Sunday, April 25, 2010

Oyassan!

Hello.

Been a while since a video post around here, huh?

Well, I feel a little bit rusty, but I'll try and shake it off. Anyways, I'm working on something coming soon.

Hopefully, you'll keep today's BBB in mind the next time you go to get your hair cut.



The scene starts off in the barber shop, with Kouji Imada playing "Kou-chan" who we can assume is either the student or even son of Oyassan, played by Matsumoto. Hamada has come in for a haircut after a long time. Hamada, trying to make small talk, tries to get Oyassan to complement Kou-chan. This sets off Oyassan into a flurry of insults and other outrage at the disappointment that is Kou-chan.



Also, some more translator's notes:

  • "Oyassan" is like a contraction of the word "Oyaji-san", which means something like "shopkeeper". In this case, I figured they were using like a nickname so I figured I wouldn't change it.

  • "sparta" is a word sometimes used in Japanese to describe extremely strict education practices, like they did for children that were destined to be warriors back in Sparta. So, when Oyassan says "You have to be strict with him, he only responds to tough training", he's more literally saying "You have to strict with him because this is SPARTA!"

  • The "What's the bread you can't eat, even though it's bread?" joke is hard to explain because it's wordplay, but I'll try. The word "pan" means bread in Japanese. So the joke is really: What's the "pan" you can't eat even though it's "pan"?

    This is one of those jokes with many answers, but some of the most popular are: frying pan, Peter Pan, Ja-pan, etc. Basically, any word that ends with "pan" that is not a type of bread will work.


I like the dark humor in this skit because at the beginning you never see it coming. You just think, "Oh, a barber shop. Maybe some odd gossip or something will happen here". And then it's a complete beatdown. The gushing part was by far the funniest for me, for several reasons. First, the sheer look that Imada had on his face. His goofiness had been on display the entire skit, but it just shines there. Second, the sheer amount of blood. It got EVERYWHERE! Third, and one of the reasons I love Gottsu Ee Kanji so much, is YOU in the background laughing her ass off. You can tell that's her and it just makes you laugh even more.

I was a little disappointed though at the ending. It is true that a lot of Gottsu skits only have the main premise defined and its up to the actors to bring it to some form of closure, but this one should have had a better ending. The last minute or so just wasn't that great (except for maybe the uncooperative animal actor in the back). The problem is, that I can't think of any better way to end the skit. It's really hard to say "It could/should have been better" when you can't really define what "better" would be.

So! My challenge to you out there is: How would you end the scene? Comment away!

5 comments:

  1. i think the ending is ok. lol at the dog i think he was suppose to come out but got scared. ^ ^

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  2. Hmmm, the ending was kinda expected though, I mean if he wasn't going to kill him then where is going to go from there?

    Gottsu Ee Kanji skits sure are funny, but as you mentioned they kinda have trouble ending it, such as a skit where Matsumoto was stuck between a wall, and from there it was funny but they literally didn't know how to end it.

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  3. Myolie, Liang:

    I guess I understand. I just thought that maybe it should have ended in a better way. I still don't know. Maybe after all the bleeding, Hamada could call for an ambulance, and then doctors (maybe Itao and Kurano?) could try to take Kou-chan away. And they could mess up in procedure, and Oyassan could start hitting them or something?

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  4. nice too see you back.

    thanks for the sub

    ReplyDelete