00:01
Any guess?
No. Just tell me already.
Golden Kamuy?
Oh...
Who?
Uh... nope, I don't know.
Koito Shoui.
Really?
Uh-huh.
Okay, didn't see that coming.
Uh... Demon Slayer?
Yep.
Who is it?
Uh... Inosuke?
No.
Goddammit.
Uzui.
Okay. Oh, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Yozakura... what was Yozakura again?
Yozakura family?
Yeah.
Uh... Shinzo.
Yozakura Kyoichiro.
Goddammit, okay. Don't make me play this game!
Konnichiwa! I am your host Mayu for 2AM OTTACK!
In this podcast, we talk all about anime, manga, movies, music, and history through our distinct perspectives
as a born and raised Japanese non-otaku and an American anime fan.
That's me.
Today, we are going to talk about...
物語の背景
逃げ上手の若気味 or The Elusive Samurai.
I just want to fix this. Like, I don't want to call it samurai as a Japanese person
because we don't pronounce samurai.
We call it samurai.
Yeah, like a mu sound is like really important.
But I often hear samurai.
As if it has a MA?
Yeah.
There is no R sound in Japanese.
True.
So it's more like clear.
サ・ム・ラ・イ
Okay, Cisco, could you explain about this anime?
Sure. So the Wikipedia entry reads,
The Elusive Samurai is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yusei Matsui.
It is based on the historical figure of Hojo Tokiyuki,
a young samurai determined to enact revenge on Ashikaga Takaoji,
a samurai who betrayed and caused the downfall of his family.
I guess to add to this, this is all based on a true story.
Or not even a true story. This is based on historical fact.
So the characters, many of the characters are real historical people.
The artist is definitely taking some liberties with what they looked like, how they behaved.
There are a lot of jokes about the head priest of the shrine having the ability to see the future
and breaking the fourth wall by understanding what the sensibilities of modern viewers are.
But the gist of the story and the historical events that happen are mostly real.
So that's very cool.
Yeah. As a history nerd, how much do you enjoy this anime or manga?
Well, I guess I like it a lot, in part because I know sort of the broad strokes of this story.
Like I am familiar with who Ashikaga Takaoji was,
and I understand about the Hojo clan and how they were overthrown and stuff.
But I didn't know the story of Hojo Tokiyuki before reading this manga.
And again, although like even before I started the manga,
I kind of knew what the final outcome was going to be given my study of Japanese history.
I don't really know how any of the given battles that are depicted in the story are going to turn out or why.
So it's been fun to kind of learn it for the first time from the manga and anime.
And I'm not totally clear.
Like I don't have a deep enough knowledge of Japanese history to know like which sources he's pulling,
that the author is pulling the events from and how faithful he's being to the way that those events unfolded historically or not.
But same time, you know, it's an anime.
Like I don't need to begrudge it like perfect historical accuracy.
アニメと漫画の違い
I can just enjoy it for the story that it is.
And there are lots of things that I sort of don't know how certain things are going to turn out
or like whether things happen or don't like later on.
So it's exciting to read and watch.
I've also read all of the manga up until, you know, the chapter that comes out tomorrow or whatever.
But the manga is somewhat artistic or has a lot of those same images that the anime is referencing.
But as with other anime, I think they really took that particular part of the manga and ran with it.
So the sort of arty parts are really intense in the anime, even more so than they are in the manga.
So there is a particular character who has a motif of like ants, for example.
And in the manga, the ant, you know, armor that he's wearing is like disturbing and creepy and stuff.
But in the anime, the ants are actually moving around on his armor lots of the time.
And I feel like the anime more frequently like takes those types of motifs and really like explodes them into something that's almost not regular anime anymore
and is more like just like art.
And so that's a real special characteristic of this anime and one that's a lot of fun to kind of see and interact with.
Yeah. Have you read Assassin's Classroom?
Assassination Classroom?
Assassination Classroom.
I've only like flipped through it.
So I have not seen most of it.
It's, from what I understand, a wildly different type of story.
I know that that involves a alien being with super long tentacles teaching a class who is also trying to kill it at the same time that it's plotting to like blow up the moon or something or they already blew up.
I don't know.
There's like the Earth is in danger.
Some teenagers are trying to kill an alien.
It's like impossibly strong.
That's all I know.
But in other words, it's not very much like the elusive samurai.
Right.
So this is his like second big like a hit?
I think it's probably his second big hit.
Yeah.
Assassination Classroom did pretty well.
There's, I think there's an anime of that too.
There's an anime and there's like live action movies.
Oh, yeah.
So it was a big hit.
I think the author has also drawn at least one more manga series in addition to these two, but I don't, I can't think of what it's called off the top of my head.
諏訪神社の文化と祭り
There are like a couple of reasons why I like this because it's based on shrine.
I think you're totally fair to say a lot of the action in the first season specifically takes place at Suwajinja, which is a Shinto shrine in Nagano Prefecture, a real place.
So, yeah, I like about that.
And because we went there this summer in Japan, we talked about this a little bit in the past episode of our road trip in Japan.
But Suwa Taisha is a really famous big shrine in Japan.
And there are like four shrines around Lake Suwa and you can visit easily four of them.
The main one is Honmiya and Honmiya is pretty big.
Yeah, it's by far the biggest of the four.
What I remember is their onbashira for each shrine.
They kind of look like giant sticks, honestly, because they've been like fully denuded of bark and branches.
And so they're just like a huge, essentially wooden pillar that is still more or less in the shape of a cedar tree.
Right? They're cedars?
It's not cedar.
Oh, they're not cedars.
Fir tree.
Fir trees.
Yeah.
Okay.
So they're very, very tall and they have them at each of the four shrines.
Right.
And there's a famous festival, which happens every six to seven years.
People, mainly men.
I think only men.
I'm sure at some point it was only men.
I wouldn't be surprised if they now sort of allow women to participate somehow.
According to what I remember reading in the manga, actually, the festival is a celebration of how they used to do forestry in the region, where they literally would cut trees down and then sort of ride them down the mountain slope.
And so the festival involves picking a tree, cutting it down, scraping it all off, and then pulling it down the mountain with people riding on top of it as it slides down.
Which seems kind of crazy, but the manga makes it look fun.
In real life, having seen video of it happening, it looks insanely dangerous.
It is.
If you slip and fall off or are one of the people pulling the thing down and it gets enough momentum to move faster than you can run, you're squashed.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's a huge festival.
Lots of people participate and it's pretty wild.
Almost every time it happens, somebody dies.
Yeah. Unsurprisingly, I gotta say.
Yeah. That wood is displayed at each shrine.
Yeah.
And it's very outstanding.
Also, what I noticed was, I think it was not only one, but maybe two shrines of Suwa Shrine.
Before you enter the shrine, you have to kind of wash, purify your hands.
Right.
It's almost always cold water.
But two or one shrine of Suwa Taisha had hot water, like hot spring water.
Cool.
Which is almost impossible to wash your hands, especially in summer.
Because it's so hot?
It was so hot.
Yeah.
So that was very unique.
Neat.
I've never seen or visited a shrine with hot spring water.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Are you sure it wasn't just heated by how insanely hot it was while we were there?
No, no.
Okay.
No. Why would you do that?
Yeah, I wouldn't do that, actually.
I would appreciate icy water to purify my hands.
So you didn't like it that much, is what you're saying?
I mean, not in summer.
Again, it was so hot.
I guess if you're going for Hatsumode in January, that would be a real bonus, right?
It's still hot, though.
It was way hotter than what usually you put yourself in onsen.
Oh, wow. Ouch.
I even didn't really try.
Sorry.
Got it.
No, no.
Do what you gotta do.
I can't remember which one, but we saw a kind of hidden place in one of the shrines over there.
Yes.
About praying for having children.
Fertility.
Fertility, yes.
スワ大社の隠れた場所
You kind of have to look for it.
Yeah, I think it was in either the spring or the fall shrine.
And as you're facing the main shrine, off to the left, there's a place where people have tied up their fortunes, you know, the Mikuji and stuff.
And sort of behind that, there are several small shrines to pray for various different kinds of good fortune.
And then if you go kind of behind that, there's an opening and you can go through, and then there's sort of another place to pray on the backside of the main shrine that's got rocks that are kind of hidden, right?
It's so hidden.
Inside some wood.
You have to kind of crouch down to be able to see what they really are.
Kind of sneak peek in.
Yeah, it kind of looks like you're peeking in.
And then one of the rocks is in the form of male genitalia, and the other rock is in the form of female genitalia.
And there's a little opening to stick your hand through to rub these rocks to get their fertility power.
If you want to have a boy, if you want to have a girl, you touch either of them.
Got it.
That's like creepy a little bit.
But, you know, again, do what you got to do to get fertility in this day and age.
You know, it's really hard.
I think it's okay to have a god for that.
But I thought it was kind of interesting, like it was hidden.
Yeah, it wasn't really out in the front.
You had to go looking for it.
Yeah, yeah.
What else?
温宮の魅力
What did you like about Suwataesha?
Well, so one of the fun things at the Honmya is there's a statue, I guess, of like an old famous sumo wrestler.
And in front of the statue, there's a piece of paper with the guy's handprint on it.
And like, I'm used to having like, just being like tall in Japan compared to like other Japanese people generally.
Not always.
There's really tall Japanese people out there, but like on the whole.
And this dude's hand is just like enormous.
Like his hand is, I'm not kidding.
Like I think probably like more than like 50% bigger than my hand.
Like it was just, it was huge.
And imagining someone with a hand that actual size, like you can see why they're honoring him with a statue and a handprint at a temple this big.
But I thought that was like very cool.
Yeah, I remember Honmya had like a electric display, like kind of explaining whatever you want to know about like shrine or Shinto.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it was in English.
It was like a touchscreen interactive display, like talking about the different shrines and the religion and like some other beliefs.
It was like, yeah, that shrine has got some money.
You know what I mean?
Like that was like some like first world airport level like, you know, touchscreen.
It was good.
Yeah.
There was a poster of Nigejo no Wakagimi on one of the walls at the Honmya.
But I would have like really liked there to be like more prominently displayed information about like Tsuwa Yorishige.
Or like some of the other featured people, you know, in order to like connect a little bit more with the anime.
That would have been really cool.
Yeah, they were not really promoting it.
Yeah, it was sort of like, hey, did you come here because of this anime?
Great.
Like, we're glad you're here.
Now we're not going to tell you anything about the characters or the time period.
It feels like an opportunity for them to expand on that connection.
Yeah.
But yeah, they were very pretty and calming and nice.
寄付の慣習
I feel like we spent a lot of money there, though, because I feel like we had to, it felt like it was incumbent upon us to like donate a little bit at each of the shrines.
And like four of them, that's like a lot in a row to be like tossing in.
I mean, there's no entrance fee.
True.
They don't actually charge you.
They just make you feel guilty if you don't donate.
So whenever we visit shrine, we try to give money, but like I always try to find 5 yen.
Right.
5 yen is also called goen in Japanese.
And the goen is the same sound for good, I don't know, relationship.
Yeah.
So it's like a good luck.
Or like good connection.
Good connection.
So like I always try to give like, I don't know, 5 cents.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not like 5, 1 cents.
It has to be the 5 cent coin, which has like a lucky circle in the middle and stuff too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like I threw in a lot of 100 yen coins at the Suwa Shrine.
So I ended up paying for goen all four, but it was still worth it.
Yeah.
You can give, you know, how much ever money you want.
Some people do like 1000 yen, 10 dollars, 100 dollars.
Damn.
That's a lot of money.
Yeah.
アートスタイルとキャラクターの魅力
What was your favorite scene or episode from the Illusive Samurai anime?
I want to think about like what I can say without like revealing any spoilers or anything.
I mean, I really like the ending of this season.
Like the battle scenes at the end of the season were very interesting.
It made interesting use of like 3D CG in a way that I did not expect.
Like there was a lot of like quasi 3D animation going on in the show.
And there was an earlier episode and I can't remember which one it was that also just like really leaned hard into the sort of art style of the time period.
And I think anytime they kind of depart from like traditional anime in order to do something new or sort of different or experimental,
I really appreciated the fact that they were like, they took some real risks in the art direction and style with this anime.
And I liked all of those parts.
What about you?
I don't know.
I just liked Tokioki's face and how he's supposed to be like nine or ten years old.
Yeah.
I think ten.
And then he's great.
And the kids around him are awesome too.
And I like kind of seeing the kids group being strong.
Yeah.
It's like fun to watch.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that's a real draw of the story that, you know, they're not totally grown up yet.
And yet they're really important in the development of history.
Yeah.
Also, I like the character of Suwa Yorishige.
Yeah, he's hilarious.
I think he's definitely my favorite adult in the show.
Like he's a god, human god, right?
Right.
And then he can see the future sometimes.
Sometimes.
Sometimes not.
Right.
But he's kind of, I don't know how to describe him.
I feel like he's like manipulative.
Manipulative?
Oh, he's definitely manipulative.
To me, he has a lot of qualities of kind of a dorky dad a lot of the time.
Right?
Like he's kind of like a dad joke if a dad joke were like a person.
Right?
Like a little bit cheesy, like a little bit coming on too strong.
He doesn't look very old.
No, he must be young.
He looks like he's probably in his early 30s.
20-something.
Yeah, at most.
Very gentle and kind, especially to the main character.
And that sort of combination of like being funny, like being able to be quite serious
and sort of like interesting and powerful.
And then also like kind of dorky or cheesy.
Like all of those things together make him a really intriguing person.
Yeah.
敵キャラクターの考察
What about the kind of like enemy-ish characters?
Yeah.
Again, I think like based on the anime so far, I think the ant guy is like by far the scariest.
And also, again, one of the more interesting ones.
Even though I think you're right that like the show has more Shinto stuff going on in general.
The stuff with him gets really Buddhist.
And in part because it's like so sort of different from my own cultural upbringing.
Like I really value the sort of like Buddhist motifs that sneak their way into his story arc.
I find them pretty interesting.
And I mean, Ashikaga Takoji is fantastic.
But he's around for the whole show.
So there are parts later on in the manga where his character really becomes quite outstanding.
And like we haven't quite gotten there yet in the anime.
So far, he's kind of like you don't really know anything about him.
But like he's really interesting down the line.
You don't know much about him, but you can kind of tell he's kind of evil deep inside.
No?
I think that is definitely how the early part of the anime sets him up.
I'll go that far.
He has face.
Like a nice person's face.
Right.
But inside is like deep down like so bad.
He has very scary eyes.
And that's for sure on purpose.
Yeah.
I don't want to say much about it because I feel like the next couple seasons should reveal more about Takaoji.
Yeah.
Okay.
Ashikaga Takaoji's voice is by Katsuyuki Konishi.
Who we are very familiar with.
Any guess?
No.
Just tell me already.
Golden Kamuy?
Oh.
Who?
Nope.
I don't know.
Really?
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Didn't see that coming.
Demon Slayer?
Yep.
Who is it?
Inosuke?
No.
God damn it.
Uzui.
Okay.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yozakura family?
Yeah.
Shinzo?
Yozakura Kyoichiro.
God damn it.
Okay.
Don't make me play this game.
I'm so bad.
I only watched one episode of Yozakura family.
声優の重要性
Okay.
Love the manga.
Haven't seen the anime yet.
Like, don't bust me on that one.
But, yeah.
He, Konishi-san, does all the voices.
Okay.
Well, that's cool.
Is he in Witch Watch?
Is he in the upcoming Witch Watch adaptation?
I have no idea.
All right.
We'll find out later.
Yeah.
And then, a little bit more about voice actors.
For example, Fubuki.
Fubuki is, he's a child, too.
He appears later in the season.
Yeah.
He's older than the rest of them, though.
Right.
And then, he's a good strategist.
Yep.
And a leader, and loves eating, I think.
I mean, he eats a lot.
He does.
Anyway, the voice is by Toya Kikunosuke.
Okay.
I think that's how it's read.
And he does the voice for Denji.
Oh.
In Chainsaw Man.
Really?
Yeah.
I couldn't figure that out.
This has been a long time since I saw an episode of Chainsaw Man.
Right.
So, maybe I just don't remember what Denji's voice sounds like.
But, I'm not as good at being like,
Oh, I know this voice actor in Japanese, as you are.
You're amazing at it.
There's only one person I can reliably identify.
Who?
Takehito Koyasu.
If he's in anything, I'll immediately be like,
Oh, that's Takehito Koyasu.
I gotta say, in old days, like 80s or 90s,
Each voice actor's voice is more distinctive.
You can kind of tell immediately,
Oh, this is the same voice as blah.
But, I don't know.
These days, it's kind of hard to tell.
Sometimes, I misunderstand whose voice is who.
Because they sound kind of similar.
I completely agree, actually.
Yeah.
I think there's been more kind of like,
There's been a narrowing of what types of voices are considered acceptable for anime characters.
And so, there's just a less wide range of what people sound like now.
Yeah.
One more, let's do it.
Suwa Yorishige.
Okay.
Is by Yuichi Nakamura.
He did the voice for...
Okay, I'm gonna ask you again.
Oh my god. Okay.
Okay, he did someone's voice in Jujutsu Kaisen.
I haven't seen the anime of Jujutsu Kaisen.
I saw the prequel movie, which was dope.
But like, I don't even like the Jujutsu Kaisen manga.
I know that's a hot take, but I just don't like it.
I'm not gonna watch the anime.
I don't care how good it is.
I don't care how good the action is.
I don't like the story.
I think it's like,
I feel like the manga artist just made up new stuff literally every chapter.
And like, it had no through line.
And the character development was like, so random.
Like, I...
Okay, I'm gonna stop my rant here.
But like, no, I'm not even guessing in Jujutsu Kaisen who he is.
Okay, I watched like the first three or four episodes.
And I stopped watching.
It looked interesting.
Okay.
But like I said, I stopped watching.
The very beginning of that show was okay.
And it rapidly went like just nuts.
It's a very popular manga anime.
Yeah, I mean, I feel the same way about Bleach.
So like, that's gonna earn me a share of haters too.
But like, I think both Bleach and Jujutsu Kaisen started off with an interesting premise.
And then just like escalated so quickly into like absurdity that it became like uninteresting.
And I read the whole manga.
Like, it's over now.
And I read every chapter.
So it was long running manga?
Yeah, I think it probably ran for like 300 plus chapters.
And I guess, you know what, I started in the middle.
I didn't start at the beginning.
I came in midway through and then went back and read from the beginning.
And like the beginning was solid.
But it really fell off in the middle, in my opinion, and like never recovered.
That's too bad.
It really is.
Anyway, so Suwa Yorushige, Yuichi Nakamura, he did the voice for Gojo Satoru in Jujutsu Kaisen.
That was who I was gonna guess for what it's worth.
Why didn't you say it?
Because I didn't actually see it.
I would have just guessed Gojo Sensei anyway.
Okay.
All right.
And then one more.
Okay.
He did a voice for somebody in Undead Unlock.
Are they an important character?
Uh-huh.
I'm trying to like think of anyone except Andy.
No, Shen.
It's Andy?
Shen is obviously Hanae Natsuki from Demon Slayer, Tanjiro's voice.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
That's fair.
Okay.
So it's Andy?
Really?
Andy.
Such a different character, though.
Yeah, very different.
Okay.
Good for him.
Yeah.
I was like thinking about Kamakura.
鎌倉の大仏
Kamakura is still a place in Kanaga Prefecture.
Yeah.
And if you visit there, you see a big statue of Buddha.
That is why most people go to Kamakura.
Yeah.
Yeah?
That's it.
I don't know.
I mean, kind of, right?
Is it famous?
The Kamakura Buddha is really famous.
I mean, it's famous in Japan.
No, I mean, it's famous as like a thing you go as a tourist to see.
Okay.
Like people are like, oh, you should go to Kamakura and see the Buddha there.
And you're like, okay.
And you go and see it.
And you're like, it's not as good as the one in Nara, but whatever.
It's outdoors, I guess.
So that's cool.
I mean, again, I struggle with like Buddhism as like a thing to go see.
You know what I mean?
Like, I think it's just like, it's so, and actually I want to amend that.
I struggle with Japanese Buddhism because like, I think Buddhism as articulated in like
India, like the story of Siddhartha and stuff like that, I feel like I connect to really
easily.
But like the Japanese subsects of Buddhism that aren't Zen are all really kind of hard
for me to like understand and like get down with.
But like, you know, there's a lot of really cool Buddhist things to see.
There's many Buddhist temples.
There's like, you know, the Hall of the Thousand Buddhas.
Like there's all this like cool Buddhist stuff.
And like much of it doesn't really resonate with me for some reason.
It might also be because I think the first major Buddhist thing I saw in Japan ever was
the Daibutsu at Nara.
Oh, okay.
Which is the most impressive Buddhist thing I've ever seen.
And so everything else has been kind of like me by comparison to that.
Like it's like, yeah, but is it like the Daibutsu at Nara?
No, whatever.
That's the biggest Buddha statue in Japan.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's also the largest wooden structure in the oldest wooden, the oldest largest wooden
structure in the world.
It's one of those, some combination of those things.
Like the building is amazing.
The Buddha inside is amazing.
Like everything about it is really, really cool.
And so once you've seen that, like going to Kamakura and seeing the Buddha is like, yeah,
I guess it's like another slightly less impressive Buddha sculpture.
Okay.
You know what I mean?
I mean, Kamakura is very, like, I think also you have to know a lot of the history of Kamakura
to like properly appreciate it because otherwise it's kind of like a small town with like some
kitschy, like, you know, souvenir stuff.
And then like a mid-sized outdoor Buddha.
Like it's, I don't know.
Like, I feel like you've got to like know more about it in order to appreciate it correctly.
What I learned before this podcast was Kamakura's Buddha statue was not outside from the beginning.
It was inside.
Interesting.
And then the thing burned down around it?
Burned down or like blown away or something because of earthquake or some natural disaster.
Okay.
So you can still see some like base around the Buddha statue, which I never noticed.
You see, that immediately made it cooler.
And like now I would be like more down to see it again and like picture that.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
I think you can go inside.
Go inside what?
The statue of Buddha.
Uh, you might like, it's hollow and physically it's possible to do that.
Or like if you sign up somewhere, they'll be like, sure, come on in.
No, I think you pay like 300 yen or something.
I feel like I did that.
No?
I've definitely been to it at least twice.
And neither time have I gone inside or even been aware that was a possibility.
I'm not saying it's not true.
I'm just saying like they're not advertising that very well in English.
If that is the case.
I mean, it's not so big.
Right.
But I think I can.
I think I did it when I was in middle school.
Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me and I'm thinking it's like even smaller than it actually is.
I don't know.
We should check it out next time.
All right.
We'll go next time and have like a better report for this podcast after we've actually been there recently.
Yeah.
鶴岡八幡宮の魅力
And then Kamakura has Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, right?
That is something I've never been to that I now really want to go to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That seems very cool.
And then the Hachimangu's animal is pigeon.
What?
Or bird.
Okay.
So if you go see the gate, it says like Hachimangu in kanji.
And the shape of Hachi is consisted by two birds facing each other, I think.
Okay.
Hatosabureの謎
Why pigeons?
I don't know.
Oh my God.
Bizarre.
So like, have you heard Hatosabure?
Yes.
Yeah.
It's like a famous Kanagawa, I don't know, cookie.
Sabure.
Sabure.
Yeah.
I don't know how to translate that.
Sabure is like, I think it's French, right?
It's definitely French.
Yeah.
So like, there is like a main branch of Hatosabure.
Okay.
And then it comes from the shrine.
Never knew this.
Yeah.
It's a shrine.
It's a shrine.
Yeah.
So I didn't know that.
I always wondered, like, you know, living in Kanagawa for like four years in total.
I love, I like Hatosabure.
It's like a very basic taste, flavor.
It's good.
Yeah.
It's good.
Simple.
Simple.
Like, that's what I wanted to say.
Okay.
Well, I mean, simple sounds bad too.
Like, maybe we can spruce it up and be like, it's very pure or it's like very refined.
Nostalgic?
Sure.
Like something comforting.
Okay.
It's nothing like, there's no decoration or anything.
Right.
There's only like a buttery flavor cookie.
I'm going to think of a good adjective for this later.
Let's just keep going for now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I always wondered, why Hato?
Why pigeon?
And it's because they're associated with Tsurugaoka Hachimangu.
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Okay.
Let's do word of the day.
サムライの翻訳
Okay.
We spent a long time thinking about this, but I argued that samurai was too basic.
And so we went with Roto, which is a word used a lot in the elusive samurai to describe
the people working for Hojo Tokiyuki.
And so I'm a little unclear on whether this is a good translation or not, but I think
retainer is probably the best translation of Roto.
Roto, it means like someone not related by blood who works for the lord of a particular
area.
It translates more directly to loyal servant.
Right.
But so I think like the retainers of a feudal lord in the medieval Europe is sort of the
same concept, although they are not necessarily rewarded with land.
I think they hope that they will be someday, but there's kind of no guarantee and they
don't need to be landholders in order to be Roto.
音楽の紹介
I forgot mentioning about opening theme song and ending theme song.
Yeah, they were good.
I like the closing theme song a lot more.
Like the opening theme song ended up getting stuck in my head like a lot more than I expected
it to.
And both are connected to like the story of the history.
And so I like both of those things.
The ending theme song is a little bit more just like fun.
So I like that one more Kamakura style.
Okay.
So opening song is called Plan A by Dish.
And then Dish did anime songs for Naruto and Gintama in the past.
Okay.
And then I found the main vocal Takumi Kitamura starred in Netflix original live action YuYu
Hakusho as a main character Yusuke Urameshi.
Wow.
Did they get to do the theme song for that?
I have no idea.
Didn't watch it.
Damn.
Okay.
Yeah.
So that was interesting to find out.
And then ending song is Kamakura style by Bocchi Boromaru.
Okay.
He is a Japanese singer songwriter and VTuber.
A VTuber?
Uh-huh.
Do people know what his actual face looks like?
No, he wears like some kind of thing on his head.
So he's like Sia.
Sia doesn't have like a Kaburimono.
Anymore?
He wears like some mask.
You know, if you go to like a baseball game and they have mascot characters and you have
to put on something on your head.
Yeah.
So he's kind of like Yoko Taro then.
The guy who made...
Nevermind.
You don't know who that is.
I don't know.
The guy who made the, you know, Nier Automata game.
Whatever.
Yeah.
Okay.
You don't know him, but he's like another famous guy who like walks around with like
a crazy big thing on his head all the time.
So people don't know what it looks like.
Right.
Exactly.
That's how he does on YouTube.
He talks with his voice, but he always wears the thing.
Got it.
And then Bocchi Boromaru's songs were used in Pokemon and Too Many Losing Heroines.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Not that I've seen that.
I feel like we saw that on like Netflix or something the other day and we're like, oh,
what's this?
So, yeah.
I watched both music videos and they are very different.
Bocchi's like a Kamakura style song music video looked like something you would see on NHK
for kids.
That's perfect.
Do you understand?
Yes.
Yeah.
Like, it's like very kids friendly style, like dancing, but with the head and like,
you know, anime characters.
Yeah.
So that was cute.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Anything else you'd like to add?
アニメ化への期待
I hope they keep going with this anime adaptation because the original story is pretty interesting.
But it also feels a little bit like as the story goes on, there's more and more pressure
to follow the historical events.
And so it becomes a little bit more battle heavy after this first season.
And there's less like interpretation of like what he and his friends are doing at the
Suwa Shrine and a little bit more of like, and then there was this battle and then there
was this battle and then there was this battle.
And so I wonder if the narrative is going to get like dragged down a little bit by like
having to follow the historical arc of Tokioki's life.
But I'm still excited for at least like the next season or two, which concerns events
around Suwa and Kamakura.
That should be pretty interesting.
Okay.
図書館の利用
Check your local library to read the Elusive Samurai with your library card for free.
Did you know that?
Yeah, we got some today.
Yeah.
Take advantage of this opportunity with your library card.
We love libraries.
We visited a lot of libraries before, like crazy amount.
Yes.
We are not going to tell today because we are running out of time, but maybe someday.
Okay.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.
Don't forget to subscribe and follow 2AMOTAC and 3AMOTAC on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon
Music, and on YouTube.
It means so much to us and we will keep making fun episodes.
See you next time for more 2AMOTAC.
Later.
