ポッドキャストの紹介とゲスト
But it would be cool to like, I'm going on a hike, and then like, use my mineral knowledge to like,
Oh, just show off?
Yeah, to be like, Oh, I actually found this over there. It's a rose amethyst quartz magnetite.
Welcome back to 2AM OTTACK! I'm your host Mayu, a born and raised Japanese non-otaku, and
I'm Cisco, an American otaku.
In this podcast, we share our reviews of anime and manga through our distinct perspectives
with commentary on Japanese culture, history, and the language.
Cisco, we usually record 2AM OTTACK! first, then we switch to 3AM OTTACK! and we all talk about the
same topic in Japanese. This time, we recorded 3AM OTTACK! first. It's because we had a special guest
who knows quite a lot about nature.
That's true. Yeah, no, that's like a fun way to put that. It makes me sound like he's like a
like a hermit or like a like a wise man or something.
My image, he's that kind of man.
I think like when I had only heard about him, I had that image and then we like met him and
he was a cool guy who knew about nature, but he didn't seem quite as much like a hermit as before.
Okay, you've never listened to his podcast.
That's true.
I listened to every single episode of his podcast.
Is he a hermit in the podcast?
I don't know the expression.
So I'll just dismiss it.
But the reason why we invited him to 3AM OTTACK! is because
he was awarded the podcast star award for
like a special judge award or something.
Okay.
Yeah. And so we both got awards from the same contest.
So we wanted to invite him as a guest and we all talked about this anime,
which we are going to talk about today.
Ruriの冒険
Ruri Rocks.
It's just a perfect anime for all of us to talk about.
It was a good one for inviting someone who knew a lot about nature. There's no question.
Yeah. So we're going to dig deep, dive into...
No, we're definitely going to dig deep on this one because it's rocks.
We're not diving into any rocks.
Well, you could.
You would really hurt yourself if you dove into rocks.
When you're diving, you want to avoid the rocks.
You can dive into the river or ocean.
Right. But if there's a rock there and you hit it, you're going to get really, really hurt.
All right. Before we start, we'd like to hear from you.
Share your thoughts, ideas, questions, or even suggestions for what we should talk about.
Email us using the address in the description,
or you can use the Spotify or YouTube comment sections.
Okay.
All right. Let's talk about it.
So Cisco, can you summarize Ruri Rocks' story?
Sure. So there's a girl named Ruri, and she likes shiny, pretty things.
She almost buys a crystal at the store.
And then I think there's a comment made about her grandpa used to find them in nature.
And so she tries to find them in nature.
And as she's failing, she gets run into by a woman who's a graduate student in geology.
And she offers to take her to where you can find the minerals to gather them.
And so they go together and find this like mineral deposit.
And from then on, Ruri is kind of like, I don't know if I would say obsessed,
but becomes friends or like sort of like an apprentice almost to this graduate student.
And they go and find a lot of really fun minerals all over the place.
And Ruri starts doing some like basic geological research.
アニメの概要とキャラクター
There's another graduate. I guess she's an undergrad, right, Marisan?
She's like an undergrad who wants to pursue a graduate program in geology.
And then eventually another friend comes into the picture who's also a high schooler.
So yeah, but it's about geological research and mineral finding.
In the anime, they introduce all sorts of minerals.
Yeah.
With like lots of details.
Yeah.
Did you like the aspect or do you think it's like too niche?
Oh, I loved it.
But I was once accused by someone of trying to turn myself into a human encyclopedia,
which was like pretty fair.
So I love like just knowing more things about kind of anything.
And so I think this one was one pretty easy to follow.
Like Ruri isn't that smart.
And right?
She's a high schooler.
She's a high schooler.
But like even as high schoolers go, like she's not like a really academic,
like super top of the class type of person.
Maybe.
No, definitely.
That's like a major part of the character of who she is.
I mean, the way she acts like not like a high schooler, she acts like an elementary school.
She acts like an elementary school kid.
And she's very down on herself about not being very smart.
Like the other high schoolers are well, not all of them, but the other one who eventually
like ends up looking for mineral stuff is like portrayed as like a much smarter person.
Anyway, my point is more that like Ruri is like intentionally, I think,
depicted as being like not really understanding things super well,
unless they're explained easily.
And so that gives an excuse for the, you know, more advanced characters to kind of break it
down to the topics in ways that are easy to understand.
And then there's these eye catches in the middle of each episode that have like a lot
more detailed information about the stuff that they're learning about in that episode.
And I think both of those things are awesome.
But I think, yeah, I think this animated is a great job of breaking down information
about materials in an easy to understand way.
Yeah, I'm not familiar with mineralogy, but I enjoy watching.
Once you start watching episodes, it makes you want to go to rivers or
like mountains to look for minerals.
I agree. Yeah, this show made me believe that if I did enough research,
I could totally just go out into nature and like find cool minerals,
which I haven't actually done yet, but it would be very cool to do that.
You can spend a whole day looking for minerals, all sorts of different kinds of minerals.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I have the patience to look quote all day,
but it would be cool to like, be like, I'm going on a hike and then like,
use my mineral knowledge to like.
Oh, just show off?
Yeah, to be like, oh, I actually found this over there.
It's a rose amethyst quartz magnetite.
Yeah, none of these aren't even real things.
But you know what I mean?
Like if I could like find a thing and be like, oh, yeah, this is like, I would feel really cool.
That's true. Knowing a little bit more about nature sounds cool.
Like so this guy, we had it at the podcast.
He knows a lot and he studies a lot.
He actually does that.
He has gone out into nature and just found like cool minerals, which I have not ever done.
So yeah, he was awesome.
He was cool.
Is there any favorite episodes?
I think my favorite episode was the sapphires episode, which is really broken.
I think it's like three or four episodes in a row.
It's like a whole arc.
Ruriのサファイア探し
But it shows Ruri collecting sand samples from a river and then looking for the presence
of sapphire in the river sand and then using that determination.
Like she goes out and does like a lot of sample collecting and then like looking at it, which
I'm sure is the, you know, a big chunk of the job of a mineralogist is to use this kind
of data.
And she keeps really, really specific notes about where things are or aren't found.
And that helps them like narrow down the sapphire deposit later.
And I think like the way they showed a lot, I mean, in a montage, but still the way they
showed sort of the laboriousness of that process of having to very painstakingly check these
like tiny little samples from many different locations and the way in which in particular,
the, you know, the main graduate student Nagisa keeps reinforcing how important it
is to do like careful research that really stood out to me as like the most realistic
part of this show.
And it was very satisfying in a way to like get to experience that sort of with the main
character and then think about, yeah, you know, you probably aren't going to just walk
into the mountains one day and like stumble upon a sapphire deposit.
But if you do the type of research that she does, you might have a much better shot at
being able to find it.
Personally, I liked the later episode of Shoko.
Shokoの復活
Shoko comes out much later in the series.
Yeah, she's sort of towards the end.
Her story is a little bit sad at the beginning.
Right.
Because like she had a passion about mine.
I think she still did at the time she met Ruri, but sort of like pessimistic.
Well, she just crushed her own dream because people around her made her think it was weird.
Yeah.
So that was sad to see it.
Yeah.
But because she met Ruri and other people, like she found her passion again.
And then she's like, this is what I want to do in the future.
I want to be like you guys, Nagi-san or Imari-san.
And then that was like a great ending.
And it's like telling the parents.
I mean, they didn't tell Shoko, like, you can't do this.
You can pursue it as a job.
But it can kill kids' dreams so easily.
And then I feel like I've experienced that before.
Yeah, I think that's true.
So like, I really understand what it's like.
But you can always come back and you can start over.
So I liked that episode a lot.
Yeah.
クリスタルラジオの紹介
Also, I liked the episode of Crystal Radio.
Yeah, that was cool.
I had no idea that was a thing.
So what is Crystal Radio?
Well, I think it's a type of radio without a battery where the...
God, I'm not going to know the right scientific terms for these things because I'm not good
enough at electricity and magnetism physics.
But I know the transistor or the...
There's a name for it and I'm going to forget.
But you use a crystal or a particular type of mineral to serve a function in the circuit
that enables radio waves to get processed into sound waves by the property of the mineral
that you're using in the circuit.
ラジオ波と音波の変換
And so there's like a long copper coil that's picking up the waves and transiting them to
this other thing.
And then you also need a special type of earpiece, a headphone.
Yeah.
The headphones are also very specific and they have to have...
They're like salt headphones that conduct the radio waves that are being received by
the circuit and processed by the mineral into sound waves.
Again, the output is coming not from an electrical battery, but from the waves themselves are
what generate the sound.
And so number one, it's just amazing that you can do that at all, that radio waves out
there in the world carry energy sufficient to be turned into sound, even very quiet sound
waves is just a cool fact.
And then that you can find specific types of minerals in the world that can help induce
like this change from radio wave to sound wave is also just like very, very cool.
How did people find about this, I wonder?
Well, I think like once you understand some of the properties of waves, particularly radio
waves, the idea that a particular type of circuit can transform the radio wave into
a sound wave if you have the right materials, like makes sense from a wave physics point
of view, right?
Like, oh, this type of wave can become this other type of wave.
But yeah, I don't know how they like figured out these.
I mean, it's got to have been like some amount of trial and error to be like, which transit,
you know, again, I forget like which thing it actually is, whether it's like a transistor
or an amplifier or whatever they're calling that piece, condenser.
Yeah.
What are like how they discovered like which things can actually go in that spot in order
to like make this transition easier or better?
I do not know.
But I think they try it out with like a couple of different minerals in the show.
And they're like, oh, this one works better or worse, right?
I think they're using pegmatite as like the whatever the central mineral.
著者の経歴
But yeah, that was really cool.
So like there's so many details about minerals in this show.
And then there's a reason why the author Keiichiro Shibuya actually majored in mineralogy.
Cool.
After he graduated from college, he became a science teacher in high school.
That's awesome.
And then became a mangaka.
I guess.
That's such a cool career trajectory.
Good job, man.
Do you want to do that?
No, I can't draw.
You can write about history.
There's a lot of people out there already writing about history.
I don't feel like they need another one.
If I was going to write a manga, it would be like it would be a comedy.
It would not be like serious.
So yeah, that's why he knows a lot about minerals.
And then he wanted to make this manga because there's so many people who are interested in
mineralogy or getting minerals.
But after they graduate from school, they kind of like quit doing it.
So he wanted those people to, you know.
Know that there's like other job trajectories for mineralogy?
Or just stay interested.
Stay interested in.
Yeah.
Because there aren't that many job opportunities for mineralogists.
I gotta say 90% of characters are women.
Maybe more than.
Name a dude in this show that's not the dad of either Ruri or the other girl.
女性キャラクターの重要性
The dude priest dude.
The priest dude in the last episode.
Yeah, I think that's all three of them.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, yeah, I think it's on the one hand like awesome.
It's got such a girls in STEM vibe, right?
Like it really, I don't know, promotes the idea of like women as especially mineralogists.
And like, I don't have any data or statistics, but I do kind of wonder how many women are in
this field.
And so I think like, I don't know the answer to that question really matters.
Maybe there's a lot of women.
And this is like an accurate depiction of like most mineralogy departments are primarily
female.
In which case, like cool.
And if it's one that doesn't have a lot of female representation, then this is sort of
aspirational in terms of being like, women can totally be mineralogists.
And that is also really cool.
So I guess maybe I shouldn't like spout off without like knowing what those details are.
But I don't know.
I really enjoyed that aspect of the show that like, it's all girls.
There's no romance.
It is like in no way like, you know, anything but respectful towards the female characters
that are in it all of the time.
And their gender kind of doesn't really matter because there are no moments at which like
gender comes up as like a significant factor in anything.
So that part of it was neat.
My cousin took mineralogy.
I mean, her major was mineralogy in her college.
Yeah.
And she met her future husband in the department and they got married.
Do you know if a lot of her classmates were also girls?
I have no idea.
Yeah, me either.
Yeah.
But according to the author, the reason why he made this manga, like almost all female
characters is so that a lot of people can enjoy.
Well, that's definitely accurate.
And I think that means we have to talk about the other aspect of the fact that they made
this all female characters.
Okay.
ファンサービスの受け止め方
Don't you?
Or do you want to avoid this topic?
I can say like, it's like too exaggerated, right?
Well, not really.
Not really.
Yeah, she seems normal.
And so does Shoko.
Actually, both of them seem like normal.
But both Arata Nagi, the older female graduate student, who's supposed to be like, what, like
28?
No idea.
And the other college student, right?
Imari Yoko, who's supposed to be like.
Are you younger or so?
No, no, no, no.
If she's still in her undergrad, she's got to be like, not even 23 yet.
She's got to be, you know, 22 or younger.
But both of them are like extremely well endowed is maybe the best way to put that.
I don't know.
I don't know the expression.
It just means they have like huge breasts.
And like that part of it feels like I can't kind of decide on the one hand, like other
than the like, there's the anime at least does not actually have that much fan service.
There are two episodes that feel kind of out of nowhere, super fan servicey.
Like there's one where they make Arata Nagi try on a bunch of different types of clothes
for no reason.
And including like a bunny suit or something.
We're just like, what?
Or like a maid outfit or something.
Yeah, like I just like stuff where you're just like, why?
Right.
And she just does it all.
And it's like, oh, this is like interesting.
Like, I guess I don't care because it doesn't affect my research.
And so I really liked her reaction to it.
But like the fact that it happened at all was just kind of like, what?
温泉エピソードの描写
And then the last episode is a Hot Springs episode, which on the one hand makes total
sense because of the topic of the show.
And people in Japan go to Hot Springs all the time.
And like as anime go, this is like a slightly more demure portrayal of a Hot Springs.
Like it feels gratuitous and unnecessary, but not like, I don't know, in some way, like
not that pervy.
Like nobody's peeping.
Like it doesn't have like a there's no weirdness to it.
They're just are all naked in the bath.
Right.
But yeah, like throughout the show, there's definitely a lot of like camera shots where
you're like, oh, you like didn't need to have that angle.
You know what I mean?
And so like it's got like a weird undercurrent of fan service all the way through at the
same time that it's kind of like not really about that.
And like, I think you could make an argument that like both Nagi-san and Imari-san are
just showcasing like some women have larger breasts.
And that doesn't mean they like shouldn't get to be researchers and stuff.
And like Japan, two out of four, like the chances are not that good.
This is not like a realistic portrayal of I think like kind of any women anywhere in
the world, much less like Japanese graduate students.
But like, I don't know on the part of me feels like, well, whatever.
It's not like you should not be allowed to have this kind of figure and be a researcher.
And at the same time, like the way that the, I don't know, cinematography, like the camera
shots and stuff like works, like it's definitely to like keep dudes like being like as they
watch the anime.
No doubt.
And like, I guess if like that gets you into mineralogy and you're like really here for
the minerals, like, okay, like, you know, whatever.
We like hooked you with like something kind of base, but now we've like got you for the
science.
But yeah, it felt complicated because on the one hand, like the show is so basically
respectful of the characters and like women in science.
And at the same time, it's got like camera work that still feels like very rooted in
the male gaze and like some characters who feel like unrealistically proportioned just
because some like horny guys wanted to see that, you know what I mean?
So it's a, I don't know, it felt kind of complex to me.
Yeah, you could see that from the very first episode.
Yeah.
Other than that, it was a great show.
When I feel like the more I watched it, the like less I thought about that.
Like, I think when I was like watching this on like, oh, you thought about it the whole
time.
Did many shots like that?
Yeah, no, I guess like at some point, like I just like stopped.
It stopped like registering with me and I just sort of like started to like accept it as
like part of the show.
But like at some point I saw this and like the very the first couple of times I saw it,
I was like, what the hell is this show?
Because that was all I could pay attention to.
But then like actually watching it and like trying to fake focus on the mineral stuff
like the, you know, the fan service parts stopped like bothering me.
Like they started to just be like, oh, yeah, whatever.
Like I said, I stopped like seeing it in the same way.
So that was kind of interesting.
Let's do today's word of the day.
Okay.
What is today's word of the day?
Ruriの名前と宝石
Ruri no Hoseki.
So Hoseki actually means a gem or a gemstone, right?
Yes.
Not a rock.
In fact, like a rock is just an ishi.
And so this is definitely not actually called Ruri Rocks.
It's called Ruri's Gems or Ruri's Gemstones.
I guess even maybe jewels, right?
Although I pointed out in the Japanese version that Ruri's jewels would have sounded like
a little bit weirder.
So I think Ruri Rocks is a great title for this because Ruri does rock.
She is a rock star.
And also she's investigating rocks.
So do you want to explain about Ruri's name?
Sure.
So Ruri is the name of a color in Japanese, specifically Ruri-iro.
It's a bluish color.
I think of Ruri as having like an almost purple shade to it.
So it's like a very deep blue.
Or is it not even a very deep blue?
Yeah, it's like a deep, clear, like a deep sky blue, right?
Okay, so it's not purple at all.
Ocean blue?
Is that what it says?
I don't know.
To me, it's like ocean or earth.
Interesting.
Okay.
I don't know why I think of it as being like sort of almost purple tinged.
But I think of it as being like very, very deep blue color.
And so I guess it probably makes sense because her favorite stone is clearly sapphire.
And sapphire, we might say, is Ruri-iro.
Sapphires can be many, many different colors.
But the sort of classic blue sapphires are that sort of color.
Okay.
Would you like to add anything?
Yeah, don't skip the intro on this show.
Because one of the things that's sort of fun is to test yourself while you're watching the
intro by pausing it and seeing how many of the minerals that go by in the intro you can name.
Right?
Which you did.
Yes, which I did.
It's like a test.
More than once.
Yeah, it's a good review.
It's like a mini review session during the opening credits.
It was a lot of learning.
Just remembering names of minerals.
Because I tried to memorize both in English and in Japanese.
Yeah, me too.
Not necessarily, I know minerals names in Japanese.
So that was hard.
Yeah.
But once you see kanji, oh, it makes sense.
You know, looking at the kanji, why it is like that.
I'm not sure that always worked for me.
But yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
番組のお知らせ
Before we end, there's an announcement from 2AMOTAK slash 3AMOTAK.
So we are going to be on actual radio in Japan on December 21st.
I should have said December 22nd, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah.
December 22nd, 1.30AM to 2.30AM on FM NAK radio.
And just to make it really confusing, it's definitely December 21st in America.
Oh, in America, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's going to be 8.30 in the morning, I think.
On the morning of Sunday.
Sunday in LA.
That's like a way better time for people to listen to it than the time it's actually on in Japan.
Anyway, if you're listening this in Japan, there'll be a radio show called
Podcast Award NAK 5 Radio Special.
So we're going to be on the radio.
We already recorded an interview.
So listen to the radio if you can.
And then let us know.
It's going to be all in Japanese.
Yeah.
Sorry.
But yeah, let us know.
ポッドキャストアワードへの参加
Also, we are participating in the 7th Annual Japan Podcast Award,
which is like a bigger podcast award in Japan.
The biggest, I think.
Wow.
But we need votes from listeners.
So again, if you know Japanese.
If you can navigate a Japanese website.
Please vote for us.
I can barely navigate a Japanese website.
Yes, you can.
I mean, I can, but it's hard.
It takes less than one minute to submit.
Okay, it's not hard.
It's totally doable.
So you can choose three of your favorite podcast programs.
So if you have a spare space.
Spare time?
No, spare.
You know, if you have like one really like one of your favorite.
Oh, I see.
Like if you're already voting for two other Japanese podcasts,
make us your third.
Yeah.
Okay, got it.
Yeah, that'll help us.
Okay.
I think.
So join us, please, please.
All right.
All right.
I think that's all.
アニメの感想
Yeah, it was a really fun anime to watch.
And the manga itself is still going.
Yeah, I wonder if there's going to be a second season.
I kind of doubt it.
But the first season was just perfect.
I think how it ended.
Yeah, I don't know that it really.
There's no real like, I mean, I guess there is no overarching story.
But I don't feel any particular desire to find out what else happens.
I would be down to learn more about other.
Oh, yeah.
Just keep learning.
Keep going.
Where can I find rubies or diamonds or other things?
They travel to different countries.
Yeah, that would be that would be cool.
I would totally be there for that.
But it also doesn't feel like, oh, no, like it ended on a cliffhanger.
We don't know what's going to happen.
It's like, yeah, we do.
They're going to go to college the end.
So yeah.
So check this anime out.
It's going to be fun.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.
If you liked it, please leave us a good review wherever you heard it.
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or if you're listening on YouTube,
please hit like and leave a comment.
Make sure to subscribe and follow 2AMOTAK and 3AMOTAK.
It will encourage us to keep making more fun episodes.
See you next time, former 2AMOTAK.
Peace.
