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Old 2010-08-28, 20:02   Link #1027
Oliver
Back off, I'm a scientist
 
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: In a badly written story.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jan-Poo View Post
Why Rudolf needs to be a fan of the spaghetti western in particular? Western movies existed a lot earlier and they probably arrived with some delay to Japan. I always assumed that Rudolf was part of that generation and not the one that grew up at the time of the spaghetti western.
Western genre had multiple extra-high worldwide peaks which would form a "generation" - silent movie era, 1939-1942 (look up Stagecoach) and 1964-1970 in particular (spaghetti era) are prominent, but the 50s had their share of high profile Westerns, which do have theatrical release dates for Japan at most the next year after the US release. It's hard to say if they were popular enough to form the "western loving generation" in Japan or not, even if in the US they apparently didn't, so I guess I'll have to drop Rudolf's age in particular out of this equation, as we can't really conclusively date him based on that. (I would think Gojira would be more popular at the time, but it's bloody hard to tell.)

But looking up the westerns produced an even more interesting question. A sawed-off lever action rifle is a very distinctive weapon, and it originates with a very specific character.

Now, that raises eyebrows.
  1. It comes from a CBS TV series. This is well before the era of home video or satellite broadcasts -- or even a movie release, which was 1987. How exactly did Kinzo know it was cool?
  2. What exactly was Kinzo doing during the 60s anyway? Testimony shows him obsessed with magic at the time, rather extremely obscure (in Japan) US TV series.
  3. For that matter, how did Ryukishi know about it? I could not find any evidence it was ever aired in Japan, and there was no Japanese DVD release either.
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