phrase and you should definitely say it because I'm not, I don't have a lot of
confidence that I will say it correctly.
This is basically a tongue twister in Japanese.
Do you want to translate or can you translate?
Sure.
So niwa, garden.
Which one comes first?
Niwa, garden.
Okay.
Niwa, garden.
Niwa, in the.
Niwa, two birds.
Niwatori, two birds, chickens, ga ita.
So it literally is there were two chickens in the garden.
But say it one more time.
Is how you say it in Japanese.
So this is the title of the first episode.
And it's really funny, right?
It's like a funny title.
A couple clucking chickens were still kicking in the schoolyard is also a funny title,
but it doesn't sound funny in the same way that new and niwa, niwa, niwa, niwa.
Right.
Tori ga arimashita.
It's like, it's a way funnier thing to say.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, and I think particularly after the ending, which is supposed to be like
tear jerking, but like sad.
And then to immediately be like, niwa, niwa, niwa, tori ga arimashita.
Niwa, niwa, niwa, niwa, tori ga ita.
OK, well, I'd like messed it up, but whatever.
There's that's a laugh line in a way that a couple clucking chickens were still kicking
in the schoolyard just isn't because that's not a tongue.
I mean, it's hard to say it in English, but it is not a well-known English tongue twister,
nor does it sound quite as funny.
So anyway, I think it's there are a lot of tongue twisters like that in Japanese.
Can we do another one just for fun?
Just for fun.
Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da.
The customer to my side or the customer next to me is a customer who eats a lot of clams.
No, persimmons.
Oh, persimmons.
Yeah.
Why do you think it's clams?
What's oysters?
Kaki.
That's not what he's eating.
He's eating persimmons.
Persimmons.
It's also kaki.
Kaki, yeah.
How can you tell?
Persimmons is kaki.
And what's oysters?
Kaki.
Oh, damn it.
OK.
Also, summertime is also kaki.
So you could just add some more.
Can you say the customer next to me is a customer who eats persimmons and oysters in the summer?
I know persimmons are a winter food, but he eats persimmons and oysters in the summertime.
Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki ni kaki kuu kyaku da.
Kaki to kaki.
No, kaki to kaki.
Kaki to kaki.
Both oysters and...
Yeah, persimmons.
OK.
Tonari no kyaku wa kaki ni kaki to kaki...
I can't.
Yes.
OK.
I have to think the words.
I have to look at the kanji to pronounce properly.
Yeah.
OK.
Well, so my point is, like, there's lots of things like that.
Yeah.
Sumomo momomo momomo no uchi.
Sumomo momomo momomo no uchi.
Momomo sumomo momomo no uchi.
Yeah.
Which means sour pears and peaches.
Plums.
Plums or sour plums?
Regular plums.
Sumomo just is a regular plum?
Sumomo is...
Regular plums are pretty sour in Japan.
OK.
I guess that's fair.
Plums and peaches are both part of the peach family.
Also, peaches are plum's family.
Yeah.
OK.
Well, whatever.
There's, yeah, there's like, there's a bunch like this.
So I think that being the title is funnier in Japanese.
It was funny that they said it at the end.
Right.
They didn't have to.
Right.
Right, right.
Yeah.
They could have just had the title card instead of, like, saying it out loud.
Yeah.
But they say it out loud, which makes it even better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So before we end, is there anything that you'd like to add?
Are we planning to talk about the second set of four episodes later?
My favorite is in the next set.
So I am really looking forward to getting to discuss that.
The other thing that's interesting from the manga is that at the end, he's like,
I didn't want to put this thing out.
But then, like, the reason he didn't want to put it out is because he was too lazy to write
the comments and draw the cover art, which is amazing.
But also, you know, it's I think it's got to be hard to look back on your like
very early work and be like, I'm going to release this in a volume.
Right.
I think he didn't want to.
Yeah, I think, you know, there's there's probably a level at which
he's sort of like, do I really want to, like, show these like really old things again?
And yeah, so I don't know.
I think like it's it's just always on my mind that Hujimoto Tatsuki is like contemplating
or weighing decisions about making art against the feeling of the need to make money.
I'm sure this is true for many manga artists, and they just don't show it to the same degree.
And I think especially in the United States, there's this kind of romanticization of
artists as people who like make art for art's sake, who are not concerned with
the commercial value of their work.
And I'm sure that's like equally not true here.
And plenty of artists are intentionally trying to like be commercial artists at the same time
that they're also just making art.
But one of the persistent themes in Hujimoto Tatsuki's work is the sense of helplessness.
And he talks a lot in these author's notes about feeling like he's not making a difference
in either the art that he does or in like volunteering that the world is sort of like
too big and like too messy to be controlled or influenced.
And I get that real sense of fatalism from him in things like Chainsaw Man.
And we've talked a lot about this, but comparing him to Camus and stuff like
I think his background and life like really have that as like a repeated theme.
So I think it's probably a complex choice to put out these volumes in a way like knowing,
well, now that I'm like a big hit, these will sell and make me some extra money.
But like, how do I feel about like these actual stories and how do I want to put them out
there in the world and stuff?
I think that fatalism is probably the source of some of the ambivalence that's present
in these different stories about like, what am I trying to say?
Does it even matter?
Am I just sort of parodying stuff or am I trying to make like a sincere point or argument?