Washoku: Japanese home cooking

    I started to eat actual Japanese food around the time I turned 17.  A friend of mine couldn't understand my obsessions with the nation and my lack of taste for the cuisine.  It started by him dragging me to a sushi restaurant and force feeding me tekka maki.  The chef's laughed at me as I had to have my chopsticks converted to gaijin status.  The following year, a few days before my first trip to Tokyo, I had a different friend of mine teach me how to properly use them.  Close to 20 years later Japanese cuisine finds its self on my diner table through out the week (I have been eating miso and rice for breakfast quite a bit lately) and my children are adept at using chopsticks and cheer when diner is nikujaga.

    For the average American the only thing they relate to Japan usually is sushi and instant ramen.  For a long time I also didn't have access to a good deal of recipes and was mostly working off of a simple book for any dishes I was making.  Unless you have access to well stocked Asian grocery stores some ingredients for Japanese cuisine can be hard to come by and/or stupidly expensive.  It took me a while but I eventually found a fantastic resource to fulfill many of my culinary desires when it comes to the recipes.

   Cookpad.com is one of Japanese largest community recipe websites and an effort has been in place for a while to translate many of the recipes into English and host them on a website aimed at English speaking people wishing to cook more Japanese food and to learn ways of cooking non-Japanese food with flair.

   The link to the English version of the website is en.cookpad.com and is easily navigated.  If you're feeling adventurous and trusting in your Japanese language ability jump over to the main site and explore even more recipes.

いただきます!!

Fall Season Dropped Shows and a mid season recap.

We are about half way through the Fall season so lets take a look at the refuse and the bright notes.  First up, the shows that weren't dropped immediately.  Then a quick look at two shows I haven't talked about yet.  The concluded with the shows I like the most in this seasons offerings.

Terraformars:Set 500 years in the future a group of specialized humans are sent on a suicide mission to Mars to find a living sample to help combat a fatal parasite on Earth.  Unfortunately they have to deal with mutant blood thirsty cockroaches in the process.

    Even with access now to the unedited versions of this show it interests me little.  The artwork is rigid, the story is uninteresting and incredibly implausible.  I gave it about 3 episodes before really just being disgusted with it.


Ai Tenchi Muyo: You know what...after 18 3 minutes episodes I still have no clue what the hell is going on.  This show has proven that Shin Tenchi is no longer my least favorite title in the franchise.  The show has no apparent central plot other than Washu sending Tenchi somewhere/sometime(s) to rescue two friends.  No rhyme, no reason, nothing.  You find Tenchi bouncing between two worlds; one were he poses as a teachers aid in a private all girls high school and another with him in feudal Japan/China.  Side characters appear in both worlds with semi-related personalities.  This series makes absolutely no sense after 2 weeks of being broadcast and has so much random fan service it just becomes annoying.  Fuck...



Doten ni Warau: Post Tokugawa Shogunate we find resistant ex-samurai causing issues and having to be imprisoned on Japans variant of The Rock.  The only people entrusted with escorting these dangerous dissenters are 3 orphaned brothers of a local temple.

    Yeah...there's a number of things I dislike with this one.  The character designs are annoying and appear to be strictly for cosplay.  The historicity of this series is horrific.  The plot devices they hint at and tease with in the few episodes I watched are boring and uninspiring.


Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai : Taking place in a massive academy of accelerated learning a random male student is wrangled into befriending a lonely and socially inept girl to open up to people and try to gain friends.  The club they form ends up being wrangled into investigating a school mystery based upon legends and rumors of a phantom working in the shadows.

    I don't have any time or patience for this bland harem romance.  The artwork and character designs are undesirable to me and I have no interest in finding out the secrets of this fan service show.


Shows still on the chopping block are; Sora no Method and Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete.  I have not been able to watch enough of either to determine if I want to continue watching them.

    I had neglected to do a preview of Sanzoku no Musume Ronja.  After 3 episodes I enjoy it, even if the animation is poorly done motion capture CG.  Its a fun and fantastical tale about the daughter of the leader of a band of forest robbers growing up in her odd and loving world of nature and family.

    I also watched the first episode of Yuki Yuna wa Usha de Aru but stopped watching it once I realized it was a magical girl anime.  I actually almost stopped watching that before hand because it was a really slow and pointless slice of life before the magical girl thing took place...my kids are watching it and enjoying it, so it must have something worth while, just not for me.

    The biggest surprise for me is that, 5 episodes into it, I am started to enjoy Parasyte the maxim.  The main character suffers from the standard spineless fear of confrontation but the ideas brought up in the show about examining humanities special exceptions in the world are interesting.

    So far my top pick for the season is Shingeki no Bahamut, this finely animated fantasy romp has equal parts humor, action, compassion and mystery.  It reminds me heavily of Cowboy Bebop.  The continuation of the second season of Mushi-shi is greatly welcome and these episodes seem to be some of the best in the show.  Gugure Kokkuri-san is everything a comedy should be and so much that Keroro Gunsou wasn't able to get right.  Inou Battle wa Ichijou-kei no Naka de has continued to be about nothing but normal life, even though everyone has super powers, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

    With the end of the year approaching the one thing I can say for sure is its been a great year for TV anime in my book...and it hasn't been this good since 2006 or so.