Tatami Galaxy 2 (四畳半神話大系, Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei)
“Movies must definitely not be allowed to be poisoned by commercialism.”
This hilarious episode is, in part, a satire on Hollywood. Yuasa mentions “Titanic guy”, jokes about Jaws, and exposes the superficial nature of the celebrities. The protagonist is not as good as Shosanna though 😛 This episode reminded me of Kaiba 5.
Misogi is a Japanese practice of lustration.
The third film is about never-ending maze of tatami rooms, just like the ED.
The sign of Misogi movie club seems to be a Sanskrit letter “bha” that can be translated as “clubhouse”. With some minor modification it can be turned into swastika, but let’s not go there.
Next episode will be about Birdman club. I wonder if we’ll see Mao Nome 😛
The protagonist regrets his choice of a club and thinks that an alternative selection might have made his life better. He seem to have an external locus of control.
Why the events keep repeating?
“When someone is searching, then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes.” Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse.
Kitsune's Thoughts 
The Misogi symbol is a hiragana “mi” み
slightly rotated. I highly doubt it has anything to do with Sanskrit, though nice try there.
haha It looks like Sanskrit was more salient to me than Japanese at the moment 🙂 Thank you for mentioning this 🙂
Wow, another great analysis. I hadn’t noticed most of your points. Uhm who is Shosanna exactly? and Mao Nome? Also, the joke about Titanic and Saw are…where exactly?
Very nice comparison with Hesse quote. Yes, usually what’s in front of our eyes, we don’t see it. A math professor of ours says oftenly that whoever tries to solve a very difficult problem with problem’s terms, he fails. For example, Archimedes solved the problem of squaring the circle with the help of helixes.
Why did it reminded you Kaiba 5?
And what do you thing the last scene of the protagonist and Ozu kissing symbolizes?
I wonder…what the end of the series will be like…are all episodes gonna be exploration of the possibilities of club selection?
Nothing great really – just some random idiosyncratic observations.
Shosanna is a character in Quentin Tarantino‘s movie Inglourious Basterds. She achieves her revenge in a grandiose showdown in a movie theater. Our protagonist resorted for a much milder version 😛 Another reason I mention her is to link to an excellent scene that features a song from this movie, directed by Paul Schrader. I prefer David Bowie’s “humming” version though 🙂
Mao Nome is a character from Macross Zero, which is associated with birdman stories. One of the quotes I liked from the genesis story in Macross Zero: “You can fly, but you don’t know how deep the ocean is.” Also I like this scene where Sara takes his arms and levels the plane.
Ozu talks about directors and mentions that one of the best is the “Titanic guy”. Also, if you look carefully, you’ll see a Jaws poster with Ozu as a shark on one of the screenshots lol
Yes, an insight is require for difficult problems. Now that you mention circles and helices… Proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem required some advanced concepts of modern mathematics, including Taniyama-Shimura conjecture for semistable elliptic curves. Taniyama’s story is very sad… He committed suicide and his fiance followed him a month later…
Because, just like that Kaiba episode, it highlighted the superficial nature of celebrities.
The protagonist was planning a movie about love that will transcend everything 😛
Someone mentioned that the repetitions will last at least four times, according to manga. We’ll see what happens in anime. I have no idea how it will end, just like with most Yuasa’s works, but I am enjoying the ride so far 🙂
the kissing between protagonist and ozu couldn’t possibly have a psychological analysis? coz you’ve mentioned ozu being the id I think
thx for the explanations
Everything can have a psychological explanation 😛
In this case id completely has taken over ego, shattering the reality principle.
I didn’t know misogi meant that. lol. Fits perfectly with Jougasaki.
Yup, we learn something new everyday 🙂
Super awesome quote there! This was a fun and amusing episode, and the shine for me was the narrator and Akashi’s interaction; gah, things just happen. The part in episode 1, where I is supposed to ask Akashi out had an expected outcome, but here the interaction [after the prank] features a lightly vicious Akashi while the narrator is oblivious…. ah retrospect.
That is one of my favorite quotes from the book 🙂
hehe I like how you put it 🙂