ポッドキャストとアニメの紹介
You know, like, I'm sort of in Isekai, living in the United States.
Welcome back to 2AM OTTACK!
I'm your host Mayu, a born and raised Japanese non-otaku, and...
I'm Sisqó, an American otaku.
In this podcast, we share our reviews of anime and manga through our distinct perspectives
with commentary on Japanese culture, history, and language.
Sisqó.
Yes.
We talked about the second season of Isekai Horo Meshi.
Say that in English.
Campfire Cooking in Another World.
With my absurd skill.
Sorry.
I think that's what it is.
I think so.
Now we are going to talk about it again, second time, after watching a couple more episodes.
Wait, didn't we...
Did we talk even about the whole first season once upon a time?
Never.
Oh, damn.
So we've watched, like, not only the whole first season, but like a good chunk of the second season too.
食事の描写と肉の重要性
Cool.
Okay.
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.
Alright, so it's been fun, like always.
Like, each episode has some cuteness and makes you hungry all the time.
Yeah.
Every food looks good and very meaty.
Yeah, a lot of meat.
After watching a couple of episodes, like, is there anything you noticed or, like, any comments you have?
I love this show.
I mean, like, I definitely agree with you that watching this show makes me hungry because the food they make looks so good.
It is interesting to watch it as a person who doesn't eat as much meat as I used to.
And that's not to say I don't eat meat at all.
I do.
But I only really eat it when we eat out, and that's maybe once a week.
As opposed to the typical American diet of meat, if not at every meal, at least once or twice a day.
It's been interesting to, like, not eat meat as much and then see this show, which has enormous amounts of meat eating in it,
and relate to enjoying that food without actually eating it very often.
They all look yummy.
And then when I lived in Japan, I was not vegetarian yet.
So I ate all sorts of food, especially my mom cooked.
And, like, I can taste every single, like, food they make because, like, I just remember what they taste like.
It is fascinating to me that they eat lots of humanoid monsters in this show
and don't have a lot of compunction about eating pigs that kind of look like humans.
It's kind of scary in a way because we've already started genetically engineering pigs to, like, be able to grow human organs and stuff.
I just wonder if someday in the future we're going to have bigger pigs that are more human looking and we'll still eat them for meat.
I don't want to think about it.
I'm stick with being vegetarian.
Yeah.
I don't know how I feel about that.
But it's just fascinating to me that in this anime, they conclusively answer the question of,
would you eat something that looks like a human?
And the answer is, if it tasted good, why not?
Yeah.
So, I guess they're not cannibals.
They don't eat any people.
But it's sort of uncomfortably close to that.
They also eat a lot of monsters that look amazing.
And, like, I'm not sure what kind of fat content these monsters have, but they all look pretty fatty.
I thought, no.
You think they're, like, leaner than regular meats?
I don't know.
The orc general has a lot of fat.
Like, it's very marbled.
And the griffin or the cockatrice or whatever else they're eating also looks, like, pretty yummy.
And I think somehow the show has a lot of commonalities with Delicious in Dungeon.
I guess in this one, most of his familiars that he's feeding don't care at all about nutrition.
No.
モンスターの解体と料理の哲学
I get worried.
And just want to eat meat all of the time.
And, I mean, they seem to be mostly carnivorous.
So, I guess it's not weird that they just want to eat meat constantly.
But Delicious in Dungeon, they're paying a lot of attention to everybody's nutritional balance.
And also, eating the monsters in Delicious in Dungeon feels a lot, like, weirder for some reason.
I don't know.
Maybe the monsters are just more monstrous or something.
In this one, when they fight the monsters, they're just like regular monsters.
But maybe it's because, you know, they really show a lot of the butchering.
And I'll give this show credit for, when they butcher the monsters, they really seem to use every part of the monster.
Right?
Like, this isekai is practically Native American in its level of, like, find a use for every single part of the monster.
It's made in Japan. Like, mottainai.
Yeah, I guess so.
So, I respect that.
At least they're really using the monster parts thoughtfully.
And, in a way, it's interesting because Feru, you know, the Fenrir, seems to be the most wasteful of the characters.
Like, he kills for fun and doesn't even eat the whole monster.
He's just like a real dog.
Kills it and brings it back and, like, leaves it for scavengers.
Whereas, Mukoda and the other humans are the ones being, like, really zero waste about it.
Making sure to process all of the harvestable monster parts.
I support that.
I also have to say, this show reminds me a lot of playing Monster Hunter.
Both because of the, sort of, ethos of use every part of the monster.
And because Monster Hunter also has a lot of cooking in it.
Usually done by cats.
Do they cook monsters?
Yeah.
Mostly meat, also.
Okay.
Well, actually, I'm pretty sure it's monsters.
I don't know what else.
They don't seem to have cows around in Monster Hunter and stuff.
So, I think it's monsters that you're eating.
So, it also has some crossover with that particular experience.
Which I both enjoyed and kind of miss now that I'm not playing Monster Hunter right now.
Interesting.
新キャラクターの関係
On the second season, there are new characters, like I told at the previous episode, Erlando and Ugol.
I love their relationship.
They're great.
Yeah.
I love Ererando.
Is it Ererando?
I think in Japanese, it's Erurando.
Erurando.
Okay.
Because they've definitely transliterated his name more than one way.
Like what?
I don't know.
I guess we've also been watching this on more than one platform.
But I feel like earlier in the season, this guy's name was Elerand.
E-L-L-E-R-A-N-D.
And then at some point in the season, he just became Elrand.
E-L-R-A-N-D.
And I was like, oh, you cut out another L and E from his name.
And Erurando could go either way, really.
But I love him as a character.
He's hilarious to me.
And if I were an elf and lived in an isekai, there's a strong chance that I would be that character.
Then that means I could be Ugol.
Ugol.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
We don't really watch isekai anime, but I really enjoy it.
And then I keep thinking, why do people like isekai?
And I'm like, you know, I'm sort of an isekai living in the United States.
Don't you think so?
I mean, I get where you're coming from in terms of it being another world.
Yeah, it's like a different culture.
I mean, it's even different language.
That's true.
I mean, the mukoda can talk with whoever in the isekai.
Yeah, that's right.
So that's easier.
It's definitely easier than an isekai ojiisan where he couldn't speak the same language, right?
And then he got treated like crap.
異世界の文化の違い
I'm sort of an isekai, and then if you want to experience the isekai feeling, you can do that just visiting different countries.
Interesting point.
Yeah.
And then I have a friend who grew up together since nursery school.
We live in the same town, and then she got married to a guy from the same town.
But he lived far in the mountain, and he became a bear hunter.
Right.
Right.
So they are married together, and then they own a barbershop or a beauty salon together.
But the husband still does the job, and the husband's dad is like a great bear hunter.
GBH.
He's very famous.
He's on YouTube and everything.
Wow.
So whenever my friend, my girlfriend, goes to her husband's house in the mountainside, she feels culture shock every time.
Even though we are all from the same hometown, the culture is very different.
I think there are carpets of bear skin on the tatami mat.
Yeah.
Wow.
That would give me culture shock, too, because I associate that type of hunter lifestyle with the American West.
Like Rocky Mountains.
Yeah.
Western stuff.
I think if I saw that in Arizona or Colorado or somewhere, it wouldn't faze me at all.
I'd be, oh, yeah, this is what I expect from this region.
But seeing a bear skin rug on a tatami mat would feel really out of place to me.
Exactly.
Isekai.
Even if at the same time you can still feel the Isekai feeling.
Yeah.
異世界のファンタジーと現実の対比
That was actually thinking about when we watched the latest episode how, I guess, actually, somebody did get sick in one of these episodes.
And there's an elixir that cures sickness.
The two kids' mom.
Yeah.
But it was occurring to me that, one, Mukota has so many blessings that he basically can't get hurt.
And most of this particular show does not showcase people in mortal peril.
And moreover, when I think of Isekai settings, they're usually sort of Middle Ages Europe, right?
And actual Middle Ages Europe was a terrible time and place to be alive because so many things could kill you at such a young age, right?
Disease, bad water, the plague, et cetera.
It was not a great time to be alive.
And yet these Isekais seem like very peaceful, really nice, right?
The houses have like hot water with like their magic stones and stuff like it feels like a cleaner, less smelly, more peaceful version of medieval Europe where everyone's nice and has enough to eat and stuff.
I just think it's interesting that the fantasy world people want to go live in is this sort of old timey world where they don't have any old timey problems.
Right. No war.
No war and magic and stuff.
I mean, there are lots of Isekais that have war, actually, but this one doesn't seem to really have that be a problem.
And I guess the main character is so overpowered that he can solve any problem that presents itself pretty easily.
I think that's a lot of the fantasy of Isekai is that it's not just about the setting or being different.
It's also about sort of a power fantasy of going to another world and being important or special in some way.
And one of the things that was interesting about the show in the beginning is that one of its sort of core tenants was that Mukoto was not special or powerful.
The only thing he was good at was like making food.
Ordering groceries.
Yeah, not even like he wasn't even a pro chef.
He was just a regular dude who had access to spices from the like our regular world via an online grocery.
And that made him really special.
And I think the show has lost some of that original setting.
He is now an A-rank adventurer, like clearly a famous person, unimaginably rich and blessed by like every god that exists in this world so that he can send them like donuts and stuff.
Isekaiと未来の考察
So it's become more of sort of a power trip fantasy than it was in the beginning.
But it still managed to retain a lot of the same charm because he avoids interacting with people most of the time and just wants to be kind of comfortable.
So it's an interesting idea, right?
Would you live in an Isekai if you could?
I mean the Isekai Mukoto's in, I might.
I also wonder like whether in the future, you know, if we have to return to using only reusable sustainable materials, the world will look more like one of these Isekais where the level of technology will be sort of more medieval and that everything's made out of like stone or wood.
And we have to rely on renewable materials instead of plastics and synthetic materials and stuff like that.
Yeah, it makes me sort of curious about what the future might look like if we had a sort of utopian society with like modern medicine and knowledge but not modern materials.
Yeah, no internet. Only you have to do is like make everything from scratch.
Yeah, books made out of like, you know, I guess paper but also probably like vellum and stuff and houses made out of plaster and wood, you know.
And we can do open mic podcast.
Open mic podcast does not sound like a thing most people, I mean, there won't be any TVs or anime.
So what can be entertainment?
I mean, I feel like I'm a good storyteller, but it seems sad.
I think when I think about if I had to live in an Isekai, the thing I would miss absolutely the most would be video games.
That would crush me. Yeah, it'd be really sad.
You have to learn how to fight and the swords.
I mean, I do know some Kendo.
I don't know that I'm good at it, but and I don't know that I would be willing to actually risk my life to fight literally anything.
So unless I got those mega bonuses from the gods, I might be like, yeah, I'm just going to be a storyteller or a merchant or something or explore.
Yeah, definitely explore.
I'd be down to be an explorer.
Yeah.
巨大ターキーの調理
You know, one episode of had making something looks like a gigantic turkey.
Oh, that was awesome.
Yeah.
And the stuffing was rice.
Yeah.
That was unfortunate.
Why?
To me, it's got to be a bread, bread, crumb stuffing.
Is there a European thing?
I wonder.
The bread stuffing?
No, no, no, no.
Rice stuffing.
I don't really think so.
Rice is an Asian crop.
Like it originated in southern China and it did eventually spread to Spain.
So Spain has a number of rice dishes.
Rice dishes are really, really rare from medieval anything north of Spain.
And the only reason I think Spain had it was because of the Moors.
It being like an Islamic thing from the Ottoman Empire.
So Italy, I guess, has risotto, right?
Yeah.
It's a rice dish, but you don't really find it north of the Alps.
So that really felt like a Japanese moment of like, let's do rice stuffing.
Okay.
It was not weird to me at all.
Oh, I mean, it still looked good.
Yeah.
I was just like, wow, I can't believe they're not using bread, bread, crumb stuffing.
And where's the bacon?
Bacon?
Yeah.
This is definitely influenced by my upbringing,
but a good turkey stuffing absolutely must include breadcrumbs, bacon.
You mean chopped bacon?
Chopped up bacon, yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
And like onions.
Otherwise, like, what are you doing?
Okay.
Yeah, I still don't get it about stuffing.
You don't get stuffing?
No, I don't get stuffing.
Yeah.
Anyway, that looked good.
And then like, if the turkey or bird is that big,
like, I think a lot of people know, like, it takes forever.
It's going to take a really long time to cook it, and it's probably going to be pretty dry.
料理の重要性
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it looked good.
But it looked great.
I would definitely have eaten that.
Yeah.
So whenever Mukoda makes food, it's always good.
He never failed.
That's true.
Yeah.
He doesn't make anything and be like, oops, I overcooked it, or like, oops, this was like,
I added too much spice or anything.
It's always perfect.
It's true.
Always perfect.
You know, Sui or Fel or Dora-chan always comment.
Yeah, they always say how good it is.
Oh, this is like, you know, unusual, but I really like it.
Yeah, they're professional food critics.
And I'm like, every time I hear it, like, it's so important that people make comment,
like, good comment.
Praise cooking effort.
Yeah, for the chef.
It's so true.
And I don't know how many people actually do this.
Especially in Japan, I agree.
I don't know.
I have a picture of like a family and the mom always cooks and the dad, like, doesn't
say anything.
He's reading a newspaper the whole time.
Yeah.
And unless there's something wrong with his food.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's a stereotype for sure.
I was thinking like my family situation.
My mom was a great cook.
She owned a restaurant.
Yeah.
And then whatever she made, it was really, really good.
But we not necessarily said how good.
Yeah.
And I should have done it more because I thought it was normal.
Yeah.
I took advantage of it.
I'm not ready to talk about my family situation there.
But I will say that your cooking is phenomenal and I try to praise it every single time I
eat it.
You do.
But then you don't believe me that it's good because you're like, you're praising it too
much.
Like, how do I know you're telling the truth?
I mean, sometimes I just can't tell from a face or how you chew food.
Okay.
We've been living together for quite a long time.
That I don't really like it?
Like when you don't like stuff, the way you chew is very different when you actually like
the food.
So I'm basically such a bad liar that I can't even eat food without giving away whether
I like it or not?
I can't tell.
Okay.
Well, I mean, I feel like you also usually know going into the meal, you'd be like, man,
I really slathered mushrooms all over this thing.
You kind of know I'm going to struggle, right?
I guess.
I guess.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Look, I at least attempt to make you believe me even when I fail.
But yeah.
Yeah.
Whoever listening to this, like tell the chef or like your mom or your dad or whoever cooks
for you.
Or if you cook, tell the people you cook for that they better friggin thank you because
it's so much work.
It is a lot of work.
It's so much work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
ウイスキーとバーベキュー
I enjoyed the episode of Mukoda going in blacksmith and asking blacksmiths to make a barbecue grill.
And then he basically bribed with whiskey.
And then he wanted to make highball to the blacksmith for him.
Yeah.
I wonder the highball is like a thing in America or is like a thing in Japan?
Oh, it's a thing in both.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't drink whiskey very much because as a young person, I had way too much whiskey
once.
And now I can't really even smell whiskey without being getting gross.
Yeah, I did.
I just don't feel good when I like smell whiskey.
It's not for me.
But highballs are a thing in America, too.
Although I feel like they really had a boom in Japan.
And in particular, there became restaurants who like their thing was we sell highballs
like Gindaco.
What?
Okay.
Maybe this is just a Yakuza game thing, which is where my I don't think my very reliable
日本の飲み物文化
source for I think they do.
Really?
I mean, okay.
Again, my source here is Yakuza zero, but I'm pretty sure maybe not Yakuza zero because
I guess it wasn't around.
Whatever.
I'm pretty sure that Gindaco does sell highballs, but there's a combo meal you can buy in the
Yakuza.
Maybe you just cut this.
I don't know what I'm talking about.
I feel like probably they do, but there was definitely a highball boom where highballs
were the drink and everybody was having them all the time.
And I'm sure in Japan they were pretty weak.
It was mostly soda with like a splash of whiskey.
Whereas I'm sure if you order a highball in America, it is going to get you drunk pretty
fast.
So that is probably a difference.
But I don't know that I have not run into very many people in America who order a highball,
but it is a drink most bars will be able to make you if you happen to ask for it.
You were like laughing about how Mukoda made highball in the glass.
Oh, because of the ice thing?
Yeah, that was like so.
I mean, so I'm sure there are Americans who care more than I do about temperature of things,
but the Japanese people I live with, namely you, are like borderline obsessive about putting
in just a ridiculous amount of ice to things.
I think like my American approach to drinks is almost all drinks you buy in America are
already cold.
The ice is superfluous unless you are planning to not drink it for a while and need to keep
it cold for a long time.
And I often see, especially like fast food joints, the ice is a waste of money, right?
It's there to like rip you off by not giving you as much actual liquid.
So I don't put ice in my drinks because the drinks are already cold.
And I get that for Japanese people, the temperature of the drink is hugely important.
And I think this might be because sake tastes really different depending on its temperature.
So there is some sake that is meant to be served hot and some sake that is meant to
be served cold and some sake that's meant to be served lukewarm.
And depending on what temperature you adjust it to, the flavor is completely different.
So I think that is part of why Japanese people obsess about temperature of stuff, whereas
beer doesn't taste different when it's cold.
It tastes exactly the same.
Even lukewarm?
Yeah.
The flavor is not different.
Okay.
Moreover, I don't even mind lukewarm beer.
I'm like okay with a warm beer.
That's like fine.
It's still a beer.
I can't comment because I don't drink beer.
I don't even like, I think I actually don't like it when beverages are too cold because
they make my teeth hurt and stuff.
I don't want it to be super cold.
And I can't drink things that are super hot either.
They need to be at a reasonable temperature.
So I am on the other side of this.
But yeah, he cools the cup down and then empties the ice that was used to cool the cup down
because he doesn't want the excess water in the cup when he puts in the whiskey or something.
It was just so particular and specific.
And I was like, this is extremely Japanese.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
That was a fun episode.
今日の言葉
All right, let's do today's word of the day.
Let's do it.
Otaku, word of the day.
What is today's word of the day?
Today's word is okawari.
Okawari.
Okawari.
Yeah, you will definitely hear a lot in this anime and you will hear a lot in lots of anime.
It means seconds.
Or a second serving or another helping.
Any of those things.
Literally, it means change, right?
Change?
So it means like change.
So that's like what you're actually saying is like change, please.
日本の飲食文化
But what you actually want is another helping or another serving of the food.
And it's a compliment, right?
To ask for seconds, as long as it's available, right?
To be like, I liked it so much, I want more.
And there are some restaurants in Japan which will give you okawari jiyu, free second helpings of certain things.
This is particularly true.
One of my favorite chains in Japan, Wako.
I'm not sure if this is true.
This might not be true anymore in the age of inflation.
Yeah, no, you're right.
Okay, so back in the day, in 2002 or 2003, Wako used to offer free refills essentially on rice, shredded cabbage, and miso soup.
And their miso soup is a clam-based miso soup that tastes phenomenal.
And so when I was living in Japan over the summer and kind of strapped for cash, I would often not eat at all and have one meal of the day at Wako.
And order a pork cutlet, a fried pork cutlet, and then eat at least two servings of each of those things.
At least two miso soups, two bowls of rice, and two helpings of shredded cabbage along with the pork cutlet to try to maximize my value for the set.
I think you can eat three meals a day just by cooking by yourself.
Me?
Yeah.
For that price?
Yeah.
Not of pork cutlets, though.
I don't know.
No, no.
You can't get cheap enough ones.
I mean, I'd rather eat three times a day and cook by myself.
I am not sure the apartment I was living in at the time had a kitchen.
Oh, really?
I mean, if it did, I never used it except to make instant ramen.
But like, yeah, I might not have had any.
Okay.
Well, if you go to Japan or a Japanese restaurant and want seconds, you should probably say,
おかわりください or おかわりお願いします.
That's more polite way.
Much more polite.
Like a little kid say, おかわり!
And that's cute.
Right.
But if you're in a restaurant, you should say, please.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
All right.
アニメの食事シーン
So, Isekai Horomeshi is still going.
Yeah.
I have no idea what direction it's going.
I mean, maybe it's not going anywhere.
Yeah, it doesn't really seem to have an overarching plot.
He's just kind of exploring the world, doing what he wants to do.
Right.
I think actually my favorite part of the show is finding out what the monsters he kills
can be processed into.
I love the level of realism of cutting open the monsters and processing each of their
internal organs and stuff.
So, I kind of want to see him kill more monsters just to find out how they take them apart
and how much they're worth and stuff.
Or what they make them into.
I really like that element of the show.
I think they are going to the ocean, right?
That seems to be.
I mean, I think they've been trying to get to the ocean for like a season and a half.
Yeah.
And then we'll probably see more seafood.
That's true.
It's going to be more like sashimi, sushi kind of thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, I wonder.
I mean, those aren't cooked over a campfire.
Right.
You don't have to.
Oh, you can.
Oh, you know, they're definitely going to have yakizakana.
Yeah.
The kind where you put the fish on a steak and then roast it next to a fire.
I feel like that's definitely going to come out eventually.
Yeah.
I know how they taste like.
I'm looking forward to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
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 2AMOTALK and 3AMOTALK.
It will encourage us to keep making more fun episodes.
キャンプ料理の新シーズン
I forgot to tell.
We are trying to participate in this Japan podcast award.
You can vote for us if you want to.
Not 2AM, not this podcast.
For our Japanese podcast.
For a Japanese podcast called 3AMOTALK.
And if you go website, it's all in Japanese, but you can translate.
Using Google Translate?
There's a tab or click place to change the language.
You can still vote if you like.
Okay.
I don't know how many people actually do it.
Yeah.
We would appreciate it.
Yeah.
No pressure.
But if you did, let us know and we can do a shout out of your-
Shameless.
What?
If you want your name read on our podcast, go to-
Yeah.
Okay.
They could always just lie if they really want to get their name said.
It's okay.
It's okay.
It's fine.
I can prove it.
Okay.
Cool.
Yeah.
Comment us on the comment section with your radio name.
Is there a thing in America?
Like a pen name?
How do you say?
Yeah.
Pen names are a thing.
I don't know if radio names are-
I don't listen to very much radio.
I don't listen to any podcasts.
So I have no idea.
People just go with their own-
With their real name?
I think the whole point is to feel famous by having your name read.
But if you'd rather us read a pen name, we're only going to read whatever you send.
Like an Asia-appropriate, not Asia-appropriate podcast.
Don't send any dirty jokes and expect us to read them, I guess is what you're really saying.
Then I can't read.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Something fun and easy and yeah, okay.
Arable.
I don't know what to call it.
No inappropriate jokes, please.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
All right.
See you next time for more Two Aim Attack.
Peace.
