Not Red Reviews

And the last Joshiraku…

The Japanese title is キャラつぶし (kyara-tsubushi, ruining characters), a reference to the rakugo story 肝つぶし (kimo-tsubushi). It’s about a guy who feels very down after a nightmare about his love.

Not “strawberry picture”. 一期一会 (ichigo-ichie). Gan’s explanation about it is right.

She’s annoying.

She uses the word nyuugaku then goes on to explain that the gaku is not 学 (study), but 楽 (from 楽屋, dressing room).

A reference to Strawberry Marshmallow.

“Weekly *** of the World” is a common title pattern for magazines (or call it collectible encyclopedia if you want) like this. This one is about “out of place artifacts”.

• Aztec crystal skulls
• golden aeroplane (often connected with the Nazca lines)
• stone spheres of Costa Rica
• the Antikythera mechanism
• chromium-coated swords from the terracotta army
• Voynich Manuscript
• Shining Trapezohedron from the Cthulhu Myth

A reference to the fresco “restoration” scandal in Spain

This shuld be “Is it true that yu were a delinquent?” I have no idea why would I even put “Uncharted”…

Useless Japanese vocab #177: batsu-ichi (バツ一). Means you’ve divorced once. Change the number (the ichi part) as appropriate.

I hope you didn’t expect us to typeset those.

• 湖亭辞 (kotei ji): cottage
• 火亭才盤処 (katei saibansho): 家庭裁判所, family court
• 牛亭白大盛 (gyuutei hakudaisei): a beef bowl (牛肉定食 gyuuniku-teishoku) with extra (大盛) rice (白)
• 桃黒亭一門 (momokurotei ichimon): the unit singing the ending song
• 蝶亭失敗 (choutei shippai): 調停失敗, failed negotiations
• 門亭牌尊 (montei paison): the greatest comedy unit of all times
• 保亭真与 (potei mayo): Potemayo
• 駄阿亭針井五 (daatei harii 5): Dirty Harry the Fifth
• 他他亭海苔弁 (hokahokatei noribentou): a real dish by Hokkahokkatei
• 名担亭湖南 (meitantei konan): 名探偵コナン, the original title of Case Closed
• 稿亭寝呂 (koutei nero): the Roman emperor Nero
• 辞意亭拉麺 (jiitei ramen): GT Ramen mentioned in episode 11
• 明日似夢勝亭宇手 (ashitanimukattei ute): 明日に向かって撃て! (ashita ni mukatte ute) is the Japanese title of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• 切亭針忘零田 (kittei hariwasureita): 切手貼り忘れた (kitte hariwasureta), “(I) forgot to put a stamp on (the letter)”

That way of making kids raise their hands is from Maniac Age (熱中時代 necchuu-jidai), a Japanese TV series. It’s not a Kinpachi-sensei reference as Gan says.

For some reason this reminded me of Gyo.

There you go. I didn’t want to translate her given name (ウザンヌ uzannu) because it’s on screen later, but let me quote koda:

{left it uzanu bc it’s on screen @0653}{zero fucks}

Her CV is Shintani Ryouko. It’s funny that they actually got her to do it, because her name was there in the manga too. She did Hito Nami in SZS (considered an annoying character), Anna in Hen Zemi and Penny in the Japanese dub of The Big Bang Theory, among others.

References as they come:

• Pooh’s Hunny Hunt in DisneyLand
• Eggs ‘n Things
• facebook
• Cirque du Soleil
• Road by The Tra★bryu (THE 虎舞竜) (she’s paraphrasing the song’s chorus)
• the soccer world cup
• four movies about the Hayabusa
• Dragon Ball, Godzilla (hey I actually liked that one), Mario Bros and Street Fighter
• Kochikame, Lupin III, Yamato

• Marii’s drinking ramen oil taste cola in reference to Pepsi Red
• probably an old S class Mercedes-Benz
• the healthcare products (青汁, くろず, 大豆バー) are all real and their effects dubious at best

Again a jab at prime minister Noda and his party.

• Nakai Takuro and Katou Natsumi (Bakuman)
• Edogawa Konan and Takayama Minami (Case Closed)
• Doraemon, Nobita, Shizuka, Suneo, Takeshi and Masaaki (Doraemon)
• Captain Sawada knocking someone out (Street Fighter)
• Jar-Jar Binks (Star Wars Episode I)

By now I guess you’ve figured it out, but ウザい (uzai) means “annoying”.

Exile.

I’d do another season of this show though.

It’s usually considered a jinx to mention a second season like this. But there’s still hope!

They left Akihabara for the last episode. Trains of the Chuo/Seibu line, the Yamanote line and the Keihin line can be seen. Also an Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls ad.

Sega. I can’t be arsed to do all the other shops too. The list would be way too long.

Her line is a reference to Hellsing. The Rajikan, the Radio Hall (ラジオ会館 rajio kaikan) is mentioned later. Ajikan is the nickname for the band Asian Kung-Fu Generation. Also, due to slasher incidents, apparently the security is quite tight in Akiba nowadays.

My bad. It’s not “moving”, it’s made of copper. No idea why that’s great, but apparently it is. Hatachi is Hitachi, and Natyonal is National (the old name for Panasonic). By the way, my rice cooker I bought almost 4 years ago was about 4000 yen and it still works without any problems. (Oh well it burns the rice once in half a year. I can live with that.) 2000 yen for 2kg of rice (as Marii mentions) is very expensive too (usually 5kg of rice costs that much).

• Kukuru: Ishimaru Electronics (石丸電気 ishimaru denki) (now mostly known as Edion)
• Teto: Satou Wireless (サトームセン satou musen) (closed in 2008)
• Kigu: Onoden (the store they went to earlier referenced that too)
• Marii: LaOX (mentioned earlier)
• Gan: Yodobashi Camera
• all together: Sofmap

During the last line of the song they walk in front of the Sofmap store. Sofmap dressed their whole store in Joshiraku for the BDs. There’s also an Aquarion EVOL ad in the corner.

The Mansei Bridge.

There are actually vending machines with canned oden in Akiba. Others mentioned: kebab, maid cafes, fresh & kawaii (sic) sushi, the Little TGV bar for train maniacs, a VA cafe, a drag king cafe .

A reference to the Train Man story.

The word “posh” reminds me of a certain fellow translator every single time I see it.

Can you identify those drinks? I could only recognize a bottle of Ballantine’s and a Suntory Old Whisky…

Best girl besting. Don’t forget to cast your vote in the poll on the right!

The Japanese original is ちょいたし講釈 (choitashi koushaku). The word choitashi is a compound of choi (from chotto, “a little”) and tashi (足し, “to add”). It’s a reference to the rakugo story くしゃみ講釈 (kushami koushaku, sneeze lectures), where a student pulls a prank on his teacher using pepper. It ends in a really painful pun.

I think I forgot to mention part B, where the title was アキバぶる (akiba-buru), a reference to 千早振る (chihayaburu). It’s about a lord who tries to interpret poems.

JC Staff using up all the production money they have left. This whole part is full of stuff revised from part A, episode one.

Read up.

Here we go again.

I lost it. But the message is clear: buy the BDs! (We want a second season after all.)

No, I liked them. (Though not having the manga for reference made them quite hard.)

A reference to TV Asahi’s popular show.

Kara.

Ogura Tomoaki (announcer), Kida Tarou (musician), Kanda Masaki (voice actor) and Nishiyama Hidehiko (politician). All known or suspected to wear wigs.

In reference of the hairs of the wigs the men are wearing. (Sure she says only 2000, but such an opportunity is not to be missed.)

Nodame Cantabile. In the following scene:

• Brave Hearts Umizaru (海猿)
• Trick – The Movie (劇場版) 2
• Partner – The Movie (相棒　劇場版)
• Bayside Shakedown 2 (踊る大捜査線 The Movie 2)

The mascot dog of the cell phone carrier Softbank is just like that dog. They also used the music from the Romeo and Juliet ballet in their ads, which is also the background music in this scene.

Pun on 犬 (inu, dog) and “nude” (ヌード nuudo).

裸 (ra) means “naked” in compounds.

Patriot women from the WW2 era.

With that background, I couldn’t just miss this chance.

 

If someone angered America, it was probably the former prime minister, Hatoyama. Though I think they’re referring to North Korea here.

…the best girl.

Regarding this greeting, refer to the episode one notes.

She’s probably talking about the ending, which is all about making people laugh.

And so it’s over. I’m sad… I really loved working on this show, even if people were all Katy Perry about it. I’ll ask for a second season the next time I see a falling star, but considering how much that helped with Stratos and Ben-To, I don’t have high hopes. If there’s anything Joshiraku-related coming out (most probably BD-only OVAs), I’ll be sure to do them.

This entry was posted by Vale.