Shachihoko puns ahoy!

Previous eps.

• Eps 1 – 2
• Eps 3 – 4

Episode 5

• Disney Princess Chiaya! Calling it now.
• Why does this girl have a koala on her shoulder?
• Okay, so the gold fish-thing is a shachihoko. It’s (obviously) Mie Motors because Mie is a part of the Kansai region, which contains (but is not limited to) Osaka. Wikipedia also tells me this new girl for the episode is a motor-racing type because there’s a motor sport race track in Mie. Update: Actually, the boy is. My bad.
• “Your only daughter’s…”
• Judging by all the shachihokos that exploded, Himeko is from Nagoya somewhere. I dunno much about Nagoya except they have accents and that accent is stereotyped as sounding like a cat (thanks, Yatogame-chan!)…Of course, one of the Hypnosis Mic divisions is from there (*cue Sou Gyaran BAM!*), so it’s only a matter of time before I learn more about that place.
• …welp, there’s your explanation.
• The koala seems concerned all of a sudden.
• Free food! (I wanna make another food fight joke, but I can’t think of anything good to snap back with…)
• You can learn a lot about places through these online cookbooks. That’s one big purpose of these notes, really – to document all the weird things I Google while watching – so…apparently tenmusu are a Nagoya specialty.
• Takoyaki (savoury octopus balls) is an Osakan specialty.
• Hibiki seems to speak with some sort of accent – I don’t know what word she was using to say “sorry”.
• I thought that koala was just an ornament…! Turns out it’s real…no wonder it’s emoting…(Japan has an obsession with weird and cute things. Like shoebills…koalas, kangaroos, emus…weird memo pads shaped like food…oops, got carried away. You can tell this episode made me hungry, though.)
• Dang, it’s Celty vs Jojo in here! (LOL)
• Come to think of it, all these fighting anime never show the people who have to fix the property damage or barely focus on how that stuff gets fixed. That was something I wanted to focus on one of my stories.
• Notice Mamoru = “to protect” while Himeko = “princess child”, as if she’s the “princess of the castle” (probably Nagoya Castle where the shachihoko are…?).
• I noticed only one of the bar stools is red and attached to the floor…that’s tipping off an OCD I never really thought I had. (Then again, I do feel annoyed at switches that aren’t turned off or being used…)
• LOL, that’s (the logo on the wall) Pepsi, isn’t it?
• *lightbulb audibly goes off in brain* – Wait, the Wikipedia description of shachihoko was that it was a creature with a “head of a tiger and the body of a carp.” That’s why Himeko and Mamoru have the surname “Uotora” (fish-tiger).
• The subs say the gist of things on that form, but there are fields that say “itsumo toori” or “_____ as usual” (e.g. “same as usual”). “Bike race” is written with an excalamtion mark, too, which is not something the subs captured.
• I think this (Tomoki) is the first time a dude has been of some importance in this show, aside from Nozomi’s dad and Mamoru.
• Postcard memory time!
• Even the koala is smaller in the flashback…haha.
• Notice Himeko added -kun to Tomoki’s name as an afterthought.

Episode 6

• Even the koala is crying…
• That looks like PreCure in the background.
• …uh, is that a drag queen with the prawns on their head(?)
• D-Did Chiaya get stuck in the fridge…?
• Suzuka’s hanko (seal) is just his last name in hiragana. That’s a bit disappointing, I think. The form also reveals the match is on March 13 of an unspecified year. Update: The reason why I say it was disappointing was because as you can see later in the episode, “Suzuka” (as in the race track) has kanji.
• The leader of the rival gang sits on their motorbike, regardless of wherever they are, it seems.
• Matsusaka and Kisosaki are in Mie.
• I haven’t pointed it out because I thought it was too obvious, but “Golden Shachi Hospital” is named after the shachihoko. Also, it was apparent after it dawned on me in episode 1 that this was about tourism just as much as it was about roadtrips and superpowers, but this is another of my so-called “tourist trap” anime…I naturally gravitate towards “tourist trap” anime because as a student of Japanese (and wannabe JP -> EN translator), I figure any small scrap about Japan will be of use someday. It’s also easier for me to understand because I attune myself towards finding such scraps about Japanese language and culture, rather than analysing the other stuff (although if I’m capable of parsing something in that way, I will).
• There seems to be something about artisans going on in the background – the evil Takumi dudes from the theme park vs. the not-so-evil shachihoko artisan Uotora family.
• Shachi = orca, as that Wikipedia page from last ep can tell you.
• Mie Motors HQ is the one with the orange text. The one with the pink sign is Fukufuku Trans(port)…I had to guess what the rest of that word was, but I think my choice makes the best sense in context.
• Honma = Honda.
• Are those…chickens? On people’s heads?
• Thinking about surpassing someone, even yourself…that just leads you into depression and/or anxiety. Bloggers know that well.
• Are those the bullets from Mario Kart?…Kind of.
• Dunlap = Dunlop.