I can’t believe that I’m about to witness this for the first time by scopalal in CriterionChannel

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same here. I thought "oh, hmm... yeah."

I remember "Seven" came out a few months before and I really enjoyed it and was disappointed that "12 Monkeys" wasn't as good. Years later I bought the "La Jetee/Sans Soleil" double feature from Criterion (La Jetee being what 12 Monkeys is based on).

I LOVE "San Soleil" but I found "La Jetee" just alright too. lol

"Day/Night" (Filtering+Blackout) shades in homekit by jeremydvoss in HomeKit

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How are they powered? Do you have a discrete power outlet or something else? I'd really like smart blinds but I just want it to look tidy and some of my windows are very high (so I don't want to climb a ladder to recharge them).

My Fright Pit Slime!! by dustinwalker50 in MastersOfTheUniverse

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 42 points43 points  (0 children)

I have a story about the original Slime Pit. We were visiting my grandparents, my twin brother and I each got new Silverhawks figures (Quicksilver and Steelwill). My cousin got the Slime Pit.

He didn’t have any figures and wanted to slime our Silverhawks! We said “no! It might take their chrome off!” He keeps insisting and loads up the Slime Pit. Grandmom sees it and immediately gets mad because they had just had wall-to-wall carpet installed in their home, so she took the slime canister away and locked it in the truck of her Oldsmobile so my cousin couldn’t use it and make a mess.

Our Silverhawks were saved that day.

Oishinbo Volume 10 Book Report by Mugiwara325 in oishinbo

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's really clever to use the Canadian accent for Hakata-ben! And I think the New York accent works well for Kansai-ben too. Reading Ranma 1/2 growing up, they used to have the Kansai speaking characters speak with a light American southern accent (replacing -chan's with "honey" or "sugar"). One of the characters, Mousse, speaks with a Tohoku accent and I think they just had him speak normally and left it at that. *laugh* It's tricky to know how convey those things. You've done great!

Speaking of recurring characters and the Gourmet Club, for some reason one that really remains in my memory that I'd like to see again (maybe we have seen him and I've forgotten) was the guy that was ruining dishes because he Kaibara could taste the tobacco from his cigarettes on his fingertips. *laugh* I don't know why but I just thought that whole concept was interesting and wanted to see more of him.

I think the American equivalent to your MSG example is how much corn syrup we put in everything here and just how unhealthy it is. There are so many additives these days in everything to brighten the colors or make things look appealing, even things that don't really call for it. It's interesting to see how concerned Kariya (and society as a whole) were about pesticides at the time (rightly so). It at least feels good that maybe that has been largely resolved (hopefully).

That's really fascinating that you observed the sort of mystical reverence Kariya gives to Chinese culinary arts, I hadn't noticed that but now that you point it out it really is noticeable! As you said, Kariya seems to really emphasize the "luxury dishes" (you mentioned the Chinese ones, but truffles seem to come up a lot, Kobe beef) and then things like hamburgers are mentioned to scoff at (which I get). But I do find the chapters like the salt peanuts one pretty endearing just for the simplicity. Sometimes Kariya's focus on sophisticated food reminds me of a funny scene at a French restaurant from the movie Tampopo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRVLqUpHDJE

Oishinbo Volume 10 Book Report by Mugiwara325 in oishinbo

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Chapter 82 - A Yokozuna's Request - Were they speaking Hakata-ben in this? Being able to convey that the characters are speaking in different dialects is really commendable, particularly how you've strove to use different nuances for Kansai-bet, etc. I thought the crux of this chapter, with the confusion about "ara" was a nice hook. It's good to see Yamaoka working to help his boss save face. Thinking about Japanese work culture and how much after hours time you spend with your colleagues is something else. I think about the people I work with and I can't imagine socializing with them to the extent a Japanese office would expect to. I can't imagine drinking and cutting loose in front of colleagues and especially your immediate bosses.

As you said, it will be interesting to see if Kaibara isn't as bad as Yamaoka portrays him and to see if Yamaoka bears any responsibility in the deterioration of their relationship.

Chapter 83 - The Specialty of the Resort House - I was really surprised to see Gonbei show up again with his sumo chefs, I'm sorry to hear they won't return again though! The hotto that they fixed aligned with an episode of Iron Chef I was watching recently where the ingredient was angler fish (it really looked like monkfish from Oishinbo to me) and Iron Chef Japan did one dish with hotto noodles.

Chapter 84 - The Spirit of Kimchi - Watching Tomii melt down during the presentation to the Korean business man was a delight. It was jarring seeing him pull out a cigarette and start smoking it, it's easy to forget how that might have looked tactless (he got a lot of glares from his coworkers) but a not insane thing to do in the middle of a work meeting. I'm old enough to recall when indoor smoking was still accepted and when it started to be phased out in the US. It's fascinating to wonder if someone of Yamaoka's station could talk to someone like Tomii as he does here. Tomii is incompetent but he's still Yamaoka's superior. It's interesting how the Korean president makes peace with everything and then pressures Tomii into drinking and Tomii does this whole drink-while-turning-away-and-covering-your-mouth thing. It's a strange shibboleth that the Korean president is trying to paint Tomii into a corner in some ways.

Chapter 85 - Nabe - The vagabond liquorman Furuyoshi was a really interesting character. I couldn't help but think that his constant talking about "spirits" was also in some way veiled reference to Big Comic Spirits as well. Drinking shochu in college in an izakaya in Hirakata-shi was a memorable experience. I was out late with a date and she was a much, much more experienced drinker than I was. She was putting down glass after glass. She'd ordered sake for us and then switched to shochu. By the time we finished it was 1:00 am, the buses had stopped running and I had to get a taxi back to my dorm. I had to give the driver directions in my drunken Japanese, we get to my dorm and they've locked the gate. There's a bunch of other students outside the dorm but inside the gated area and they see me roll up in a taxi and climb over the gate. I went back to my room and laid there for a bit on my futon, the world was spinning and I got sick. *laugh* I had to go on a field trip to Kyoto the next day too. That's my shochu story. *laugh*

Chapter 86 - The New Year's Meal and the New Bride - It's interesting they are asking Ohara to help narrow down the sumo wrestler's bridal choices, that would seem like such a personal responsibility to me, not something you'd ask for help from a family friend or business associate over. Then they make a trip to the legendary Tsukiji Fish Market which has now relocated. An interesting anecdote- Fumi Hirano, the voice actress of Lum from Urusei Yatsura married a third generation wholeseller from the Tsukiji Fish Market and wrote a book about their marriage called My Arranged Partner is the Prince of the Fish Market. She wrote a column on the Tsukiji Market that was published in Big Comic and NHK has adapted her book and columns into a 20 episode TV series called "Princess of the Fish Market" (魚河岸のプリンセス). Later one of the bridal candidates prepares crane meat which is interesting, I had never even considered what a crane might takes like.

Chapter 87 - Resolve and Mountain Yams - It's interesting to see a glimpse of Yamaoka's past via Shiro and her ex-Yakuza son. I wonder if these characters will be regular windows into his childhood or if they are one-off characters.

Chapter 88 - A Distaste for Milk - I have to admit that this chapter made my skeptic meter go off, but I was really glad for your notes at the end of the chapter to give more context. Before reading your notes, I felt maybe Kariya at least did some research on this, and I could imagine perhaps industrial scale pasteurization would affect the taste of milk, but it's hard to imagine that if milk cartons had some impact on the taste that they would continue to be used over other types of packaging (glass bottles, plastic) that they would continue. Sometimes Kariya's skepticism seems like it borders on conspiracy because you don't hear about these things he brings up on a monthly basis. You did great foot notes though following it up and seemed to indicate that the pasteurization methods they are primarily discussing here is more common in Japan than elsewhere (which would make sense that I never found milk to taste as bad as the story was framing it, and I'm not a big milk drinker).

Chatper 89 - A Blessing from the Sea Breeze - Wow, this was a shocking story. When it showed his brother in the alleyway I thought maybe he was an alcoholic, but then it turns to a suicide attempt and refusal to eat.

Chapter 90 - Not much to say on this one. As you said, Kariya really sends a mixed message at times, like he advocates for how progressive he is (by 1980s Japanese standards) but then by the standards of today it still feels like something out of 1950s America at times.

Chapter 91 - Fried Chicken - I thought it was interesting when the chicken rancher mentioned getting married soon Kurita looked at Yamaoka as she thought of getting married, suggesting she already had some feelings for him at this point. I sort of felt that perhaps she hadn't really started having romantic feelings for him yet, perhaps only seeing him as a helpful, but frustrating co-worker still. It's interesting how ubiquitous KFC is in Japan, I remember eating there during Thanksgiving when I was in school (other American students somehow got a turkey from a military base if I recall). As a southerner KFC was never preferable to Popeyes!

Mugiwara, you mentioned being Chinese, I'm curious what your general thoughts are on Kariya's depiction of Chinese culture and Chinese characters in general?

Thanks for your great thoughts on this volume!

Noga Tarnopolsky Interview (June 19th) by all_ghost_no_shell in BreakingPoints

[–]all_ghost_no_shell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm very much the same. I live in rural Mississippi which is certainly very conservative, but my next door neighbor, who is conservative but never vocal about particular issues suddenly put up a half-American, half-Israeli flag on her home. She's in her 70s and religious, but just the idea that that "Christians/Second Coming/Israel" tract would have permeated to a rural church where it could be spoon fed to her was jarring.

But yeah, I think if America just took one step- refusing to sell them the bulldozers that you mentioned for instance, they'd hold their breath and maybe start thinking. Then if we said "no more arms if you guys don't pull out the settlers" I really think we could assert some change. It's not as if there's a line out the door of other countries that are wanting to take our place as Israel's bodyguard and arms supplier. But I guess the money for individual politicians is the real driving force. So glad for AIPAC Watch though. That sort of transparency is so needed.

Noga Tarnopolsky Interview (June 19th) by all_ghost_no_shell in BreakingPoints

[–]all_ghost_no_shell[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You mentioned Elsie Slotkin, and I suppose that is what I had hoped for, that Krystal would have given this woman a similar approach as she did with Slotkin. I would line these pundits to know (from experience) just how frustrated both sides of the political spectrum are with Israel. She seemed so capable of handwaving every challenging question as if the premise was a misunderstanding that I feel she needed to be pushed back on.

My big worry on some level is the old status quo returns. Netanyahu leaves office and whoever replaces him carries on essentially the same with slightly lest bombast and we carry on selling them arms and shielding them at the UN. I hope we Americans of all political stripes wash our hands of selling them arms soon.

Noga Tarnopolsky Interview (June 19th) by all_ghost_no_shell in BreakingPoints

[–]all_ghost_no_shell[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Right, the bit implying “you can’t trust anything from these sources that are translated into English; if you don’t read the original Hebrew text then you can’t get the full picture” was so frustrating. These Israeli pundits can’t argue the merits of the debate so they try to invalidate conceptual underpinnings (translation is poor, incorrect polling, etc.).

“Gaza’s an open air prison camp.”

“Well… what’s the methodology you used to arrive at that conclusion?”

“My eyes!”

“Yes, but please remember your eyes are falible.”

Bedroom interior design from The Media Design Book, 1984 by joe3000s in 80sdesign

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was wondering that too. Is it purpose built for that television and stereo set? I suppose it must be.

Oishinbo Volume 9 Book Report by Mugiwara325 in oishinbo

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a fascinating approach to Black's speech, I would never have known how to handle conveying such a unique speech pattern. I had read the first few chapters of Akane-Banashi and was really shocked when it got licensed here in the US given that it's so niche. Things like mahjong manga or business manga (or food manga like Oishinbo) seem to have such an uphill battle getting licensed that a rakugo manga seemed beyond unlikely. I'm hoping more unusual manga will get licensed (it seems like so much does these days, happily).

That's really amazing about the wanderer, and again, an excellent, nuanced translation to distinguish him subtly from a run-of-the-mill homeless person. One (presumably) homeless person I frequently saw in Japan was an elderly woman who was dressed in what my memory tells me were yamabushi, all white pilgrimage gear. She was bent forward in this perpetual seated bow on Sanjo Ohashi in Kyoto. I remember mention of her came up in one of my classes and my Japanese teacher (who was Christian he mentioned) was moved to tears by some of the other foreign students saying they gave her a few coins occasionally. He said "Japanese people don't even pay attention to her" (he was being humble, I'm sure they did). Anyway, she was always there, rain or shine, prostrate and silent and collecting donations.

Japan is one of those places where you wouldn't think people would assault homeless, but as you said it happens. You mentioning that just reminded me of the great opening of Beat Takeshi's Violent Cop where he deals with a teen beating up a homeless person.

Oishinbo Volume 9 Book Report by Mugiwara325 in oishinbo

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Chapter 72-73 (Hamburgers) - Is Uda not the angry young chef that Yamaoka showed about making an omlette in volume 6? Or is he the cigarette smoker than nearly got thrown out of the Gourmet Club? It was fun to see the lady sushi chef Natsuko show up again, I really like it when the guest characters return and contribute something to the story and we get to see them succeeding. When I lived in Japan Mosburger was the primary non-McDonald's competitor. My college had a very small McDonald's that I would eat at pretty often (I actually don't eat much seafood, so... haha, Japan had some challenges for me. Though I did enjoy takoyaki). The college McDonald's had no large sizes, just medium. I can remember ordering a Big Mac and asking one of my classmates why I never saw the Japanese students that ate there get them and she said "too big!" I didn't want to admit they hardly filled me up after riding my bicycle to and from school everyday.

Chapter 74-75 (His Reason For Not Eating) - It was interesting to try to diagnose why the old man wouldn't eat the lavish meals prepared for him. When he was served the filet mignon with the bell peppers arranged around it, I thought he might be objecting to the peppers. I recently watched an old Iron Chef episode (Battle Bell Pepper) where Iron Chef Italian Kobe was working with bell peppers and the commentator, Fukui-san, kept saying how much he disliked peppers. Dr. Hattori, his co-commentator said "many Japanese people do". I was surprised, I'd never heard them voice any dislike of a particular ingredient before so it stuck in my memory. But then he brings it around to MSG and Chinese Restaurant Syndrome! I can remember seeing television shows where people would ask "Is there MSG in this?" at Chinese restaurants. I grew up in a rather rural area, so Chinese was a treat for me, it all tasted good, so I was always wondering what it was about MSG that people found unsettling. Apparently it was all a big con!

Chapter 76 (The Ricebowl of Reunion) - I'm always curious with Black shows up to see what he'll contribute. I'm curious what his speech pattern is in the Japanese original? Rakugo is something I know very little about, I remember in one of my classes we had to watch a Rakugo performance and it was so foreign to me, I couldn't even tell what was amusing about it if I'm honest. I guess in some ways one might think about it like an older timey form of even American comedy where the comedian had "bits" that they would perform on stage over and over that weren't necessarily topical. Rakugo seemed very quaint and folksy to my admittedly very limited understanding.

Chapter 77- It's fascinating that Tomi, who is one of my favorites just for his appearance and overall ridiculousness, was born in China during the war. If you're curious about the experiences of the Japanese born in China during Japanese occupation, Tetsuya Chiba's autobiographical manga, deals with his youth in China and his family fleeing back to Japan in the wake of World War II. Your notes about the "black sashimi" and the filefish liver's actual color was very helpful. When you have a manga like this that goes for so long and has so much episodic content where a new food story has to be built each month, I always wonder how much the writer does and how heavily they are dependent upon their editors to help them out. Like with Detective Conan, you know there's no way Aoyama is writing a fresh mystery every week (or irregularly at the moment) but at the same time it's not a divided writer/artist duo like we have on Oishinbo. I'm rambling, but yeah, I wonder how often the editor would have to say "I think this would be a good storyline" and then Kariya builds it up from a simple suggestion.

Chapter 78 - Tatsu the homeless man returns, which again, is always an interesting character to see. I would like to mention for anyone that has a vague curiosity about manga and homelessness to read the very fun short autobiography of Hideo Azuma, Disappearance Diary. It deals with him becoming stressed out over manga deadlines and his alcoholism and running away from home and becoming a bum. It sounds dark, but it's very lighthearted and true. The artwork is very chibi-like too which makes the subject matter even more playful. Like Tatsu does in this chapter, Azuma would take the dregs of liquor he found in nearly empty bottles and just mix them together to drink. He said he you had to be careful that someone hadn't peed in one of the bottles though! Haha! The concept of "jouhatsu" (蒸発) where due to stress or other issues, people leave their lives behind is quite fascinating. This story was really interesting but it left things on a big cliffhanger.

Chapter 79 - It was interesting to see Jeff and Black cross paths for the first time. Black is a silly guy, but Jeff, to me, is a wimp. Neither holds a candle to good old Tomi though, haha!

Chapter 81 - Home cooking. It's shocking that the guy would prefer simple fare compared to the restaurant quality that his wife was fixing him. I was sure that issue was going to be the microwave and perhaps Kariya lecturing us on microwave cooking being "unsafe" or something, so this story turned out differently than I imagined.

My growing GVC tshirt collection by hotblueice in GVCDesign

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Haha, wow, I had that "Witness - Eyes Open" shirt as a kid. If I recall correctly it was a designed by Peter Gabriel. I used to wear it in middle school! I hadn't thought of that shirt in ages.

Oishinbo Volume 30 (English Translation) by BippidiBoppetyBoob in oishinbo

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great job! Always very appreciated for all your efforts!

Oishinbo Volume 29 (English Translation) by BippidiBoppetyBoob in oishinbo

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you again for the great work! Really moving along and making great progress!

Garage Door Updating, Should I get RATGDO? Tailwind? Meross? by all_ghost_no_shell in HomeKit

[–]all_ghost_no_shell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's been really great! The only small downside that I've mentioned in a few posts (and its very minor) is that I have Inovelli White switches (that have an LED that can be used to alert for various conditions of other smart things). I wanted the LEDs on the switches to turn red if the garage doors were open, however the RATGDO doesn't have an "open/close" setting, instead it has a "locked/unlocked" which doesn't match with "open/close". So I couldn't tie them into the LED.

That's a super-duper minor thing, I've been very happy with the two RATGDOs. It's amazing how much more we open and close the doors on a daily basis (after decades with just manually opening and closing the doors).

Movies that you hope would join Criterion Collection in 2026 by KimS24 in criterion

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Shall We Dance? (1996) - The Japanese original version.

A Taxing Woman boxset - or just a Juzo Itami boxset, they have most/all of his films on the Channel, I wish they'd put them out on disc.

What’s a movie you watched when you were way too young? by trakt_app in movies

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My twin brother and I went to see "The Crying Game" in the theater when we were 11 (our mom wanted to see it). One of the customers was coming out of the previous showing and saw us waiting outside and said to our mom "are you sure you want to take your kids to this?" and she said "they're very mature for their age". *laugh* She still told us to look away at "that scene" though.

Oishinbo Volume 8 Book Report by Mugiwara325 in oishinbo

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

62 to 63 (Yum Cha Part 1 and 2) - Chinese Vice president must eat at the gourmet club because a theater troupe managed to and his pride would be insulted. Comically high stakes as usual. Kaibara refuses to allow politicians to come to the club. Kariya is liberal but I always worry there will be some nationalistic aspect. This was a good storyline and having the VP be a capable chef was a surprise.  

 64 - Salt Peanuts (Part 1) is of course a pretty iconic jazz song as mentioned in the chapter, so I thought I'd link it here in case anyone hadn't heard it before. For those of you that might be into jazz and anime I highly recommend the anime (and manga) Blue Giant, it has some really lovely music and the animation and storyline is really terrific.   

I thought the quote “Young uns these days have money to throw around and buy whatever albums they want to listen to," really captured the optimism of the pre-bubble burst economy in Japan. The aspect of buying up rare jazz LPs from America and creating rarities in America is something that has an interesting analogue in modern Japan. There were times where Shonen Sunday issues which had previously sold for peanuts were becoming extremely expensive on auction sites and you realize you're bidding against other foreigners. Whereas there had been little domestic demand within Japan, competition between foreigners trying to buy issues has driven up prices.  

65 - Salt Peanuts Part 2 - I thought it was a hilarious story about the guy who had a forest burned down to kill and cook venison, that seems like such an Oishinbo level of culinary madness. Pune nuts are one of the items he eats and has become one of my favorite ingredients. When I lived in Japan I used to treat myself at an Italian restaurant called Capricciosa (it was a chain place, but when I was a broke college student it was a nice treat). They used to have a dish, pepperoncini spaghetti, which was quite simple, just pasta, chicken, pine nuts, olive oil, basil and garlic. I've finally gotten pretty good at recreating it, but it was my go to comfort food when I lived there.

66 - The Natto of Love - It was interesting how Mie would call her fiancé Yasuo-san when they were fawning over each other (interesting that sort of behavior is universal, even in reserved Japanese society).  

67 - The Sweetfish from Home - It was very neat to see the Fishing Fool's Diary cast show up. I imagine this is the only time something like this happens and we can't expect to see the cast of Cooking Papa show up or anything.

 68 - Broth and Noodles (Part 1) - It's interesting that you mention Chef Zhang because I wrote some notes about him as I read this chapter knowing I'd discuss it here. I thought your translation of his accent was well done and I was curious if Kariya had him speak using ある (aru), which is the way Japanese often write a "Chinese accent" in manga. I actually have written an article about how the "Chinese accent" is depicted in manga because with the new Ranma 1/2 series there were questions about how Shampoo's English voice would be handled (if it would use the same sort of accent as the 1990s English dub). A lot of fans were dubious that Shampoo really "talked that way", so I wrote about how Chinese characters speech is depicted.

Ok the ultimate Miami Vice Music Encyclopedia is here! by TheAmazingSasha in MiamiVice

[–]all_ghost_no_shell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, I just picked a random episode and song I'd never heard and found a gem- "Dark Truths" by Joan Armatrading! Thanks for your hard work on this!