00:01
People in America don't know about this song and the culture.
Nobody knows about this.
People are laughing so hard.
Yeah, well, it's hilarious.
I mean, the first time I heard it, I also was like, what the hell?
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.
So we've been doing this podcast almost two years.
It's a long time.
And we actually do different podcasts all in Japanese called 2AM OTTACK!
And then I sort of wanted to try out talking not only about anime and manga,
but also about movies or maybe TV dramas in the future
so that we can expand our topics.
Let's do it.
So today we are trying to talk about...
映画『Rental Family』の紹介
Rental Family.
We went to see this movie in the theater and we're in tears.
Yeah, it was really moving.
We're going to have some spoilers.
I think that's safe to say.
I think we're going to talk about the things that the characters do in the
movie without necessarily revealing the ending.
Right.
Does that feel fair?
But if you don't like any spoilers, stop here and go watch the movie and come back.
Yeah, just go watch it.
It's a great movie.
You will like it.
I hate spoilers.
I recommend you watch it first and then listen to this episode.
Before we start, we'd like to hear from you.
Share your thoughts, ideas, questions, or even suggestions
for 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.
Alright Sisko, can you give us a light summary of Rental Family?
Do you want me to just do the setup or talk about all of the
different jobs he takes on?
Leave it up to you.
Okay.
I'm just going to do the setup then, and I'll let you take on the jobs that
you think are most worth discussing.
So Philip is an out of work actor from America living in Tokyo.
He's been there seven years.
He had one big toothpaste commercial seven years ago that kind of made his
reputation, and then since then he's just been failing audition after audition.
He lives in a depressing apartment.
And this was the part of the setup of this movie I found the hardest to
believe that, I mean, I guess he's, you know, he's Brendan Fraser.
So he's in his mid fifties probably.
And so I guess maybe you live in Tokyo for seven years and have like no
friends and like no family and like no romantic interests, but like that was
a little hard for me to believe.
Like, I think if you had been there, if you live in Tokyo, I mean, well,
you know what, let me walk that back.
I lived in Tokyo at the longest for about two and a half months.
But even in that span of time, I made some connections who I still
see almost every time I go to Tokyo.
So that's why the idea that he's lived there for seven years, but has like
no social network at all, seemed like a little bit hard for me to, to understand.
But as an older person, maybe as a person who doesn't know as much Japanese,
like, I guess it's not totally out of their own possibility.
Anyway, he seems lonely and he gets an offer from a rental family service to
work for them as their token white guy.
And he takes it in part out of desperation and then immediately gets
involved with several different clients of the service and in the beginning
家庭の偽装と人間関係
has some serious cold feet about doing this job where he's pretending
to be someone in the lives of people.
Sometimes they know what's going on and sometimes they don't.
And then he eventually really embraces the roles that he's been given.
But you get the sense that at least some of his wholehearted embrace of these
roles is because his own life is lacking some important human connection.
All right.
Thank you.
So yeah, he seemed pretty lonely, like you said, but he got this new gig and
that he was pretty hesitant to do it.
He was like, I don't think I can do this.
I mean, partly the first gig is super weird.
And the second gig is like even more kind of traumatizing.
That was a really funny part of the movie.
One of the funny parts of the movie.
The first one?
Yeah.
And then after that, he got like a real gig, longer gig, I guess.
Basically faking family.
And then the family believes that's really happening.
Right.
Is this the wedding that we're talking about?
Yeah.
Okay.
But there was a reason why the bride wanted to have a fake wedding.
And Philip was like, I don't think I can do this.
Like, it's like a lie.
Right.
Lying to everyone.
Right.
And I totally get it.
If I was in his position, I'd be like terrified.
Like people finding out about the truth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That you're just a paid actor.
Right.
Yeah.
It's a very big deception.
Yeah.
And it's totally believable in Japan that in Japan, people don't bring your
boyfriend or girlfriend until you are ready to get married.
Yeah.
I guess sometimes.
Sometimes?
Really?
My feeling is like sometimes you meet people's boyfriends and
girlfriends and sometimes you don't.
Sometimes.
So I think it's totally believable that in this case, for whatever reason, she didn't.
Maybe he's kind of old, right?
Maybe she's kind of right.
There might be reasons why they decided to get married and like never introduced
the groom to the family until the wedding.
I don't know.
I'm sort of torn on whether I think the family was unaware that it was a deceit.
Like my read on it was even if the family doesn't actually know that it's all a
setup, even if they found out they wouldn't necessarily be angry because they probably
do know that their daughter is a lesbian and is never going to marry a guy, but.
They might be willing to overlook that as long as they get the experience of a
wedding and like a belief that she's going to be happy with a guy, like they're
so willing to like, just go along with it, that they kind of don't care that
it's not totally real.
That's so possible.
Right.
Cause it's all about Tatemai.
Right.
Right.
And then like, yeah, even if you know the truth, try to look away from the fact.
That makes even sadder.
Right.
Well, and I don't know whether the boss of the business actually explains that or if
the, the coworker explains that, but I'm sure they're all thinking it, even if that
isn't like my memory of the movie is that they do say that to him pretty directly to
be like, they don't, the parents don't even care that it's fake.
They just want to, they just want to tell themselves that it's real.
And in that sense, you know, that takes away some of the horribleness of like
what's actually happening there a little bit to be like, well, everybody
seems okay with this deception.
And you know, if they actually know about it, if she's told them it's all fake,
日本のレンタル文化の探求
but I know that this is what you want.
So I'm going to give it to you.
Then I don't see that much wrong with it at all.
Whereas if they really don't know and really think that they are getting
married and actually it's a lie, that feels trickier.
The Japanese society is improving.
I think much better than like before, like 30 years ago, for sure.
No doubt.
But still like people struggle with like same sex marriage or same sex, like
couple, that's why they, this, this kind of company exists.
I don't think it's just for that.
Not just for that.
Yeah.
It seems like that, that type of deception is probably one of the things people
would consider hiring people like this for.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because like this kind of company really exists in Japan.
Right.
And you can rent a boyfriend or a girlfriend or an old guy.
And is the boyfriend and girlfriend rental more about putting on a face for
somebody else than it is about spending time with someone you're pretending to
be your boyfriend or girlfriend?
It could be both.
Yeah.
It could be both.
Well, because if you're pretending that they're your actual boyfriend or
girlfriend, like is sex involved?
I think there's got to be terms and the conditions, like how much you can
interact physically or stuff, but like you can go on a date or go eat out
somewhere and pretend like from outside, you know, those people look like a couple.
Holding hands this much money.
Well, and one of this is a real Japanese American difference, but like in
America, like a kiss, especially a kiss on the cheek, not a big deal.
Kiss on the lips, like a little bit more of a big deal.
But I feel like an American rental girlfriend, boyfriend, you'd probably
be like, okay, like I will kiss you, but it's going to be like this much money.
And you have to like submit proof that you don't have oral
herpes first or something.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But then they'd be like, yes, sure.
Like that, like you can get like a kiss.
Like you definitely get a kiss on the cheek.
You can't kiss my lips or it's like more money.
But in Japan, kissing is like really intimate, right?
It's like as intimate as sex.
Just in general, kissing is like a very big deal.
Like a hug is a big deal.
Oh yeah.
People don't hug.
Whereas like in America, the hug would be free.
You know what I mean?
Like, yeah, you get a hug.
Okay, here you go.
Right.
So I wonder about like, how much is of those types of services?
Is it really for someone else, right?
Like you're gay, but you don't want your parents to know.
So you rent a girlfriend when you like come home for Obon, right.
For a couple of days and be like, we'll sleep separately.
It's not going to be weird.
I just need you to like pretend in front of the other people versus like.
I'm lonely.
So I rented a girlfriend, which is, I think the plot of rent a girl.
No, actually rent the girlfriend.
He isn't, it's for like his dying grandfather or something.
You read any of it?
No, I don't know the manga.
Okay.
Yeah.
There's a manga called rent a girlfriend, which became an anime and which is
like currently quite popular.
Um, but he dates, he rents like four different girlfriends,
which is part of the problem.
Yeah.
Anyway, rent a, an uncle to me is really interesting because that's
obviously not for anybody else.
Right.
You're not like, Oh, Hey, yeah, this is my uncle.
People would be like, no, it's not like I know all your uncles.
Right.
Like I think to have a conversation, conversation, like an older person,
like give you some, like, yeah, like chill, I should sign up for that.
It'd be a great uncle.
Yeah.
It's a new, new category, white, American, white, American uncle.
I'm your uncle-in-law.
I'm like, you're that one person in your family who married a gaijin.
It works.
I mean, in a way I feel like it should be rented godfather.
Cause godfather, you know, you don't have to be related to them.
They just have to be there at your baptism.
But like, maybe you don't actually want to join the church,
but you do want a godfather.
I think it's a whole another level of a problem.
I'm so ready to like, this is going to be my entrepreneurship
in Japan, rent a godfather.
Although I wasn't even allowed to be a regular godfather for an actual
Catholic because I wasn't Catholic enough.
I know, I'm so sorry.
Anyway.
Okay.
Well, you know, no one in Japan is going to care about that.
Well, as a matter of fact, there are like a lot of like, I think of white
people, mainly white Jews who go to church or chapel, do the, like perform
the wedding ceremony, without like any license or anything.
And once I go bald, I'm going to be all over that.
It's a real thing.
Yeah.
No, I'm super aware.
映画の二つの物語
So there are two other main stories in this movie.
One is with a little girl who doesn't have a dad, but mom decided to rent
Philip so that the daughter can go to like a really good school.
It's basically the plot of Spy Family.
I know.
I was watching it and was like, Oh, it's like Spy Family.
Like they're not, I mean, the mom and the daughter is like related, but not the dad.
That's what I realized too.
And the other one is with a old guy who used to be an actor and then
who is like going through dementia.
He has dementia or yeah, maybe.
I mean, it's, they never really say explicitly, but he seems to be slowly
kind of losing his memories in his mind.
Right.
What did you think about those stories?
The story with the daughter is definitely.
Well, I was going to say it's the most moving, but I actually don't know.
It's a very moving part of the story.
And at least an important chunk of it is about Philip's relationship or really his
lack of relationship with his own father, which you don't see any of, but
which he talks about quite a lot.
And really the relationship with the old guy is about that too.
Right.
He's treating the old guy as a stand in for his father and psychologists talk
about the notion of transference, the idea that we take these emotions that
we're holding onto about other people and sort of push them onto
other, other people in our lives.
And so working as a teacher, it's a thing I see a lot with students who often
transfer their feelings about their parents onto their teachers, especially
if their parent resembles one of the, or excuse me, their teacher resembles one
of their parents in any significant way.
But it's a thing that we all do in our lives with other people.
And it's a thing that I think Philip is doing.
And it's a, it's a way in which, you know, renting someone to have a relationship
with is sort of impossible because you actually develop a real relationship
with them that you can't cut off just because you're not getting paid anymore,
感情と関係性の探求
as Philip kind of finds out.
And I think it's a, it's a question as to, you know, does that happen with
physical or intimate relationships too?
You know, can you really conduct those without having any kind
of feelings or strings attached?
And I think different people are better or worse at doing that.
But I remember reading a book called Oryx and Crake lots of years ago, where
one of the characters is a girl who's been like, you know, sexually trafficked
from like a very young age and says to one of the main, I guess, to the main
character, the protagonist, you know, all sex is real, there's no such thing
as like fake sex, essentially.
And I think this movie is sort of saying one of the same things about relationships.
Like there isn't really anything such thing as a fake relationship.
Like every relationship's real, even when it's short.
I could see that through the movie, even though it's like fake or lying
relationship, but you can't help having feelings between person to person, which
was beautiful.
Philip was starting loving the job.
Well, does he love the job or does he love the particular roles he has in the job?
Because Philip doesn't have to do any of the apologies.
Oh, yeah.
That was another part of the rental family thing.
Right.
And of which people, a lot of people asked.
Yeah, I have a feeling that the real rental family places, I mean, the rental
OG sons, I, again, I still don't really understand what they're renting the OG
sons to do, but like, and I'm sure the rental girlfriend, boyfriend services are
at least significantly for people who are hiding their true sexuality.
But I have a feeling the rental mistress business where you rent someone to come
and apologize and pretend that the affair is over, that felt like the most realistic
thing that people might hire the service to do because it's one time only.
There's no need to get attached.
Someone else gets humiliated, not you.
And then you can pretend like everything's fine afterwards.
And it's also like clearly one of the worst things they do.
And so Philip doesn't get any of those roles.
And so I think.
All of the roles he gets are kind of fun.
He goes and plays video games with like a shut in dude.
That sounds awesome.
Sign me up.
Right.
He gets to be like the loving parent.
Who's like making things right with like a very cute little girl.
That's fine.
Right.
He's being like a charming, like fake reporter was like a really interesting
old guy, like all of those are like great gigs.
You know, the weirdest one is the one where he has to be
sad American at the funeral.
My, my point is really just that the roles he gets assigned for the movie,
which are all good and interesting.
And I liked the movie a lot, but like they don't put him through any like
really awkward, painful situations.
It's not like he's being asked to do things that are degrading or like feel
like really morally wrong in terms of the roles that he is playing when you
see what's going on with the boss's family, for example, that feels pretty dark.
Yeah.
Right.
And so.
I think there's a, yeah, it's the movie lingers on the positives and does not
spend as much time on the negative and that's fine, but it, it means
that it feels pretty one-sided.
It gives you like a pretty positive view of like this whole enterprise in
a way that's seems complicated to me.
映画の内容の要約
The enter time, the movie was really fun to watch and then there's like fun,
funny moments, touching moments, exciting moments, and then like a little bit
like serious, like kind of in trouble moments as well, but I think it was
really entertaining to watch for me as an adult, but even for kids, like, you
know, it's, it's not, it's PG, I think.
Yeah.
That sounds right.
Right.
I mean, there's like an after sex scene.
Right.
But it's hard to kind of tell cause they're just lying on bed.
It's kind of hard to tell if you've never had sex maybe, but otherwise it's like
very, very clear what's happening.
For adults.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, like, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
There's no, there's, there's not a lot of actual nudity, right?
Like it's not, it doesn't feel inappropriate.
I'm just saying like there's prostitution in the movie and like it might go over
the head of a young enough kid.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
But, uh, it's not like they didn't include it.
Cause for a second, it looks like she was renting him.
I thought she was renting him.
Oh, I was not under that impression.
For a second.
But after the conversation, I figured, Oh, okay.
This is not him doing his job.
It's the other way around.
It's the other way around.
Yeah.
And I mean, I liked that they included that because that's a real phenomenon
in Japan of, you know, people who are involved in like the, especially in the,
in the cabaret club business, spending their money on going to other cabaret
clubs, which is like shocking, but it's sort of like everybody's living in that
world of everything's for sale and every relationship is mediated by money.
Okay.
Let's do today's word of the day.
All right.
Word of the day.
What is today's word of the day?
I think the word is kazoku, which means family.
And so this is a pretty basic vocabulary word, but it's one
that's like really important, right?
If you're ever watching Lilo and Stitch, you will definitely learn this
word because ohana means kazoku.
Yeah.
But do they explain kazoku?
No.
No.
Well, in this movie or in Lilo and Stitch, in English, they say ohana means family.
Okay.
I'm just saying, if you're watching it in Japanese, they're going to be like,
ohana wa kazoku te iu ni.
Okay.
You say it like that.
Yeah.
Got it.
Got it.
All right.
Anything else?
I mean, my one sort of question about this movie is whether people come out of it
being like, yeah, rental family's a good idea, you know, or whether we come out
of this being like, ooh, what does it say about society that this is where we are?
And I think, sadly, this is likely to increase in the future and like already
the existence of AI companion chatbots has taken this to like another level
where, you know, you don't even need to go through like an expensive rental agency.
You can have your girlfriend be online and be a machine for, if not free now, you
know, close to free and probably for more money in the future, but I wonder how okay
we'll be with having more fake relationships in the future.
And when I think about, you know, falling population numbers, especially in Japan,
you know, how many more people will turn to these kinds of simulated relationships
and like, is that a good thing?
Is that a bad thing?
You know, is it better to have it be real people, even if they're not your real
relatives than to have machines doing some of this work and with the rise of those
like emotional support, penguins and stuff, the robots that like, what is that?
Oh, I don't know if they're penguins, but there's like a, there's like, oh, there
is a seal.
I remember being in Japan and seeing a television program about these like stuffed
animal robots they were giving to old people to try to like make them less white
one, something like that.
Yeah.
Well, like it could kind of talk to you about some stuff, but then it was like
cuddly.
So it could be like your companion.
It's like a improvement of eyeball.
Yeah.
It's like a, it's like a robot pet, except it's for like lonely old people.
And so I just, you know, I wondered about, you know, we're going to get like, will
those rules be filled by people or will they be filled by robots and like, how
okay are we with this?
Okay.
約束と文化の紹介
I just wanted to say the one really interesting part of the movie, which is
not a big spoiler, is when Philip making a promise with like a little girl.
Oh, this is the best part.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then this is like a Japanese way to make a promise.
There's like a song we sing.
Yep.
And then, you know, you and the other person, like a hook, hook your pinky
fingers, pinky fingers, and they sing this song together.
And then at the end, you know, untie, you just break your fingers apart, break
fingers apart.
So the translation, literal translation is we want to make, we make promise, but if
you break this promise, I'm going to make you drink thousand needles.
Right.
That's it.
Now, like now we separate our fingers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's like that last part.
Yeah.
And for some reason in the movie, instead of like, you know, separate fingers, they
have, and you'll die in all caps, which is true.
If you drank a thousand needles, you'd probably die.
I don't even know how you'd get them all in there.
So because of the translation, and I think a lot of people in America don't know about
this song, then the culture, nobody knows about this.
People are laughing so hard.
Yeah.
Well, it's hilarious.
I mean, the first time I heard it, I also was like, what the hell?
Oh, really?
A thousand needles?
That's so many needles.
I'll make you drink one needle.
I'd be like, okay, I'm definitely not going to break this promise.
A thousand?
That's way too many.
Yeah.
Like, I don't, I don't know.
Like, it's been like around for like years, like a hundred, maybe?
I would love to know the origin of the Yubi-Kiti Genma song.
But like, little kids do this all the time.
I never wondered.
Right.
Like where it comes from.
Yeah.
But like, yeah, this is the way we make promises.
Not as an adult.
It'd be funny if you do that as an adult, like dead serious.
I feel like you've probably made me promise things like that before now.
Maybe.
I should have.
You don't want to go into like itinerary stuff.
No, no, no.
I was going to be like, I should have made you swear not to spoil this
movie at the beginning of this song.
But it's an interesting song and then it'd be funny to like tell other
people in Japan, all kids do this.
Yeah.
It's a great moment in the movie.
Yeah.
Anything else?
That's all.
All right.
So yeah, it's playing in the theaters right now in the United States.
And I think it's playing in Japan too.
Cool.
I hope.
I hope so too.
I think it's a great movie.
So check this movie out.
ポッドキャストの新情報
Before we end, I wanted to introduce the new information about our other
podcast, which is all in Japanese.
We talk almost exactly the same topic and stuff.
And then we won the podcast star award, right?
Podcast star award.
We became number one in Japan.
I'm so proud of you.
So proud of us, us, you and me, of course.
I don't talk that much in the episode we won for, which might be a sign.
Anyway, so we've been like talking about this in 2AMOTAK too, but as a part of
award, our 3AMOTAK episode will be aired on actual radio in Japan, mostly in Kanto area.
In the middle of the night on Monday morning.
Well, the website said it's December 21st in Japan time.
From 2530 to 2630.
Yes.
1.30 to 2.30 AM on the 22nd, Monday morning.
Technically speaking.
Yeah.
What other kind of speaking is that?
I mean, the 25 o'clock idea is pretty funny, right?
It's a thing in Japan.
Like even anime is like anime is going to be aired on the, from 25.
Yeah.
I mean, like Americans, not outside of the actual military, not most
Americans even use military time.
So even the notion of like 1530, people are like, what?
I don't, what is that?
Like, that's like 3.30, right?
Like you have to think about it.
Whereas in Japan, a lot of people use 24 hour clocks.
Yeah.
It's less weird.
24 hours is not unusual in Japan, but a 25, 26 is weird still to me.
Yeah.
It's weird to everybody.
Yeah.
Anyway, it's going to be aired on NAC5, FM NAC5.
And the, if you know, if you speak Japanese, if you listen in Japanese,
please check this website out because it's, it's going to be on there.
And I think you can even listen online at the real time.
Cool.
Yeah.
So yeah, check those, check the websites out.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.
If you liked this week's episode, please give us good reviews on Spotify
and Apple podcasts or like, and leave a comment on YouTube.
Make sure to subscribe and follow 2AMOTAK and 3AMOTAK.
It'll keep us making more fun episodes.
See you next time for more 2AMOTAK.
Peace.
