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Some things that I think I won't ever master about Japanese is
understanding the nuance, you know, behind the choice of sound word in any given circumstance.
Like, I can't usually access all of the same information that's being conveyed there
in a way that a native speaker can, or just a better Japanese speaker.
Raining, like, poto-poto, shuto-shuto, or za-za, they're all different.
I asked the other day, why doesn't rain make a poto-poto sound?
Because tears, when they fall, are poto-poto, but rain never is.
アニメの背景と制作
Yeah. 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, no otaku, that's me, and an American anime fan, Cisco.
That's me.
Today, we are going to talk about award-winning animation,
not only in Japan, but also in the United States.
Yes. And this time, it's not The Boy and the Heron.
Not Boy and the Heron. So, today, we are going to talk about
Keep Your Hands Off! Eizouken!
映像犬には手を出すな!
That's right. I mean, it's a literal translation.
Okay, so this anime television series adaptation produced by Science Saru
aired on NHK in Japan in 2020.
During the pandemic.
During the pandemic.
A live-action television series and a live-action film adaptation premiered on the same year.
What? I'm still not over the fact that they decided to adapt this as a live-action thing.
I can't believe that choice was made.
We'll go over it later.
Okay, I'll hold on to my thoughts until then.
Could you tell us what Keep Your Hands Off! from Eizouken?
Sure. I was going to be pretty sure that Eizouken might be our word of the day here.
So, maybe we'll just get it out of the way right now.
Okay.
So, Eizouken means the moving image club, right?
Or like, Eizou just means image.
So, I guess they're just the image club.
And there's, you know, the story itself explains why they wind up with this title for their club
and why they're not like the anime club, for example, because they make anime.
That's their whole thing.
But basically, it's sort of in between like anime and movies,
or it's like a category that captures both of those things.
And there are some parallels to this in the English-speaking world.
I think there's a Museum of the Moving Image somewhere,
which is probably the closest parallel to what Eizou actually means.
And so, yeah.
So, it's the...
And are they technically like a kenkyubu?
Or are they...
Like, do they have a longer name somewhere else?
Eizouken is a shortened version.
Eizouken-kyu.
Right.
Or something.
Yeah. So, I think it, you know, it's something like the Study of the Moving Image Club.
Right.
But they set out from the beginning to make movies.
And I think in the very beginning, they actually, because they don't lie,
but they emphasize the fact that they're making, quote,
moving pictures as opposed to animation in order to get their club approved.
So, that's what Eizouken means.
I mean, I think it was more like one of the main characters, Mizusaki,
she was not allowed to be in anime club.
That's true, too.
Yeah, they didn't...
Her family wouldn't allow her to join it.
But I think they didn't know that she joined anything, I think.
Yeah, they didn't know.
And I think the reason they're not the animation club
is because there was already an animation club at the school.
Right. And they wanted to make something different.
They wanted to, like, run their own club.
And this is something that I think is even true at the school that I work at,
where if you pitch a club that's too close to a club that already exists,
you'll get told, why don't you just join the club that's already there
instead of making a new one?
You know, you don't want, like, seven different versions of the same club.
So, they have to pitch themselves as the moving image club
rather than the animation club in order to get, like, permission to form.
I mean, it doesn't require a lot of explanation,
but I think the implication of, like, you know,
hands off or don't touch the Eizouken club
is other people are seeking to interfere with them often,
particularly in terms of, like, not giving them their club's budget
or trying to shut them down.
And so, that's part of why they're playing, like, defense
and trying to keep their club alive.
And that's incorporated into the title in some way.
Yeah. The setting is in 2050.
So, it's the future.
Yeah.
And then everything seems, like, underwater almost.
It definitely feels like a future where, like, global warming, like...
Where we're heading.
...hit really hard and, like, submerged a bunch of places. Yeah.
Yeah. So...
教育的な内容とアニメ制作
Not necessarily everything looks, like, very future-like.
Right.
But it has, like, some kind of technology.
Something, like, all the construction seems complicated.
There's a monorail, which is pretty cool.
And I guess there's, like, monorails in, like, modern life already.
But yeah, it definitely feels like a world where some things went underwater
and because you're building on top of, like, already existing structures,
like, things got a little bit more jumbled and complicated.
And so, it's got, like, a little bit of a futuristic vibe
and a little bit of, like, people living on top of ruins vibe.
And, I mean, the school just looks fun and, like, really insane
in terms of, like, the structures and stuff.
But it doesn't look like a dystopia.
It just looks like a fantasy urban world, kind of.
Yeah.
I don't know if that's a good explanation.
Just watch it for yourself.
You'll get what I mean.
So, it was aired on NHK e-tele, which e means education.
Right.
So, it makes so much sense to air on e-tele because it is very educational.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, as we've maybe already alluded, the show is about people making animation.
And so, a large chunk of every episode is sort of explaining
what goes into making an animated TV show or film.
And so, yeah, there is a lot of sort of, like,
this is how they do it behind the scenes kind of stuff in each episode.
And I agree that, like, it sort of makes sense to have it on an educational channel,
even though it's a story about, you know, these three girls making animation.
It weaves in, like, some of the background of how animation actually happens
in, like, a very effective way.
高い評価と国際的な反響
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken received extensive positive reviews
as one of the best Japanese animated series of both the season and the year at large.
Oh, my God.
That was kind of funny.
The first time when we were trying to video.
I know, right?
You just get, like, attacked by a random cough.
Oh, my God, I'm so sorry.
It's okay.
All right.
So, both the New York Times and the New Yorker
highlighted the series as one of the best television shows of 2020,
with the New York Times naming it to their best TV shows of 2020
and the best international shows of 2020 list.
And the New Yorker identifying it as one of the best TV shows of 2020.
Singer-songwriter Elvis Costello identified it as a personal favorite
in a 2021 featured article in The Guardian.
I mean, damn, I had no idea Elvis Costello was an anime fan.
That is so rad.
How did he find it?
Yeah, I mean, like, it does have that sort of educational angle
that makes me think a lot of stations worldwide probably played this
as a way to introduce people to what goes into making things in the medium of animation.
So, I can understand a lot of people around the world having seen it.
That said, again, I had no idea Elvis Costello liked anime, which is dope.
That's cool.
I've liked him as an artist since I was a kid.
So, it's just very cool to think that he's out there watching anime
and picking favorites and being like, I really liked Hands Off Eizouken.
Yeah, and I mean, I didn't know that The New Yorker or
the New York Times put out best anime lists either.
So, I mean, I guess these aren't even best anime lists, right?
They're like best TV shows of the year.
That's really high praise.
That's powerful.
I don't know if I liked it that much.
Maybe during the pandemic, it would have had a bigger impact on me.
But we tried to watch this years ago, right?
And kind of watched one or two episodes and were like, meh, and then gave up, basically.
I think we started watching Demon Slayer.
Ah, and then that just sort of took over?
I have to say, I liked this so much better than Demon Slayer.
I think as a whole, I liked this better too.
But Demon Slayer is so much more sleek and the visuals are so good
that I can see how we got sort of seduced away from this one in favor of Demon Slayer.
Demon Slayer is not like an e-tele show, right?
No, no, no, no, no.
And it has a much bigger budget for doing the animation stuff.
But yeah, having now seen this whole thing,
it really strikes me as both, one, very family-friendly
and very educational.
And it has just sort of a sweet story.
It's not violent, it's not crazy.
It's about friendship.
Yeah, it's about friendship and about sort of diligent hard work.
And I think animation is a thing that a lot of people were able to do during the pandemic,
especially given the prevalence of online tools now.
So it's cool to have seen it as a sort of activity that could have happened during the pandemic.
多様性とキャラクター
And I think that was part of how people responded to this.
But it's also, it just cuts across like so many different levels of sort of society
that it also makes sense to me that it got like a really good reception
from lots of different types of people and areas.
That's true.
The high school they go to is clearly very diverse.
Right.
And that they have students who appear to be not like just homogenous Japanese people.
Right.
I think the author of the manga who this was adapted from
also went to a fairly diverse high school in Tokyo himself.
Himself, herself?
I don't actually know.
Himself.
Himself.
And has said in previous interviews that he sees everybody who was born in and grew up in Japan
as Japanese, regardless of their parents' national origin.
And that's pretty inspiring.
That strikes me as a very American way to look at things.
But it was inspiring to see a Japanese person sort of articulate that point of view
and to include like a diverse range of characters who aren't stereotypes into the show.
So there aren't actually that many different characters
who get screen time and attention throughout the show.
But at least I think the one that really stuck with me was the student council vice president.
Or is she the vice president or the secretary?
Shoki.
Secretary.
Okay.
Yeah.
She's for sure like the most outstanding character who seems like a regular character,
but like a Black person who seems to have like, you know,
parents or ancestors, at least from Africa,
and is depicted not in like any sort of like racist or unusual way.
That's like a real highlight of the show, in my opinion.
I got excited just by watching as if I was being a part of Eizouken.
アニメ制作プロセスの探求
Right.
Making anime together.
Because like they tell you how anime is made from the very, very like early, early stage.
Yeah.
And then like very naturally it guides you to,
okay, this is what we have to do next.
Oh, we need to do this.
Right.
And need to do this.
And it's really similar to Shirobako, which we've been talking about.
Shirobako is always like behind the scene of like making anime.
Right.
But Shirobako is literally the actual studio.
Right.
They're pros in that one.
Yeah.
So when I saw that, I got so stressed.
I was so tired by watching it.
I was just watching and I got so tired.
I didn't get tired, but I did get angry at the like non-main characters in the show
who kind of suck at their jobs.
And it's easy to get riled up on behalf of the main character,
feeling her stress about her crappy co-workers that don't work hard enough and make problems for her.
Probably like it happens in a lot of like companies.
Oh, God, it's so clearly a thing that happens in every business everywhere.
That some people are working hard and some people are hardly working.
Yeah.
So Shirobako has the same concept.
Well, yeah, I think it definitely does.
But I think the difference here is that Shirobako is professionals working at a full-time animation
studio, and this one depicts three girls trying to make like an animated short.
And because their projects are, I was going to say less ambitious,
but they're not less ambitious.
They're just shorter and not as professional.
I mean, three people.
Right, right.
Well, eventually four, right?
Because they get the sound person.
Four, and then they ask other art clubs to write a background.
Right, to help with the background stuff.
They sort of incorporate more people over time.
But because the, you know, possibilities of their ambition are more limited,
I think this one lets you spend more time with each step of the process,
and is more intentionally educational about what's happening.
Whereas Shirobako is like a story that happens to be set at an animation studio.
And there's still plenty of like educational content in Shirobako,
but it feels a little bit more like,
I just wanted to like have a story about people who work at a studio,
and like why that's hard as opposed to being like,
now we're going to break down the process of key animation
so that you understand it better, right?
Which is a little bit more of this anime's like goal,
which is to sort of like introduce each aspect of the process,
and then guide you through it.
Yeah, it was easier for me to understand.
And I actually get excited for them,
because like you can feel their passion.
Yeah.
And then like it makes you want to, I don't know,
maybe it's only me, like it made me want to draw something.
Ooh, yeah.
No, I'm so bad at drawing that it did not make me want to draw anything.
But as like a person who is very imaginative,
創造的なアプローチ
the scenes of the sort of most imaginative sort of director character,
like planning out like,
oh, what if like the city looks like this?
And what if the story is like this?
Like that's the part that I can kind of connect to more.
I definitely can't animate anything,
but I might be able to like write a scenario
or draw like a storyboard with stick figures.
Okay, that would be interesting.
I wouldn't be able to draw those like backgrounds and stuff,
but I could put them in words and then like, you know,
say, here's the idea.
I can see you doing that.
The screenplay, right?
Right, director?
Yeah, I don't think I could be a director,
because I don't think I understand drawing well enough
to be able to like guide people with it.
But I feel like I could be like a screenwriter
who comes up with like a screenplay for one of these things
by putting all of it in words and being like,
this is the direction and it should look like this
and blah, blah, blah.
So speaking of direction,
in the anime, when they're like thinking or imagining
about what's gonna story is gonna be like,
or what's the scenes gonna be like,
they use their own voice for sound effects.
This is one of the best parts of the show, honestly.
It's so cute.
It's so good.
It's like...
Yeah, they'll picture themselves running in the frame
and then be like...
And there's a lot of like fighting stuff
in all of the stuff that they make, right?
They have like a mini tank in the first one
and they have a giant robot later and a crab monster.
And so there's a lot of explosion and like battle noises,
which are a lot of fun to make.
Actually, sorry, that last one is...
They don't make that sound.
But I imagine that's what it's like
when director tells like sound effect people.
Like it's more like...
Yeah, I'm sure there's a decent amount of that happening
behind the scenes too.
Yeah, especially like manga.
Oh, totally.
So much sound effect, visual, not visual,
but like with letters.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Visual sound effects, I think, is a thing in manga.
Yeah, so I think sometimes for Japanese people,
it's easier to understand using specific sound effect words
because it's like everybody knows
what kind of sound makes what kind of like feelings
or like scene or something like that.
Yeah, I think it's one of the things
that's probably the hardest to translate
from Japanese into English is,
one, I don't know that English sound words
generate the same like amount of emotion.
And we don't use English sound words
to describe other things in the same way
that Japanese uses sound words
to also communicate things like emotion or sensation.
And so I think they just don't have
the same level of power.
And I mean, it's one of the things
that I think I won't ever master about Japanese
is understanding the nuance
behind the choice of sound word
in any given circumstance.
Like I can't usually access
all of the same information that's being conveyed there
in a way that a native speaker can
or just a better Japanese speaker.
Yeah, like raining, like poto-poto,
suto-suto or za-za, they're all different.
Yeah, I asked the other day,
why doesn't rain make a poto-poto sound?
Because tears when they fall are poto-poto
but rain never is.
Yeah, I don't know.
Exactly, and that's what I mean.
It's like, I don't think there's a,
I feel like it's a,
you just understand it from using it enough times,
not from there being like a rational explanation.
Using it, I think we learned some at school too.
Right.
Like this sound makes this kind of feeling.
Yeah.
Or yeah, environment.
Yeah, that was like a fun part to watch it.
I think the sound effects in this are great
and especially the parts that are done
with the actors' voices.
Yeah.
It just really gives it a lighthearted and playful feel
that also is just really sort of fun
to imagine yourself doing that too.
Yeah, so there are three girls
and then I think I can say main girl
who plays like a director and an animator.
Her name is Midori Asakusa
and her voice is by Sairi Ito.
She's a really famous actress in Japan.
She's been acting since she was a child.
People might know her from Netflix,
Naked Director.
Is that the English title?
Yeah, she was in that
and her voice is very like.
Scratchy?
Yeah, scratchy and then low.
Yeah.
Tune, which is perfect for Asakusa.
Yeah, I agree.
It makes her sound both kind of wise
and funny and cute at the same time somehow, right?
Mm-hmm.
And very entertaining.
キャラクターと役割の分析
Like it makes it easy for her to sort of be funny
because of the way her voice sounds.
They're all really distinct.
Their visual, you know,
like depiction is really different.
Kanamori is the tallest by far,
has freckles, has glasses,
has like sort of like, you know, long, straight hair.
And Mizusaki is like the cute one.
She's a model essentially
and then has like a short haircut with like no glasses.
She's basically animator.
Right, she does most of the key animation
and the moving animation parts.
Asakusa is the director and the, like, you know,
the director, I guess like the storyboarder
and sort of the creative soul of the projects.
And Kanamori is the producer.
She doesn't do any drawing.
She doesn't do any directing.
She doesn't do any of the other stuff.
She just makes sure everybody else is working hard
and handles like the money and the other stuff.
She plays a really important role.
Oh, extremely.
I mean, producers are hugely important
in getting any project to actually be fun.
To actually be finished on time and make money.
And she does a great job sort of showing
what that role is like and why it's important.
Even though in terms of actually producing the animation,
she probably does like the least to get it finished.
But yeah, and then later they add
like a sound effects person, right?
Domeki.
Yeah, Domeki.
And then that's the whole crew, right?
There's nobody else.
I mean, the art club and...
Yeah, they have like this backup help from the...
There's like the robot club orders an anime from them and...
And the school itself, like teachers are like
sort of like kind of organizational feel like.
Right.
Could be like TV broadcaster.
Broadcasting?
Don't care, but veto a lot of things like out of hand.
Yeah, I can see that.
Like don't do this or...
Right, right.
All they say is no.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
But they do provide them with the resources
to actually make the thing by giving them space
and stuff in the beginning.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's fair.
So like in the sense like Hakken anime was kind of like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kind of similar.
Yeah, well, it's...
The three characters are very distinct and really...
I think the fact that they are so different
contributes to some of the charm of the show.
Definitely.
They are all high schoolers.
Yeah.
All right, now we can talk about the opening theme song.
Opening theme song is by Chelmico?
I think it might be Kelmico, but maybe it's Chelmico.
I don't know.
Yeah, Easy Breezy.
Yeah, it really grew on me.
I think the first time I heard it, I was kind of like, what is this?
And then like the more I heard it, the more I liked it.
That's...
I think I've said that about every opening theme song
we've like ever talked about on the show.
First impression, not so good.
My first impression was like, yeah, this is like all right.
But it was like different and sort of like funky.
And it's like own way.
And then over time, yeah, I started to really get it,
especially because the more of the show you watch,
the more you understand the way the opening is
really conveying different things about the main characters
and both in terms of their personalities
and the way that they kind of interact with each other.
And that makes it more and more fun to watch the longer it goes on.
It also has a couple of shots of like lots of different icons
at the same time where you cannot possibly see
and think about all of the icons simultaneously
unless you're like freeze framing the opening.
But the farther you go into the show,
the more of them you sort of recognize
and understand like why they've put them there.
And so I find that like both of those things are kind of enjoyable.
Like the opening reveals more secrets to you,
the more of the show you watch.
So that's kind of fun.
Okay.
実写化の話題
Let's talk about live action adaptation.
Okay.
In my defense, I've only seen a one short clip.
Yeah, like a preview of what it was.
But it was everything I was afraid it was going to be.
Like we talked about those three main characters.
They are all played by members of Nogizaka 46.
For listeners who don't know about Nogizaka 46,
you might know about AKB48.
Why'd they take two people out?
It's a different group.
I don't know.
Yeah.
That's like saying like McDonald's and Burger King
are different restaurants.
Yes.
But they're also kind of substantially really the same thing.
Okay.
Can you explain about Nogizaka?
I mean, I don't know much about Nogizaka 46.
実写版と原作の違い
I don't know anything about Nogizaka 46
other than there was this big hit group called AKB48.
It's just AKB.
It's not even Akihabara.
It's just AKB.
AKB.
Okay.
But AKB stands for Akihabara 48,
which was a massive 48-person girl group
that I think has like rotating members, right?
It's not even like the same people all the time.
Yeah.
And it was like the mother of all girl groups, basically.
It came out like after the success of other mega girl groups like Morning Musume.
Yeah.
It's like Morning Musume times like seven or something, right?
Yeah.
The thing is that the producer of AKB48 is the same producer for Onyanko Club,
which is like, I don't know, 1980s or maybe 70s group.
There's so many girls with numbers.
Got it.
Member number one, two, three, like bunch of girls.
It's the same producer.
Okay.
So it's just like, let's put as many girls as possible in here
and have it be like a dog-eat-dog battle royale to be the number one.
Anyway.
So Nogizaka 46?
Yes.
Where is Nogizaka?
Somewhere in Tokyo, I think.
You're kidding.
It's not even in a different city?
No.
Isn't there like another one that's from like Kyushu or something?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think so.
So they have like a couple of these.
Hakata HKT or something.
Yeah.
HKT something.
Oh, yeah.
So there's like a bunch of these groups that like sprung up after AKB48 had a lot of success.
And this is like, so it's like, to me, it's already like the B-tier AKB48.
Like, and maybe you go into that one if you think you can make it to the top of that one,
but like, whatever.
I will say upfront, I was very impressed by the extent to which like hair, makeup, costuming
had really helped those three girls look like the girls from the anime and like not all look like
carbon copies of each other, which was what I was afraid of.
So I think in terms of the development of the characters differently,
they actually did a pretty good job.
But my real concern when I heard there's a live action version of the show is,
how are they going to make it about animation?
Are they going to be like real life people?
And then in the like fantasy sequences, it's going to like change into animation.
And I was like, if they do it in CG, it's not animation anymore.
I mean, like, I don't know, there's probably a debate to be had there.
But to me, it's substantially different than what the original show was about,
which is hand-drawn animation.
And I mean, they do use computers and tablets and parts for it, I guess,
but it's not computer graphics.
And sure enough, in the live action version, all of the like imagination sequences are done
with like green screens and computer graphics.
And I was just like, see, now we're not in the realm of hand-drawn animation anymore.
And the show is now fully about something else.
And like, I guess I didn't see enough of the trailer to know like whether
they're not even trying to be animators.
They're just like CG makers and they're going to make like a fully CG project,
in which case I'd be like, okay, well, at least it's like internally consistent.
But if they're using CG to represent animation, I mean, again, I guess I'd be like open to an
argument that CG now is animation and there is no meaningful distinction.
The original show is so much about hand-drawn animation and that's such a big part of like
who Mizusaki is in terms of like her insistence.
She doesn't even want to use computers in the beginning that it feels like a significant
departure from what the original show was about in a way that like, I don't know,
might still be like valid.
I haven't seen the show and maybe it's good, but it just is not like a direct or
faithful adaptation of the original in my mind.
CG技術の可能性
I believe I read somewhere that adaptation got visual effect award or something.
Well, so I mean, you know, like I want to be like open-minded about the possibility that
the live-action adaptation is a really interesting like variant of the original,
where it's about computer graphics and like the magic you can work with them and
how CG works and how like aspiring CG people might, you know, approach the discipline.
And, you know, Shido Bako has a CG character in it too, who does almost nothing, right?
Like that's that character is the least developed character in that whole show.
And that's because it's a show about an animation studio and the CG person like only,
you know, part of her struggle is that like she spends years just making car tires because
that's all anybody wants in CG.
And I'm sure things have like changed since Shido Bako was made and like
there's a lot more demand for CG now and it's come a long way and blah, blah, blah, blah.
So like maybe it's a really good show about CG.
It just, again, I think feels like it's no longer really the same show,
or it's just not about the same topic.
If their flights of fantasy are happening in CG rather than in hand-drawn animation,
which is what the, you know, the original and the animated version is really about.
You mentioned about something about the references in the anime.
Yes.
So I also, I read the manga and in the English translation of the manga,
the editor's notes at the end call out a lot of like what's being referenced by the manga.
And I think also by the show and like a lot of these references went way over my head,
which was interesting because the manga artist is pretty young.
He's born in 1993.
But a lot of the references are to things from like the 1970s,
which even I haven't seen or like, you know,
have seen but like don't know well enough to be able to get a reference to.
And so I think in the manga notes, they say like, oh, he's really a roots creator.
And that makes sense to me.
But I think there are Easter eggs hidden throughout this show
that are references to things I didn't know.
And so it's got like a lot of depth in terms of its
sort of homages to other famous things from older anime that, you know,
you can totally enjoy the show without knowing them.
オマージュと隠れた参照
Like, yeah, I didn't notice.
But occasionally there will be shout outs or sort of jokes or like little details where,
you know, if you know, then you're like, oh, this is obviously meant to be whatever.
And I think Shirobako had a lot of that, too.
And I think anytime you make a piece of like entertainment media about entertainment media,
there's going to be like just like an overwhelming number of like
in jokes for other people who work in the industry and like a normies can't get.
Yeah, now I remember Shirobako has this opening of like driving car like.
Initially.
Yeah, I love that part.
And it was clear to give the CG people something to do.
Yeah, like, so there's definitely that.
And then it also had things like, you know, the whole like backstory of the main character
and that one being in love with that, like one show from a long time ago,
it really felt to me like a Kimba like reference, right?
Like the King of the White Lion.
Oh, who made that?
Tezuka, right?
Like, I think that's probably what that was.
But like, that's just me taking a guess.
But I'm sure that that show was like an intentional homage to some specific
earlier famous show about animals.
You know what I mean?
And like, I don't have like a deeper encyclopedic enough knowledge of like
all the, you know, the anime of the 1960s and 70s to be like,
oh yeah, that's like a callback to this thing.
But I think like both that show and this show probably have a lot of like
little hidden references to stuff that, you know,
went over my head because I don't know the references.
言葉の概念と文化的意義
Yeah.
All right.
We already did Word of the Day.
We did.
I just wanted to add in the show, Asakusa kept saying about Kanamori and Mizusaki.
Yeah.
We are not friends.
Oh yes, we are Nakama.
Have we never done Nakama?
No.
Oh, second Word of the Day, Nakama.
Probably a lot of people know Nakama, right?
Well, yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
I have a vivid memory of living in Japan and playing a video game with a guy who was like
a little, a little weird, but like me, he was like, I think he's from Australia.
And he was like hanging out at my house when we're playing a video game.
There's like some choice where you go like spy on someone in your party who's having
like a meeting without you.
And it was like, do you want to like go see what this person is doing?
And I was like, hell yes, I want to know what they're doing.
And he was like, no, how could you choose that?
You have to shinjite in your Nakama.
And he said it just like that with like a not super Japanese pronunciation.
But I, I'm not going to try to translate Nakama, but it yeah, it's a very powerful
concept within Japan.
And I think like certain anime characters in particular would really like rely on this
term.
So like, I think Doofy from one piece is like all about people being his Nakama.
Right.
And that's like a part of who he is and what his character is.
So I think to the extent that like, it was in one piece, probably a lot of people do
know it.
Although I'm starting to feel like if you didn't get into one piece 20 years ago, like
you're not into one piece.
Like it's not as popular as it used to be.
Yeah.
仲間の理解
Like you, it's not as popular as it was like, you know, 10 or 15 years ago when like
getting into it was like a lower barrier to entry.
But I know a lot of people, a lot of like younger anime fans where you'll be like, do
you know one piece?
And they'll be like, oh, I can't, I can't do that.
Like, I'm going to need to give up like three years to read that.
You know, so I'm just not going to do that.
So, so I don't know if it's like really the right way to be like, oh, it was in one
piece.
So everybody knows it.
Like now I'm like, oh, maybe.
But yes, I think it's well known.
Yeah.
Can you define it for us?
Nakama?
Yeah.
Nakama sounds closer than tomodachi.
You can be tomodachi with anybody.
Right.
But you can't be nakama with anybody.
Like nakama has to be someone a little bit like best friends, but like working on something
together and then like heading to some, some goal together.
Yeah.
I don't think English has a good translation for this because there's a different word
for best friend, shinyu, that's like, you know, really just means best friend.
Like that's a direct translation.
And I think you're right that like tomodachi can be like, can come and go.
Right.
But nakama are people who like struggled through something with you.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think the unfortunate thing is there's a really good translation word for this in English,
which is comrade.
But because comrade got adopted as a translation word for like communists and how they felt
about each other, which I think actually probably was nakama, like in terms of how
they felt about each other, too.
It became like the translation term that instantly indicated people were communists.
So if you were like, hey, comrade, like it was like, oh, we're in like USSR.
Right.
Like, you know, and so I think it, it had a different meaning before communism took over
that was very close to nakama.
And now you just can't translate nakama that way without it having these like unintended
additional like connotations.
So it's not a great translation anymore because it's going to you're going to get the wrong
idea.
But a comrade is someone who has like struggled or fought with you through something.
And I think in that sense, it is actually closer to nakama in terms of like what that
word means.
If we could somehow, you know, strip comrade of the communist connotations, then I think
it would be a good translation.
But I don't know.
I think comrade is also almost exclusively used by soldiers.
And so it's still got like a military connotation to it that isn't necessarily present in nakama.
So nakama is useful.
エピソードの締めくくり
Yeah, I think.
I mean, I think it's probably something that might get brought over into English just as
nakama because there's not a really good corresponding English word for it.
Check your local library if you want to check the manga.
You can do that at LAPL as far as I know.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.
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Bye.
