Witch Watch上映会への参加
We bought tickets online in advance and then got there and the tickets for the seats that we bought
didn't exist and so I had to go to the counter, I had to like speak to the manager to be like
what the heck where are our seats and they're like oh. Welcome back to 2AM OTTACK! I'm your host
Mayu, a born and raised Japanese non-otaku and I'm your co-host Cisco, an American otaku. In
this podcast we share our reviews of anime and the manga through our distinct perspectives
with commentary on Japanese culture, history, and the language. Cisco, we just came back from
Witch Watch watch party. I wouldn't exactly call it a watch party but we did. We will let you know
how it was later. Okay. But we got to watch the first episodes of Witch Watch in the theater in
in Los Angeles today, March 16th prior to the April 6th television debut. Wow it's not coming
out till April 6th? Oh damn so we're like way ahead of the curve. Yep. Okay. So what's your
honest feeling in one word? Cool. Okay. You asked me for one word. I should have said like one sentence.
One sentence? I'm really glad they made this anime. All right so we are going to talk about our
experience of Witch Watch watch party first. You can't call it a watch party, I'm sorry. It's just
what we went to was not a watch party. First three episodes highlights and take on Witch Watch
and today's word of the day. Before we start make sure to subscribe and follow 2AMOTOCK on Spotify,
Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, and wherever streams podcasts. You can leave some
comments on YouTube and now on Spotify so we'd love to hear from you. All right so let's dive
into Witch Watch watch party. Okay we are having watch party right now. We're not watching it.
After watch watch party or something. After watch watch party. Okay you know I get that you really
want to say watch party. Yeah that's the actual name for the like what we went to was a screening.
Screening. Yes. No I didn't make this up okay. Who's calling it a watch party? Whoever is
like streaming this. Oh really? Yes. Oh dude it was the saddest watch party. Oh shoot.
Okay all right. Shoot. Okay so Cisco could you read the synopsis of Witch Watch? Yes this is
from Wikipedia. The series focuses on Niko Wakatsuki, a teenage witch who after completing
her magical training moves into a house with her childhood friend Morihito Otogi, a human-looking
ogre. Due to their family's ancestral history, Morihito is to become Niko's familiar and
protector. Niko also hopes this will help them become a couple as he is her longtime crush.
As the story progresses, Niko and Morihito find themselves forced to deal with the various
supernatural and legendary beings they encounter while also trying to solve all the unpredictable
problems Niko's magic causes in their daily lives. So we went to the Witch Watch watch party
like I said. Okay. And it was constructed like an opening of the interview of three people.
Oh you mean like it started off with an interview of the director and the two main voice actors?
Right. Yes. And then three episodes straight in a row. Yeah with no opening theme song. What the
fudge? Watch party. And lastly interview again. Yeah. That's how it was constructed. So it was
アニメ制作とインタビュー
interesting to see voice actors before the actual episodes. Yeah I mean I guess that must have been
like especially weird for you because you've never read the manga because like at least I knew those
characters and so I wasn't totally thrown by having to see the voice actors first but I think like
you very rarely see the voice actors. That's true. For most shows and so. But I was kind of
expecting to see them at the end. Yeah yeah no I get that. Like as what happened with Look Back.
Right right. And there's a reason why you know American theaters with like Japanese anime with
short episodes or short movie. What's the rule? What's the rule? Yeah they can't play in the
theater unless there are at least two hours or something. Yeah certain time. It's got to be at
least an hour and a half actually is probably what I think. Yeah that's why they added those interviews.
So I don't think that's the only reason though. I think there's probably also like I bet you can't
get access to that content unless you go to the theater to watch it or something. Or they'll
release it later on like a special edition DVD or something. But like I think part of it is not just
about making the runtime long enough. I think that was true for Look Back. Here I bet they had the
run well might have been only an hour even with three episodes if they're like 20-23 minutes.
So they might have needed to extend the runtime a little bit. But I think it was also probably
get people to come by being like oh bonus you know interviews with the actors. Was it like a
thing in the like when you buy tickets? I don't think so no. Or I wasn't paying attention because
I just wanted to go see it even if it didn't have this stuff. Yeah yeah I was okay with having those.
But it was nice to hear words from the director. You know he was like thoughtful right? He talked
about doing most of the shooting with the voice actors just with the storyboards and then animating
it after they recorded rather than producing the animation. Yeah there were some things about it
that reminded me of Shirobako and how much I learned about animation production from that
series. Yeah he was saying that this is what it's like which comedy is made in Japan. That's what
he wanted to show. Right yeah and I thought that was interesting. I was trying to like when he
insisted that which comedy was a genre I was like what have I seen that's in the witch comedy genre?
And you brought up Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Would you call that show a comedy? It's a sitcom
yeah. Okay and then I was thinking of like the more famous ones like Bewitched which is from
like the 1960s I think. I knew there was like a big one the Bling Bumble. I don't think of that
as a witch comedy. What is wizard comedy? Well the whole point is that Mashable's not a wizard.
He is not but the rest of the world is. Yeah but it's like a battle it's like a shonen battle
it's not a comedy. Anyway I was thinking of other things in the witch comedy genre and I was like
okay Bewitched obviously and I guess like I Dream of Jeannie is she's a genie not a witch technically
but it's the same thing right and so I was wondering if that was the type of show being
日本の魔女コメディの考察
referred to as the witch comedy genre but are there other shows about witches in Japan that
are like comedies? I don't like Sari-chan. Mahotsukai Sari-chan. It's a very old one.
What type of a witch is she? I don't remember. I remember how she looked. Is it funny? I don't know.
I really don't remember but I liked it. I mean I guess there's like Yamato-kun and the Seven Witches
which I really like that manga but I don't think we watched the anime. There are a couple I guess.
What else is like a witch comedy? I guess we could like really stretch the boundaries of the genre
and say like Saiki Kei is kind of a witch but he's like a psychic yeah but he uses essentially
magic right so I guess there's like I guess depending on how generous we want to be with the
idea of witch comedy there could be a lot but anyway it was just it was something that stood
out to me is like I did not realize there was a witch comedy genre because I can't think of very
many American shows that fall into that category but the more I like really contemplated and I guess
I can think of some. Anyway yeah so this one really draws on Japanese
fairy tale tropes in building its story although there's like a lot of western tropes in here too
like Nico is a western style witch and it's even implied that she has French ancestry.
Yeah grandma yeah. And so it's a it's like a mishmash of the two really but
uh the first couple familiars she acquires or it's just the first two are both specifically
Japanese like the the term I have like a problem with translating oni as ogre. Yeah me too. Like
yeah there's like some aspects of ogres that are relevant to oni but they really feel like
kind of something different sometimes you'll see it translated as demon and that feels even more
wrong to me. Like oni is something different. Yeah and it's also not a troll like it's a thing for
which there is no direct parallel in western mythology I think and so I guess like ogre
will like serve as like the closest thing but it really shows you like how far away from the
western concept of an ogre and oni is when they talk about the oni having been created as the
offspring of bulls and tigers that became human and then like mingled with humans and so it's like
part bull part tiger part human. So I guess like that sounds closer to like a minotaur to me than
like anything else but wait how how oni is translated in English for demon slayer. Demon.
Demon. I think at this point everybody should already know the word oni. You mean like true
otaku? Yeah or maybe people know what oni is. I mean yes but it's so hard to pin it down in
translation I think it's still sort of tricky. You need to read more Japanese folktales. Yeah. Yeah for sure. I mean it's funny
in demon slayer I think because of the English title I don't think of them as oni I think of
them as demons. Okay. Like is muzan an oni? Demon I guess he looks more like demon than oni. Okay
thank you right that's what I'm saying is like he's got like something like more like evil yeah
infernal about him that goes beyond what we think of as like oni to like being I mean like I guess
oni run the gamut in Japanese mythology too right there's like some that are really more devilish
アニメ「Witch Watch」の世界観
than others but like muzan seems to represent like an extreme of that that's like really like
I came from the pits of hell and am maybe almost like satanic right in my like power and evil. Okay
we're not talking about demon slayer moving back to in this series the oni is looks like just a
regular human except that he's strong and we also get a tengu right at the end of episode three
who's another Japan specific type of mythological creature and so later they introduce some other
characters that are more western in their derivation and then really deep into the series
like they would have to get like three seasons of the anime to get this far they eventually go back
and have some more characters that are derived from like Japanese mythology so it's got like a
real mixture of both I'm Japanese I grew up in Japan and you know a lot of Japanese stuff history
culture everything so when we watch together like I don't really think when non-Japanese people
watch this how would they think of these little jokes or do they get them yeah I think there are a
lot of jokes from the series that will go over your head if you're not pretty fluent in Japanese
and not just in the language but also in cultural references I mean I think in some ways like
watching anime like this can build your cultural competency by introducing you to topics that you
didn't know about before and like being like oh I guess like this is a trope so for example when
the tengu is introduced he whips out a staff that controls the wind now you might know already that
tengu have that ability and that they have like that five you know leaf yeah what's what type of
leaf is that it's just a giant maple leaf no there's a specific leaf but I can't come okay
yeah because you know what Americans think that's a leaf of right what I mean it could be a maple
leaf but like I think for some reason in America maple leaves and this is maybe because the Canadian
flag how many lobes does the Canadian maple leaf have three three so when you think of a five lobed
leaf in America what plant comes to mind immediately I don't know marijuana oh really
yeah so it's like pretty clearly not a marijuana leaf but it does have five lobes and so like I
think it's something else right just saying like so I think like but so you might not have known
that right about tengu that they use this particular type of leaf to control the wind
but by watching this you'd be like oh maybe that's a tengu trait which in fact it is or the
fact that he's wearing like the weird one pronged geta right the type of sandals he's got on like if
you have never seen a tengu before and all you know is that that character is a tengu you will
be introduced to some tropes about tengu that will then translate over the next time you see
something you can be like that thing's a tengu so I think for me for example urusei yatsura was
my first exposure to most tengu like stuff because there's a tengu princess who is actually not very
tengu at all but she's served by a bunch of crows who have like peculiar hats vests and geta that
all mark them as like really obviously tengus so that sort of makes sense yeah and so like I think
アニメ翻訳の難しさ
through watching anime you can learn stuff like that about Japanese culture even if you didn't
know what going in but when it comes to the jokes yeah some of those are like pretty deep cuts I'm
thinking of the classmates names yeah those are really funny all of the classmates names are puns
yeah but if you don't speak Japanese fluently you will not understand what they mean I mean
like they they try hard in the English translation to convey the jokes that are being made about the
different characters names but because they have to transliterate their names as what they say
their names are in Japanese there is no way to understand that like this one guy just literally
said they're like what's your name and he was like oh my name is like I have a list yeah go
ahead give me one okay hara course so my name is like you know like like broken like stomach or
whatever like your name is broken stomach right like and you can't like it's really really hard
to I don't know I think it's hard to make those translations especially because like yeah I don't
know it's hard to know like how obvious to make the joke and is that a is that a realistic name
in Japanese no way but hara is right oh yeah there's definitely like hara's in the world
kawashi as a first name nobody has that first name right but like so you have to be like really
careful about how you're translating hit me with another one uh ishi tsuyoshi so like I guess like
you could totally that one is actually pretty easy that guy could totally be will strong because will
is a common first name and strong is a common last name it's like that one like happens to work
but like he stands up there in Japanese and they just translate his whole name to will strong I
think people be like what the hell like why'd you translate it to like a total different name than
what they're all actually saying and it would be like it would go by too fast for people to
register that it's a pun and that we're translating the name so I think that's what I'm saying is
like you know I mean for what it's worth maybe this is just me projecting but like I really wanted
to study Japanese because I wanted to understand anime on a deeper level by like getting the jokes
and being able to watch it without subtitles and I think for lots of anime fans there's some level
of that desire or they're just watching the dub anyway it doesn't matter and I'm ashamed to say
that I know some people who watch dubs but yeah all right so I thought it was kind of it kind of
reminded me of Saiki and Roboco and a little bit of Doraemon all combined yeah it's got a little bit
of each of those right yeah I mean it's really funny although I think I would have to actually
double check this but I feel like Witch Watcher might be older than Roboco they both came out
since I started reading Shonen Jump yeah which is like 2019 so like in the last six years okay
and those little jokes um even you know Japanese and Japanese culture a little bit of some jokes
felt I understood them right but felt pretty old yeah like an old kind of joke old not time jokes
right so I did some research um manga artist Kenta Shinohara was born in 1974
飛ぶシーンの印象
okay that's about what I pictured actually yeah so I was like okay that makes sense because he was
mentioning about Golgo 13 the anime that she's collecting are like really old right like they're
they're even old for us and we're old yeah so yeah it was sort of like I mean they also aren't
the type of anime you would expect Niko to be into or excuse me not anime manga like maybe
Kochikame I can kind of see that but like Golgo? Golgo? No. Did she say those are my moms? Right
right right even older. So okay at least we like tried to explain that away then yeah that was sort
of funny yeah so that solved the mystery for me the manga artist Kenta Shinohara used to be a
businessman and he quit his job and decided to become a manga artist and in two years he made a
debut. Wow good for him. I know. That's an inspirational story that I want to share with
our 3 a.m. otaku friend. Who? Our friend? Our friend yes yeah yeah that's fine your friend
my friend yes okay for you which part was highlight I really like the part where she
makes everybody able to fly in part because I just really enjoy imagining myself getting to do
that like it yeah it would be so cool but also like I saw myself in the nerds in her class who
immediately try to become Dragon Ball Z characters and fly around like I don't even like Dragon Ball
Z but I would definitely do that yeah so I think that part is like that part's really cute and it's
it's sort of fun I think because I've read all of the manga a lot of I have like specific favorite
chapters of the manga that I am excited to see get animated and some of my favorite characters
have not yet been introduced by the end of episode three so I really liked all three episodes I think
they're all pretty good they set up the show pretty well but for me it's also sort of the
best is yet to come and so I'm excited for more of the main characters to get introduced and yeah
there's there's you know there's a lot of really good jokes in this manga and I'm looking forward
to the adaptation into an anime all right let's do word of the day all right today's word of the
day is well we already did oni which was like a we spent like a long time on that uh what should we do
here osananajimi good one I don't think we have done it yet well maybe in a way I'm surprised
we haven't but yeah let's let's do it okay so osananajimi means childhood friend and it comes
with a lot of it's very like laden with additional meanings in almost any anime that features two
characters who are osananajimi there is at the bare minimum a good likelihood they will be
romantically attracted to each other later on and I I feel like I don't know was for me this was
true in my own life was this true for you what crush yeah like that you have an osananajimi
who's like sort of your first crush or an important person in your life or something like that I grew
up in a small community everybody felt to me everybody's like so I don't know if it's count
yeah I think like the people who are my osananajimi like I didn't necessarily develop
a crush on them later like I I had a crush on people when I was like you know tiny little kid
幼馴染とアニメのテーマ
right like three four or whatever but I feel like maybe it was because I watched too much anime
but I always felt like that possibility was there of like you'll be reunited and like you
knew each other from when you were little and like no no no no no no yeah right so it's actually
funny I don't know if I would have felt that way had I not watched more anime but I think that I
would have actually like that there's something special about knowing people when you're really
young and then being separated from them for a long time and then coming back and seeing them
again and they're like very different than how you remembered them or like you had crushes on
each other when you were really little or maybe it was a one-sided crush like one person to crush on
the other one and you know you didn't know if the feelings were reciprocated and gone for a long
time and now you're back together and oh my god what do we think now I don't know I feel like that's
it's an easy trope for me it feels like a thing that happened in my actual life
and it's extremely prevalent in anime so it's not always the case that the main character ends up with
the osananajimi in the end but you can pretty safely bet they'll be part of a love triangle at
some point okay I have to say osananajimi doesn't have to be opposite sex opposite sex I have osananajimi
we are friends we're best friends yeah yeah it can be a platonic relationship too yeah yeah it's
just like depending on the anime because you could totally have osananajimi like blue flag yes I love
the manga yeah blue flag was so good yeah but that's a case of osananajimi and it turns and
they're both the same gender yes but one of them I guess actually they end up both being like no
hang on one of them's gay and the other one ends up being bisexual but like yeah like it you know
it doesn't have to be a romantic relationship it can be a platonic relationship too right and I
think actually komi-san is a great example of that because one of the characters is named osana
osana so that's exactly why saiki is and this one is a little bit similar all the like characters
names are like yes so so and that character is childhood friends with everybody without being
romantically attracted to anyone yeah and so yeah it doesn't have to have that component but
オープニングとエンディングテーマ
in a lot of anime it will all right I forgot to do the opening and ending theme song so let me
introduce about the opening theme song of witch watch which is watch me by yoasobi which we got
to listen at the end of the movie yeah they played it over the credits but they didn't show us the
actual opening animation how dare you why they're not ready yet I mean it's possible that they
haven't finished like but it's coming out april 6th it's definitely done there's no way the thing
is we don't know we didn't know about the ending theme song until I told you just now which is
maho spice magic spice by au that's really the band's name a o o o it's a very interesting band's
name it's based on the each member's blood type a o o o wow no bs in this band huh feeling
oh ab yes uh but if there was an ab how would you even know
sorry I was like maybe that's how abba got their name too abba
uh but I just I when I was like doing research about witch watch I went to the website for
witch watch official website and there's an announcement of ending theme song which was
announced today today today what did they like have like a battle royale contest that just took
a really long time to resolve in order to decide who was going to be the ending theme I mean that's
why we didn't see that in the theater I guess I wonder okay well I think they must have filmed
it already they can't still be working on the anime why can't they like show us yeah it's a
witch watch watch party why don't make me renew my objections to calling this a watch party but okay
sure yeah I was I was upset that we didn't get the opening and ending animations I would
understand only showing the opening at the beginning of the first episode and only showing
the ending at the ending of the third episode and sometimes the first episode doesn't have
an opening in it so maybe you show it at the beginning of the second episode but like show
us once please and show us the ending at least one time yeah yeah it was a bummer to be honest
okay let's get to the truth of witch watch watch party okay okay tell us okay fine so it was
actually a movie screening in a movie theater in Burbank North Hollywood right yeah no there I
think there might have been one in Burbank that we didn't go to okay so in North Hollywood and
we bought tickets online in advance and then got there and the tickets for the seats that we bought
didn't exist and so I had to go to the counter I had to like speak to the manager to be like what
the heck where are our seats and they're like oh no one bought tickets to this so we moved it into
a smaller theater we've like reassigned to your seats and so there were five people in the whole
theater which was like a capacity of almost like 50 people so um that was sad actually like I yeah
four of them are us yeah four of them were four people we went with so uh I mean on the one hand
like yeah we are the target audience for this and at the same time like yeah you know 4 p.m. on a
Sunday is not like peak movie going time for most people I think but I was uh I was sorry to
see that there was not more support and love shown for this anime or or we chose because we chose
Japanese audio with English subtitles can you choose English dub I assume so no no I think so
there's a there's a dub dub version I mean I'm sure they're making a dub version but I don't
I don't well okay whatever it's I would have even if there had been an option I would have
disregarded it with disdain so it's totally possible that the only option was subtitled
and that's what we went to yeah and that might explain some of it but well whatever so yes like
I said it would if it was a watch party it was a very sad watch party it was a watch party with
exactly one more person than would have watched it had it been on tv in our home so yeah but it
was cool to watch it in the theater other than movies you don't often get to see tv shows in a
theater it was exciting to have it be like an event that we got to go to so although I wouldn't
call it a watch party like there were no snacks we didn't even buy popcorn it was a screening and it
字幕と視聴体験の重要性
was cool to see it on a big screen yeah okay and maybe there isn't a dub version no that's tomorrow
today let's see today oh it's not it doesn't show anymore today okay let's see it's Japanese
Japanese language English subtitles Japanese basically I mean also what the hell would they
do with the before and after with the voice actors if it was right that's a dub I don't
think they did like a video with the American voice actors okay so my guess was wrong yeah I
don't think anyone's going to the dub I mean there is no dub but yet yet I mean it might have turned
people off some people don't like seeing subtitled things in the theaters but I don't think many
people like went like found out about this looked it up and then were like wait it's only subtitled
I'm not going you know what I mean like I don't that doesn't seem that's there'll be a real niche
I have to tell to the world we need subtitles for every single movie yeah I think that's that's the
one of the reasons or big reasons why I don't go to see movie theaters because I'm not English
native I need subtitles to understand the story better right so if I don't have subtitles it's
harder I mean there is closed captioning for some movies especially for people who are deaf
or hard of hearing and so maybe we just need to look harder for the right movies for you
yeah all right let's finish here is there anything you would like to add please watch
which watch it's streaming on crunchyroll and on Netflix cool good job all right Netflix
thank you so much for listening to this week's episode if you liked this week's episode please
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