Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens – 06

I’m still kind of enjoying the silliness of Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens on an abstract level, but I might be scraping the bottom a little when it comes to finding stuff to write about it.  Once you figure out the game here, it’s really just a matter of enjoying the ride – the specifics of the plot don’t really even matter all that much.

The repeating loop of either Saitou or Ling getting into damsel-in-distress mode and having to be rescued by Banba is starting to wear a little, but at least this time there were others involved in the rescue of Ling.  He decides he’s going to take on one of the Niwaka Samurai’s jobs when Banba is too hammered to come to the phone, but little does Ling realize the “job” is Saruwatari, who proves to be a little too much for Ling.  There’s also the fact that even Saru was duped into this by his “manager” and the Yakuza, who just wanted to capture Banba so their boss could take him out.

I suppose Ling is a lucky fellow that it was Jose (thanks shadyjob.com) who was tasked with torturing him, because otherwise I’m not sure Banba would have been in time to save him.  The interplay between Banba and Saru is pretty good, though since neither of them is going to get killed at this point there’s not a whole lot of drama to their duel.  Despite the fact that they actually come to blows on the ballfield I suspect these two will end up as uneasy allies.  Also of note is the arrival of this hottie, who appears to be Banba’s ex-wife (or at least ex-girlfriend).  She’s also an assassin, and takes out the Yakuza boss with poisoned fingernails.

Intou Junji: Collection – 07

OK, I’m going to go on record here and say that was probably the weirdest episode of Itou Junji so far.  Itou-sensei obviously has a very warped sense of humor (as so many horror writers do), to the point where it’s hard to tell sometimes when he’s trying to be funny and when he’s just going for shock value.  His stories seem to best agree with me when they go for quiet melancholy or outright humor, and these two were sort of in-between.

The first one, about the cursed record, was a fairly classic Japanese horror tale.  In fact it was so straightforward in every sense that it didn’t really pack much of a horror punch – there didn’t seem to be any kind of deeper meaning behind anything that happened.  It’s certainly true that Japan is full of old kissaten where spinning vinyl is the order of the day, though.

The B-part was definitely the meatier piece this week, but what a strange one it was.  My question would be this, I suppose: what was the Aristotle connection to the second act of this chapter?  Are we meant to believe that the girl’s perceptions had been impacted by Kishimoto-kun trying to influence her in her dreams at the beginning?  If not, that whole setup with the peeper town was incredibly random and WTF, but it definitely did score points for being creepy.  Maybe some sort of commentary on how overcrowded parts of Tokyo are?