00:01
He. The.
That was too hard.
アニメとマンガの紹介
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.
How was my introduction?
He. The.
Like that? Yes.
Yeah, it was good. I liked it.
Today we're going to talk about Me & Roboco. Is that the right English title?
Okay. In Japanese, it's the same. Boku to Roboco. Could you read the plot? Let's go.
Set in a future where every household owns maid robots known as Order Maids,
average grade schooler Bondo Taira dreams of having his very own robot because his friends,
Gachi Gorilla and Motsuo Kaneo, always brag about Kaneo's Order Maid, Meiko.
With some convincing, Bondo manages to get his mom to agree to get them one, but what he receives
is an unable-to-compute maid named Roboco, the most powerful clumsy maid ever created.
With Roboco's arrival, Bondo's life starts to get a whole lot weirder.
ジョークとリファレンス
This is a very, very funny show. It's a manga, and it became anime. And each anime episode is like
three minutes? Something like that. Yeah, they're really short.
Really short, but like, like a story goes really fast. It's so speedy. And then like,
but in three minutes, there's so many jokes.
And then like speaking of jokes, like they do a lot of jokes from Shonen Jump
mangas. Is there any favorite jokes?
Oh, that's, I don't think I can answer that question. I don't think I have like favorite
jokes. I think me and Roboco might be my favorite currently running manga series. Like, I, it really
has a special place in my heart. Like I, I read it almost every week and laugh out loud.
And I think in some ways I'm like the ideal target audience for this manga and anime because it's,
it references things from my, like about my childhood all the way through like the modern
day. And the more that I read and watch it, the more I realize that there are jokes that I'm not
getting, but it's still funny even when I don't know the references, but there are so many
references that I actually know. And so particularly in the beginning, there are a lot
of Dragon Ball references and I'm someone who like never actually watched Dragon Ball. I like,
have like enough kind of surface level knowledge of it to like know who many of the characters are
and who many of the villains are. But some of like the deep cut Dragon Ball references go kind
of over my head, but I still appreciate it. And yeah, there's, I mean, the jokes are just, you
know, they're very quick. It has sort of the same pacing as something like you know, the, oh God,
what is it? The disastrous life of Saiki Kei. It has sort of that level, that speed of like jokes
just coming out one after the other. And the more that I've like really thought about some of the
episodes, the more that I realized that like maybe every single chapter slash episode is a send up of
a specific other anime or manga. And some of them are ones that like I've never read. So I don't
actually know that much about them. And I'm not really sure to like what extent that thing is being
parodied. But as an example, like I rewatched the, you know, all of the episodes that are currently
out in preparation for this episode. And I think like the episode where Motsuo and Gachigorira
are trying to get the other one to say that they're best friends, but like won't say it
themselves. I think that's like an intentional parody of Kaguya-sama Love is War, where they
won't like admit that they like each other. But there's like, and yeah, there's just like a ton
アニメと漫画のリファレンス
of Easter eggs. Like one of the things in rewatching it that I found that is like shows up more often
than I thought is that in the world of me and Roboco, both Bondo and sometimes Roboco are
wearing watches that are actually log poses from One Piece. So like they don't have normal, yeah,
like there's a thing in One Piece called a log pose, which like, it's kind of like a little
globe that sits on your wrist with a compass needle in it that points the way to the next
island you're supposed to go to. But like Bondo's watch is a log pose. And there's some scenes where
Roboco is also wearing a watch and it's also a log pose. And like, it's the kind of detail that
like doesn't really matter at all, but is sort of funny when you notice it of like, oh man,
like that's just like an ongoing, like repeated joke. That's fun. That's fun to keep watching
and then watch it again. Yeah. And so like, I think that the more that you know about anime and manga,
the better the series is because you'll get more and more of the jokes as you're watching it and
realize, oh, this is like a callback to like this particular like show. And it kind of evenly
balances really old references with like totally modern references. So it'll throw in, you know,
references to Jujutsu Kaisen and the same episode where there's like a joke that's really from
Doraemon. And so like Doraemon's a fundamental part of this show's like jokes because the premise
is really, really similar. Right. Well, it was like obvious to see that it's based on Doraemon
because of how Bondo is behaving and Roboco is basically Doraemon. And there are two boy
friends and then one girl. It's the whole setting. And then like the faces kind of look similar.
Right. And so I thought it was parody of Doraemon. And it is. But even if you don't know
about Doraemon, like you still enjoy watching it, all the like jokes and stuff. But the
differences between Doraemon and Roboco is in Doraemon, the giant who is just like Gachigorilla
and the snail who's like Motso. They are mean. They are bullies. And Bondo, who's like Nobita,
like Nobita is like get bullied by them all the time. And Nobita begs like Doraemon that
please help me. Like, you know, I know you have all the tools, like I want to do something with
it. But he never, I shouldn't say, but he he's always kind of helpless. Right. Yeah. So that
aspect, me and Roboco, like nobody's bullying anybody. They look kind of mean. Right. But they
are so nice. Everybody's so nice. They're always super nice. And I think it plays with like the
conventions of Doraemon so successfully that like somehow you keep expecting them to be mean one day
and then they just never are. And so it's like very wholesome. And like Bondo isn't very helpless.
Like he often is like actually surprisingly good at things, whereas it's actually like, you know,
Roboco, who's like not really that helpful, like a lot of her attempts to help totally backfire or
like don't really work or just completely unexpected. But yeah, I mean, the series just
has a great sense of humor and it's a it's such a good parody of so many different things at the
same time that it's I don't know, I find it always really funny. And it's also very meta.
Like they haven't gotten to this in the anime at all. But in the manga, the manga artist breaks
the fourth wall all the time by showing up in the comic. Breaking the fourth wall.
Breaking the fourth wall means like he talks directly to the audience sometimes or like
acknowledges the fact that he is the creator of the manga like as he's appearing as a character
メタフィクションとユーモア
in the manga. And there's a lot of jokes about Shonen Jump also like there's I guess we haven't
seen this character maybe yet in the in the anime that's been released so far. But there's a
character who like works at Shonen Jump, especially a number of characters who work at Shonen Jump,
which is a magazine in the story that and like it's like super meta because many of the characters
in the story are manga artists like Roboco decides repeatedly that she's going to try and be a manga
artist and like submits manga work to Shonen Jump and like constantly gets rejected because all of
her work is totally derivative. Like it's just like a badly done parody of other existing manga,
which is what the actual manga is. Yeah, it's got like all these like levels to it that are really
hilarious. And you can just feel the author like kind of not caring but also being really funny at
the same time. Like one of the most recent manga chapters is just the artist geeking out about
fishing. Like he like he like just inserts like whole pages that are just like his fishing tips
basically. But then like the whole chapter is also a send up of Tsuruhichi Sanpei.
And so like it like it like allows him to like like, you know, explore one of his hobbies and
just sort of shamelessly be like, this is what I think about fishing, which is like everyone's like,
dude, we don't care. But then it's also an anime manga parody. So I don't know. It's things like
that that make me like deeply love this show and this manga. I personally like these little things
that whenever like Roboco shows her underwear, there's a message. There's always a message. Like,
I don't know how she changes it, but there's a little message you don't want to miss.
So those messages are always really funny to me. I will say very few of those messages are
translated in. Oh, actually, I bet now that I think about it. No, I guess they must be translated in
the manga. They're not. The anime is only in Japanese currently. It hasn't. Right. It's on
Crunchyroll. It's translated. Am I wrong about this? I think Crunchyroll is the the streaming
service that streams Roboco. Because it was available on Japanese Netflix for a while,
but obviously on Japanese Netflix or actually maybe not obviously on Japanese Netflix, they
don't have an English subtitle track. And so I've been watching it, but not able to get translations
and there are some of those messages that I really don't understand. It's not just I'm not
getting the joke or the reference. It's like I have no idea why they wrote that particular thing.
But yeah, they're all really good jokes. And they go by super fast. Like even when there's like
a montage layered shot that's going by in like fractions of a second, they're still on there.
And if you can like freeze frame it, you can be like, oh, what's that one say? Yes, in part because
I'm not so good at Japanese that I can like read everything as quickly as it appears on screen. I
often will like watch this and then pause it sort of not on a frame by frame basis. But like whenever
there's a lot of text on screen at once, I'll pause it to try to read it. And like one of the
episodes is about Roboco making up her own slang. And that episode is like basically like impossible
without pausing it sometimes to be like, wait, what are you even saying? Because everything
she's saying is made up. Yeah. I wanted to explain about Bondo's name. Bondo is such a
sounds like a such a cool name in English. Right? Because it sounds like Bond. Yeah. Yeah. But
キャラクター名の意味
actually, it's the opposite of cool, right? It's it's like, not I mean, not, it wouldn't be not
cool. It's just like, normal. Yeah, his name means flat, normal guy.
Flat or like, nothing exciting. Like normal. Not just the bondo part, but his family name
is tighter, which means flat. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. So flat, normal guy is his is his name
translated into English. Yeah. I mean, the names themselves are really funny. I think
I mean, Motsuo Kaneo is also perfect, because his name literally means I have money.
Essentially. And then gachi gorida. I don't really understand the gachi part. Can you like
shed any light on that? Which is gachi gachi. Really means like gachi means like seriously,
really? So like, seriously, gorilla? I don't know. There's there might be some reasons why,
but I can't think of like the reasons. Like gachi gachi doesn't mean like tough or like,
strong? No. No, I don't think so. No. Okay, cool. I don't know Japanese. That's fine.
Madoka-chan and Shizuka-chan. Yeah. Is there anything with the kanji that's being used for
Madoka? Because it's just n, right? Yeah. Is there any particular joke there? No. Okay.
I really appreciate the fact that she's named Madoka-chan and that everybody's in love with
her because of Kimagure Orange Road, where the main girl is Madoka. And she's like,
the one everybody's kind of in love with. So for me, that name like works really well. But I think
that's just a personal thing, as opposed to like an intentional signal. You know what I mean?
漫画のスタイルとアート
Yeah, yeah. I like one of the people, I think mostly Bondo says, Bondo calls her name. It's
not like Madoka-chan. It's Madoka Chuan. Yeah. I wonder whether this is something in the manga,
I think they were translating it as Madoka Chuan in the beginning, and then it changed to just
being Madoka, at least in the English translations, where there's just like four A's at the end of her
name. And so I wonder if that's like an actual change that'll happen in the anime eventually
also, or if she just stays Chuan the whole time. Because I remember it being Chuan in the beginning,
but then I think it changed to just Madoka. One of my favorite like jokes actually is how her face
changes when she's playing board games. She becomes serious and then like looks like someone
from like a, I don't know, like a manga magazine. Yeah. It's about food. Oh really? Yeah, like an
old manga. They used to have like a manga like that. She looks like someone from like a 70s
manga that's about like gambling in the underworld or something, but she has like a totally different
like face. And that's a repeated joke that just sort of never gets old because it's such a contrast
with the rest of her personality. I think it just fits in with this manga and anime's like desire
to call back to just like every other anime and manga that exist. And I think the other thing that's
kind of neat is the manga artist clearly sometimes asks other manga artists to draw versions of the
characters for different reasons. So there's a trope that when Nobuko uses up too much energy,
she like becomes a regular order maid and like looks like cute and normal like the other order
maids. And for at least like one of the chapters, he like asked some other mangaka who's like good
at drawing cute girls to be like, could you please design this instead of me? And I find like
that level of sort of like humility and like self-deprecation on the author's part to be like
really endearing and very funny. I think, I guess I haven't watched like a ton of Japanese comedy,
キャラクターと声優の考察
but I feel like Japanese comedians are not particularly known for being self-deprecating
or making fun of themselves. Like they often have like huge egos about how funny they are.
And like this mangaka doesn't seem to have that problem. Like a lot of his humor is about like
that he's kind of like an uncool, like bad artist. And like that to me is in and of itself,
like sort of like recipe for good comedy. So I really appreciate that about him.
Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about voice actors. Nobuko's voice actor is by Shun Matsuo.
He is now a very, very popular comedian in Japan. I don't know if he's done any other
anime before, but yeah, he's doing it. He's nailing it.
Yeah. I mean, this is, I was trying to think of like other instances of a female character
voiced by a male voice actor. And I can't think of very, maybe I can't think of any off the top
of my head. Are there any that come to mind for you? Because the reverse is like very common,
right? Where it's a male character voiced by a female voice actor. You know, Rurouni Kenshin
is voiced by like a female voice actor, right? Like I'm pretty sure Doofy is voiced by a female
voice actor. Like there's a lot of situations where a main character that's, you know,
portrayed as male is actually voiced by a woman. But I couldn't think of a lot of
circumstances where the reverse was true, except this one, which makes total sense
for the character of Roboco. But it's still, I just was like, huh, that's interesting.
Yeah, that's a good point. Like there might be, but like, I can't think of anything right now.
Also, I don't know if you noticed this, but Bondo's mom is by Koto no Mitsuishi.
Not sure who that is. You have to tell me what I'm-
From Sailor Moon.
Oh, wow. I did not know that.
Misato from Evangelion.
Oh, that's pretty awesome. What a resume.
Yeah, it seems like a little role for her.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just to like get that person on board, basically,
and to be like, yeah, yeah, she's in this too.
Someday. I want some jokes about that. You know, she's doing like some,
she's saying some phrase from Sailor Moon or like Misato's like phrase,
like one day, and I had it as a joke.
You know, if the creator ever listens to this in English, which I'm not, you know,
he could surprise me and be like, yeah, I'm fluent English. I listen to your podcast.
I think listening to our podcast would be a bigger accomplishment than speaking English. But
yeah, I would be down to have like more character development for Bondo's mom.
So far in the anime, she's kind of limited to showing up with a knife.
But there's that one scene where she like, you know, beats up the giant robot with like her,
you know, Mihawk like style, tiny little knife. That's pretty entertaining. But yeah, she's like
not she's definitely not one of the main characters. I would I would love for her
to get a little bit more screen time or, you know, page time, I suppose.
I appreciated that episode of like, mom can be cool.
Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, definitely can fight.
She sure can.
Yeah, well, there should be like anime like that, like, like mom being like a hero, Shiro.
Yeah, we should look for one. Yeah, no, totally.
We should look we should make it we should tell us and you want to
draw something about a mom being a hero. Yeah, totally.
And we write the script or story.
I'm not sure I've got the confidence for that. But I'll give it a go.
It's just an idea.
I think, you know, deciding who your target audience is going to be is really important
ロボコの膝の話
with that one. Because I feel like there's probably already some out there that are
just like not the kind of thing we would write. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, kind of limited. But you can put it on like, like, you know, cooking magazine or
something. Something like wives or moms would read.
Okay, I like where this is going. Let's try it.
Yeah, it's a new strategy.
Yeah, it definitely hasn't been done before be very original.
Shall we do word of the day?
Sure thing.
Uh, I thought of a couple.
Uh, he's a
Oh, nice.
Made. Oh, we can do all of them.
Sure. Let's do them all. Why not?
Okay, he's up.
So he's just means knee, which is pretty obvious from the show because it's constantly about
knees and how they look like nappa's knees. I don't really understand the obsession with
knees in the show other than it's funny. And that's good enough for me. Is there more to it
than that?
I mean, every at the beginning of every episode, it says,
Yeah, and it looks like there's like a banana or something, right? And it's bent
into the shape of what looks like a leg with a knee. But then when it says it throws like a
gigantic additional thing onto the side of it, which like could also be a knee is my interpretation.
They have some pride on like knees in this show.
Nobuko does anyway. Nobody else I think is that into knees except her.
But her knees are her best, her best trait, according to her.
Right. So not too much to add about this word. He's up.
All right. There's a there's an ongoing joke in one of the episodes where she's taking pictures
of her knees and posting them to Twitter, and then making like shadow accounts to be like,
is that an elbow by being like he this guy? And like, he G is elbow and he's is knee and like
the fact that though, in English, knee and elbow are not even remotely similar words.
But in Japanese, they're only one sound away from each other. And so I think that's like
part of the joke in that episode that if you don't speak Japanese, it might be hard to follow.
Okay, let's do.
So this got translated in the manga as Oh, manly man dinner.
I think because they needed something that started with Oh,
because the original dish is supposed to be omurice.
And so Oh, manly man dinner is about as funny, I think, as like,
Oh, manly man dinner.
Yeah, okay. So this is actually, I actually think manly man is maybe a better word of the day,
even then, like, specifically just this. But so manly, I think we've said in other episodes
means like poop, or it means a less polite version of poop. In English, like usually,
when it's translated into English, it's translated with a profanity.
And that's not exactly like, that wouldn't be a good translation in this case,
because it's more like, super manly man, like, what a dang man or like, maybe like,
what in like effing man, you know, like, not super, but like, especially like deeply manly man,
which is why I think they translate as Oh, manly man, whereas because like, translating is like,
Oh, like profanity, man, would like it would have confused English readers,
even though that is a more literal translation of what it's actually saying.
Oh, so otokomeshi means man food, literally, or I guess we did a whole we did meshi back in the
delicious and dungeon episode. So I think grub was how I recommended translating it because it's like
less fancy, polite term for food. But like, Oh, crappy man grub, like, does kind of describe what
she's actually serving, which is raw eggs of Fanta and rice, which is not something that anybody
ロボコとファッションの世界
would actually want to eat. But yeah, so that's the but the idea is that like, it's a super manly
food to me, Fanta is not the manliest drink, given that it's like a fruit flavored soda,
but like, I don't know, people could probably disagree with me about that and be like,
No, Fanta is extremely manly. And I'd be like, okay. But yeah, I mean, I wonder,
has he got a sponsorship deal with Fanta? Or he just really likes Fanta? Or like, why Fanta and
like, not like Coke or like some other soda? Hoping for the sponsorship, hoping for the
sponsorship. Just like us, the author of me and Roboco does seem determined to get sponsored by
some people. Yeah. Yeah. So oh, I'm glad to notice that you and you mentioned that like,
we worked, we did on the soul and the machine. So like, if you've been listening to us, by now,
like you understand the parts of the words we are explaining today.
You'd also have to remember them, which would be like an additional feat. But like, yes,
we have covered some of those already. Yeah, just make sure they listen like over and over.
Good advice. Yeah. Okay. And then do would you like to explain about maid?
Sure. So made or just just means made. It's, it's a direct translation from English. But
Japan in particular has like an obsession with like, French maids kind of like French maid
outfits, at least. And so the maid outfit in Japan is like very circumscribed to like,
usually like a black, like essentially mini dress with like a sort of frilly white apron on the
front, or like a variation on that, but always like a super short skirt, sort of like a sailor
uniform thing, like it kind of fits in with like a lot of the other cosplay slash, like, you know,
Western wear obsession that like is prevalent in Japan. But that's where like, all of the order
maids are dressed essentially the same way. In that thing, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of
I mean, the one that Roboco wears in particular is like, almost like a school uniform. Because
it's like blue with like a red, like tie. And like, you know, that that doesn't really scream
made to me make those outfit looks a little bit more regular made like. But yeah, it's pulling
on all of those influences. And there are made cafes in Japan where you can go and like eat a
ridiculously overpriced, whatever coffee or something like served by essentially made cosplay,
you can get an omnis with the word love or like a happy face on it. That's been a I mean,
that's in a lot of different anime. Steins Gate has that. What else have we watched that features
maids in it? Only the Steins Gate so far. Only Steins Gate. Okay. Well, anyway, it's a it's a
really, really common trope. And so that's maids. Yeah. Okay, we covered them all.
映画化の発表
So there's a news that a film adaptation of me and the Roboco is set to premiere in winter 2024
in Japan. Hey, how is this gonna work? Well, although up until the point that the anime
has gotten to there haven't been any like, quote unquote, arcs yet, like it's always just been
the sort of discrete episodes. And each episode has been predicated on a manga chapter. As the
manga continues, it starts to develop a couple of different like story arcs. They're still not
very long, but there's like, there are at least two or three story arcs. The one that I'm really
pulling for, because it would be really funny. And it's one of my favorites is one where Roboco
encounters other Robocos from other dimensions. But like it pulled into her world or whatever.
And there's like, and they're all from like other manga series, basically, or like, they're all from
other dimensions where Roboco is a different type of manga and is not like a straightforward humor
gag manga. And so there's like Doofy Roboco basically from like the Shonen Bottle manga
universe. And like, there's like actually Doraemon Roboco from like the Showa era humor,
like universe. And there's like a RomCom Roboco. And there's also like, there's at least like one
or two other Robocos. It's like again, that whole arc is like very clearly inspired by
Into the Spider-Verse. And so it's like a send up of both that and just like other popular
manga that are out right now, plus Doraemon. But that whole arc, which is, I don't know if
it's long enough to adapt into a movie, the movie might have to be about something else.
But that arc is really funny. So I would be, I would be very excited if they decided to make like
a Roboco movie that's a little bit of a parody of Into the Spider-Verse as like the main story.
But I think there's like another one about like, all the order maids like in like going crazy and
getting reprogrammed to like destroy humanity. And they have to like to turn off the switch
or what is something like that, that like went for like a couple chapters. I feel like there's at
least one more that's like a series. And there's certain like story themes that keep coming back,
like Madoka becoming a professional shogi player, or like, I don't know, there's like some other,
there's some other ones like that, where like it like repeatedly introduces this thing. There's
like definitely the nature writer, he shows up in a bunch of the episodes. So I don't know,
but I think it's likely to be an original storyline would be my real guess is that
they're not adapting anything from the source material. They're just going to make up a brand
new story and do that instead. So me and the Roboco manga is available on Shonen Jump app.
漫画の利用と視聴方法
Yeah, I mean, all of the you can always read the most recent, the very first three chapters for free
and the most recent three chapters for free. But if you subscribe to the app, you can also read all
of the chapters in the middle. And they've got all of the me and Roboco chapters that have been
translated so far. Okay, cool. And then the anime version is streaming on Crunchyroll. You can
also read manga at LA Public Library for free if you have a library card. It's something if you
want to try out. It's like really easy to absorb. And it's just fun, so much fun to read. Yeah,
I think especially if you're sort of of our generation, which is to say what in like your
30s or 40s. There are a lot of references that you may know if you've been watching anime or
manga for a long time. And if you're younger, you know, our son also loves this manga
and thinks it's really funny. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. Don't forget
to subscribe and follow 2amOTAG and 3amOTAG on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and on
YouTube. I keep telling on the other, you know, podcast 3am, but if you're learning Japanese,
or if you want to learn Japanese, try this 3am podcast because we talk about the same topic and
then share the same thoughts on 3am in Japanese. So if you want to just like practice listening,
try our sister podcast. Otherwise, see you next time and make sure to follow 2am and 3amOTAG.
Bye. Looking forward to it. Bye.
