アニメの思い出
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-otaku, that's me, and an American anime fan. That's me. Welcome to our 10th episode.
It's kind of, it's kind of wild that we've done 10 of these. To celebrate our 10th episode,
we would like to go back to our roots and talk about the first anime we ever watched,
and it got inspired. So, let's start from Sisqó. It could be a long episode.
Be careful what you wish for. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, well, I was thinking about this, and I think
technically, the first anime I saw was probably, I think it's called El Dorado. It was called
Esteban and the Cities of Gold. I'm pretty sure in English. I saw it on Nickelodeon when I was
very little, but I didn't know it was from Japan. And so, even though I found out, like, as an adult
that it had actually been made in Japan, I don't really count it as my first ever anime. And
instead, the first one that I knew kind of more or less what I was watching was a direct-to-video
sort of short film called We Were Eleven, or in Japanese, Juichi ni Iru. And I picked it at the
video store because I was 11 at the time, and I was like, oh, cool. They were 11. I'm 11. Like,
I can relate to them. And I came home and watched it, and it was the first movie I think I'd ever
seen in Japanese with subtitles. And it was also the first anime that I watched knowing that it was
like Japanese animation. And it was awesome. It was so good that I was like, I want to get
so good at Japanese that I can watch this without subtitles. That was like my dream as a kid,
and I totally achieved it. But this was the thing that inspired me. So for some background
information about We Were Eleven, We Were Eleven, or Juichi ni Iru, is a Japanese science fiction
manga series written and illustrated by Motohagio. It was serialized in three issues of Shogakukan's
Bessatsu Shoujo comic magazine in 1975. In the plot, 10 young space cadets are put onto a
decommissioned spaceship as their final test. If they pass, their lifelong dreams of being valued
people in their respective societies will come true. Their orders are to survive as long as they
can with what they have. Once they arrive at the ship, they find that their crew has gained an
11th member, and no one can remember the original lineup well enough to recognize which of them is
the newcomer. The story gets kind of more intense from there, but I don't want to give anything away,
so I'm not going to talk too much about it other than to say that it's got some really interesting
themes around gender and ethics, like sort of what the right thing to do in a situation is,
and what outcomes are more important than what other outcomes, and stuff like that.
And so that particular blend of kind of deep, interesting story with really something to say,
and the quality of the animation, and the sort of twists and turns of the story made me
really like it so much that I wanted to go back and rent every other Japanese animated title that
my local video store in the 90s had, which I did. But this was the one that sort of started
it all for me. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, please. Was it dubbed? No, it was subtitled.
アニメの魅力
It was subtitled, so you were listening in Japanese. I mean, not really, but it was Japanese.
Yeah, it was the original Japanese audio track. I didn't know Japanese at all at the time. Like,
I don't, you know, I probably knew, like, I maybe would have recognized, like, Sayonara,
but that's about it. Like, I really didn't know any Japanese at the time.
But yeah, so it was subtitled, not dubbed. And I have never liked dubbed anime. Part of that is
that, like, in the early years of anime in America, the dubs were pretty low quality. Like,
they weren't getting, like, really big name actors to do, like, good jobs with the performances.
They'd often have, like, the same person portraying multiple different people in the show,
you know. And I just, I don't know, I just didn't like it. I was like, I want to hear the original.
So I was, like, a subtitled person from the very beginning, and I've never been able to get into
dubs. Although some of the Studio Ghibli movies, when they were brought to America, were, like,
high profile enough to get, like, real actors to do the voice acting, and those ones are okay.
But I still, I tend to like the original audio track better every time.
タイトルの解釈の違い
Did you know it was in a shoujo comic?
No, I don't even think I knew what shoujo comics were when I watched this. I didn't have any,
like, comprehension of manga either at the time. It was really, like, the very first thing I saw,
and I was like, what is this? Oh, it's from Japan. It's animation. It's really cool.
So yeah, I didn't know it was a shoujo comic until I looked it up on Wikipedia,
again, like, as an adult.
Interesting. I noticed it says,
we were 11 in English title, but Japanese title is 十一人いる.
So I think titles are different, has different meanings.
I mean, they were 11 through me as an 11-year-old because I assumed it meant they were 11 years old,
and I should have really known by the cover art that they probably weren't 11 years old. Like,
they don't look 11, but I, for whatever reason, thought that was it at the time.
And yeah, in English, the language is ambiguous. You could interpret it as they were 11 years old,
but it's supposed to mean they were a group of 11 people, and they've just taken out most of
the other words there to reduce it to they were 11, or we were 11. I don't know, there's no,
the verb isn't conjugated at all in Japanese, and you, in fact, can't conjugate Japanese verbs
to have to indicate anything about the subject. So it's impossible to know, like,
that it's supposed to be we, like that, in fact, is a weird choice. I'm not,
I'm not entirely convinced that the original version I saw was called we were 11, not they
were 11. I think it might have been they were 11. That's what I've been calling it almost my
whole life, is they were 11, which makes it a little bit more, like, reasonable, because it's
like, the people who were there were 11 people. I don't know. Hmm. Japanese title is, I don't know,
it's, I think they could have done better naming the title in Japanese, because it's like,
with exclamation mark, saying, they, there are 11 people, if I translate the Japanese title
into English, but it's not cool. It's not very cool. 11 people, exclamation mark would have been
a very strange title. Yeah. So I like English title better than Japanese title in this case.
物語の背景とプロット
Interesting. Yeah, the Japanese title isn't particularly like,
attention grabbing. But I remember reading somewhere else that this story is based on a
ghost story about a group of children who are playing and there's 10 kids, but there,
there's there wind up being 11 kids. And the 11th one is a monster who eats the rest of them,
like one by one. Yeah, which sounds awesome. I would like to see that as like, as any in
any media form. But the, like, the original sort of motivating force of the narrative is that
somebody is an imposter in the group. Somebody is not supposed to be there. And I guess I'll
reveal a little more of the plot. There's a button on the spaceship they're on. And if they push the
button, everybody fails the test. It's like the emergency, like end the test button. And so from
the very beginning, they're like, well, should we just end the test? Like, why is there an 11th
person here? Like, this isn't good. When the test is over, we're going to be in trouble because
there's too many people like how did that happen? And it lends like, you know, some, some urgency
to the plot of sort of like, when they when they get to a point where they're talking about, like,
maybe killing somebody, they're like, well, two birds with one stone, if we kill somebody,
there will only be 10 of us. And then when the test's over, like the, you know, the people
observing the test won't know that anything went wrong. So that's, you know, that's that part of
that horror story mixed in of like, who's not supposed to be here? And what do we do about that?
多様なキャラクター
Wow. So did you know this became a theater play?
I did not know that. Was performed by the Takarazuka Review?
No, like Morning Musume or something.
Morning Musume did a play of They Were Eleven? We Were Eleven?
You can Google on YouTube.
That's bizarre. I will definitely look that up.
But it says continued. Continued They Were Eleven.
That's even weirder.
Whatever that means.
I mean, the end's like, pretty much the end, like the test is over at the end. And like,
I mean, I guess like, you could like, tell more of the story, like maybe, but
I don't even know what that means, like, or what it would look like.
So did you, you said the characters are pretty diverse?
Yeah, well, I mean, it's, you know, it's a science fiction story. So there's all sorts
of different types of aliens, kind of, right? Like people don't look sort of normal. I guess,
like, I, again, I would love people to go and watch this. So I don't really want to give too
many things away. But kind of the most interesting character, in my opinion, the one who's
stuck with me the longest as like a memory, not just the main character, but is this character who
doesn't have a gender, who comes from a planet where you are given hormones that make you either
like male or female, when you're like, 18, basically, and until then, like everybody's
genderless. And in this planet or society, only the people who are doing like, quote unquote,
important jobs get to be men, and everybody else becomes a woman, which is like,
Wow, really messed up and patriarchal and like gendered, but also like kind of interesting at
the same time. And so for that character, if the test ends, and they pass, they get to become a man.
But if the test ends, and they failed, they have to become a woman. And so and there's like a little
bit of a romance going on with the obviously male, male, male main character, which like lends
this like, sort of angle to it of like, he wants this person to pass because he likes them and wants
them to do well and like get to like reach their dreams and stuff. But also, he doesn't appear to
be gay. And so like, that's probably going to mean like his romance with this person like ends
because they become a man. Whereas if he like sabotages the test, or like pushes the like
emergency and the test button, and they fail, like that heterosexual romance might continue or go
somewhere except that she'll be like crushed by like not having achieved her dreams. And it's just
like puts like a really interesting like, layer on top of like, you know, what's the right thing
to do in this situation? Or like, I mean, obviously, the right thing to do is like help them pass and
like be the man that they want to be. But the character also really doesn't have a gender. So
it's not like, oh, they're like, really this on the inside, but then like, they'll get to become
this other like, they really seem very much androgynous and in between. And like, it could
go either way. And either way would be weird for that person. And so it's I don't know, it's got
アニメの影響と印象
like a lot of like things in it. Wow, I remember you introduced. We were 11.
Like, I don't know, several years ago, and I watched and I enjoyed it, but I don't remember
the details. I mean, I'm amazed how much you remember it must be a such a like, like a,
you know, inspirational movie for you. Yeah, I think it was really important. I mean, I wound
up writing my college thesis about Shojo Kakumei Utena, which is all about like gender. And like,
you know, my whole thing was about like, Japan sort of like playing with ideas about gender
roles and norms. And can you know, can a girl become a prince? What does it mean to be a prince?
What does it mean to be a girl like? And I think like this anime started a lot of that interest
for me and like in thinking about like gender and, you know, representation and performance
and everything else. That's awesome. Did you know they're like, I don't know much of a voice
actors in general, but two people, two names caught my eye on Wikipedia. One is Akira Kamiya.
You know him, right? No, he did in the City Hunter, like a voice like, and a Kinnikuman's voice.
He's like everywhere, like Hokuto no Ken. Yeah. Or like Detective Conan's Morikogoro.
Oh, got it. Okay. Yeah, he's like everywhere. He did the voice for Tada. His name was on it.
And Tarako was on it. Oh, okay. Weird. Voice of Chibi Maruko-chan, who recently passed away
suddenly. But yeah, like some like really, really famous people were on it. And then probably more,
I just don't didn't recognize. Yeah, I mean, to me, what's interesting about the fact that
I saw this at all was, you know, it's not a TV show. It's not really a movie. It's kind of like
shorter than a movie, but longer than a TV show. I think it's a little over an hour in runtime. So
I think 90 minutes or so. Okay, well, then maybe it is like a film, but I don't know,
like if it came out in theaters in Japan, I think it might have been like a direct-to-video
thing. And I'm sure by today's standards, the animation quality is like visibly 80s,
but or maybe late 70s. But it's, you know, yeah, it had a huge impact on me and my life.
So how many times have you watched this movie so far? I would actually say probably only twice.
I think I saw it. Yeah, I saw it that one time when I was a kid when I rented it from the video
store. And I saw it again with you like not super long ago, but I don't think I ever watched it
again in the middle because I didn't own it, you know, like I rented it that one time.
And that was so inspirational. And you still remember the story?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know why I've definitely explained it to a lot of people to because
how did you get into anime is like a pretty common question for huge otaku like myself. But
yeah, no, I think like the first time I watched it, it made a huge impression. And I really like
deeply encoded it into my long-term memory. And like, I remember a lot more than I've said on
this podcast. I just don't want to ruin the plot for people who've never seen it.
Because it has some like really interesting like points in the middle. But yeah, I don't know,
I remembered it really well.
When you watched the movie for the first time, you were not fluent in Japanese,
you didn't know any Japanese. And then when you watched it again later with me,
you are already fluent. Did it like change anything like for understanding anything?
Interestingly, and this is probably like to the point of like having watched it at a formative
age, I remember watching it the first time a lot better than I remember watching it the second time.
Like, I don't really have a strong memory of having watched like, I know we watched it together
アニメとの出会い
recently. But like, if you hadn't brought it up, I would have been like, I don't know,
did that happen? Like, I don't remember watching it with you very well at all. I only really
remember watching it the first time. And so was it different? I mean, probably in the moment,
I'm sure there were moments where I was like, that's not I don't agree with this translation,
or like they should have put it this way or something in the you know, in the subtitles,
but essentially, no, I don't really remember it being different.
Okay. But by watching, we were 11. You started wanting to learn Japanese. And it's kind of
changed your life. Oh, hugely. I mean, it wasn't just this, I went back after having seen this
movie. And I think I remember what the next thing I rented was, I rented a bunch of different things,
more or less simultaneously, I watched Nama Nibun no Ichi, Ranma One Half, I watched
Bubblegum Crisis, the original, I think it's Bubblegum Crisis 2032, or something, but like,
it's the it's the earlier one. And I watched Kimagure Orenjuro, and those three anime all
sort of confirmed my opinion that like, this was super cool. And I don't know that like,
the desire to learn Japanese was like, instant from just they were 11. Although I think it did
start there. But certainly by the time I had like started watching all three of those different
shows, I was like, I have to learn this. I'm pretty sure I started taking Japanese lessons
at my school from a teacher who happened to be Japanese and spoke the language as an eighth
grader. And that I went to Japan for the first time after eighth grade between eighth and ninth
grade, I'm pretty sure this is like the right timeline. So that means I spent about a year
watching anime without studying Japanese yet, at which point I formed the desire to be like,
I'm gonna learn Japanese. And then in my eighth grade year, I like, went to the trouble of
finding a Japanese person and begging them to teach me. And it helped that this woman was a
Spanish teacher at my high school. And so was already a language teacher and just happened
not to be teaching that particular language to anybody else. In the first year, there were three
of us, like me, another guy and like a senior girl. She graduated so she wouldn't have continued
taking it anyway. And the other guy who I think was half Japanese, like just stopped taking it
after the first year. And then I was the only student in the class for the next four years in
a row. And we only met at lunchtime. It was not like a real class. It was like an independent
study that met on Fridays at lunch. But I kept going with it for like the next four years and
became like pretty fluent by the end of by the end of high school. That's crazy.
Yeah, it was, I was like, very motivated. We'll say that. Yeah, you were on top of other studies.
And then you were willing to learn one more language. I mean, I was a very academically
motivated person. I mean, yeah, still, that's probably true. But uh, yeah, I did take I took
Spanish also. And like accelerated in Spanish midway through the program, because I'd been
in Latin in middle school, and then took Spanish in high school and like jumped a year ahead as an
11th grader so that I could take AP before I graduated. I was like, very, yeah, I did a lot
of school stuff in high school. Wow. And then yeah, it was so much appreciation for the teacher.
Yeah, I was very, very close to my Japanese teacher. She was a really important influence
on my life. Wow. And then you had to write an essays, essay in Japanese.
Yeah, towards maybe, maybe by like the third or fourth year that I was taking it is some I think
言語学習とアニメの影響
probably as an 11th grader, I was writing an essay every week in Japanese by like having like a
mini dictionary next to me and then like thinking really still in English and then looking up all
the words I didn't know and then writing them down. But yeah, I wrote about a page a week for
this Japanese class. And that taught me a lot of vocabulary that I wanted to use. But it's um,
one of the things that's true about my Japanese, and I'm sure you can hear this in 3am Otaku is
that like, in Japanese, I really have a lot of vocabulary around conversations, but I kind of
don't know that many other words. Whereas like, in Spanish, which I studied mostly in a classroom
and like didn't actually use in like a real life setting. Like I really struggle to speak Spanish,
but I'm pretty good at reading and writing it. And the opposite is true for Japanese, like I can
read and write Japanese, but I'm sort of limited by the number of kanji that I know. And just by
straight up my vocabulary there, there's lots of words that I haven't encountered,
especially if they're technical, or they relate to like subject areas. And that's a function of
when I was like learning language, I mostly learned things that I wanted to talk about,
not like other random stuff. Yeah, if your language level goes up to a certain level,
like a comfortable level of like, Oh, yeah, I can communicate, I can have conversation with
people. Like, it's hard to go beyond the level. Right? If you want to go beyond the level,
you have really have to do extra work to get more vocabulary in you. So I understand
what you're saying. It's the same for me for English. Yeah.
アニメの思い出
I don't think that's true. But yeah, I get where you're coming from.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. That was interesting. Do you want to add anything about WeWere11?
I just really recommend it. Like I feel like it would be good for more people to have seen it.
And especially if you I mean, probably this podcast is already reaching a pretty limited
audience. But if you're interested in thinking about topics about gender, or about like,
I don't know, spaceflight, or ethics, then you should watch it. It's really good. It's pretty
old, like it, you know, you can see its age, but it's, it's a really good show.
All right, I want to tell my side of story. I was born in Japan, and I grew up in Japan. So like,
I'm sure I was exposed to anime from the very early part of my life. Like, I think I watched
Anpanman. Of course. And then like, Shimajiro and stuff when I was a kid. And I enjoyed watching
those animations. But as I remember, the first animation I was into was Himitsu no Akko-chan.
It's called The Secret of Akko-chan in English, which I didn't know. I don't know if it's out.
Yeah, I'm gonna say like, as someone who, like spent time looking through catalogs of
fan subs, there's probably somebody fan subbed it somewhere. But like,
that's not a title almost anybody in America is going to recognize.
Yeah, yeah. It was a big hit, I think, in my opinion. Let me read a synopsis. Himitsu no Akko-chan
is an early magical girl manga series written and illustrated by Fujio Akatsuka. Akatsuka Fujio
is very famously known for writing Osomatsu-kun or Tensai Bakabon. I loved watching Tensai Bakabon
as well. Anyway, the story centers around an elementary school girl who is gifted a magic
mirror that allows her to transform into anything she chooses and the misadventures that follow.
It was published in Shueisha's Monthly Ribbon magazine from 1962 to 1965. Well, Akko-chan
predates the Sally the Witch manga. The reason why I liked Himitsu no Akko-chan as a girl is like,
very simple. Like, you can't turn into anything. You can't change clothes if you want to by using
アニメの思い出と魔法
this. In the animation, they called it compacto. Compact. Like, makeup stuff.
You know, there's like a foundation or like, I don't know. I think it's called a makeup compact
in English too. Maybe not that I'm an expert on this, but I think that might be a term.
Yeah. So like, when there's like a danger or like something happening and she wants to help with,
she opens the compact and then like, chants the, what, spell? Like, which goes like,
tekumakumayakon, tekumakumayakon. Turn into blah, like, nurse or like, stewardess or waitress.
I don't know. Anything. Anything. Seriously, only like, female-dominated jobs though? Like,
she's not allowed to be like a doctor? She can't be a doctor. I don't remember
being a doctor. Maybe she did. I don't know. This is an old day, okay?
Turn into a politician! Like, no?
No. Anything with like, a good-looking costume, I think.
Yeah. It was definitely reinforcing normative gender roles. I wrote a whole paper on this
in college too. So opposite of, yeah, stereotype.
Right. No, I get it.
Yeah. But like, it's for girl, it's like, magical and then like, oh, love the idea of turning into
whatever you want. And I was so into the animation, so did my old girlfriends. And one day, my aunt
got me the compact. Compact?
Yeah. And then I was like, oh my god, I got it. I have to try it out. So as soon as I got it,
I opened it, the package. It came in package. And then like, I had to hide from people.
That's the rule. You have to hide from people, right? So I hid from like, all my family. And
then like, when there's nobody, I chanted. I don't know what I said.
I can't believe you don't remember what you turned into. You didn't know what you wanted
to turn into? I don't remember.
You don't remember? Princess or something.
Okay. Yeah, you can't imagine from like,
being me, like, this. I wanted to be a princess too when I was a girl. Anyway,
it's far from princess right now. But.
That's not true. You look like a princess.
Oh, thank you. But like, when I chanted the spell, nothing happened. Nothing happened.
Like, my heart breaks for like, you know, your little like,
your little kid self being like, super disappointed.
So I was like, okay, like, the way I did was wrong. Right? So I had to try again. Like,
okay, maybe different like, occupation, right?
Wow. It's your like, devotion to like, making it work is really impressive.
Because I, I believe in animation so much. I was like, six, six years old.
You believe what you see on TV.
That's true.
It's dangerous.
So I tried again. And like, nothing happened.
I was like, is this broken? I got like a broken compact was my instant like thought like,
this must be like a broken defect one. But I like, again, like next day, I tried again,
but it didn't work. And I was like, something is happening right now. Like something is going on.
Like, there's a conspiracy to not let you transform or what?
Like, what do you mean by that?
I refuse to accept the fact it was just a toy.
Got it. Okay.
Yeah. But that was a moment like it's like, you know, kids finding out about about Santa Claus.
Right? Sure. Like, it's not true.
Right.
I hope no kids listening to this podcast. I'm sorry.
It was just an example.
It was just an example.
We're not trying to say that's really the truth.
Yeah, my compact was a toy. Just a regular toy.
So that was really, really sad to find out by receiving the compact. I really, really want it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
God, I'm so sorry.
Yeah. I became adult.
Maybe through the power of the special compact.
Yeah, yeah. That was my favorite anime ever. For the first time. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it.
アニメのキャラクターと変身
Nice. I like that story. If you still had the compact and it worked, what would you choose to
turn into today?
No, I have to think deeply, right? Like, well, I have to think, I mean, how many times can I use
or like, you know, is it a little bit like, no, no, no. If you could, like, use it to transform
all the time, just like the girl in the comic, what would you transform into?
Like, I don't know. A bird?
I don't. Okay. It was not the answer I was predicting. I mean, I don't know that I was
predicting anything, but I thought like, you would at least pick like a profession.
Like, I mean, she never used it to turn into a bird. Did she?
I don't know. Maybe, maybe sometimes animals.
Oh, really? Okay. If it's part of the show, then I feel like that's fine. I just thought you were
like, really like going outside the box with that. All right.
Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't want to pretend being somebody else. That'd be too bad.
I don't want to find out, like, truth and stuff.
Okay, I'll say the rest of my thoughts off the podcast, actually.
Yeah, yeah. And then, you know what? There's a live action movie for this.
Oh, wow. Okay.
It was produced fairly recently, like 10, more than 10 years ago. But like, yeah, weird, right?
The nostalgia that people had for it? Yeah, no, that's not that weird. I mean, like,
I can't think of an example off the top of my head. But well, yeah, like Spider-Man, right? Like,
that's a thing that like, little kids grow up reading comics of and then like, they make them,
you know, they reboot it every 10 years. So I feel like that, like, playing on nostalgia that way is
like, very common in America. So I'm not that surprised.
I see. I see. I think I want to try to be a bird because it's a different species from human.
Species? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Why not?
Yeah. Well, do you want to do Word of the Day today? One word?
I want something about gender because of We Were Eleven, but I can't think of anything really good.
Like there's not that, you know what, I'll go with this. That show is too complicated to be
reduced to one word. So I'm not doing a Word of the Day.
ポッドキャストの締めくくり
Compact. Yeah. Again, I'm pretty sure that's like a thing in English too. Compact,
like a little small mirror with like, some foundation or whatever, right?
Yes. Yeah, that you like, powder your face with.
Yeah, but it's pronounced a little bit different. Compact.
Yeah. Okay. That's a great Word of the Day. We did it.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Word of the Day.
Okay. That's a great Word of the Day. We did it.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe and follow
2AM OTAG and 3AM OTAG on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and on YouTube. It means so much
to us and we will keep making fun episodes. See you next time for more 2AM OTAG.
Peace.
