ロボコの登場と冒険
【ENCORE】 That was too hard.
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?
【ENCORE】
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.
【ENCORE】
アニメ文化の参照
I'm like the ideal target audience for this manga and anime because it references things
from 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,
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 K. 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 like 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, and there's just like a ton 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, 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
アニメとマンガのユーモア
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 is 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 the how Bond 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 if you 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 dad, 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 the 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. And 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 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
Robocoの魅力と日本文化
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 Tsurukichi 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. And so I don't know,
it's things like that, that make me like deeply love this show and this manga.
I personally like this 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.
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.
Where I'd like, I know, 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, 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, I, 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
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 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 his family name is tighter, which means flat.
Oh, yeah, yeah, right.
So flat, normal guy 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 gorira, I don't really understand the gachi part. Can you
like, shed any light on that?
I don't know what gachi means. Like, gachi means like, seriously, really?
Hmm. 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.
ロボコのキャラクターと笑い
Like, gachi gachi doesn't mean like, tough or like, strong? No?
Maybe? No, I don't think so.
No? Okay, cool. I don't know Japanese. That's fine.
Madoka-chan. Madoka-chan and Shizuka-chan.
Yeah. Is there anything with the kanji that's being used for Madoka? Because it's just n,
right? Circle?
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?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like one of the people, and 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
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, one of those like, manga.
I was thinking, like a, umai nantoka, it's about food.
Oh, really?
Yeah, like an old manga. They used to have like, a manga like that.
She looks like, 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 I, that just sort of never gets old, because it's such a contrast
with the rest of her personality. Like, 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 exists. 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 Roboco 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 don't, I haven't watched like,
a ton of Japanese comedy, 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. Roboco's voice actor is by Shun Matsuo.
He is now a very, very popular comedian in Japan.
Okay.
ロボコと声優の話
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 Luffy 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
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.
Usagi 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 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, me hawk, 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.
We should look for one. Yeah, no, totally.
We should make it, we should tell Sugimoto.
And 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
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 housewives or moms would read.
Okay, I like where this is going. Let's try it.
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.
I thought of a couple.
Hiza.
Or osu, kuso otokomeshi.
Oh, nice.
Maid. We can do all of them.
ロボコの膝とユーモア
Sure, let's do them all. Why not?
Okay, hiza.
So, hiza just means knee, which is pretty obvious from the show, because it's constantly
about Robocop's 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,
Hiza.
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 za, 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.
Robocop 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, hiza.
All right.
There is 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, hiji desu ka? And like, hi-ji is elbow and hi-za 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.
男らしい料理の紹介
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,
uh, nani? Oh, kuso meshi?
Yeah, okay. So this is actually, I actually think kuso otoko is maybe a better word of the day,
even than like specifically just this. But so kuso, 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. Otoko, what about otoko meshi? Oh, so otoko meshi 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 a 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 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
ロボコとメイド文化
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 Rebuko 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 our podcast, 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 maid just means maid. 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 maid cafes in Japan where you can go and like eat a ridiculously
overpriced, whatever coffee or something like served by a maid, 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 this, you know, 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 like in encounters other Robocos from other dimensions,
that 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 the 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,
『ロボコ』の特徴とアニメ情報
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.
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
2amOTAK and 3amOTAK 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 3amOTAK.
Bye.
Looking forward to it. Bye.
