Ah~ I think for the entire evening I was hoping it wasn’t. However, it seems that the author of Crayon Shin-chan, Ushio Yoshito did die in a mountain hiking/climbing accident.
Now, I’m not exactly sure how popular Crayon Shin-chan is in the US or elsewhere. In the Philippines, there was a time when we were graced by Shin-chan’s humor when a local television station showed the anime with barely little cuts. His voice actor was even this famous rapper in our country and he even did a rap of Shin-chan’s famous “Zou~san. Zou~san.” pick-up line. In our country, Shin-chan’s mom Misae will forever be known as Carmen. I really wish someone had a you tube video of this track, but see, this anime only ran for a very short while. We were graced with only a few episodes and I’m quite sure it was taken because parents may have found Shin-chan’s humor too disrespectful to older folks, especially to Carmen. But us, older kids, loved the humor that came with Shin-chan. I wouldn’t exactly peg his humor to be intentional (maybe, sometimes, oh we know he’ll grow up to a sadist, right), but it was hard to get mad at such an adorable kid like Shin-chan.
I will miss seeing more of the boy, now that his creator is gone. I’ll miss him. Annoying as he was.
The other sad news goes to losing Akira Kamiya in Detective Conan. I’m totally disheartened by this. It’s an easy voice to imitate, but… a part of me feels Mouri might not exactly feel the same.
For me, summer has come to an end, but for everyone else, summer’s just about to begin. Particularly this season, a couple of tastefully sweet mangas are either being animated or is being enacted into live action. And I say you shouldn’t miss them. And no, it’s not because they’re BL (actually, only one of them is) but it’s because for those who have a sweet tooth, it would be great to finally see, in full motion, how some of the sweets featured in these mangas were made. Because of series like Antique Bakery and Andou Natsu being animated, this summer is more than just watermelons.
To start with, we have strawberry shortcakes coming from the cast of Antique Bakery. By now, everyone knows about Antique Bakery. A lot of girls started professing eternal support for Fumi after reading this series. And boys pretty much got the jist from their girl friends and is relieved that at least the j-dorama didn’t make Ono gay. However, once Toshokan Sensou ends in July, Fuji TV’s Noitamina slot will be featuring Antique Bakery. And yes this time round, Ono will be gay. I will not go at length on how much I’m excited about this. I think I’ve mentioned it before already, but yes, expect to see some care in the creation of really yummy pastries from them. The detail Fumi places everytime Ono whips up a desert always made me hungry. I have to make sure that I have a cookie with me while watching this series. I think my tummy will be crying the whole time if I didn’t.
On the other hand, I am just as excited for Andou Natsu. It was announced last week that they’ll be bringing out this yummy manga about an aspiring pattisiere who eventually dedicated her craft to the creation of okashi or Japanese sweets. I first crossed this manga when I was reading Big Comic Original (blame Pluto). It really didn’t leave a great impact to me then, but somehow fate wants me to read this manga that when I asked my teacher1 to send me a manga of his choice as a recommendation, he sent me Andou Natsu. I know Karl loves his food mangas so I know that this has got to be something that he has sifted through the lot. And surprisingly, this manga is more than just sweets, but it also speaks of the preservation of the trade of Japanese sweets, one craft that is slowly losing out to the likes Antique Bakery (lol.)
Yes, I love Andou Natsu because it shares to us readers something that we can definitely find only in Japan (or if you’re lucky, at your local grocery). Okashi is a delicate trade of making sweets using ingredients that are indigenous to Japan. So some of these okashi are your mochi packed with sweet an, colored in naturally edible dyes, made painstakingly with much dedication and brute strength, and perhaps served fresh every day.
What is great about the story is it’s not just about a girl trying to get in the trade, but rather, just like the girl, it raises your level of awareness on how the sweets were made and the lengths that people are doing in order to protect their craft that is slowly losing to Hersheys and Meiji chocolates. More than that, the manga has a nice warm feeling to it wherein the characters nurture not only their associates in the store, but also the nearby community that supports and patronizes their sweet.
These two great mangas may not have big cook-offs and shining dishes, but their sweet tales is something that’ll make you think how life is more than a box of chocolates. My sweet tooth will definitely be spoiled this summer.
- I’m forever grateful, Karl-sensei!! [↩]
I got an interesting e-mail from Dirk Haas, a Belgian psychology student at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research is about how people around the world view Japanese animation. Now, he is in dire need of Asian respondents. So if you guys live in Asia (or maybe you’re an Asian living abroad), please give him some help and answer his survey at www.toba.lu/memoire.
The thing is, you guys need a really good connection to view it. Those with dial-up connections might as well give up. But those with DSL or Cable or Broadband net, as long as your torrents are not running to get this’s season’s latest anime, take a shot in taking this survey.
I took the test earlier today and it turned out to be quite interesting… I’d like to see how this research goes all out. :3 If you guys have any questions about the research mail him at this address. Good luck Dirk!
Two weeks ago, I was in a Antique Bakery high. I got hold of some yummy Yoshinaga Fumi doujins of her work and I was thinking… why wasn’t this thing ever animated? I was thinking “Oh, maybe this should get animated someday… but could it be too late since a lot of time has passed?”
Gods of manga may have heard my perusings because now Antique Bakery will be animated and it will be in the noitamina slot (which means, it’s bound to be GREAT!). Based on the article, it will also stick to the original story, so Ohno will be our seductive homosexual pattisiere as well. Yes! I’m happy that it will because the drama was quite disappointing in that aspect. Of course the doujins made up for whatever was not said in the manga but this is really exciting.
The anime starts July in the Noitamina slot after Toshokan wars. Wow… Noitamina really has a strong set of animes this year. How exciting!
p.s. ANN has the english version of the news. lolz.
Oh god! Yuecchi! Arigatou for the tip! XD
Some really really cool updates about 20th Century Boys has been released. It will star Takako Tokiwa as Yukiji and Etsushi Toyokawa as Kenji! They totally have the look and I know Toyokawa -san will carry that Kenji charisma. He’s cool that way.
They seem to be spending as big as 60 Oku En, which is probably billions in yen. Sorry, I’m not good in math. ^^;; They’ll be filming in Japan, Thailand, US, China, and England. I can only imagine Otcho’s scenes in Thailand. *insertfangirlsqueehere* The movie’s out on August 30, sometime this year. So summer will definitely be interesting. Yay! Casting looks really good so I’m quite hopeful. :3
Edit: GOD! Well, I got some parts wrong. ^^;; Tehe. It turns out that Etsushi Tokoyawa will be Otcho (MUCH COOLER!! He’s total man and zen altogether!) Toshiaki Karasawa will play Kenji. Coolness all the way. This is probably the most highly anticipated movie for me. More than for Death Note! XD Now whatever happened to that Monster movie adaptation? :3 Hmmm? Lookie at the poster too! THAT IS SOOO COOL!
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