Sincerely,
The Blaine Boy

I’ve listened twice to SUMO21 now, and I still don’t feel the “wonder”. The story lacked obvious direction and a held a few too many descriptive phases. Perhaps, as an Irishman, with little real exposure to the Japanese culture, I didn’t grokk the subtle movements of the story, but I felt that the story was below the usual provocative 30 odd minutes we’ve come to expect.

wow you really know the language so I might be the newly converted argueing with the pope !

but I agree with what you have said.

cheers !!

Miyazaki is retiring, BTW (he’s been trying to do it for years now. =P), and most of his themes are about nature v. machines and the incoming of technology. This didn’t have that theme. He also tends to like children as a central theme. Not all of his anime were aimed at girls though… I don’t really think it would work as an anime though… there are conventions in this that usually don’t show up in anime. (But this would be a study of culture…) The general idea probably could be anime, but the story itself feels more like something that Japanese would put into a drama story instead. (The humanistic aspect is very akin to Japanese dramas.) But then I’m pulling out my geekdom again…

夢を見る時、夢を見るのが分かってます。
Revision of the previous poster. toki refers to time… so I used the kanji. and there is no i after the te… because it’s a conjugation into the “te” form. The masu makes it formal. tei rhymes with ray as in ray of sunshine not te which rhymes with get. Though you’re correct on the 3 kanji… and for that reason some people just write it in hiragana instead. (For example in shoujo in particular they forgo the kanji and write it in hiragana, but that’s kind of a girly thing to do.)

Just want to make sure the language is being represented correctly.

and thanks to steve again for his continued hard work, really appreciate it!!

I didnt like this story but, I have been living in Japan and have a Japanese wife; and I thought the story was maybe a good idea for one of those crazy anime that most westerners get into.

to comment slightly on Niall Mor who said it would make a good Miyazaki work; I gotta shoot that one down and say I greatly doubt it cause actually in Japan most Japanese consider studio Ghibli a kind of thing young girls like so … yeah .. I doubt it.

Howie, I think transmuting oneself into an Uzi or a flamethrower as opposed to a dragon or panda would be very dishonorable and un-Japanese. Besides, both an Uzi and a flamethrower require an operator as well as the weapon itself. Is it possible to be both the operator and the weapon at the same time? (Hmm, that sounds like a koan, doesn’t it?)

I also disagree with the idea that an anime version of this story would be a bad thing. I’ll bet Hayao Miyazaki could do a great job with this story. His Princess Mononoke draws extensively on Japanese history and mythology and is visually beautiful. I can imagine this story done in a similar style.

I could imagine this story as an anime–and that’s NOT a good thing! All the characters would have enormous round eyes and spikey hair and all the battles would be fought with seizure-inducing backgrounds of rapidly changing colors.

I’m the new managing editor working with Steve Eley here at Escape Pod. Hello to everyone here in the comments!

I think a reader’s poll is a good idea, and it’s something I will try and organize in the future. I also think it might be fun to handicap the hugos after we’ve played all the hugo nominees and see how Escape Pod’s audience is at predicting the winner.

You’ll be seeing other little changes here and there in the usability of the site as I ramp up my involvement. If anyone has suggestions, I’m open to hearing them at editor@escapepod.org

I said it once, and I’ll say it again, Escape Pod just keeps getting better and better!

In fact, this got me thinking: why don’t we have a poll to see what are everybody’s favourite Escape Pod stories?

I’m not from the U.S. (I don’t call it America) but from a little further south, Chile as a matter of fact. Stragely spanish shares a lot of the pronunciation with japaneseso I have seen many U.S. o Canadian born classmates strugguling with the pronunciation.
I hope to hear more Japanese (or japanese themed) Sci-fi, it brin

(I think, anyways, I’m still not positive I got that last verb right, although I suppose the last kanji could be 判 or 別.)

Excellent narration too, Steve. I was unaware of your history in Japan, but it clearly paid dividends here.

In retrospect, I liked the actual ending quite a bit more.

i am right there with steve as regards the where are the not japans? and appreciate the u.s.a.-centrism of so much sci-fi (of course aliens would land in the center of one of the smaller continents, right?). and let’s not even get started on english-centrism (stargate franchise anyone?).

i really liked the creativity in this story&133; lots of colorful elements making a butterfly explosion, without it turning into a garish iAdvert campaign.

the male-centrism… i suppose that’s traditional in sumo, not so much to my tastes, and i was left wondering why not 3, 4 or 5-hundred pound women wrestling warriors. or is big only acceptable for men?

tcha-tchao,
lexicat

On Japanese used: Japanese has no plurals. So it’s Geisha singular and plural (but that’s really nitpicking.) And I believe it’s Tanoshikute kudasai. 楽しくて下さい

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugations#Te_form (Under the i form of adjectives.)

Tanoshii (fun) kute makes it a verb (Imperative form) and the kudasai makes it respectful and a request, though theoretically since they are your listeners of a long time you could assume informal form… but in Japan, I think that’s frown upon.

In Korean “Have fun” would be “Chemijuseyo” (polite form–I know it should be in differential form for radio, but I can’t remember that one off the top of my head since those are often different words.) or 체미주세요 (in hangeul). My French is too rusty to trust it for imperative form… (Other listeners can add to it. I think it would be fun…)

On the story: I really liked it. I thought it was a good show of culture and not that cultural amalgamation where people are following a popular trend of Japan without understanding the culture. (i.e. Asiophilia furthering asiophilia, stereotypes, and the “Hey isn’t this neat” look) I admit, I was looking for a slip up in culture the entire time even down to the psychology of Japan after World War II (From a previous Japanese class), or a myth that was wrong and I could find no problems! The use of the hotaru (fireflies) was correct. The symbology of the sakura (Often associating with fleeting beauty and death) and the butterflies (Souls and death) was also correct. In another words, it wasn’t just stuck in there just because it needed to look Japanese, but was used as Japanese would use them–I’m thoroughly impressed. I’m also impressed that they managed to take such folklore and press it into a science fiction piece that was plausible. I felt that even the story structure had a Japanese mentality that was not solely based on Anime watching. (Ah-nee-meh (Short ee) for those geeks that care… no s for the plural) So props to the author for doing research and getting it right! I’m entirely grateful.

I also liked Steve Eley’s reading of the story. The pronunciation is better than most podcasts I’ve heard, so I don’t think it’s that bad. (I have about 2.5 years of Japanese and passed for an OL in Kyoto… ^_^ The taxi driver there really thought I was in a rush to get to a meeting… I’m pronunciation sensitive and Steve Eley did a fine job, especially on the names.)

To other commenters: Anyone have “have Fun” in other languages than Japanese and Korean? ^_^