Forum - View topicKabukibu! (TV)
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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Kabukibu! (TV) Themes: Kabuki Plot Summary: Kurogo Kurusu is a high school student who loves kabuki so much that it's annoying. Kurogo yearns to perform kabuki as part of a club at his school, but currently his school doesn't have a kabuki club. So Kurogo sets out to create a kabuki club, and his first order of business is to gather members. ---------------------------------- Episodes 1-2 The first episode seemed pleasant enough, although Kuro was a tad too genki for me. But after the second episode, I'm definitely in anyway. I think it helped a little that his friend Tonbo lampshaded it a little when he said, "He...doesn't think too much about what he says..." I also enjoyed the old folks telling the young ones to stop being such ignorant stick-in-the-muds. 
Although I could understand why he was a little defensive about it, when Ebihara was going on about the 400 year tradition, I kept thinking, "What about the people 400 years ago? Should they have not tried kabuki either?" Then Kuro told the story of the priestess, which was pretty cool. As for Niwa, well he certainly came exploding out of the closet there, didn't he.  On one hand, he's got some stereotypes going, but it doesn't really feel mean spirited so I was mostly ok with it. His hiding behind the hyper-masculinity mask is certainly a real struggle, and I didn't feel that they were making fun of him for it. Not sure if he's intended to be effeminate-straight, gay or trans, but I'm not sure we're going to get much differentiation on that here. He just wants to play the maidens, and whatever that means, it's all good.
Rakugo's position is still safe with no challengers, but this is still a welcome addition to the genre and I've already learned quite a bit that I didn't know I didn't know. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15462 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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It was kind of a sudden and extreme change. I am not against it in concept, but he went from macho to flower in an instant and did not look back.
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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Thanks for opening this thread, Gina!
Agreed about Kuro, he's a bit over-enthusiastic but was actually saying some surprisingly sensitive things in ep. 2, so i don't dislike him. The other characters seem interesting enough so far and Hana-chan is love! His "coming out" was quite the surprise and didn't make me cringe (too much). But what i'm really in for is the kabuki, of course, so i'm looking forward to learning more about its history and tradition and seeing some good performances. |
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vonPeterhof
Posts: 729 |
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With the second episode I think I'm sold. Even if this won't be another Rakugo in terms of storytelling and direction, more anime about Japanese traditional arts that explore also explore gender expression is a good thing in my book. Yeah, Hana-chan reaching out to Kuro so suddenly did stretch my suspension of disbelief, but I can forgive the show for not wanting to spend too many episodes getting the team together. Plus, I'd also like to compliment the teacher's father for nailing that slurred enunciation characteristic of older Japanese males. He does also have a touch of an old-timey Shitamachi accent which I'm not sure if anyone actually still has in real life nowadays, but otherwise it might be the most realistic representation of ossan Japanese I've ever heard in anime.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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Thanks for mentioning that. I forgot to say how much I've enjoyed Kuro's forays into Kabuki performance from a seiyuu pov (and from your post, it appears he's not the only one). Of course I don't really know how good of a job he's doing, but it sounds awesome to me.
I didn't find Niwa's outburst hard to believe at all (well, maybe the pounce). He definitely interrogated him first, and when he was sure, he was so overjoyed to find someone who might understand, that there was just no keeping a lid on it to calmly vent all the built-up pressure. Especially since he'd gone to such lengths to construct his macho persona, rather than just keeping quietly to himself and trying to go unnoticed. I'm very familiar with the experience of having a great weight like that suddenly lifted and then bouncing off the walls, downright giddy at the overwhelming sense of relief. Even as you realize you're acting a fool, you just can't stop yourself.
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vonPeterhof
Posts: 729 |
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^Oh, I wasn't talking about a kabuki performance - just one old guy's normal speaking voice. Anime voice acting, like acting in most media, usually has everyone enunciate more clearly than people normally do in real life. At the same time anyone who has tried speaking Japanese to a male older than 40 will know that they slur a lot and can be hard to understand. That guy's enunciation reminded me of one of my coworkers, whom I still sometimes have trouble understanding even after a year of working together (though we don't speak to each other every day, or even every week). He has a Kyoto accent rather than a Shitamachi one, and speaks about 1.5 times faster, but otherwise very similar.
But yeah, the voice acting used for kabuki performance was definitely interesting, and something I'm really looking forward to hearing more of in this show. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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I understood that. What I meant was that what I took from your post was that Kuro's seiyuu is not the only one doing good work in this, and he's not the only cast member being challenged to work outside the norm.
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vonPeterhof
Posts: 729 |
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Ah, I see, sorry about that.
Just looked up the sound director for this show, and apparently his recent credits include orange, The Great Passage and I've Always Liked You, the dialogue in all of which I thought struck a good balance between naturalistic and dramatic. The kabuki performances should definitely be a challenge for both him and the VAs. |
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shosakukan
Posts: 292 |
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I'm sorry to say this, but actually, the scene where the teacher and his father talked is a kind of wet blanket. In the scene, they have used the expression "(Whether) shikii (threshold) is high" as if it meant "(Whether) something is difficult for laymen." But in reality, the expression "shikii ga takai (A threshold is high)" means that Person X doesn't feel like visiting Person Y due to dicredit, neglect of social obligations or the like. Kōjien says:
Legendary scholar of English studies Saitō Hidesaburō translated 'Shikii ga takakunaru' as 'to be unwilling to go to a house' in Saito's Japanese-English Dictionary. The scene where the characters, who are a teacher and an elderly man that is supposed to be well versed in Japanese traditional stuff to the level where he is an ōmukō, (and the creator and the scriptwriter, the novel, on which the anime is based, has the same lines) misused the old set phrase like that turned me off. The creator Eda Yūri repetitiously underlines that the teacher's father is an Edokko. Quoting Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, novelist Kobayashi Nobuhiko said, "〈江戸っ子がる人に真の江戸っ子はいない〉というのは、谷崎潤一郎の名言だ。 [gist: If someone shows off his being an Edokko, he is not a true Edokko.]" When a pulp-fiction writer or something emphasizes that a character is an Edokko in a work by her, it is better for you to be on your guard 眉に唾をつけたほうがいいですよ. |
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vonPeterhof
Posts: 729 |
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@shosakukan Sure, like I said (or implied, if my wording was unclear), the whole Edokko shtick wasn't the part that struck me as realistic; even in Rakugo the Shitamachi accents they used always felt more like part of a deliberately cultivated persona than the natural way those characters would talk. By "realistic ossan Japanese" I was referring solely to the line delivery and enunciation, not the content.
Interesting information about 敷居が高い, thank you. I could go on a rant about semantic drift and the etymological fallacy to question whether or not using the phrase to mean "having high barriers to entry" constitutes "misuse" in the modern context, but you do make a good point about the character in question being supposed to know (and care about) its original meaning. |
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Merida
Posts: 1945 |
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Anyone still watching this? It's not exactly my favourite show this season but still pretty enjoyable. Since the majority of the cast is as clueless about kabuki as me, it's nice to learn together with them. The ending of ep.4 was hilariously overdramatic, but it's a nice twist that our over-enthusiastic MC is actually pretty terrible at acting himself...so i hope the "kabuki prince" will stop playing hard to get and be joining our little group soon.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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I am! I knew Shin was the one listening in, since it seemed too early to bring Ebihara into the fold. I kept wondering when they'd add him to the group, and then it was performance day and they still hadn't, so I wasn't sure what to think. Kuro passing out wasn't what I anticipated though.
The funniest part was learning that they don't always do entire stories! It's like "the good parts" version? I guess now we know where anime got that habit from. "If you want to know how it ends, go watch the bunraku!" |
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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I hope this gets at least a whole-series review at some point, it's shaping up to be a fun little item. Judging from the OP/ED, genki boy does get on stage at some point....
I am amused that since (spoiler) got a haircut, the ED was altered to match. Although I kind of liked the more flamboyant version. And I have come to the conclusion that this series is un-dubbable; I don't want to hear anyone even try replicating those stress and intonation patterns with English dialog. |
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izukisan
Posts: 9 |
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thanks i am going to watch this anime
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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I don't know why he couldn't keep his hair. They normally wear wigs on stage anyway.
Amen re dubbing. It sounds odd enough in Japanese.
Is it just me, or has Tonbo seemed a tad disgruntled in the last episode or two? It's like there's something on his mind, but he hasn't spoken up yet (or can't). |
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