Show #49 – Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! Elite Beat Agents and Macho Cheerleaders

Show #049 Direct Download:
押忍!闘え!応援団! Elite Beat Agents and Macho Cheerleaders

With special guest Ed Chavez!

Brought to you by Yanjing Beer – the official state beer of China!

OP: Tomoyasu Hotei“Thrill”
ED: The Blue Hearts“Linda Linda”

Special Guest: Ed Chavez from the MangaCast

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osu%21_Tatakae%21_Ouendan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_Beat_Agents

Trying to describe this game makes it sound like we’re playing Taboo.

Videos of people playing this game on youtube.

Features J-pop music and Visual-Kei bands, like L’Arc-en-Ciel

What is an Ouendan?

What’s a Yanki?

You can read my review of Kamikaze Girls, the book and movie, here. Yankis play a prominent roll.

Also in Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno, the new book on Japanese fashion by Patrick Macias.

In Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke and Kuwabata are on the verge of Yanki-dom.

(the Yu Yu Hakusho dub is terrible by the way – one of the worst)

Ouendan wear Haramaki and Hachimaki

The way they dance is almost like Para Para – but manlier.

Sometimes Ouendan cheer on love confessions! Where did the Japanese fascination with confessing one’s love start? Was it the Tale of the Genji?

The Manga Love Roma actually starts with a love confession.

To we Americans, Osu Tatakae Ouendan is as realistic as Katamari Damacy!

Taste of Tea has some Ouendan in it, here’s my review of the film. But there, they run off with the local Bosozoku

The end of the previous season of Naruto featured Naruto as an Ouendan:

Are there Ouendan in Water Boys?

Erin: Water Boys is not the Fireman series, called Fireman and released in English by Viz – there’s also a live action drama. Called Sea Monkeys, or Omisaru or Water Dogs

Noah: The live action drama may not be called Water Boys, but it *is* called Fire Boys, which yes, is an adaptation of Megumi no Daigo, but still, it isn’t *called* Megumi no Daigo. So there.

Megumi No Daigo! (Firefighter Daigo of Company M!) is not actually a musical, but the show Noah is thinking of is TV drama adaptation called Fire Boys

Are high school teachers in Japan much younger than uh… mine were?

We talk about High School Girls. How old is Hottie Odagiri? What about Macho Matsuo? Mario-sensei?

Ed compares Noah’s realistic Super Mario Bros. fanfic to Old Boy.

Thank You, But Our Princess is in Another Castle!

Tale of the Heike (Hickey)?

Tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

13 Responses to Show #49 – Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! Elite Beat Agents and Macho Cheerleaders

  1. pts says:

    By “Oendon” [sic] no doubt you mean “Oendan.”

  2. pts says:

    Also, to correct this Chavez character, the “Ossu” is not “Osu/押す” to push, but “Ossu/押忍” which is a macho way to say “Yes!” or “Yessir!” more or less.

    • naniwa says:

      But see you just made my point. Unless the podcast was edited to remove my explanation. I said that the kanji has the character to push in it. Osu is the first kanji in this combination. Shinobu or to conceal is the second kanji. Oss is a way to say “yes” but generally that is written in kana instead of kanji. It is written in Kanji here for the double-meaning.

      Thanks for writing the kanji, made explaining that much easier.

  3. pts says:

    Alright, last comment. I should really do these all in one go.

    I never saw a public confession, or heard of one, remotely like what this Chavez character describes. It’s far from the institution that he suggests, based on my experience.

    Nobody confesses their love in the Tale of Genji. The dude just jumps behind the curtain and has sex with the girl, which implies he loves her. (More or less.) Although I agree with Noah that the “kokuhaku” is fetishized to a terrifying degree, the temptation to go back to the Genji for insight into modern Japanese school romance is probably best avoided.

    And… I thought the Heike joke was brilliant.

    • froglartbge says:

      Well, look, it has been since college that I read it, but I seem to recall that Genji wrings his hands quite a bit over the fact that he can’t declare his love to his stepmom (or was it mother-in-law?), because it wouldn’t be “proper.”

      Anyway, whatever. I much prefer the Heike in any case, which is probably the kernel of that other strange mainstay of Japanese narrative: the honorable, but ultimately futile, act of sacrifice.

      • pts says:

        It’s not the declaration of love that torments him so much as it is his inability to simply have her as he wishes.

        Nice Greenwood icon, by the way.

        And here’s a completely unrelated question you might be able to help me with. Say I want to run a D&D campaign. Say I’ve never actually run or played D&D proper. What do I need aside from the player’s guide?

        • You could have just emailed and asked, but you’ll need the following:

          1. The Dungeon Master’s Guide
          2. A Monster Manuel
          3. An official TSR approved Dungeon Master’s Screen
          4. Dice. Lots and lots of dice.
          5. Other players.

  4. Anonymous says:

    From the Field Notes of Daryl Surat (Historian):

    “Toadstools and the other baddies”? “Donkey Kong’s castle”? I expect such tomfoolery from Erin and Noah, but Ed too? All Ed needed to say in order to describe the Ouendan was “Hokuto no Ken thugs.” Regarding not being able to see the animation as you’re playing, there’s an option that plays a replay of the stage upon completion so you can watch the animation and see what parts you messed up on. I’m surprised you didn’t discover it by accident since there’s so few options in the game.

    What drove Ouendan’s success in the US was that it requires absolutely zero Japanese comprehension to figure out how it’s played or to follow the stories (actually, not knowing what’s being said boosts the nonsensical factor for the better). The original wasn’t super popular in Japan but got imported in droves by US fans, which prompted the development of Elite Beat Agents as well as Ouendan 2, which is where I got the song for that R5 Central promo I made that was indistinguishable from the real thing.

    But the absolute most important aspect to Ouendan, that you somehow completely forgot to mention, is the fact that people shout OUENDAN! during times of need and this trio of rough-looking dudes/Cheer Girls bursts onto the scene from out of nowhere like Big Jim Slade (Hevenu Shalom Aleichem!). I will try to remember to bring my DS and Ouendan/EBA (you barely mentioned Elite Beat Agents at all, you misleading titlers!)/Ouendan 2 to AWA so we can have multiplayer jokes, but I haven’t played any of them for several months. That will excuse my greatly diminished acumen at clearing Ready Steady Go on V. Hard. I can’t play rhythm games to save my life, but the real beauty of these games is how good a job they do at progressively getting slightly more difficult as you go such that when you fail you usually do just a little bit better than you did last time.

    And while it dismays me, given how much more time you spent talking about the [BO-RING!] social mechanics of Japanese high schoolers confessing each other’s love to one another than the actual game, you’ll undoubtedly be happy to know that the DS game for that godawful piece of crap High School Musical uses similar play mechanics to Ouendan/EBA.

    • pts says:

      Re: From the Field Notes of Daryl Surat (Historian):

      Actually, Daryl darling, the most important aspect that they missed were the hilarious haiku (technically senryu, I guess, but whatever) that you get upon losing a stage. I’m shocked nobody’s mentioned them yet.

Leave a Reply to ninjaconsultant Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *