Shut Up Wesley: Shattering otaku expectations with Samurai Gourmet.

Nothing quite shatters the American Otaku psyche quite like being exposed to what is, the real Japan.  This isn’t new, but what is unfortunate is that it’s still a prevalent phenomenon out there.  Actual, factual, regular, real, Japan is nothing like an Otaku thinks it is going to be.  No, I don’t think any otaku is going to go to Japan and think the place is run by giant robots, dragon maids, and has a dating service for monster girls… what is going to happen is these wee-bee idiots are going to show up in Japan and expect that the social constructs that they are accustomed to in America are going to be there for them in Japan.  Sorry fresh, it’s not gonna happen.  Fandom is voluntarily suppressed in Japan much more in Japan than it is in the USA.  Admit to liking Pokemon as a fully functioning adult in the USA, and people just say “fine whatever” but in Japan it’s a great way to get fired.  Fans finding out that they can’t act like fans in the place where the things they are a fan of is a tough thing to deal with.  This happens the other way as well, with Japanese people needing actual psychological help when they come to New York and find out that no, it’s not just “Tokyo with white people” or when they go to Paris and realize that no, it’s not a Miyazaki movie with the Eiffel Tower in the middle of it.  Seriously, that's a medical thing, and they even have a help line they can call for when the cognitive dissonance destroys their brain.

Yes this is something that happens

Japan has social rules.  We are talking about a country where if you wear a suit without a tie, you are going to get all kinds of attention.  Mostly the bad kind of attention.  The reason you don’t know that is because it’s not really in any of the anime that ends up being popular overseas.  You wouldn’t judge American life just by watching Breaking Bad or Empire if you wanted to get an accurate idea of what the place was like, so don’t for a minute go thinking you’re getting an accurate picture of Japan from whatever the hell high-school themed anime you’re watching now.  Even if you have been to Japan, unless you’ve had to go apartment hunting, pay your electric bill, go grocery shopping, get your hair cut, buy toilet paper/condoms/feminine hygiene items, all the regular living life stuff, you still aren’t getting the real picture.  It would be like trying to form an idea of what the USA is like after spending a few days in Boston or something.

  Gross.

Why am I even bringing this up?  Because somehow, Samurai Gourmet on Netflix has a one-star rating.  Or I guess it had one when I checked it out last.  Things change, it probably won't stay that way but the fact that it happened at all leads to the sentiment of: What the absolute fuck?  This show is great and there are a bunch of reasons why.  Starring veteran actor and comedian Naoto Takenaka, it connects a number of small moments of zen that center around specific foods.  It shows real Japan …that mundane boring place where regular people go to regular jobs, not the factional-fiction (or fictional-faction, whatever you wanna call it) Japan of trash like what's in Lost in Translation, that seems determined to convince the world that everyone in Japan is actually originally from Mars and like OMG it’s just such a wacky place!  Samurai Gourmet is not Ruroni Kenshin with udon, it’s not Ghost in the Shell: Fast-Food Takeout Edition, it’s just a simple show about simple things.  And it’s that simplicity which is uniquely Japanese.  If you watch this show and come away thinking “oh it’s so bland, quick let me go check out Ouran High School Host Club reruns” then you know nothing.  You are that 12 year old who doesn’t like Empire Strikes Back because it’s "the most boringest one" to quote Red Letter Media.

Back in the 1990s Katsuhiro Otomo made a film called Project Z.  It was a well-made and excellent film which took a look into the aging population shift that is still happening in Japan today.  And everyone else in the theater I saw it in said they hated it.  Why?  Well, they were expecting Akira Part 2 basically.  Which is funny by itself, because if you actually knew anything about Japan in the late 1980s you’d realize how much of a social commentary Akira actually was… but all you could see was “ooo wooosh boom!  Motorcycles!”  So there is a real disconnect that American audiences seem to have and not realize it.  This continues to happen with weaboo fools, falling in love with a fictional Japan that doesn’t exist, and then having their brain short circuit when confronted with reality.  Will this ever change?  No probably not.  But you should still be watching Samurai Gourmet. 

 What do you mean  I can't cosplay 24 hours a day here?

What You’re Missing: Shiko Funjatta

A review of the live-action film シコふんじゃった! -or- Sumo Do, Sumo Don't.

The Japanese title sounds like "Shiko-fun-jatta"...which is a linguistic in-joke that someone thought was best approximated by the hideous English title "Sumo Do, Sumo Don't" translation. Yes it's kind of horrible, and no, you can't think of anything better. Seriously, what else can you call it. When you realize that a translator's job is to get a point across without necessarily literally translating every word verbatim one can only throw up your hands and take it as it is. Ok so now that that's out of the way, we can get down to business.



This award-winning comedy film from 1992, directed by Masayuki Suo (famous for his later work "Shall we Dance") features actor Masahiro Motoki, actress Misa Shimizu (also of Shall we Dance), and the gaijin Robert Hoffman, who almost never speaks any lines and has never been in anything else before or since as far as I can tell. It also prominently features Japanese actor and comedian Naoto Takenaka, who anime fans might recognize as the voice of Shiki from One-Piece, and from appearing in various advertisements that dot the subways and train stations of Japan.

He's on the left there.
Remember kids, the best financial advice always comes from Japanese comedians.

The film follows the story about a floundering college sumo team and student Shuhei Yamamoto (Motoki), forced into the position of joining the team or failing to graduate on time, missing out on the job that awaits him. The rest of the rag-tag Sumo team has more or less joined it of their own will, but they have also brought along their own baggage. Shuhei has never wrestled before, foriegn student George Smiley is consistently disqualified for refusing to properly wear his mawashi, and team captain Aoki Tomio (Takenaka) talks a big game, but due to nervousness he suffers from psychosomatic irritable bowel syndrome forcing him to forfeit every match he's in with a frantic dash for the toilet.

Needless to say, the film is full of lighthearted human drama and interactions reaching an emotional crescendo in the form of a sumo tournament. Love is found, personal daemons are conquered, and everyone grows better from the experience. I don't really want to give away what happens, but I can assure you that the Hollywood formula blandness where every loose end is tied up with as much audience focus group pleasing-points as possible, has not contaminated this very Japanese cinematic masterpiece.

If you have seen the film PingPong, you're in for a slightly similar ride, but Shiko Funjatta doesn't tell the story of a meteoric rise of someone in a world full of intense people being intense about a sport as does Ping Pong. It is actually a bit better at drawing in the audience, with the "fish out of water" quality of the main character jumping feet-first into the world of Sumo, creating an extra foothold that the audience can latch on to in order to get more involved in the world created here.

Finally, unlike the previous film we looked at (Happy Flight), this title is perfect for practicing those Japanese language skills and is a great study aid, since the dialogue is very similar to things that normal people say in every-day situations, where as Happy Flight has a bit more technical terminology particular to the world of aviation. If you are studying/learning Japanese, give this one a try without subtitles and see what happens.



Sumo Do Sumo Don't

The Japanese Region 2 NTSC DVD version does not have subtitles in any language other than Japanese but it's easy enough to follow, and again, the added Japanese subtitling makes this a great language study-aid. It's available at CD Japan for ...well about what Japanese usually DVDs cost. Book-Off might have it as well for quite a lot less.

DVD label Madman Entertainment released a Region 4 PAL DVD version (Australia) which is still available for sale online and does indeed have English subtitles.

Happy hunting.