日本文化と礼儀
God, yeah, this is the most, like, polite show I've ever seen.
Like, I feel like the overwhelming majority of words in this show are
thank you or I'm sorry.
Which are important.
Well, totally.
I think actually it's it showcases one of the best parts of Japanese culture,
which is that people are polite to each other, but it's too much.
There was one of the episodes where I decided to actually several of the episodes
I've counted how many times people say I'm sorry.
One of the episodes has 16 separate instances of people apologizing.
Welcome back to 2AM OTTACK!
I'm your host, Mayu, a born and raised Japanese non-otaku, and...
I'm Sisqó, 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. Sisqó.
Yep.
I didn't expect I would like this anime that much.
Yes. Why not?
Well, the rating said 13 plus,
so I was not sure if the anime was right for my age.
But you thought it'd be too little kitty?
Mm hmm.
But turns out, I mean, still kind of like I don't get like heartbeat.
Heartbeat?
What do you call it?
Heart beating.
It doesn't quite like excite you?
Yeah. OK.
I'm sure if I was 13 or 14 or 15, I'd be like, oh my god.
Yeah.
I think for me, it definitely takes me back to being this age, though.
Oh, really? A little bit.
OK. I watched a lot of anime when I was 13 and 14.
So a lot of my expectations about like romance were set by anime.
So maybe because I like imprinted on like, this is what's normal.
I definitely had some of these feelings in my tender years.
Once upon a time, we were young.
Exactly. So today, what are we going to talk about?
I think in the English title is The Fragrant Flower
Blooms with Dignity, which is a ridiculous translation.
It's a literal translation.
So literal. Yeah.
Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku.
Right. Which sounds a lot better and less dumb.
I don't know. I can't think of any better.
I guess it's just as stilted in Japanese, but it's a reference
to the character's names that's completely lost when you translate it.
Oh, I see.
And so there's like nothing clever about it.
It's just a really weird, like pretentious title in English.
Oh, right. You're right.
Yeah. Yeah.
So like the English titles whack.
So I mean, I don't think they could have really done any better.
Yeah, I might have just like left it in Japanese and been like,
whatever, look up the translation.
So today we're going to talk about Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku.
Yeah.
And then we're going to talk about until 10th episode.
There will be a spoiler.
Definitely spoilers.
Although, God, you can't spoil this if you tried,
because very little actually happens.
アニメの進行と感情
That's true.
A lot of things happen in motion on the emotion side.
Kind of. Yeah. Yeah.
I wouldn't say a lot, but like, I feel like it's, you know,
what are we going to give away?
They go bowling.
Oh, no.
I think like, yeah, not not enough has happened for us to be able to spoil it.
It's like it's interesting to see from outside of Japan perspective.
I grew up in Japan, and if I still live in Japan, I didn't.
They're like stuff I wouldn't think it's like weird or like funny and stuff.
But now we can talk about it.
We'll also do word of the day and the more.
OK, before we start, we'd like to hear from you.
Share your thoughts, ideas, questions or even suggestions you should talk about.
Send us a message to the email in the description
or you can use Spotify and the YouTube comments section as well.
All right. Let's dive into the episode until 10.
物語の概要
Do you want to explain what the story is about?
Yeah, sure.
There's a guy named Taro who was at a bakery and there's a girl, Kaoru,
and she comes to the bakery and they fall in love at the end.
Right. What else is there to say?
That's OK. He goes to a school and she goes to a different school
and their schools don't like each other.
So they have a lot of prejudices about each other's schools.
That's the main plot of the show. Right.
You mentioned a bakery.
And I have to tell when you say bakery in Japan, bakery sells only bread.
OK, yeah.
But here in America, bakery could sell bread and then like pastries.
Yeah. So don't expect to go into the bakeries in Japan.
OK, yes. His family owns a patisserie, not a boulangerie.
OK. Right. That's what you're trying to say.
Those are the French words, I think, for bakery and pastry shop.
So, yeah, they own a pastry shop. Right.
So if you want cake, you have to go to a kekia.
Right. If you want to get bread, you have to go to a panier.
Sure. OK, so they don't make bread.
They make cakes, right?
Cookies. Yeah. And this stuff baked goods, but not bread.
日本の恋愛観
OK. Anything you realized watching 10 episodes?
I mean, I will say this show has helped me understand
why so many Japanese people are single.
Why? Because because the guy's like a
at least a freshman in high school, not even a sophomore in high school.
He's at least in 10th grade. Right.
I don't know if not like 11th grade.
And he straight up asks one of his friends,
what does it mean to date someone at some point?
Like he does not know the definition of going out with someone.
Well, Rintaro had a like rough life.
No, sorry. The guy he asks is like, yeah, man, I don't know either.
That's his response.
I don't know what dating means either.
Oh, my God, you guys.
They go to only boys school.
So that's not an excuse.
They go to an all boys school that like of like kind of like Tufts. Right.
Like those in America, that's cool.
Everybody would know what dating is like.
And I feel like 20 years ago in Japan,
everybody that school would have known what dating is like.
It really tells you like, wow.
Like, granted, maybe it's only the people who are being portrayed in this.
But like it really does seem like the age at which like people
figure out relationships is getting like older and older and older.
And maybe that's a function of the increased pressure
on getting into college or on school performance or something.
But it's to me shocking that almost all of the characters in this are so I don't
know, naive, naive, yeah, are so unaware of what it means to date
or be in a relationship.
Yeah, maybe.
恋愛観の違い
But I think this might actually be true of like young people in Japan today
and that it might be a partial explanation for why so many people are single
and like not getting into relationships.
So I guess on the one hand, it's like good that they might be watching a show like this.
And at the same time, like, I don't I don't know if I think it's like healthy
to normalize the idea that you might be in like your second year of high school
and not even know what it means to date someone.
Like, I'm not saying I did any dating of people, but I definitely knew
what it meant to go on a date and what it meant to be dating
from like middle school onward.
So I think it's different between Japan and America.
That's probably fair.
I feel like in here, people are more open about like dating and the relationship.
You don't hide that.
I have a girlfriend or a boyfriend.
Right. People are open about it.
Yeah. I mean, I guess there's some reasons why you might want to hide that.
But generally speaking, no.
Why would you hide it?
Right. I don't think like something people share or like be proud of in Japan,
maybe especially for your students.
Like you're not supposed to.
But it's not you're not supposed to.
People might be, you know, afraid of getting like make fun of made fun of or.
I think, yeah, in America, it's the other way around, though.
You've never had a boyfriend or girlfriend like you're such a loser.
Right. Like you might actually lie and pretend that you have,
even if you haven't, or you might be in a relationship
that's like not that big a deal, but play it up like, oh, yeah,
it's like really serious in order to not get made fun of in the US.
Also depends on how old you are, of course.
礼儀正しさの文化
Anything else you notice?
I mean, he's such a nice guy.
In fact, all the people in the show are so nice.
I guess actually it's not true.
In the flashbacks, they're like really mean people in like
all of the main characters seem very, very nice.
Most of the time, it's like I take that back, actually,
because in the very beginning,
like a lot of them are really judgmental towards each other.
And then later they turn out to be good people.
You want to say about how often, like how many times people apologize?
God, yeah, this is the most like polite show I've ever seen.
Like, I feel like the overwhelming majority of words in this show are
thank you or I'm sorry, which are important.
Totally. I think actually it's showcases one of the best parts of Japanese culture,
which is that people are polite to each other, but it's too much.
There was one of the episodes where I decided to actually use
several of the episodes.
I've counted how many times people say I'm sorry.
One of the episodes has 16 separate instances of people apologizing.
I think it was episode six when Subaru was like trying to.
Out of control.
That's like I mean, the show is only like 22 minutes long.
That's someone apologizing in almost every minute of the entire episode.
Right. But it was not only Subaru, but also other people are saying.
Yeah, everybody just apologized to everybody else.
謝罪文化の探求
And like, again, that's kind of nice.
Like, I'm glad that Japan doesn't have a problem with apologizing
the way that the United States does.
Right. People don't apologize as often as they should.
But it was a lot of apologies.
And I think if we counted the how many times people say how do you go, though?
There's definitely some episodes
where people say how do you go to at least that many times.
And like, again, that's really nice to be.
But it's like a little bit too much sometimes. Yeah.
We say a lot of apology words in Japan.
Like sometimes it means like, thank you.
There's there. Yeah.
There's a variety of different ways to apologize.
It depends on how you say it.
Was that like tone and stuff? Yep.
So it was interesting for me to see that, too.
Like, OK, here comes like she's apologize again.
Yeah. Yeah. And you can predict it.
You're like, the next thing that's going to happen is this character
is going to apologize and then the other characters
can apologize back for no reason. Right.
Not for no reason.
I guess not for no reason.
But like they're going to apologize to each other.
Excessively. Yeah.
That's how you show that you're feeling.
I guess that's true. Yeah.
And I guess I'm also being very critical, but I apologize a lot, too.
I think being able to apologize easily is actually probably a good thing,
not a bad thing.
But even as Japanese society goes,
this particular show has an overwhelming number of apologies.
So if you haven't watched any episodes like try counting.
Yeah. You'll be surprised. Yes, you will.
To me, when I watched from, you know, first episode,
it kind of reminded me of other manga and anime.
Like which ones? Which is Beastars.
Because of the main character's personality.
Yeah. Especially Nintaro, how tall he is and how his eyes are like.
And there's so much like inner voice.
A lot of like inner. Yeah, I guess that's true.
Yeah. They both have a lot of sort of like the character thinking. Right.
And Hana, the little rabbit is like Kaoru.
Kaoru is small. She's actually physically small.
That's true. And she eats a lot. Right. Right.
And then she actually doesn't have bias against Nintaro.
And then she just doesn't think he looks scary or anything.
She thinks he's a kind of person.
And Nintaro, it doesn't have like any particular desire yet. Right.
To Kaoru-ko like Negoshi does.
But like it kind of reminded me of that kind of situation
in the environment at the first couple of episodes.
Sure. Especially 10th episode.
Nintaro's teacher's voice is by this person, by Negoshi.
Oh, the same guy who voiced Negoshi. Right. Right.
So I was like, I kept thinking like this teacher could do the voice for Nintaro so easily.
I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So like kind of reminded me of that.
And then there's like a lot of bias for Nintaro and the school.
Two schools hate each other.
Yeah. Although we haven't actually seen very much evidence of that.
Right. Right.
Like everybody thinks that.
Right. Somebody said it. Teachers hate each other.
Right. But we haven't seen that happen, actually.
Not yet. It might come out later.
Yeah. Maybe something to do with the teacher.
Maybe. That's what I was thinking.
Nintaroの友情と母の思い
And I have a favorite character in the show, which is Nintaro's mom.
She is pretty cool.
There's an episode where Nintaro brings his friends, plus like Kaoruko and her friend Subaru.
And then it was like a field with friends.
And then Nintaro is like, this is like a first time.
He's ever brought friends to his house.
Right. And then his mom knows that, too.
Obviously, his mom is happy about it.
Right.
And also like very, very like relieved or moved.
Right.
About the fact that he brought friends for the first time.
Right.
And then Nintaro started telling the reason why he started dying.
His hair blonde and this, you know, having piercings.
Then when he was explaining to that two friends, mom is on the on the side of the, what do you call?
She's like outside the room on the stairs, like listening.
Listening. She's covering her face with her hand.
Yeah, she's definitely crying super hard.
Oh, my God.
So I love that episode.
It really hit you right in the mom.
Yeah. Until then, like, you know, I mean, this entire time,
my perspective is definitely from mom, mom perspectives.
Yeah.
It's like, that's so like cute.
Those like people fall in love.
And then that's very cute.
And Nintaro is so like he doesn't know anything basically about love.
So naive.
So naive.
Yeah.
And then, oh, that's cute.
And the episode or not, it hit me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because I understand what the mom feels like.
Yeah, I don't think I mean, there is no dad in the show.
Yet.
Yeah.
Yet.
So I guess actually, no, the dad shows up in the flashback, but he's like not in like the
青春の思い出と恋愛について
real the current time.
So yeah, I don't know that I'm relating to it really as a dad.
I think I relate to it as I used to be that kind of awkward teenager.
And I don't think I was actually this awkward once I finally got into a relationship.
Like, but that's because nobody liked me back in high school.
You know what I mean?
Oh, I know.
Kind of sad.
But by the time I got to college and was like finally in a relationship, like I was not this
naive or awkward.
But I remember the sort of feelings of like high school, right?
And being like, like, it's impossible that anyone will ever care about me or like, I
wonder if other people know how I feel or that kind of thing.
Like, so I can relate to like some of Nintaro's feelings.
Yeah, it's I'm not sure I'm really experiencing it from the lens of being a dad.
キャラクターとその魅力
Do you have any favorite character?
I think Yorita is the funniest character, actually, because like he kind of is like
coded in the in the initial episodes as like, maybe he's gay, right?
He's like the shortest.
He's got kind of like the most boyish looks.
He has the highest voice, right?
And you're kind of like, well, maybe it could be, you know, where's this going?
I guess he still could be.
There's nothing about it that like suggests that that's not actually going to be true.
But he then becomes like the most hyper masculine character out of nowhere, where like they
get it.
They're like, you know, there's a bunch of moments where you think there's going to
be a fight and then there's never a fight.
People just run away or just talk it out or whatever.
And you're like, oh, this is such a wholesome show.
And then finally, there's like a moment where it's like there seems to be some like actual
danger.
And then Yorita comes out and just single handedly beats everyone up.
And you're like, whoa, time out.
What?
Like, so that was my favorite part, I think.
It was just like, oh, that's like such a great like reversal of expectations.
That was really fun.
So but he's also like he kind of comes through clutch in a lot of like places.
I like Natsusawa because I like I feel like I relate to him probably more than the other
guys, like more than Nintaro, for example, because he's like the smart one.
Right.
But I like I think I like Yorita the best.
He's he's really funny.
Yeah.
And like Usami is funny, too.
Usami is really funny, too.
But I think like, I don't know.
Usami is like the bright like character of the you know, the the most yoki, right?
The cheeriest.
I don't know.
He's like the comedian.
Yorita is not a comedian, but he is like really funny at points.
So I don't know.
I like him.
Okay.
日本語の謝罪表現
Let's do today's word of the day.
All right.
What is today's word of the day?
I think people might know this word.
Yeah.
It's one that you learn pretty early on if you're studying Japanese or watching anime.
And it just means I'm sorry.
Yeah.
But there's so many different ways to say I'm sorry in Japanese.
And so three of them that come out in this anime gomenasai or gomen is the most common one.
And it just means sorry or I'm sorry.
Usami in particular says warui, which is a contraction of warui, right?
And just means like my bad.
So that's another way to apologize.
Although it's very casual, and it doesn't really carry the same weight as gomen.
Or you can change the tone to ore ga warukatta.
Yeah, that means like it was my fault.
Right.
It does mean I'm sorry, but like ore ga warukatta, I was bad, literally.
So it does mean sorry, but it's got another meaning to it also.
And then there's also moshiwake nai, which means I have no apology.
I have no apology.
Yeah.
But we actually say this in English.
I think I have no apology means like or I like I cannot apologize enough,
meaning like no apology like will be sufficient for this.
And so it's a much more extreme way to apologize.
Although you can also use it kind of casually to be like, oh, moshiwake nai,
like I would feel bad about that.
Right.
So that's also used although slightly less than this is an enormous number of people
say gomen or gomen nasai in this anime.
And I think some Japanese people who have like really like a lot of pride will hesitate to say
that right will just not apologize for anything they do ever, even when they feel bad about it.
But yeah, and this one, nobody has that level of pride.
They all just apologize profusely all the time.
What's sumimasen?
Sumimasen is lighter, right?
アニメのサウンドトラックについて
Like, I guess sumimasen literally means like I will not get away with this kind of or like
I cannot like not survive, but like I can't like, you know,
pass or whatever or I can't I can't go on something like that.
But sumimasen is like a short apology.
So if you bump into somebody and you could also say shitsure shimashita,
which is like excuse me more than I'm sorry, but it's also an apology.
There's lots of ways to apologize.
Lots of ways to say it.
But yeah, you'll definitely learn those words.
A lot of apologies from this show.
I recommend you to watch in Japanese.
Subtitled.
Yeah, definitely.
With the way to go.
Always.
Yeah.
Would you like to add anything else?
I thought you wanted to talk about BGM.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
I definitely want to talk about this.
So in about once per episode, when Nintaro and Kaoruko are talking,
they will play like something that's clearly, I think, meant to be Kaoruko's theme.
And the first three notes are absolutely ripped off from Final Fantasy VII Aerith's theme.
And but then it goes like, I keep expecting it to go dun, dun, dun, and it doesn't.
And instead, it's just silent.
But then the next three notes are like dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
That's Aerith's theme.
And like, it's like pretty close, but like not quite there.
But I just feel like they must have been influenced by it.
Because like the first three notes are note for note Aerith's theme.
And so I keep thinking that it's going to play the whole thing.
And then it's like, it's close, but it's not really the same.
Yeah, I like think about Final Fantasy VII every time we watch this,
because the theme for Kaoruko is so similar to Aerith's theme.
Okay, it doesn't bother me at all.
Well, you never played Final Fantasy VII, so...
And never will, I think.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
How many Final Fantasies are there? Like, it's not final.
Oh, no, it's in fact the reverse.
Yeah, forever fantasy.
Endless fantasy.
No, yeah, there's no question about it.
I think there have been 15, 16.
That's crazy.
16, 16 named entries.
And then there's like a ton of sequels to the ones that have already happened.
And they remade, they're on like the...
God, I don't even know.
They had Final Fantasy VII and they remade Final Fantasy VII.
And we're on like part, like Final Fantasy VII remake part two currently.
And there's going to be a part three.
Wow.
All right.
I don't know how many episodes going to be in the first core.
Yeah.
But I think it's going to keep going.
次回のエピソードの予告
And then next episode is going to be about Kaoruko's birthday.
Could be, yeah.
Yeah, it's just so cute.
It's very cute.
It's a very cute show.
I think whoever in high school or middle school should watch this.
Or like they can watch with their parents.
Or is it awkward?
It's awkward.
Well, I mean, I guess it's not awkward because like nothing happens, you know?
Right.
But like it might be like more fun to watch it by yourself so that if you get really excited
by it, like your parents don't have to like see you being like, oh, you don't know.
家族と感情の葛藤
OK.
Yeah.
I wouldn't watch it with my parents.
I'll put it that way.
Interesting.
I wouldn't want them to know, like, especially if I was still in like high school.
I wouldn't want them to know how I felt or I would just lie.
Right.
I'd be like, yeah, I don't care about this at all.
I'm way too.
I'm cooler than this.
You know, and then in like inside be like, oh, my God, I want them to get together so bad.
You know, so.
So we're going to keep watching.
And I like it.
Yeah.
ポッドキャストのサポート
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.
If you like this week's episode, please give us good reviews on Spotify and Apple podcast
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Make sure to subscribe and follow 2AMOTAK and 3AMOTAK.
It'll keep us making more fun episodes.
There's a stuff like we entered for podcast.
I didn't enter this one to not 2AMOTAK, but 3AMOTAK.
If you go to 3AMOTAK channel, you can find about the contest.
And I appreciate if you could vote for us.
Bold.
Why?
That's not even this channel.
Well, some people might, you know, listening both episodes.
Yeah, totally fair.
Yeah.
Or some people just know Japanese and they can help us.
Well, we definitely appreciate it.
And then also like no pressure because this is the English version.
And if you don't read Japanese, you don't have to do it.
It's OK.
It's OK.
Yeah.
Just saying.
OK.
Yeah.
All right.
See you next time from 2AMOTAK.
