You're listening to season nine of Mobile Suit Breakdown, a weekly podcast covering the entirety of Sci-Fi mega franchise Mobile Suit Gundam, researching its influences, examining its themes, and discussing how each piece of the Gundam canon fits within the changing context in Japan and the world from 1979 to today.
U this is episode 9.13, mobile suitors, and we are your hosts. I'm Tom, or as I'm known in the world of SD, Sangoku Musha, podcaster.
And I'm Mina, and while I enjoy translation as a mental exercise, I think I prefer it when we don't have to. Mobile Suit Breakdown is made possible by 700 paying subscribers. Thank you all for keeping us Genki, and special thanks to our newest subscribers, Rome Rui I and Tom Crow. We decided to time this year's PIN promotion with the launch of season ten, but we aren't sure when exactly that will be.
As Nina was just hinting, we do have some exciting news for you this week. While we were away on our break, some other fan translators beat us to the punch by releasing their translation of the second part of St. Gundam Montseri, and they've said that they plan to publish a translation of the third part sometime in November, which is great news for us. While we enjoy doing these translations, and while we certainly have learned a lot from them, we're not really translators, and we were not particularly looking forward to doing the 55 minutes long third part of Matsuri. All of this means that we're going to be making a few changes to our original plan for season nine. So this episode 913 is going to cover Matsuri Part two based on that newly released translation. We will then wait for the translation of part three to become available, hopefully sometime later this month, and we'll cover it right away when it does, probably in two episodes. Since we no longer have to worry about doing the translation ourselves, we are instead going to immediately throw ourselves into all of the behind the scenes preparation that we need to do in advance of starting Victory Gundam for season ten. Digging up old interviews, lining up guests, doing preliminary research, all that kind of thing. Now, the bad news is that that means there will be no new episodes for a little while. But the good news is it means that we will be starting victory at least a month earlier than we otherwise would have been able to. All right, that's enough about the future. Let's talk about the past. This week, we're covering the second of the three independent stories that make up the March 13, 1993 Estigunda movie. Estigunda Matsuri. This second segment is Esti Sengokuden Tenka Taihen. Tenka Taihe is a Yojijukugo, a set phrase using four characters to represent a broader concept. In this case, the characters are for heaven below, calm and peace, and the phrase can be used as a noun to refer to world peace, or as an adjective to mean carefree and relaxed. The episode itself plays around with these two alternate meanings. The hen character at the end just means chapter. Tenka Taihehen runs 13 minutes from titles to credits and depicts the world of the SD Gundam Sengoku period sometime after the end of the civil wars and the unification of the country. Like SD Command War Chronicle Gundam Force Super GRM's final formula versus Norm Gather. It is based on one arc from a at the time ongoing manga series which ran in Deluxe Bonbon magazine. The animated version deviates in a number of particulars, making it more of an alternate take on the setting and its characters rather than a straight adaptation. Tenka Taihehen was written and directed by Imanishi Takashi, fresh off of 83 Stardust Memory. Estee Sengokuden seems like a natural fit for him. Besides his interest in Gundam and military fiction generally, we know that he took inspiration from the real Sengoku period for the annivel Gato character, and the pseudonym that he uses when working as a script writer was likewise borrowed from a Sangoku period retainer of Usugi Kenshin. The animation director was Murase Shuko, who was also the animation director for roughly the first 20 minutes of F 91. You know, the bit that everyone agrees is the best animated part of the movie. He had also worked for Imanishi before as an animator on Stardust memory, and after this he will go on to handle major roles on a number of future Gundam projects, so his is a name to remember. The headstrong fourth generation Great Shogun was played by Tobita Nobuo, the voice of Camille Badan. Most of the rest of the cast are Gundam regulars with long lists of minor roles to their names, but Shiratori Yuri, who played love interest Gabeko, warrants a special mention. In 1992, she was Sakura Koji Hotaku in Brave Fighter of legend Dagarn, in 1994, she played cute rabbit mascot Thing Mokono in Magic Knight Ray Earth, and in 1997 she played Nanami in Revolutionary Girl Utana. And now the recap it is a time of peace. The Gundam and Zaku clans have settled their differences, and the numerous feuding territories of the Estee Sengoku era have consolidated to form five large and peaceful provinces under the administration of the Great Shoguns. The fourth Great Shogun is young and as yet unmarried. His senior retainers are at their wits end, urging him to finally choose a bride from the many eligible mobile bacheloretes they have selected. When pleading and bullying fails to motivate the lad, they decide to try deception. They will lure him to a cherry blossom viewing party on Mount Oe and there, in the atmosphere of relaxation and romance, resume pleading and bullying him even harder than before. While they scheme, the Fourth Great Shogun daydreams about the good old days before the wars ended, when warriors like himself had a purpose in the world. As if in response to his silent prayers for a meaningful battle to fight, a strange bird appears and begs for his aid. Horrible demons have appeared at Mount Oe and they're threatening the realm. Without a moment's hesitation, the Great Shogun races off to the mountain. But when he arrives, he finds not a horde of demons in need of smiting, but a boisterous cherry blossom festival and a small army of mobile suits eager to see him married off. The Great Shogun is swiftly bound to a chair and subjected to a parade of bride candidates, as each senior retainer argues the merits of their preferred choice. When the three Zaku brothers, playing a blindfolded watermelon splitting game, briefly interrupt, the Great Shogun seizes his opportunity and flees into the wilderness. On the picturesque slopes of Mount Oe, the fourth Great Shogun discovers a winsome maiden, Gabeko, picking flowers. It's love at first sight for both of them, and they spend the rest of the day together. The Great Shogun tells her about his troubles and Gabeko urges him to forsake his dreams of violent glory and instead enjoy the hard won peace he promises her that he will. But not all is as it seems. When night falls and the inebriated, exhausted samurai fall asleep, the local villagers remove their disguises and reveal themselves to be hulking Oni with horns and iron clubs. There are demons on Mount Oe and this festival was their trap. Even drunken and taken unawares, the samurai, led by the three other great Shoguns, prove more than a match for the small Fri oni. But the Oni, it turns out, have their own demon Shogun and the exhausted Great Shoguns collapse before it. The fourth Great Shogun arrives in time to face this new threat. But Gabeko reminds him of the promise he made to persuade. Fighting, he dithers until a timely rainstorm revives the other three Great Shoguns who give him a pep talk on the practical and moral necessity of self defense. Dilemma resolved, the shogunal quartet combine their powers and swiftly blast the Onishogen into oblivion. But when the light from the attack fades, the onishogen is replaced by that weird bird from earlier. Now gigantic and radiant, it is the Crystal Phoenix, a divine entity traveling throughout the universe. This whole affair has only been a trial set by the Phoenix to test and strengthen these warriors. Its final message to them as it departs, remember that idleness fosters evil. The preservation of peace requires constant vigilance, and that is the true meaning of justice. So we are back in the St. Gundam Sengoku period, except not really, because Sengoku means civil war, and the wars are over. The country is at peace.
I was really glad to not be translating this one. Between the old timey language, the heavy accents, and the drunken slurring, I think this would have been really difficult to translate ourselves.
Now, we have to clarify, because this is SD Gundam. When we say drunken slurring, we mean slurring their voices, not drunkenly saying slurs. Ah, yes, a thing that could have happened.
I was amused that even though I haven't seen or played or experienced much of the St Gundam Sengoku stuff, there's still this sense of continuity from the ones that I have seen and the ones that I do remember. The map that they show at the very beginning is the one from the Abawaku episode, which then transforms into the new map of, what is it, four or five consolidated kingdoms. The lions are back with the addition of a mama lion, who I don't think made an appearance previously.
But we've got the toothbrushing lion.
Well, yeah, there's the little baby and the papa. There is also a dragon, a rhino, and a bird.
I was not sure if that was a rhino or, like, a triceratops, because it looked like it had the big armored neck frill that some dinosaurs have. And I thought maybe it was like the dinosaurs from the tour episode where they go back in time and get chased by robot dinosaurs.
I suppose that's possible, but I thought rhino.
Yeah, you're probably right.
The Zaku's obsession with watermelon is an ongoing joke. So even though I imagine they are not super strict about it, because that would make it harder to make jokes, there is a fair amount of continuity between these different pieces of the SD Gundam franchise.
Yeah. After we released our prior episode on final formula versus Norm. Gather. Somebody did ask me, is there an ongoing storyline? Is there, like, a base text for these different SD worlds. And the answer is yes, in the manga. And so these anime adaptations are like grabbing little snippets moments from the manga and turning them into these little shorts. I do think this is the point at which we can say 100% the audience is expected to be reading the side materials. Those early Sengoku shorts really did feel like they could have stood on their own. Yes, there was a manga and you could learn a lot more about these characters, but they were created in a way that was meant to be accessible to anime only viewers. This one and Norm gather as well. If you're not reading the manga or don't have at least some basic grounding in what's happening in those stories, these just don't make a ton of sense.
I would say it's less that they don't make sense and just that there's not much there unless you get every little in joke and reference, because there's a story and it's perfectly understandable. It's just pretty thin and straightforward.
The cast is replete with all of these, essentially cameos. Right? If you were just making this as an anime, you would need maybe a third of the total characters who show up in the course of this short. They're all there to give the manga reader that little thrill of like, ooh, I recognize that guy. Ooh, that one. Like at the end, when the Phoenix is flying away and we see a shot of a character who has at that point not appeared in the whole short, just training, meditating under a waterfall. And he looks up as the credits roll. And if you're a manga reader, you're like, oh, that's like the main character of the next arc. And if you're an anime watcher, you're like, who's that guy?
Fair. I mean, that's the vibe for a whole lot of it. Various characters take on funny poses or act in certain ways that feel as though they are meant to be references to something, and we have no idea what. A big part of my attempted research this week is going to be trying to figure out some of those references, some of the visual gags, but there's so many of them, I definitely won't get to all of them. And some of them simply may not be possible to figure out unless I were willing to go back and read a whole bunch of manga or something.
Yeah. When I say that it doesn't make sense to the anime only viewer, I don't mean that the plot is hard to follow, but rather that as you watch it, you get the distinct impression that most of the appeal of this short is actually all of the referential jokes that are flying right over your head because you don't have the necessary context, as we have learned from doing these. Clearly, the best way to identify all of those references is to become intimately familiar with the full Hannah Barbera Cartoon Library.
I was glad in your introduction that you mentioned Murase Shuko and that F 91 connection because I did feel like the quality of the animation and the quality of this particular print that we watched were very good. Although did you catch the reused animation in there?
I don't think so.
There is that moment. The first time or second time it happened. One of the times that it happens, the main character says, this isn't supposed to be a zoo when all the animals are running amok and everyone else is drunk and that cycle gets used twice. Well, but other than that, I thought the quality was quite good. Everything's quite bright and crisp, and there's nice detail.
In final formula versus Norm Gather, the music was the most important element of the whole short.
Yes.
And the animation, while good, was just there to support it, to push it along. And I wouldn't have said to somebody, oh, if you're going to watch final formula versus Norm gather, really pay close attention to the visuals. And no, that was not the point. This one. I think the visual gags going on in the background are so much more interesting than any other aspect of the short that those are the bit to focus on.
Yeah, the music is nice, but it's not important. In the same way, I was also thinking about how in most of the main Gundam series, in the longer series, the music feels a lot more cinematic whereas this music feels much more similar to. Well, to short cartoons, TV cartoons and video game music. I thought with the exception of the one pop track with vocals that gets played while they are showing him all these pictures of possible brides. And the music still varies in tone. The music at the beginning is more kind of upbeat, light, a little silly feeling. The music during the combat is much more. Not quite hard driving, but feels more serious and faster paced and more like action music.
I'm going to be real with you. I did not, at any point in the course of watching this, notice the music.
Oh, okay.
I'm sure I would have noticed if it wasn't there. But I do not have a single thing to say about the music except that it was not nearly as noteworthy as last time.
Too subtle for Tom?
Too subtle for Tom's. I don't know. Sometimes a subtle track will just really get me. And this one didn't. I always have to bring up Muraseuko whenever we encounter him? Because he really is going to be a major factor in later Gundam. But also, he's the guy who directed Witch Hunter Robin, a show that you and I both love and no one else in the world does. So that's our special little treat.
I always forget that, and then I'm always pleased when you bring it up. Witch Hunter Robin, y'all. It's extremely slow, but so just after.
All of these years, I have never gotten over the mid season upgrade to the powers of the main character, being that she realizes she needs glasses. I don't know. Maybe that's a spoiler. Maybe I shouldn't say that on the episode.
Is she terrible at magic? No, she's just nearsighted. But returning to SD Gundam Matsuri Part two. One of the main ways that SD seems to garner humor in the Sengoku line is to include anachronisms. And so, throughout the Hanami or Flower viewing section, the part where they're up on Mount Oe, looking at the cherry blossoms that are more or less accurate to what cherry blossom viewing is or would have been like. I don't know if it was always as raucous as it is now, but it absolutely can be. People picnic. There's a ton of food. People get very drunk. People sing, people dance. It's sort of cherry blossom viewing combined with, like, a small local festival, which adds some other humorous elements. Like, there's a tea shop, and there's a stand selling takoyaki, which are little fried balls of dough that have scallion and octopus in them. There's a stand selling dango, which are little round cakes made of rice flour. Sometimes they'll do them in pink, white, and green, which is meant to be a reference to Sakura. Sometimes they'll grill them and cover them in, like, sweet soy sauce. There's a few different kinds. There's a stand selling masks, which are very commonly purchased during summer festivals. There were even tanks of air and balloons in the background of one of these shots. And it is funny to see all these swordsmen with speakers or doing karaoke.
On a festival stage.
And those stages are commonly put up during festivals because then people will perform dances on them, or they'll perform, like, music, drumming, things like that from atop those stages. But these guys have got sort of a modern music stand. I have no idea why. There are a bunch of little yellow chicks everywhere. That is not a reference that I get. I don't recall seeing little yellow chicks at spring festivals or anything like that.
But, I mean, they are a symbol of springtime.
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a reason we eat peeps at Easter. Well, I don't, but there's a reason people eat peeps at Easter. Actually, speaking of little yellow birds, the phoenix in this, when it first appears as like a scheming little foot and half tall weird bird thing. I love it. I changed my profile picture on Discord for the first time in years to make it the horrible little bird who just shows up causes an enormous amount of chaos, tells you it was for your own good, and then pieces out to leave other people to clean up the mess.
I was thinking of changing my discord profile picture to be one of the glamour shots of the potential matches. The question is, which mobile suit lady do you.
I was just going to ask you that very question. Which mobile suit lady do you think you should be? Some of them were mobile armors.
I don't know. I will have to look at them again before I make a decision.
I really liked this setup. The fourth Shogun clearly is repulsed by these different mobile suit characters. But because we have no idea what the standards of beauty are in the St Gundam Sengoku era world, all we see are these alluringly posed, vaguely feminized mobile suits. It creates a feeling of what I would call pleasant alienation, like when you visit a culture very different from your own, or when you're at your in law's house and they're all speaking a language that you only kind of half understand, but you can tell that they're all having a good time.
Now I'm just imagining the kinds of comments that could maybe be applied to Gundam beauty pageants. Did you see? She doesn't even have high heels.
Her burnerns were not full.
I don't know. I just prefer a monoeye. I had a very different read on that scene. Not that he is repulsed by them in terms of their looks, but that he is repulsed by this process. He finds it unseemly that they are showing him all these pictures of women and making him pick one based off of basically just a photo and some hit point stats.
That is important information.
Oh, absolutely. You never get married without knowing how many hit points your partner has.
Yeah. You want to know if. Obviously you need to know if your potential partner is going to be more of a tank or more DPS or support. I mean, nothing wrong with marrying your support, though. To get the full triad, you do need, like a thruffle situation.
I think my read of him as finding this whole process unseemly kind of fits with how naive the character seems. He longs for the glory days when he could have been a real warrior and fought real threats to the country. And he doesn't really acknowledge the political necessity of his marrying. I want to meet someone and fall in love, perhaps in a flowery meadow on a mountain.
And it all works out for him.
So at least they're not classist.
I don't know if that's the case. We don't know Gabeko's background. We don't know what her status is. She could be a secret noble lady out collecting flowers by herself. He is the Dai Shogun and he ran away. So he was by himself. Maybe she ran away.
Maybe.
Probably. If I had read the manga, I would actually know all of the answers to this. Many of the mobile suits in this are fairly easy to figure out. What actual mobile suit inspired the character design. Gabeko was a bit of a challenge. I'm 99% sure she is meant to be. The Gerbera Tetra from 83, of course, had just come out, so it was present. Imanishi, who had made 83, is the one who made this one. Gabeko is in kind of the right color scheme, and in Japanese, Gerbera is actually Gabe Rabel. Gabe Cole. Yeah. She has these kind of big eyebrows on her forehead that are not part of the Gerbera Tetra's design. And I think they're actually a reference to the real historical practice of Haian era court ladies plucking their natural eyebrows and then painting in thick, dark, black eyebrows above where their natural line would have been.
And that was a practice that persisted after the Heian era as well. I think that went into the Warring States period and some of the medieval period.
So that's part of why I think she might actually be a noble lady.
Because otherwise she wouldn't have her eyebrows painted in like that. Fair point. Okay, good catch. I'm willing to give credit where credit is due.
Thank you. Credit is always due to me.
Here's a question for you. Throughout a bunch of this party, the baby lion, the lion cub, appears to be getting ready for bed. It has a candle ready to take to bed with it, and it's brushing its teeth and stuff. Is that just because it's a baby and the adults are partying into the night and so it has to go to bed now?
I mean, maybe. I guess that would make sense. It's one fundamental attribute. Is it has to be brushing its teeth because it's a reference to the commercial for the lion. Toothpaste.
That's right, toothpaste.
And I guess if you're brushing your teeth, it means you're getting ready for bed. Right?
Also recalling from some previous SD Gundam shorts, somebody in this writing team or design team, animation team, somebody involved in these cartoons has a thing about tickling because I remember it's cropped up at least once before. And when they have the great Shogun tied up and are about to show him pictures of women, the cubile sneaks in while the others are giving him alcohol to tickle his feet with a feather.
Like torture.
Yeah. Oh, cubile. And then the sort of card game battle. I vaguely remembered that you mentioned a card game or like an electronic assisted card game that involved the SD Gundam characters at some point.
I mean, both of those definitely exist.
Okay.
Yeah. When you see these cardass cards of the characters and there is a really cute, shiny foil, one of the fourth Shogun and Gabeko dressed up for the wedding in the traditional wedding outfit. He's wearing the all white kimono, and she's wearing the hood and everything. I'll send it to you later. But these cards always have their power level and their HP and that kind of information. They are for collecting, but they can also be used for battling. I have a couple of things I wanted to say about the end. The first one is just the visual design of the Oni Shogun based on the Xeong.
So cool.
Incredible. Absolutely fantastic visual design. Just really, really good. Honestly, all of the Oni look pretty good. They're based on, like, a couple of different Xeon mobile suits. The drysen is in there, but it's not just the Dreysen, so they look good. The Oni Shogun looks amazing. If there's a kit of that, I need to find it. And if there isn't, I will be sad, I guess, because I don't think doing an Oni Shogun custom is within my skill level at the moment.
As a person with a horrible memory for mobile suits and their names, I simply appreciate that the Xeong is very recognIzable. Not to be confused with any other mobile suit ever.
Just look for legs. And if they're not there, it's the know. That's kind of the thing about first Gundam is a lot of the mobile suits are just, like, instantly recognizable and all easily differentiated from each other, which I appreciate. One final note about the ending and about the writing of this. It's a bit funny to me that right after finishing up 83 with its notorious scene between Ko and Nina and Gato in the falling colony where Nina is like, Ko, leave the colony. Let it hit the earth. Just stop fighting already. Imanishi. Then in his next project, again has the female love interest show up at the end when the hero is facing off against a monstrously powerful enemy who is threatening to destroy everyone he knows and loves to be like, no, just don't fight it.
Even though she is in danger. Yeah, it's a little weird.
Like, Imanishi, are you working through something here?
On its face, her point about fighting just begots more fighting sounds like a message in favor of peace, albeit an extremely trite one. But then the various shoguns instead come to the conclusion that, no, you have to defend your people. You have to defend people you're responsible for and care about. And then to have the great Phoenix appear. The Phoenix that was the ogre, or created the ogre. And to have it say, living idle lives fosters evil.
Idle hands are the devil's plaything. We've got slogans like this in English.
As well, but it feels a bit like. I always feel like these are a bit of a dog whistle, but the kinds of comments people make about the decadence of peaceful times that like, oh, peace just breeds idleness and decadence and makes people weak.
Sure, yeah. If this had ended with like, a splash screen that says, join the Japan Self Defense Forces, I would not have been surprised.
Right?
There is a kind of inartfully expressed argument being made here about the flaws of a total pacifism, political philosophy and of Japan's approach to self defense and its reliance on the strength of the US military and stuff like that.
Like, what is it doing here? This is SD Gundam, Nina.
Everything is political, even SD Gundam.
It just feels so poorly articulated.
I just wonder, does Imanishi end all of his stories this way? Am I going to have to watch his whole UVRa?
Probably. What's the next Imanishi thing that we have on the docket?
Oh, it's not for a while, but he was involved in some. In a few years, Gundam is going to do some experiments with 3D CGI episodes, and Imanishi is going to be very involved in those. Later in his career, he developed a real niche as a CGI animator and became one of Sunrise's go to guys for that job. So he's not going to have the top director job very often, but he's frequently going to be in there as, like, CGI Director. And then my final note, and this is just for the Gundam fans in the audience, really look at the design of the fourth Dai Shogun, especially at the end when he pops the wings out for the big final fight. And tell me whether or not you think that looks suspiciously like an upcoming Gundam design.
Doesn't he also turn into a Centaur at one point at the very beginning when he's jumping off the roof of the castle?
Oh yeah, I think he might do that. That's just a callback to the Centaur from previous SD Sengoku shorts.
Okay, but he's not the same Centaur.
Pretty certain he's not.
Okay, that's just silly.
I know. This is the problem with jumping around in time like this. I'm not entirely certain how many of the characters from before are still here.
I just think unless you're going to give us a little more detail and a little more attention to who the characters are, there should only be one Centaur. To avoid confusion.
Nina's Centaur quota. All right, so your question about the Centaur inspired me to go back and look up who from this cast connects back to the SD Sengoku shorts we watched before. Tenka Taihehan takes place in between the third and fourth large arcs of the Musha Gundam comics series. That's the third and fourth out of 18 total.
Wow.
Yeah. They kept running Musha Gundam stories in comic Bonbon and Deluxe Bon Bon until 2007. The prior SD Sengoku shorts that we've watched were all from the first arc, aka the Seven warriors chapter. The fourth Great Shogun is based on the Gundam Alex from war in the Pocket. And he was not among the characters who appeared in the previous shorts. But some of his retainers should be immediately recognizable. There's the giant Psychogunda Mark II and the Ninja on Mitsu there along with the brothers Yakushiki and Yakimaru. Likewise, the three Zaku brothers and their leader Zakuto, as well as the Kyube Ninja who is known in this setting as Rei Kube.
What about the one that's always on stilts?
I'm not sure about that. One of the four Great Shoguns, the first, did not appear in the prior shorts due to being dead at the time. He was resurrected through time travel Shenanigans because, yes, somehow SD Sengoku is also a person from the future travels to the past in order to rewrite history by changing the outcome of a lost war story. The second Great Shogun did appear in one of the prior shorts, specifically in the Haunted Town episode. Those were his beloved childhood toys in the chest that was retrieved from the mine. The third Great Shogun is the former Musha Gundam hero of most of those shorts. He's gotten a promotion. He also happens to be the cousin of the second Great Shogun. Because it's really about who you know, you know. And now, Nina's research.
Alright, time to tackle as many of the background gags and references as we can. First up, the map. The first map shown is the same one from previous SD Gundam Sengokuden shorts, which we analyzed in a previous episode. But then it transforms as the narrator explains that there's been some consolidation and the new areas have new names. These were a bit of a struggle, so we consulted a list posted by a Japanese fan. Unfortunately, Superfan though they may be, they lack our academic rigor and did not provide references. We will just have to hope that they are correCt. From left to right. The first is haine, which with different kanji can be a given name in Japanese, but for which I could find no other special meaning. The first kanji means break, tear, destroy, defeat, or frustrate. The second, shoot, shine into, or archery. And the third means sound. My best guess is that it's a reference to the sound of a beam weapon firing. The second area is kulazu, for which nothing at all came up. The first kanji can mean smash or break, or familiar or popular. The second means bad, evil, inferior, or wrong. And the third kanji means pointed, sharp edge weapon or violent. So far, there's kind of a theme of visa vis destruction, which I guess is ironic given they're in a time of peace, but if there's a deeper meaning, I'm not seeing it. Third, we have corona, a term which nowadays is often used to refer to the COVID-19 coronavirus, but which, at the time this cartoon was made, would have referred to the astronomical phenomenon as in the sun's corona. However, there is a separate Japanese term for that astronomical phenomenon. Corona, as a lone word is written in Katakana. The kanji used here are first one that means light, then one that means hearth, furnace, or reactor. And finally, the kanji for wave, which incidentally can mean a wave like a wave in the ocean, or waves in the sense of energy, radio waves, waves of light. And so, you know, something science fiction y to do with light and reactors and waves. Next is Badawa. This one is somewhat more clear. The first two kanji, the first meaning hegemony, leadership, or supremacy, and the second meaning road or way, combine to form the word bado, which means military rule. The third kanji means harmony, peace, or Japan. So, military rule and peace. I guess the last one is the most obvious and the easiest, neojion. Neozion, which is incidentally the area ruled by Zakuto rather than by one of the great shoguns. That name is formed by the kanji for new, the kanji for time or hour, and the kanji for to hide, cover, or conceal.
Let me interrupt for a moment to observe that the way the Great Shoguns have been named as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th could imply like that they exist successively, with each one retiring and the next one taking the role. Like when we say the first king of England, the second King of England, etc. In this case, that's kind of true. The numbers refer to the order in which they became Great Shogun, but they also are all alive at the same time, and each of them rule different provinces at the same time, so it's both successive and consecutive.
Side note that the typeface used for the map is very tricky to read, and changes the look of some parts of the characters in ways that are quite different from usual. It really threw me for a loop. Most of the other kanji and words that I noticed in the background are unremarkable. The kanji they use for Gandamu are the same as those they used before, and show up in a few places in the episode. There is a busted screen or banner in the background of the first scene, but not enough of it is visible to know exactly what it said. I was amused to see exit signs posted around the room, in English, no less, although they were golden to match the rest of the decor. I attempted to figure out whether the Morse code used in that first scene is a real message or just random noise, but I don't have the ear for it. I can't seem to identify where the breaks between letters are, and without that, it's next to impossible. The other complicating factor is that they might be using international Morse code, or they might be using Wabun code, also known as kana code. Wabun code uses telegraphy to correspond to Japanese kana characters rather than letters of the Latin alphabet. What I can tell you is that I found an entire academic presentation on the introduction of Morse code to Japan and its importance as Japan's very first telecommunications technology. Most relevant to this short is the fact that Morse Code was introduced at the very end of the Edo period in the 1850s, and both the central shogunate government and the regional governments led by the Daimyo conducted research, experiments and demonstrations of the new technology, so less of an anachronism than a lot of the other elements of the episode. Then the fourth great Shogun runs off to a beautiful meadow and lies in the grass watching a bird fly overhead. He has one line talking to himself, after which there are sound effects and the picture abruptly turns black and white. And a nearby cow with a star on its forehead that appears to be made of mobile suit armor lows pitifully. It reads like the show is making fun of its own bad pun. What he says is Toriwatobu Goran Notori. The first part is easy, the bird is flying. The second part is a respectful expression that means as you can see. But tobu, the verb that means to fly, can also mean to jump or leap, to splash, to hurry, to flee or run away, to vanish or for a punch or kick to come flying. Goran is the honorific version of the verb for to see, as well as being the honorific version of one of the words used to say Please. But it is also the Japanese pronunciation of a pretty common given name in certain parts of Europe, and there are a number of famous people with the name Goran. A cursory search turned up a bunch of athletes, several musicians and politicians. The final part of the second sentence, Notori, means just like or just as. So the second sentence can mean respectfully, as you can see, or it can mean just like Goran. I don't have time to pour over early 90s Japanese newspapers looking for who or what they might be talking about, but I assume it was a reference to some current event, because apparently we can never let anything go. After we had recorded this, Tom went back and looked into it a little more, and it turns out there may be another explanation.
There is a Japanese song based on a Christian hymn that appears to have been very popular as a song for little kids to sing in school, like at morning assemblies, especially in mission schools, but possibly also in regular public schools. And it was called Goran Yosora Notori. So not exactly the same thing that he's saying, but pretty similar. And also about like, look at the flying bird.
The hymn is based off the Bible passage that talks about considering animals in nature and how none of them toil, none of them work. The bit that gets referenced all the time is the consider the lily of the field. It toils not, neither does it spin.
Look at the birds of the air they neither sow nor reap. Now just imagine that in Japanese, and like a 1006 year olds all singing at the same time. And it sort of fits into this running gag of the SD mobile suits as like big tough warriors, but also very childish.
They know all the kids songs. They don't eat green pepper.
They still love their little stuffed animal toys that they hid away in a box in a mine somewhere. It's the greatest of all treasures.
While the fourth great Shogun is declaring his resolve to go fight the Ogres, a whole series of different backgrounds are animated behind him. Flames, outer space. And during the flames portion, there's a blink and you miss it. Appearance of an ogre sitting in a large iron pot full of water over a fire. The ogre is either being cooked alive or having a nice bath. I knew I had seen something like that before, so I racked my brain and finally remembered that there is an item just like that in Animal Crossing New horizons. It's called a kettle bath in the English translation, but in Japanese it's called a Goemon budo or Goemon bath. Up until electric or gas heated options became available, it was very common for Japanese baths to be wood fire heated. However, this specific kind of bath has a story associated with it. It is named for Ishikawa Goemon, a 16th century outlaw hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor. There is pretty good historical evidence that a thief, bandit, or outlaw by that name really did exist. But the details of his life and tales of his exploits are more like folklore. And he's been the subject of countless works of fiction over the past several Hundred years, including several classic kabuki plays. And I'm pretty sure that Goemon in Lupon II is meant to be one of his descendants. There are a few conflicting accounts of Goemon's death, but they all agree that he was killed after a failed assassination attempt against Toyotomi Hideyoshi and that he was boiled alive in a large iron pot. And then baths of that type were named for him. Gruesome. After the fourth great Shogun has resolved to kill and or bathe the ogres, the whole group from the castle appears in the meadow, ready to hurry him along to Mount Oe. The one Gundam that is on stilts appears again. And you had an idea about why that might be?
The one that's on stilts in both scenes is the same one that takes its character design from the psychogundom Mark II. It's a bit bigger than the others, but not so much bigger as it would be if it were the psychogundam Mark II, which is like twice as large as any of the other mobile suits. So I'm guessing that the stilts are there to make it more like the right size. But in a funny way, it feels.
Weird about being only slightly larger than the other SD Gundams. Then they are off to Mount Oye. The kanji used for Mount Oye are pretty fun. There is a Mount Oye near Kyoto, but its name uses completely different kanji than those used for the Mount Oe. In this short, one possible interpretation for the combination of kanji used here is acquire Hero here Mountain. As I mentioned in the talkback, there are various stalls at the cherry blossom viewing, most of them with signage indicating what they sell. Takoyaki, Dango tea, and the other big chunk of text in this episode is also at the cherry blossom viewing. When the group first arrive, a crowd of locals greet them holding a huge banner. Well, really, there are two banners. A smaller vertical banner reads Sasatake Kamaboko or small bamboo Kamaboko. Kamaboko is a cake of fish paste steamed and then sliced up to put into soups. Or sometimes it's grilled and served on a stick. Apparently, Sasa Kamaboko is a Miyagi prefecture specialty, with the cakes shaped like bamboo leaves and grilled just before serving. The main banner has two kanji in the center and then two phrases written in smaller characters on either side. The kanji in the center form the word kange, which means a welcome or a reception. The phrase on the left reads Kokomin Nenkin Kikin, which means National Pension Fund. Several of the kanji in the phrase on the right are difficult to read. They are in a more handwritten style, but I'm fairly certain it's Oyeyama kai Hatsukyoku or Mount Oye Development Bureau. Both phrases making the festival seem like it is sponsored by the local government, which, in a way, I guess it is. Finally, I looked into the Phoenix's parting words. It says, did a bit of searching, but did not find that this was an idiom or a famous quotation or anything like that. Just a weird meddling phoenix dropping in to remind the powerful that an idle life breeds only wickedness, then piecing out to soak chaos elsewhere.
That's goals.
With the exception of whatever research we do in the last couple of episodes. That's it for our festival of research. Remember that while we're waiting on subtitles for the final part of SD Gundam Festival, we won't be releasing episodes, but we will be working on the background research for Victory Gundam. That way, we can go straight into season ten without needing to take a break between seasons. Prepare your Blu rays, begin the campaign to convince your significant other, pet or roommate to watch with you, and remember to include the word spoilers in the subject line of any emails that contain them so that I can retain my total ignorance of Victory Gundam. Until then, stay Genki folks.
Mobile suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced by Us, Tom and Nina in Scenic New York City within the ancestral and unceded land of the Lenape people and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is Wasp by Misha Dioxen. The closing music is long way home by spinning ratio. The recap music was Olivia by HyiseN. You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape people, and more in the show notes, and on our website, Gundampodcast.com. You can get in touch with us on Twitter or Instagram at Gundampodcast or by email to hosts@gundampodcast.com. And thank you for listening.
We just got a new patron eight minutes ago.
Sick. I think they just joined the chat too. I saw somebody come in there.
Well, they're not going to get thanked on this episode. Too late for that. Next time.
Next time, all right.
Oh no, I don't have an.
And. Well, I have an or this time. That's right.
Gasp.
You should mixing up the format. I'm Tom spilling tea all over my notes because I'm a mess.
Okay, I'm really ready now.
Okay, the second great Shogun did appear in one of the prior shorts.
But these guys. No, not asylum.
The thing that it sounds like I meant is not what I meant.
To Luna too. Alice to Luna two.
But actually there is a mobile suit that has an AI installed in it and AI is named Alice. Alice could fly off to the moon like that. Now what do I actually mean?
Record scratch?
I can't imagine that this is the reference. There was a Serbian high jumper named Goran who performed quite well at the Serbian national Championships in 1992, but I can't imagine that they're making a reference to him.
Well, the reason I asked you to clarify dates for me while I was looking at this is because there was a noted volleyball player who competed in the 1996 Olympics by that name, which Tobu like volleyball. Many volleyball players are incredible jumpers, an important skill for the sport, but it could also refer to a politician vanishing or fleeing. Or it could refer to any number of different events or people. Part of why it works as a pun. I just don't know who exactly or what exactly they're talking about. The audio equipment is out to get me. I think I need a day off.
No days off. Only labor. Only hustle grind.
But I'm so clumsy, I somehow managed to hit myself hard enough in the mouth with the headset that it hurt. I'm worried about my crown.
Don't worry. You'll still be a queen with or without your crown.
I know you think it's cute when I'm missing an entire front tooth, but you are the only one.
I don't know. It's like the little anime Snaggle tooth that some characters get. You like that.
Yeah, but it's not a snaggle tooth. It's an entire front tooth missing. And the age at which that was cute was an awfully long time ago.