Media Roundup Apr-Jun

[superborb]

Sweet Bean Paste, by Durian Sukegawa, translated by Alison Watts: Ex-con paying off his debts by working at a dorayaki shop and marinating in his failure meets an old woman who makes incredible sweet bean paste and whose friendship changes his life. A (occasionally didactic) criticism of social pressures and stigma, but very moving overall. I loved the dwelling on the food and how important the joy of confectionary could be, but it never crossed the line into trite and saccharine (to me) by being quite grounded in the world. The translation is straightforward and sometimes reaches charming. I really enjoyed this! (I did not realize the adzuki beans were supposed to be that texture at the end... I just pressure cook them...)

How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World, by Deb Chachra (DNF): Sorry, I DNFed at 2% in because it repeats the myth about the QWERTY keyboard being designed to reduce jams. Not a good sign! Does not make me feel like it was well researched! Maybe I'll give it another shot at a later date...

Straw into Gold: Fairy Tales Re-spun, by Hilary McKay: Cute short retellings of fairy tales, targeting probably an elementary school age? Recced by osprey_archer. Light and enjoyable if it sounds fun. I think my favorite was The Prince and the Problem, the Princess and the Pea retelling! I enjoyed the "twist".

What Did You Eat Yesterday (2021 movie + S2): This season felt more low stress, since the main relationship is now more established and the MC has grown more comfortable in his own skin. I don't think it makes sense to jump in without seeing the first season, but it seemed like it had a higher budget? Better music and editing in the special anyway. I also felt that the secondary couple was more tolerable -- the OTT was in smaller doses, and the ML was clearly so amused at the OTT, which helped. (I do feel like they'd be better breaking up and growing up separately...) The secondary characters also shone in this season, since there was more time to focus on them! I really liked the male hairdresser coworker in the end, and the neighbor couple is soooo cute and good hearted. I kinda wish we'd go back to resolve the legal cases... It happened once in the whole show! But I guess those are beside the point. Since we watched it in such close time to She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat, it was very apparent that this show cares more about careful descriptions of the recipes, which I like. Anyway, still a cute, relatively light show.
CW: Frpbaqnel pbhcyr vf erirnyrq gb unir orra n grnpure/fghqrag fvghngvba, gubhtu gurl qvqa'g trg gbtrgure hagvy nsgre.

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat (S2 + Special): (The special is more of a discussion by the actresses about the upcoming S2 and not part of the show.) It was even less focus on showing how to prep the food this season -- maybe bc it's more home cooking type meals? I really liked the new characters introduced -- the internet friend was obviously fun, and doing a watch party in universe complete with "Did you install the plug-in I sent?" was hilariously meta. The main relationship continues to progress, but it's pretty straightforward. I guess it's just a straightforward show? It has those little "Ah, someone said something wrong and figures it out" moments that could read a bit didactic, but aren't too bad? Maybe bc they're so clear with each other and also so sensitive to each other's unspoken comfort? On the subs, it's a p decent fan translation, but I wonder if it's suffering from a lack of formal/polite register of English to translate into sometimes. Anyway, it's even more low-key no-stress than What Did You Eat Yesterday, but it may be... too no-stress.

South Pacific (musical): American nurse during WWII falls in love with a French plantation owner and struggles to accept his mixed-race children. The 1949 of it does show in many ways, the romances are all a bit unconvincing, but the music and comedic bits were fun enough and it WAS 1949. I found the central song re: racism totally didactic, but considering how much backlash it got, I guess it might have been the song needed in the 50s?? (But why, after acknowledging the French paid poorly in the grass skirt stuff, does the French planter's plantation not get any acknowledgment?) Dubious if the central romance is going to last, letting someone know about your young children AFTER proposing seems like the wrong order about things? I can't believe they had cut a fourth song at the beginning setting up the central romance and the three that remained still felt Too Much... and yet not enough bc the romance was still unconvincing. It was fun enough overall and I am still humming some of the bits of the songs!

Comments

[halfcactus]

The reading list in this post... [eyes emoji]. The last fairy tale retellings I read were too dark, too YA, or literary so I kind of got tired of them, but sometimes I yearn for my Gail Carson Levine phase. And I think I like food-centered stories that are about friendship..........

I forgot that the Kinou Nani + Tsukuritai/Tabetai Onna group watches were just this year haha.

[superborb]

TBH yeah, both books feel like Things You'd Like!!

[nnozomi]

Enjoyed your reviews as always! I will have to look up the sweet bean paste book. (Have you read anything by Shion Miura? I know some of her stuff has been translated into English [forget if you read Japanese or not] and it sounds like something you might enjoy.)
...I have known songs from South Pacific for ever (that's the Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair one, right?) and I literally never had any idea what the plot was about. Who knew. Interesting!

[superborb]

I have not read anything by her! I don't read Japanese though, would one of the Eng translations be something you'd rec?

Yeah, I think that's the Famous Song out of the musical, though some of the others were oddly familiar... I guess that's the era where crossover songs were more common? Or they were just that popular?

[nnozomi]

I have not read anything by her! I don't read Japanese though, would one of the Eng translations be something you'd rec?
I haven't read the English versions but I think it would be worth a try! I'm surprised at how little has been translated, but The Great Passage (about people editing a dictionary) seems to be pretty well known; also there's Run With the Wind, which doesn't seem to have an English translation but does have an anime version (Kaze ga tsuyoku fuite iru) and is a lot of fun. (Come to think of it, I know that one at least has a Chinese translation because I bought it a while back thinking I'd try reading it in parallel with the original...someday I will actually get around to doing that...)
I'd love it if somebody would hire me to translate Miura's silly essays, her whole book about how much she loves BL, etc., they're delightful.

[superborb]

I'll check them out! ...Eventually!

[chestnut_pod]

Don't know if this is at all what you want, but I can provide you with a crazy syllabus for a Sociology of Infrastructure grad seminar that includes such books as "how do meteorologists live with themselves?" and "why do nuclear engineers think they're good people?" and "is the physical kilogram a symbol of moral decay?"

Added the bean paste book to the list!

[superborb]

Oh my... I think what I really want is like, a pop sci but not TOO pop sci survey??? OTOH, maybe reading specific books, but more of them, is really the way to do a survey...

[skygiants]

I've been reading a bunch of the What Did You Eat Yesterday manga volumes after getting them in a book bundle -- someday soon I'll get around to the show!

[superborb]

It was pleasant! The sort of thing that if one knew Japanese, would seem to be the perfect background show...

[shati]

Huh, I don't think I'd heard of the QWERTY myth in the first place (although I could have just forgotten). +1 myth and -1 myth. That does seem like a reasonable reason to stop reading it, anyway.

[superborb]

It's a frustrating myth!! Seems like it could be true! And yet!