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poppun-chan · 8 years ago

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The Year of Keroro Challenge Update 4 (Yes Sir)

Goodness, even though I mentioned looking forward to this one it took quite a while to write it (this has been a difficult week)in terms of watching I’m almost finished with the first season, actually, one strange thing I noticed was that the valentines episode actually lines up with valentines day. But before we get started Jlucy pointed out to me that the scene from episode 21 with the car is specifically a nod to “Castle of Caliostro” with the drivers being based on two of the main characters and the car being a nod to the Fiat from the movie. Actually I wonder if the writers for the dub had this in mind when they were writing; in the English version the driver mentions he was renting a car because he didn’t want to use his Fiat.

Either way I had planned to wait until there weren’t any text pieces to translate, but I have at least one more of these non-episode specific notes to do before we reach episode 65, so a bit on name origins (The ones for the Human characters will probably be less familiar, but still....)

Keroro-Kero, the noise a frog makes (I’ve always suspected this is actually a really common name)

Tamama-Otamajakushi, meaning tadpole (I really find myself wondering about his family background that his parents gave him a name that assumes he’s going to look like a child for a long time)

Giroro-Giro, the onomatopoeia for glaring at someone/something

Kururu-Kuru, it’s used as an onomatopoeia, a noun, and a verb, either way it refers to something twisting, spinning or turning (which is why his resonance creates a loop)

Dororo-It’s best known as a reference to the Osamu Tezuka manga Dororo, which takes place in the feudal era, it also works as a play on Doro-Doro which is the sound of something dripping

And the plan count:

Serious Plans: K66:16 D66:1 MMK:1 TMM:1

Funding Plans: K66:1

It’s a plan, I Swear!: K66:5 (I’m throwing the sports day mission in here too)

Oh look! Progress!: K66:3

And the marker board from episode 27:

Episode 22: Now first of all I’ve always enjoyed this episode, the absurdity, the cute break down Tamama has at the end, the completely impractical but still fun plan (actually I think Tamama only comes up with three plans over the course of the entire show and they’re all more or less the same basic concept). Plus the little stealth pun when Natsumi gets angry about the shower; she shouts “Kora!” which is an interjection that can be used as a reprimand, but it’s pronounced similarly to Cola.

Actually, speaking of this part I have to admit I sort of agree with Tamama’s point that Fuyuki could just serve that cake in the fridge instead of making dinner....Actually even the bit about accounting for nutritional balance could sort of be refuted; Baked goods often contain grains and eggs, not always dairy but ice cream and cheese cake covers that, his plan allowed tuna as an exception so that’s meat covered, plus many desserts are made with fruit and there are some made with vegetables (carrot cake, anything with pumpkin in it, corn cake), sure most people would probably either stop eating before this point or simply die trying, but theoretically it IS possible to get normal nutrients that way....Yes I’ve seriously thought about this; there are quite a few characters that can be explained this way.

Finally no discussion of this episode would be complete without bringing up the infamous letter, so I’m going to try and cover this in more depth since I have the luxury of making this a separate note. First of all, it’s written really oddly; everything except the word “leader” is written in katakana which you normally wouldn’t do (hiragana only is a different matter, but in modern times it’s considered a bit childish). One big issue with not using kanji is that it’s much harder to tell what you’re trying to say, plus katakana itself is a bit sticky since some of them strongly resemble each other or other kanji (one relevant to this is katakana ni resembling the kanji for two which is often pronounced the same way). The revealed part admittedly seems phrased a bit simply, but it says “Taichou wa Tamama ni” or “Tamama’s Leader” while the full message is “Taichou wa Keroro ni Makasetamama ni” or “Keroro will be left as the leader” I suppose the closest thing in English would be if the letters were a bit more spaced apart instead of grouped together

And fun fact; Etsuko Kozakura, the woman who provides Tamama’s voice, also did the voice of Puppetmon/Pinocchimon from the original Digimon series. I just thought I’d mention this since I noticed a few....similarities between their management styles (Though Tamama just imprisoned people who crossed him instead of....deleting them)....actually watching the episode and knowing this made me look into Digimon again, did you know one of the newer series has a Puppetmon who is one of the friend Digimon that shows up every now and then? Really. They have his nose grow when he lies (including to himself) and give him some really charming moments....and he shares his English voice with Keroro, hm.

Episode 23: And it’s the clone episode! I have to confess, the bit about the clones not having a star always makes me wish there was a video of the original Keroro singing the song from the Sneetches, the one where the starred Sneetches are roasting marshmallows....I know it’s a strange association to make, but....Come to think of it, I don’t think this was a manga chapter, I’m not completely sure and I know most of the season one episodes were based on the manga, but I know a few stories were anime exclusive and I believe this was the first one, either way it’s hilarious to see Keroro being the responsible one and getting annoyed by the behaviour of his own clones (still, at least there was an easily visible way of telling them apart, which is better than what happened with Pinkie Pie, some people still theorise that they kept the wrong Pinkie).

Now for a bit of a sticky area, especially since I’ve been putting up with my grandfather’s preoccupation with this particular time for most of my life, but I noticed something a bit odd. Even now, a lot of people seem to be weirded out by the “clone salute”, but they actually switched two of the syllables in the Aliens’ name for Earth because the original term from the manga was associated with the Sino-Japanese wars (I’m not sure which, there’s two major ones and a bunch of smaller conflicts, but the second big one was during the world war) and was banned from television. I’d be curious to find out what it is that makes one war reference more acceptable than another (maybe because calling Earth “Pokopen” alludes to much longer standing conflict with a specific country? I have to admit I always wondered if the best way of handling “touchy terms” would be to find a positive, unrelated use for them so they take on a new meaning and the old one eventually falls out of use; you often hear about the power of words, but it’s actually their meanings that have effect rather than the words themselves)

Episode 24: Oh dear it’s 556, I have to admit I’ve never liked this guy (though I will admit, I like the instrumental version of his song on the Christmas album) I know for a lot of people felt the same way with Joriri eventually replacing him, but it didn’t work the same way for me.

Actually, one thing I love about this episode is how when Keroro wonders about the emotions he’s feeling watching 556 fighting “monsters” they immediately cut to Tamama; it’s almost as if the cinematography is saying “Let’s ask your resident expert, shall we?”

Actually I recently looked at the Japanese version of the full character page again, I think there’s one surprising one on there; I know 556 and Labbie are references to Space Sheriff Gaven and a character named Annie from Space Sheriff Shaider, but the character page lists their relationship as Gukyou-Kenmai or “Goofy Older Brother, Wise Younger Sister” which was the original title for a T.V. series called “Otoko wa Tsurai yo” or “It’s tough to be a man” which later became a huge film series of the same title (Often called “Tora-san” after the main character, Torajirou), spanning 48 installments and nearly three decades (only ending when the actor playing Torajiro died). The films followed a similar formula of Torajirou the traveling salesman going home to his sister’s family, walking out after getting into an argument and meeting a distressed young woman in the next town he goes to and offering to let her stay at the family’s sweet shop if she needs it. Eventually this happens and he falls in love with her, but in trying to win her over indavertantly ends up setting her up with another man and ending up disappointed, but putting on a brave face and wishing her the best before journeying to another town in hopes of getting over her and eventually becoming somebody his family can be proud of.

The first movie was actually made to please fans of the original show who were upset that Torajirou died of a snakebite in the final episode, it also took quite a bit of convincing from the director to get the first movie made. Incidentally, the working title for the original show came from the final caption in another piece Torajiro’s actor played in

Episode 25: And here we have a Nishizawa family quarrel....which is appearently not considered complete unless enough money is spent that you could buy a small town and heavy weapons are nearly used (that’s the second time Keroro’s nearly let to Earth be destroyed only to be stopped at the last moment by the realisation that Earth is the official “Gunpla Planet”). Still there are some nice little moments (though I wonder if they ever did make that video, as long as they cut out the bits where they start to lose it could work)

Episode 26: Sports Day fun times ♪ Actually, has anyone ever noticed that whenever a show wants to slow down a sports day they usually target the scavenger hunt? Though now that I think about it, the cruel irony of all this is if they hadn’t tried to help, Aki probably would have made it in time to run in the race (or at least, the combined effect of accidentally speeding up the 100 meter dash and ruining some of the manuscripts). Though I do admit that I miss the parts from the manga where Momoka is running a race and the newspaper article at the end “Freak in tights crashes sports fest” I find it strangely hilarious the way they worded it. Also it’s amazing the things that become relevant later on, let’s see who remembers what I’m talking about.

Episode 27: First of all, I love the way Keroro offhandedly compares renewing interest in the invasion to reviving the dead (He already knows it’s a lost cause), it’s especially interesting considering they come across the remnants of a failed invasion later on. Actually I sort of want to see a spin off about those past invaders; not necessarily a big, dramatic, action-y thing mind you, honestly I expect it would be more or less the same thing as with Keroro but in ancient times, perhaps with the human characters being the ancestors of the current ones.

Also they use the pun of kaeru meaning both “frog” and “to return” quite a lot in the series. Though I have to admit I can relate to Keroro’s feelings a bit here; all of the women in my family have been quite formidable, especially for their time, and my mother is crusading to change the child welfare system in Canada (even though she’s never been in it) and doing all of these things for political change and I sometimes feel I can’t really measure up to that, even though I don’t plan on going into a related field. Plus because of her work I’m a bit burnt out on people issues, I focus more on environmental ones.

Episode 28: This one was a bit tricky, though I always thought the effect of the cold weather on the Keronians sounded more like windburn than all out frostbite. As for the second part this officially marked the beginning of the odd sort of dynamic of Mois & Kururu, I don’t remember how much it was explored in the show apart from her sometimes being who they went with when they needed a girl to associate with Kururu, though I remember a few moments from the manga that built on it, such as the “Angol Stone” chapter.

#keroro gunso #sgt frog #Year of Keroro Challenge

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