Cake-flavored Strawberries
Tsukasa made an interesting observation that the strawberry has a "cake" flavors to it. It's funny because Strawberry Cake is the best selling cake in Japan by far. In fact when people mention ケーキ, the first image that pops up is a creme-layered pound cake with a strawberry on top. Japan is filled with Bakery/Pastry shops selling cakes and other baked-sweets by the piece, and every one of them feature a signature Strawberry Cake. Buying and eating cakes is an everyday occurrence in Japan, that is in contrast with the West where we mostly eat cakes at Birthday parties or eating out in a fancy restaurant. Japanese cakes are also special in that they're mostly sold in pieces, exquisitely encased in its own plastic wrappers. The cream is not very sweet, unlike the diabetes-inducing sugary thing we called frosting here; the cake itself is also light and fluffy, not dense and again, sicken-ly sweet like the boxed cake found on Safeway shelfs. Numerous strategies has also been developed for eating a strawberry cake, as EP1 as eluded to.
In short, Japanese cakes are 10x better than anything in the US, and only select European cities can boast better cakes than the ones found in any normal street in Japan. If you ever go to Japan, please do make sure and visit a Japanese pastry and try a strawberry cake or mount blanc - you will be amazed. Japanese and Asian-style pastry shopped can also be found in large American cities; you just have to know where to find them. This was supposed to be a short entry, but as you can guess, I'm a big fan of Japanese pastries.
These strawberries all taste like cake!
Tsundere Doggie
The show Yutaka watched with the Izumi's after she woke up is a segment of a morning information show ala The Today Show from Fuji TV called "
めざましテレビ" (Mezamashi Terebi, or Alarm Clock TV). At every Monday to Friday around 7:54AM, they will do a segment called "
きょうのわんこ" (Today's Doggie). In L*S the segment is called "きょうのわんわんわん"; both Wanko and Wanwan are children's term for puppies or dogs. As you might have guessed it, it features a puppy a day to doggie-moe everyone before they go to work or school. The only difference is, The segment is about "Today's Doggie", so only 1 dog is featured per day, yet the show in L*S featured at least 2.
The Dogs Featured on "Today's Wanwan":- Welsh Corgi- cute, smallish dog with big face and short legs - the Chibi'kko of dogs
- Siberian Husky- Appearantly the Tsundere of dog breeds. Not sure where do they have a "twin tail" though; the Mascot Animal for Lucky Star for the past 13 episodes.
Some video of "Kyou no Wanko":
If I bite you, it's because I love you.
Patti Rocks
Patti, like most gaijin-otas, listen to a lot of J-pop music. However, like most of us, she only listen to a band when they have an anime OP/ED, and mostly will only listen to their anime work. For example, Orange Range was the biggest act in Japan back in 04 and 05, and yet most of us here only knows about them because of Bleach. It's a shame, really; I always think that if you dig anime songs, you should also dig right into J-POP/Rock scene and look for non-anime works of a good band/singer.
One thing I'd like to add is that if I'm a gaijin-ota in Japan and I'd like to hide that fact to a non-outlaw Japanese, I would do exactly what Patti did - name these popular mainstream bands but never mention the fact I only listen to their anime songs. Of course I'll never ever bring up names like "Function Junction", "angela" or *ugu* "ALI Project".
I'm going to list all the JPOP/Rock acts Patti listed for Kagami and a mention just 1 anime song from each band; for the complete list go
here.
- ORANGE RANGE - BLEACH OP: "*~Asterisk" (This is really not made for Bleach)
- CHEMISTRY - Gundam SEED Destiny OP: "Wings of Words"
- SUNEOHAIR - Honey and Clover ED: Waltz (I LOVE THIS SONG!!!)
- Porno Graffitti - FMA OP: "Melissa" (Awesome song)
- Laraku - FMA OP: "Ready Set Go" among many others (Are the otakus?)
- Jinn - BLOOD+ OP: "Raion"
- Nightmare - Death Note OP: "The World"
We give otaku nightmares
BTW, I have to give Patti's seiyuu props again. When she said "maid" to Kagami the first time, she used correct American English pronounciation, not "MA-I-DO". That's why Patti has to repeat it. Perhaps her OL job has to do work with English a lot, or that she'a good NOVA student.
Kona Ota Compilation
Sine I'm lazy, I'm going to list a bunch of ota references Kona-chan (and some by Kagami/Tsukasa) here:
When Kagami/Tsukasa walked into Kona-chan's room while she's watching anime, Kagami said "Oosu" and Tsukasa said "Meesu". This is supposed to be a reference to "鉄コン筋クリート" or "Tekkon Kinkreet" manga and anime movie. I haven't watched the series even though I wanted to, so I'm not sure but these seemed to be the catch serifu for the 2 main characters.
The Mecha anime with bishounen/shoujo Kona was watching is "機神大戦ギガンティック・フォーミュラ" or "Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula". The song playing is the OP from the series, "United Force" by seiyuu/singer Kuribayashi Minami (rather catchy).
Yeah! Kona-chan watches us for our moe-ness, not our mecha!
Gamers Deeto
So Konata asked Kagami out on a date, and they went to the
Gamers store in
Oomiya-ku of Saitama City. There's only 18 gamers in all of Japan, and although this one is in Saitama, from school they would have to travel West to Oomiya Eki instead of North to Satte Eki (Kona) and Higashiwashinomiya Eki (Hiiragi Twins). Since it's out of the way and time-consuming, Kona wanted her favorite Tsundere to go with her. *Holy Site Alert!*
At gamers the girls played a self-referential game. First Kona picked up the Character Single CD for an anime she never "watched". This single CD features Kahlua/Tequila Marjoram of
Galaxy Angel Rune or II (a Brocolli property, owner of Gamers). Of course Kona would be feel connected to the slutty Tequila/Kahlua-chan since that's another character played by Hirano Aya. Kagami's eyes just so happen to land on the vol 8 of the "
Damashite! Power Puff Gilrs Z" Collector's Edition DVD, of which she felt an instant connection. That's because Kagami's seiyuu,
Katou Emiri, also played Hyper Blossom in that series. Sometimes serendipity has some marketing undertone too.
Yes, the entire Galaxy Angel manga/anime/game universe is one of my guilty pleasures.
Do you find me hot now, Kagamin?
Vampires and Small boobs
The light novel Kagami used to annoy Misao with is "
レンタルマギカ吸血鬼VS魔法使い" or "Rental Magica: Vampires VS Wizards" I really, really want to watch this anime now.
The nikoniko-eqsue words flying above the girls after Kona proclaiming her breast-based advantage to Minami called the girls "胸ぺったんガールズ", which is a slangy term for "Flat-breasted Girls", a new sub-group for the Lucky*idols. Watch for their new single soon.
Let us remind ourselves why a pair of flat boobies is precious and rare.
Gottouza-sama's Ride
Since we've talked a lot about the origin of Gottouza-sama (gosh I wish we can see more of her), I'm just going to add a bit. Her ride in anime and real life is the
Honda CB400 Super Four, in which she has posed with on the cover of her single, "
Red Zone". The bike debuted in 1992, and has a nick name of "Project Big 1". It's a 4-cylinder bad boy and capable of 105 mph, which back in 92 is pretty awesome. Honda still make a version of CB400SF, so I'm not sure what year is her lovely bike. I'm pretty sure it's a vintage model though.
Also some info on the kanji sowed on the sleeves and the back her yankee uniform - it's "音舞羅" (nebura) or the kanji-fied name of her radio show "
ねぶら".
Oh Ride me, Gottouza-sama!
Also, the song for the ED is of course the battle insert song for "Asahina Mikuru no Kibou Episode 00". I can't believe I missed it because I loved that song. I blame Shiraishi.. the guy can't even hum a song!
)". So the reason that this kind of moe exist is that the ones that actualy gets to be around young girls dont realy think about the girls in that way, leaving the rest of the guys wishing that they were in those guys shoes (thus reacting to this kind of moe).
Administrator
