#is it gay for your connection to a man be represented by golden chains and able to defy great distance and decades of time?

[semi-imaginary-place]

Sarazanmai ep 4

Baby Toi ;;;;;;;;;;;;

so precious

I feel like we are at the edge of a cliff.

This episode there is more word play. Last episode it was kiss and kisu(fish). Kiss being relevant as Enta has romantic feelings for Kazuki. This episode it was soba(food) and soba(as in sobani, to be by your side).

Toi parallels Kazuki in how far they are willing to go (crime boys) to connect with their brother. Toi parallels Enta in that from an outside perspective they are trying to connect with people who aren’t worth it.

Again the misplacement of connection onto object instead of the real thing happens this episode. What Toi really wants is his family. When they died he misses his parents, and now that his brother is gone all Toi wants is to have him back. However both the Kuji brothers misplace their desire to be with the ones they love onto the soba shop. To recount, they both have cherished memories of their parents associated with the shop. Toi as a small child does not know how to process loss, does not realize this, and becomes very attached to the physical shop. Chikai wanting to make his brother happy steals from the yakuza(?) and goes on the run. 1 murder and many years later when Toi thinks of the soba shop he thinks of how hard his brother tried to protect it, then placing value on the shop.

Do you see that ridiculous logic train. 

I've been seeing this for several episodes but I haven't been sure what to make of it. There's a lot of imagery that is commenting if not critical of capitalism. First we have materialism. Toi above is an example of this but its similar with Enta and the micangas, and Kazuki and the selfies. Each of the boys is placing value on physical objects instead of the things they represent. The relationships they cherish are being commodified. There is also branding and symbols everywhere, think of the prevalence of kappazon boxes, ㋐, and the otter symbols. These symbols have overrun Asakusa.

Related to this is the otter cop zombie-ification sequence where you have a catchy and visually appealing song and dance to the background of an industrial process where an automated assembly line shoves people into boxes and brands it with the otter symbol. Almost like how advertisements and PR are the face of corporations. Lots of industrial imagery...

Episode 4 specifically touches on chain restaurants in contrast to small family owned businesses and how people don't seem to care. Ep4 also touches gentrification with its shot of a large high-rise looming above a neighborhood filled with human scale buildings (the framing is such that the building is golden and pristine but also intimidating). Its brief but the implication is that the things with a more human touch are disappearing in the town.

Now let's talk about Asakusa as a character and for that we need to talk about the otter cops Mabu and Reo. For those that don't know Sarazanmai has a cute slice of life spin-off manga about Mabu and Reo as well as a twitter account run by the two that probably occurs prior to ep 1. Here's my observations for their tweets. One of the important points from these media is that the relationship between Reo and Mabu and Asakusa in very significant... somehow. There was too much focus on it not to be. The people of the town love their local cops, asking them how their day has been and doting on them. In turn Mabu and Reo love the town. Some of their tweets literally say that. And at the end when Mabu goes missing on a mission leaving Reo behind because he wants to protect Asakusa " We're going to keep the peace in this town".

(also all the zombie weirdos have been men who want to date women (cat shaver, fish hoarder, and bath-water drinker), (well except for naked box man, we don't know his orientation).)

In the words of Ikuhara “Be gay, do drugs, commit crimes”