日本旅行の体験
Konnichiwa, I am your host Mayu for 2AM OTTACK! In this podcast, we talk all about anime, manga, movies, music, and history through our distinct perspectives.
As a born and raised Japanese non-Ottaku, that's me, and an American fan.
That's me.
So, we are ready to talk about our awesome trip in Japan.
Yeah.
I personally was in Japan for a really long time.
I arrived in Japan June 6th, and came back to the States on August 22nd.
I don't want to say it's like a trip or travel. I was just a resident.
Yeah, it wasn't a vacation for you really, right?
No.
Not until the very end, like towards the end.
Yeah, towards the end.
It was a long, long stay in Japan for me.
What about you, Sisko?
So, I think I flew to Japan on July... I think I arrived there on the 17th, and then stayed until the 22nd of August.
So, it was a little over a month for me, and it was definitely a vacation for me.
So, I had a great time for the whole month that I was there, and I'm sorry your stay was longer and less fun.
That's okay.
All right.
So, when you arrived at Narita Airport, you got a renter car and drove up from Narita to Akita.
Yep.
And you did a mini trip.
I did.
And then we both went down south and did a road trip from Akita.
So, I counted how many prefectures you drove through.
Okay.
It's 15.
That's okay.
That's a lot.
I guess so.
Someone I work with today called me a road tripper or asked me if I was a road tripper.
And after talking about my driving experience in America, it was very clear that I am definitely a road tripper.
So, I've been to 15 out of like 47 Japanese prefectures by car, apparently.
Only this time?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, plus Hokkaido, but that's only one more.
So, like 18 total.
I guess you have never driven other parts of Japan.
No, no, no.
This was really my first road trip in Japan other than our trip to Hokkaido before, which is like, it was long, but it was only one prefecture.
In America, I've driven to 48 of the 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii.
The two I haven't been to are Florida and Maine.
So, you know, by comparison, it's like Japan's like a lot smaller.
So, yeah, it was impressive.
But also, like, compared to my other road trips, it wasn't necessarily that long.
Okay.
Says so.
During our road trip together, we visited a couple of anime, manga, holy places.
Holy ground.
Yes.
How do you translate this?
I would translate it as holy ground.
Because, I mean, I guess you could say we made pilgrimages if you really wanted to emphasize it as like a religious journey.
But I think holy land or holy grounds, I don't, yeah, I guess that's true.
We also, I don't know, I saw some stuff that was randomly anime related, like my first meal in Japan this time around was at a restaurant called Kimetsu no Sakura in, I think it was in Ibaraki.
And it was a like ramen and noodle restaurant that was just totally decked out with Kimetsu no Yaiba stuff.
But is it is a place related to actual?
I think it's just run by people who are fans.
So, like, I really, I was kind of hoping that it would be like even more connected.
I don't know why I was thinking this was possible, but I was like, I really wanted the menu to be like, and this is Tanjiro's favorite ramen.
This is like Inosuke's favorite ramen.
And this is like, you know, whatever, the love Hashida's like favorite ramen.
And they didn't go quite that far.
I think maybe that would have been like copyright infringement or something.
They did have a lot of like Demon Slayer sort of merch all over the place.
And it was cool.
And the noodles were amazing.
I ate something called abura soba that I'd never had before that knocked my socks off.
And so if you're in Japan, you can go there and enjoy it.
Maybe they're afraid of getting sued, but I think it would have been really cool if they could have been like, and this is what this character likes to eat.
Regardless of whether or not it's true.
I think it would be challenging presenting ramen during Taisho era.
Really? Why?
Was there ramen during Taisho era?
When was it imported?
God, I assume so.
I guess I don't know.
Maybe we shouldn't.
We'll Google it after this.
I feel like there probably was, but maybe not this store.
Okay, so there are a couple of places we are aware that anime, like holy places.
But after we did the trip and I found out there are more places we visited, but without knowing those places are holy anime places.
Let's go from our first day of trip in Yamagata.
Okay, so we passed through like a temple, a dam, some waterfalls, a museum about the Jomon era.
アニメとロケ地
And then we went to Uriwari Sekite Quarry, which we discussed briefly in the episode about My Oni Girl.
Yes.
So this, we didn't know about this.
We didn't know when we went there.
We just saw a poster.
It was like, what?
This is related?
Yeah, but it was cool to see.
We hadn't watched the actual movie yet then, but after we came back to the States, we watched together and we were like, oh, we recognize this place.
Yeah, it was cool.
Even though the scenes were really, really short.
Right.
But it was still cool to see it.
Clearly somebody got paid to go location scout and found it and was like, we should include this and took some sketches and stuff, right?
Probably.
福島の文化遺産
So the next day, we drove farther south from Yamagata into Fukushima Prefecture.
And we saw a bunch of places.
We saw like a valley.
We checked out some lakes.
We did a hike through a gorge.
We saw a lake in Awashiro.
And then we went to a temple called Sazaedo, which is named, the building is named after the shell of like a sea snail.
I guess.
Edible, yeah.
An edible sea snail.
Yeah.
Anyway, it's got like a double helix corkscrew shape.
The building is really old.
It dates back to the Edo era.
It's made entirely of wood and it just looks visually very different than most other temple buildings in Japan.
And that was amazing.
I really enjoyed that place.
Yeah, you went in and you go up, it's like a really small steps.
Yeah.
Well, they're not, I don't even know if I would call them steps.
There are pieces of wood in the floor that help you get traction as you go up, but they are not steps really.
Oh, but you go up and they're coming back on a different route.
Yeah.
It's got that like that double helix again.
So the way you go down is not the way you came up, even though it looks extremely similar.
Sad I didn't go in.
Yeah.
It wasn't even that much money.
I'm not sure why you decided to stay outside.
I don't know.
It was really, really hot.
It wasn't any cooler inside the building.
That's true.
But yeah, if we have time, like a chance to visit, I'll visit there for sure.
Yeah.
It looks cool.
It was fun.
Yeah.
What else did we do?
会津若松の歴史
So this was while we were in the town of Aizu Wakamatsu, which I had always wanted to go to because I knew it was the last stand of the bakufu, you know, the Tokugawa shogunate forces during the Meiji Revolution.
And so we went and saw the castle Tsuruga-jo, which is in the middle of the city.
And it's all like a recreation.
Like they destroyed the original or I guess.
No, wait.
They damaged a lot of it.
Yeah.
And they saved the bottom.
Right.
But the top of it was crumbling and they like got donations in order to save the castle and then like kind of refixed it up.
This was an interesting castle in that, one, it was so hot outside that like they had canceled outdoor activities planned for the castle grounds when we went there.
And the inside of the castle is air conditioned.
Like the bottom floor, I think, is like naturally cool.
And then some of the middle floors, which have been transformed into museum, have full on air conditioning in them.
And then at the very top, I don't think there's any more air conditioning, but it's like still pretty nice.
Yeah.
So it's a very nice castle.
It's got a lot of really good history.
Rurouni Kenshin has, especially the OAV that like leads into it, is about the Meiji Revolution.
But I don't think it features any like battles at Tsuruga-jo.
But I feel like this is like ripe territory.
There's probably lots of manga about this.
But I wonder if there's ever been a famous anime about this.
Maybe there is and I just don't know what it is.
As far as my research, no, I couldn't find that.
Well, someday there will be one.
I'm pretty sure about that.
Yeah.
And after the Tsuruga-jo, we went to?
We visited a kind of touristy spot called Ouchi-juku that replicates like an old stop on the road between Aizu-wakamatsu and Tokyo that the daimyo used during the Tokugawa era.
But it was a little bit too kitschy for our taste, I would say.
It was a cute old looking town, but a lot of like stores sold merchandise, but like not like old time merchandise.
Yeah, I think it could have worked better if they'd like restricted it more to being like things you could have bought there in the era.
I don't know.
I think also like they were all old houses, but they were all the same store more or less.
They sold almost all the same thing all the way up and down the town.
So that was kind of disappointing.
Okawasoリゾート地の体験
And then after that, we went to the hotel we were staying in, the same town as the Okawaso Resort.
And the Okawaso like hotel and onsen is apparently what inspired the Infinity Castle in Demon Slayer.
And I was the only person who went.
You guys all saved yourselves.
I was tired.
Excuses, excuses.
But so I walked there and it was amazing.
Also, I was not sure if you could go in if you're not staying at the hotel.
Yeah.
I mean, so it's true that if you are planning to go there yourself someday and not stay there, the onsen is only open to people not staying in the hotel between like 11am and 2pm.
It's really short.
Actually, I think it's up until 3pm, but you have to like be in the onsen by two in order to be allowed to use it.
So they really want you to book a stay in the hotel.
And I can't speak to that experience because we didn't stay there.
But the lobby is phenomenal.
I happened to go in the afternoon, which is when they have a Biwa player come and like sit in the center of the Infinity Castle.
I checked this.
They don't play Biwa.
Oh, what do they play?
Shamisen.
Shamisen.
Yeah.
Well, so that's too bad.
But still, it sounded amazing.
It looked really cool.
It felt like I was in Muzan's Infinity Castle, which probably also has super overpriced beer.
Not that I drank it.
Beer?
Yeah, there's like a bar or like lounge area like on the top that you can sort of sit in.
And I don't know, no one was there when I went there, which was weird.
But there were people just hanging out in the lobby, like listening to the Shamisen music and chilling, which I partook of a little bit.
I like stood around and took pictures and then left.
But the people at the hotel were really friendly, and it was awesome.
I can't get enough of that place.
You were lucky that you encountered the performance.
The Shamisen player?
Yeah.
Because it's only 4 to 6 p.m.
Yeah, so I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Yes!
Again, I was exhausted during check-in times.
We'd had a long day and a lot of hot waiting in line in that day.
Yeah.
I get it.
Well, maybe next time.
Maybe we should stay next time.
It's expensive.
It's kind of pricey, but I feel like it might be worth it.
Gyunyu-ya Ramenの人気
Anyway, we also ate dinner at a place called Gyunyu-ya Ramen, which translates to milk cellar or milk store ramen, which doesn't sound like that appealing.
But as the only one who ordered the milk miso ramen, I can tell you it was phenomenal.
It was really good.
And the sauce katsu here was also great.
People lined up before the opening hour.
Yeah.
We were unlucky here in that they opened half an hour later than usual, so there was quite a line.
And we hadn't checked when it opened or anything.
No.
We happened to be pretty high up on that line and got in quickly, but it was really popular.
And apparently, I can't confirm this because we didn't go, but apparently this store also has a booth in the ramen museum in Nikko.
I checked it, yeah.
So they're famous and they deserve it.
They're really good.
Yeah, good find in Suzuko.
Thanks.
Yeah.
日光のKegon Falls
And the next day, where did we go?
So we did a lot of driving the next day.
We attempted to go to Toshogu in Nikko, but it was pouring rain when we got there, so we elected not to attempt it.
It was crazy.
It was very intense.
The roads were getting kind of flooded, and yeah, it was not the right time to go there.
So we just took it as a sign and moved on.
But we did stop at Kegon Falls, which is, I think, one of the best-known waterfalls in Japan.
That's really, I think, the biggest highlight even within the Nikko area because it's right at the top of the Irohazaka Road.
And shout out Initial D at this point because Initial D has that in its arcade games and also in the manga and anime and stuff.
And it's a very cool road with a lot of twists and turns.
Although, my impression was that they've started to include more and more bumps and stuff to dissuade people from doing street racing on some of these famous roads.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And for safety reasons, I get it.
But as someone who had pretensions to being able to drift at one point in his life, also a little bit sad.
Yeah. Do you know why it's called Irohazaka?
As far as I understand, this is the old way of saying the alphabet in Japanese.
You start with I-ro-ha-za-ka.
No, no, no. Not zaka, because that means hill.
But Iroha are the first three.
滝巡りの旅
Iroha, Nihohe, Tochirinuru, Oya.
Okay, which doesn't seem very sensible to me, but that's what it is.
And I don't think there are as many turns on the road as there are letters in the kana alphabet, but there are a lot of them.
And so you can imagine people counting it sort of like turn A, turn B, turn C, etc.
That's right. They have 48 curves.
Oh, okay.
And it's the same number as Iroha.
All right. Well, then there are actually that number.
It's sort of like if you could count all the turns A through Z twice.
It's selected for Nihon no Michi Hyakusen.
It's one of the top 100 roads in Japan?
I guess. I don't know who this is.
Japan really has a lot of things where they're like, this is one of the top three.
And there must just be a lot of lists, because I saw a number of waterfalls on this trip, and almost all the waterfalls I saw were in the top three.
And I saw like at least six or nine or something.
So there's just a lot of different top threes, I think.
Yeah, it was interesting. Lots of curves.
I got a little bit nervous.
Yeah.
But there's one way, right?
Yeah.
The roadway is separated.
So the uphill is separate from the downhill, which is nice, because you don't have to worry about anybody coming down at you.
There are two lanes, which is unusual for a Japanese road, on the uphill.
And when we went, it had rained so hard that many trees had dropped branches onto the road.
And I think a lot of other people were afraid to be driving in the pouring rain that we were in.
So I was just freely swerving between lanes to avoid the debris in the road.
It was an exhilarating experience.
Yeah.
After that, we got up to sort of like the plateau up there, and we saw Chuzenji, the lake that's up there.
And we stopped at a place called the Chuzenji Lake Boathouse that was apparently built, I think it was built by the first ambassador to the United States from Japan,
and then got like a big upgrade after World War II when the Allied commanders chose to use it as a resort.
So that was kind of neat.
It's not very anime, though.
Or is it?
No.
Oh, okay.
Just making sure.
And then we saw Yudaki Falls, which was very beautiful and which you can get a lot closer to.
One of the downsides of Kegon Falls, which is very nice and has an elevator, you can view it from two different elevations, it's cool, but you don't get very close to Kegon Falls.
You kind of see them from a distance.
Yudaki Falls, you can go down and kind of ride up to where they are.
So that was pretty, and we liked it.
And then we saw yet another waterfall, Fukiwara Falls.
So no longer in Nikko or even in Tochigi, I think it's actually in Gunma.
But that was also very pretty.
It's called Japanese Niagara Falls.
Wait, which one?
Fukiwara Falls.
Because of its shape, you mean?
I think so.
Because it's kind of like that little horse.
You can't even see the horse.
Okay.
No.
I'm going to take issue with that because it's a lot smaller than Niagara Falls.
Of course, yeah.
But it is pretty, and it does have that interesting shape of the water kind of falling into a crevice in the middle, rather than being just like a straight waterfall.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Okay.
Yeah.
ロックハート城の訪問
And then next day, we went to a really strange, interesting place, which is called...
Lockhart Castle.
So unlike the other Japanese castles that we visited on this trip, this one is a Scottish castle that was transported from Scotland via the Trans-Siberian Railroad during the era of the communist USSR with special permission from Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev.
I think it would kind of be one thing if it was an actually old and famous Scottish castle, but the Lockhart family wasn't even ennobled until the 1820s or something.
And so it's a kind of newer Scottish castle?
I don't know.
The whole experience was very Japan.
They'd taken an actual piece of Europe that wasn't necessarily famous, completely rebuilt it, and it's mostly a location for photo shoots.
Photo shoots or filming stuff.
Yeah.
And even while we were there, first thing in the morning on a weekday, there were people who had gone for the princess dress experience, where they could dress up in a fancy European ball gown and then have a bunch of pictures taken of themselves standing in an honest-to-god European castle.
This felt very anime, even though I can't name any anime that involve Lockhart Castle.
Which would be, I guess, weird because it's too real, too fake.
I don't know.
アニメと特撮のロケ地
But yeah, I think it allows people to live out some anime-like fantasies of being a princess in a castle.
I think it was featured by many media.
So there's a whole room filled with autographs from famous people.
Well, it definitely seems to have been the location for a lot of music videos.
Yeah.
Because we saw a ton of autographs from pop stars who had shot their music videos here.
And they had something playing on a loop of goth-made music videos in a castle.
Right.
I didn't know about this anime, but Yamanosusume?
Mm-hmm.
Encouragement of Climb?
Have you heard of this?
No.
Me neither.
But this place appears in the anime.
And the live-action Kamen Rider.
Yeah.
Shot in here.
Okay.
Yeah.
I don't know how many people know about Kamen Rider.
I don't think it really took off in America.
I guess it was never in anime.
It was Tokusatsu, like Godzilla.
So I think a lot of Americans are, well, of a certain age, like mine, probably remember Power Rangers.
Because that was the property that got licensed by an American company and dubbed and shown on regular TV.
And so Kamen Rider is Power Rangers, but there's only one hero.
And actually, I'm sure there are Kamen Riders.
There are a lot more Kamen Riders.
There's a bunch of Kamen Riders in them, yes.
And so it has some similarities also to Ultraman.
Yeah.
Which had some, I think some people in America saw that.
But I don't know if the Kamen Rider series specifically is a big one in the U.S.
清津峡の観光体験
So next, we actually drove north from Gunma into Niigata and saw a place called Kiyotsu Gorge, which has been significantly upgraded in the last 10 years, I guess.
They had a competition to redesign the tunnel that leads to this place and really made it very, I don't know, new wave art style.
It looks cool.
And at the very end of the tunnel is basically a photo spot where they've put a reflecting pool that you can wade into and then take Instagram-worthy pictures of yourself standing in the reflection of the sky and the end of the tunnel.
It's very pretty.
Gorge itself is, yeah, okay.
It's pretty, but at this point, we saw many really great gorges.
We've been to a number of gorges at this point.
So compared to those things, it was a little bit like okay feeling, but there's so many people because the inside, the whole experience of going there was amazing.
Yeah, I mean, it definitely felt like you could tell, I guess part of the backstory here is there had been a road or a walking path next to the gorge that probably would have been more in line with the other gorges we'd seen.
But there was like a rockfall, right?
Some kind of disaster that destroyed that part of the road, and so they built a tunnel to go see parts of the gorge instead.
And then I think the number of tourists had dropped off, so they held a competition to reimagine what it could be and then implemented it, and now it's great.
They have a toilet in the tunnel.
They have a toilet that...
I mean, bathroom.
Yeah, I guess there are two, technically, that involve one-way mirrors.
So from the outside, it looks like an art installation.
You can't actually tell it's a restroom.
And then if you go inside, you can see the people outside while you're inside going to the bathroom, which is a very unnerving experience that I don't really recommend.
It was weird.
竜ヶ窪の静けさ
I think after that, we went to a place called Ryugakubo Spring.
This was one of the least busy places I think we went on the whole trip.
There was almost no one else.
I think we ran into maybe one other person.
Right.
There was a guy supervising the parking lot who made us pay to park there, like 100 yen or something.
It was really cheap.
But it was a very neat spot.
It was pretty.
It was very pretty.
Yeah.
It had a real, like, you know, Sento Chihiro kind of feeling to it, of like, there's a shrine at the end of the walk that's, like, really deserted.
The whole place is very quiet and, like, almost spooky.
The water is insanely clear, and you can see straight down to the bottom of the pond.
There are fish swimming in it.
It was neat.
After that, we took a crazy drive to Mount Shirane?
Yeah.
Yugama area, which I had no idea.
Yeah, sorry.
I kind of planned this without telling you.
I didn't know it was going to be as nuts as it got while we were there, but I did know that we were going over the highest point of all highways in Japan.
That was part of what attracted me to drive this road.
And turns out Mount Shirane, or Yugama, is an active volcano.
緊張感漂う山道のドライブ
And as you drive past it, there are these interesting tunnels, like a really short-
Shelters.
Yeah, volcano shelters, which I think you're supposed to get into if the mountain starts erupting and shooting, like, flaming rocks at you.
And on the way down from this mountain, you pass, in your car, areas where there are big signs saying,
Don't let your car slow down too much here, you might die of poison gas.
And we are talking about, while we were driving, you can't see anything, because it was cloudy, misty.
Like, we couldn't see anything in the front.
In portions of it, we were in a rainstorm.
Other parts, we were just in, like, incredibly dense fog.
So imagine how terrifying that was.
I had fun, but yeah, it was tense.
I mean, after we came back, I was, yeah.
And now, like, I feel like we had a good experience.
But while we were there, like, I was worried about gas, too.
Yeah, yeah.
You could smell the gas from inside the car, which was-
No, no, no. Our gasoline for the car.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Oh, I was.
I was so worried.
I'm always worried about it.
Yeah, we can have a full tank, and you're like, but what if we run out of gas?
Yeah.
I can't. I can't.
It was crazy.
And there were still people coming up while we were going down the mountains.
That's true, yeah.
Well, and we saw people at the top of the mountain training for the biathlon, I think.
They were, like, on, like, really, really interesting, long, like, ski-shaped roller skates.
Yeah, yeah. I think they were training.
And they were just going back and forth, trying to, like, train in, like, low-oxygen environments or something.
Yeah, like, a couple of hotels, and then people are there staying.
Yeah.
Why?
I'm sure if the clouds and fog went away, it would be a very pretty view.
I guess.
That's probably it.
Yeah, we had a different kind of experience.
That's true.
Yeah.
草津温泉の魅力
And after that crazy drive, we arrived in Kusatsu.
Yeah, this was one of my favorite spots, I think.
Yeah, that was my first time, and I knew about it, and it was great, but I didn't know how tiny the place was, but filled with people.
Yeah, so it's a hot springs resort town.
There is a giant hot spring in the middle of the town that's quite famous, and they've got some, like, interesting, I don't even know what to call them, like, wooden things in the middle of the hot spring that, like, are channels that, like, direct the hot water somewhere.
You can kind of walk around the whole town.
Lots of people are just out in, like, yukata from their hotels, just kind of strolling.
There's a lot of places to eat.
Yeah, it was awesome, and it has a long history, right?
It goes all the way back to…
Kamakura?
Yeah, I think the Kamakura, like, shogunate era, when it was, like, you know, the hot springs were discovered and then visited by the shogun.
Minamoto no Yoritomo?
Yeah.
I think, yeah.
I mean, they are so successful, how they turn their tiny, like, onsen space for, like, such a touristy place.
And it's not so far from Tokyo, I guess.
Yeah, although it's interesting, you can't get there by train.
You have to take a train to a bus to get there or drive, and driving in this town was not a lot of fun.
The roads are so tiny.
The roads are really narrow, even for Japan, and it was hard to park and everything else, but I'm glad we went.
I'm glad we went.
Yeah.
アニメとの関連性
Have you heard of Oreimo?
Anime?
I don't know, I feel like that could describe a lot of different anime, actually.
This is a shortened version, but, like, in English it's called Oreimo, but the Japanese title is Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai.
I'm ashamed to admit that I have, in fact, heard of this.
I've never seen it, but, yes, I'm aware that it exists.
Yeah.
I don't know much about this anime, but Kusatsu Onsen appears in this anime, and then I think the sister is, like, otaku? Hidden otaku or something?
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
I don't know.
That's all I know.
That's more than I know, or maybe it's just different things than I know.
Yeah.
We'll keep going.
Yeah.
We tried onsen in a hotel.
We did.
And it was crazy hot.
It was the hottest onsen I have ever been in.
Probably me, too.
Yeah.
I mean, you could feel your skin is, like...
Lighting on fire.
Or, like, needling?
Being boiled like a lobster.
Needled?
Yeah, pins and needles.
Yeah.
I mean, I came out and thought I had developed, like, a full-body rash, or had been, like, suffered actual burns.
草津温泉の魅力
It was intense.
Was it intentional so that you don't soak in the onsen, like, for a long time?
Or that's how people...
I think that's just how kusatsu rolls, with, like, the hottest water ever.
Yeah.
I mean, also, imagine if you went to this famous onsen town, and then the water was, like, just lukewarm.
Like, that would be a disappointment, right?
Yeah.
So I think maybe they, like, make it super hot on purpose.
That makes so much sense, because there are, like, more Japanese people than, like, you know...
Any other tourist group?
Yeah.
Yes, that's true.
In some of the other places we went, the tourists were obviously from lots of different foreign countries, and kusatsu was heavily Japanese.
Yeah, people wearing yukata and walking around taking pictures.
Yeah.
Highly recommended.
Agreed.
Yeah.
And let's do one more.
松本城の訪問
And the next day, we went to Nagano.
First, we went to...
The Matsumotojo Castle.
Right.
Which is easily the most beautiful castle in Japan I've ever been to.
I would say it definitely beats Odawara-jo and Osaka-jo and...
I don't know, wherever else I've been.
You've been to Osaka-jo? Osaka-jo has, like, a recreated part, right?
I think so, yeah.
What's the other famous one that's there?
Himeji-jo.
No, I've never been to Himeji, but...
Himeji-jo was great.
Okay.
Himeji-jo might be more beautiful than Matsumotojo, I don't know.
Matsumotojo has an enormous moat around it, in which the entire castle is reflected.
That just makes for, like, very good photography.
And the castle itself is not particularly huge, but it does have a lot of floors.
And it was really cool.
If you're a Japanese person, and then, like, average Japanese height, it is still durable.
But if you're a really tall person, it's a little bit difficult to climb up.
It's extremely difficult to go up the stairs if you are a tall person.
I mean, I think it's extremely difficult for anybody to go up and down the stairs.
Because the stairs are really steep.
Yeah, that's intentional. It's part of the defense design of the castle.
Oh, really? That's why?
Well, at least some of the stairs, yeah.
They're meant to be hard to go up and down in armor, so that if you're attacking the castle, it's difficult to go from floor to floor.
But some of it is also just about the angles of how wide and far they wanted the staircase to go.
And the floors are all different sizes, which is weird.
So some of the floors, the ceiling's really low, and then the next floor, the ceiling's really high.
So yeah, it's an unusual but interesting place.
They display a lot of guns.
A ton of guns.
Kinawa guns. How do you say that? Rope guns?
I think they're just known as muskets in English, and that helps describe the way the gun fires.
They also have matchlocks, where there's a burning piece of rope, and you pull the trigger and it swings forward to ignite the gunpowder.
But both muskets, where you're—I guess there still must be some kind of trigger, but it's not quite the same.
And then the later matchlock guns.
It was a really hot day, but while we were in the castle, there was a breeze.
Even though they're filled with people, and we had to be in a line to go up and down.
Yeah, I'm just glad we didn't have to stand in line outside of the castle.
Yeah, we went in at a really good timing, because by the time we got out, there was a much longer line outside, which is brutal.
Yeah, I can't imagine having to wait outside the castle.
Waiting inside the castle was tolerable, waiting outside the castle would have been miserable.
Yeah, there was an ambulance coming in the castle.
Yeah, we think there's probably a child who got heatstroke inside the castle, and an ambulance which drove through the gates onto the castle grounds to come pick him up.
That was kind of a sight to see, you know?
アニメのつながり
Yeah, and then we went to Suwa Taisha.
Yeah, now this is where we've got some contemporary anime to really connect it to.
Yeah, 逃げ上手の若君, in English it's called The Elusive Samurai.
Right, what's elusive?
Elusive means hard to catch, or good at escaping.
So it's a good translation, actually.
I think the title in Japanese, 逃げ上手の若君, sounds older than The Elusive Samurai.
Elusive is a pretty big vocabulary word, it's not something people use on the daily.
But if there was a way to make The Elusive Samurai sound somehow more Shakespearean, I think that would capture the Japanese title a little bit better.
Wakagimi is not a term you hear outside of talking about the Tokugawa era.
So, yeah, I don't know how to do a better translation, really.
But elusive, I think, is a pretty good idea for describing him as someone who's hard to catch, or who's good at running away.
Okay, so we are trying to catch up with episodes of The Elusive Samurai.
諏訪大社の訪問
And then, yeah, Suwa Taisha is a shrine, big shrine, consists of four shrines.
Maemiya, Akimiya, Harumiya, and Honmiya.
Yeah, that's where we went first.
So we traveled to all four of these, located around Suwa.
And they all have those giant pillars at each of the four temples that people ride down the mountain.
I don't think we've gotten to that episode yet, but I think it should come out in the anime, because it's definitely in the manga.
About this special ceremony they have that I think kills people every single year.
I don't know if it's every single year festival.
Oh, maybe it's only four years.
But every time they do it, people die.
Get injured badly.
Get crushed by falling trees, yeah.
Anyway, it was very cool to see it.
And the shrines are huge and very fancy.
They're clearly quite prosperous.
They look like a substantially upgraded version of your average Japanese shrine.
They're better than the rest.
Yeah, so we visited all of them.
It was pretty.
Did you have a favorite among the four?
I think the first one, main one.
I think I might have liked the last one we went to, the Harumiya, the best.
Why?
I don't know.
It was in the shade.
Yeah, it was later in the day, so it wasn't as hot maybe.
I don't know, I was having problems with my back, and I didn't experience it there.
I'm not sure.
I liked that one.
It seemed nice to me.
Okay, so actually we are halfway through.
Yeah.
Well, there's one more place we should really talk about that isn't, I think, technically in...
Well, is it in Suwa?
Suwa.
But I was going to talk about it next.
Oh, we'll save it?
Yeah, we'll save it.
Look forward to us talking about it in the next episode.
Okay, we're going to cut it off, take a break, and we'll be back for more of our trip.
So stay tuned, and see ya.
Bye.
