Dr. Slump: Arale-chan Episode 158 Discussion

Well this episode certainly made me hungry. Going in just from the premise I was already reminded of that classic moment in Toriyama's future masterpiece Dragon Ball where Goku ends up eating away all of Master Roshi's prize money from the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai. And the all you can eat nature of the climax certainly felt a bit like foreshadowing, or a nice coincidence. Anywho, what will probably turn out to be my last episode of Dr. Slump for a bit was pretty damn charming right from the start. It felt like something you'd see from a sitcom of the age, but in the best of ways. I loved Midori giving the kids some early allowance and Senbei going to Obotchaman-kun for "table manners" help.

It's funny, the characters were clearly using those 2 English words specifically but the subs used something similar, but different. I often wonder how situations like that where they're clearly speaking actual English words, but the subs use something else, gets decided. I guess with fansubs it's no big mystery, just being up to whoever is making the effort, but I'll often see more "official" subs for other series like Crunchyroll or whatnot swap in alternate words in similar cases too. I'm not criticizing or anything, I just find it interesting. So too did I find Senbei and Midori doing Iyami's iconic "Shehhh!" pose from Osomatsu-san interesting. That's a reference I NEVER would have gotten before the recent Osomatsu-san reimagining series came out a few years ago, but back in the day it was big enough that they even got John Lennon to do the pose while The Beatles were visiting Japan! It was a nice reference. Even the reaction from the other residents of Penguin Village to fine dining and the end where they try to tag along was pretty cute.

And that's it for now. As I said last week I've now officially caught up to the fansubs I was using to watch this series. They tend to release one to two episodes a month, so there's a slight chance 159 may get released before next Thursday, but if it doesn't I'm probably gonna be putting this series on hold for a good while. And I almost certainly will after that if it does so happen to come out. I've really enjoyed the 40 years to the date nature of this watch, and that's about to be snapped, which if I'm being honest takes away a bit of the urgency for my viewing. I've actually already lined up another retro show to take this one's place, either next week or shortly after, we'll see. If this does end up being my last Slump episode for awhile it'll have been a nice one to go out on.:)

Next time: Senbei's targeted by a ghost??? Sounds like a nice episode to save for around October. XD

@animefan8800
To answer your inquiry about using "dining etiquette" over the audibly spoken "table manners," here it was a case of context coupled with our tendency to default to whatever choice the translator has made. In my research on the subject, table manners and dining etiquette are virtually interchangeable, but "table manners" tends to be used in personal settings such as eating at home while "dining etiquette" is for formal settings while eating in public. Because the Japanese tend to use English phrases as a catch all regardless of context, we felt that the translator was correct in his assumption that "dining etiquette" best fit this particular instance of referring to eating in a fancy restaurant.

I'm not completely certain, but I believe we'll be releasing the next episode this weekend, and it may have a special interest to you because you mentioned in your review of episode 151 the connection between Midori and Turbo almost being hit by a truck to the Truck-kun phenomenon popularized by the January 1983 episode of Minky Momo. I'm personally sure it was an intentional subversion of that concept by Toriyama. In the next episode, Toriyama once again explores the subject of vehicular homicide with another interesting twist on the trope. (That Minky Momo episode must've really struck a chord with the Japanese public for Toriyama to have felt the need to revisit the idea again so soon .)

@sebubibinman
oh! you know, I thought you may have been involved with shiteatersubs, but I didn't want to assume. I probably would have addressed you differently had I known! XD That is interesting regarding the translation choices. And also not too surprising I suppose. Well, you've certainly given me some more to think about for episode 159. You know, I don't think I knew Truck-kun was popularized by Minky Momo. In fact I'm barely even familiar with that series. But it is interesting certainly. In fact, checking wikipedia I see it was all played off as a huge "fuck you" to a toy company pulling their sponsorship which...wow. XD And with my second favorite video game of all time, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, getting re-released at last on the same day next Thursday should be interesting!

@animefan8800 Haha, I probably should've introduced myself better, apologies. I've enjoyed your reviews of Slump, I look forward to more in the future.