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[Reelya]

Isn't there a thread for this sort of weeb trash...?

We have to put up with Ameritrash in every thread. If you like, every time anyone mentions anything American in any thread, I could pop in and mention the closest comparable Japanese series.*

Or we could apply the same general rule and demand that all American things get confined to a single Ameritrash thread.

* Although basically all American animations look like fart jokes compared to ones like Mushishi, so there wouldn't be any point. y'all are welcome to your toilet humor animation age ghetto cartoons.

[Egan_BW]

Ameritrash > Ameripol.

[wierd]

Isn't there a thread for this sort of weeb trash...?

We have to put up with Ameritrash in every thread. If you like, every time anyone mentions anything American in any thread, I could pop in and mention the closest comparable Japanese series.*

Or we could apply the same general rule and demand that all American things get confined to a single Ameritrash thread.

* Although basically all American animations look like fart jokes compared to ones like Mushishi, so there wouldn't be any point. y'all are welcome to your toilet humor animation age ghetto cartoons.

Challenge accepted!

Team America, World Police

Show me the Japanese analog!

(I mean this in a wry sort of way, but I do honestly wonder, with how honor-bound Japanese culture tends to be, if there is a sarcastic self-portrait about all the bad things about Japanese culture, like Team America is for US culture.)

[Reelya]

TV series are better for comparison purposes, because movies can be made that are complete outliers (i.e there's nothing in America that's really close to Team America). Although at a pinch I'd suggest

Cat Shit One (20 minutes, CGI)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrJk1qmthd4
Since it's got lots of guns and an anti-terrorist thing going.

EDIT: although if you want stuff that's the equivalent for Japanese culture in anime, they definitely exist, but they don't tend to be the comedy type like Team America. An example is Rainbow, which is about 7 youths confined to a juvenile prison in the early 1950s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2SJ2LZMfeM
... but that's hardly a comedy. A lot of satire in anime revolves around the school system and elitism, with low-ranking students being merely expelled, or killed in various ways, depending on the series.

Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei would be my pick. The main character is a teacher and the show parodies many aspects of Japanese society as seen through the eyes of the teacher who is a pessimist, and is constantly becoming depressed by what he's teaching and trying to commit suicide. The joke is that everything is shit and he's trying to kill himself. Can't get much more Japanese than that. There's one optimistic character in the series who acts as a foil to the "hero" but it turns out that

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

she was dead for the entire series but she was so optimistic that she didn't realize it and kept going to school. Parts of her organs were used as transplants into the other characters.

[wierd]

--

A thought just occurred to me.


Why aren't there any web-making sea creatures?  There are plenty of water-activated biopolymers in nature that could (at least in theory) evolve into a silk fiber analog. (Hagfish slime, et al.)

Considering the schooling behaviors of fish in coral reefs, and the potential for damn-near invisible "gel-webs", why are there no such predators?


....

[Ulfarr]

No solid explanation why there isn't such a creature but here are a couple of thoughs on the subject.

1) Boyancy would mess with the construction, at least until the stage it can be effectively anchored in the reefs.

2) Even if we were to assume silk like properties, most fish might be to large/strong to be captured in a web of "normal" thickness. Making a thicker web might be too energy consuming and it will make it easier to spot.

3) Due to their hydrodynamic forms it might be way too easy for most fish to push through the gaps in the web. Kind of like a needle going through fabric.

[Egan_BW]

We should engineer a web slinging octopus and see how it does. Evolution has failed, and we must intervene.

[Yoink]

* Although basically all American animations look like fart jokes compared to ones like Mushishi

I had to google what that was. Yeah, it's a dumpster fire, as expected.

[wierd]

No solid explanation why there isn't such a creature but here are a couple of thoughs on the subject.

1) Boyancy would mess with the construction, at least until the stage it can be effectively anchored in the reefs.

2) Even if we were to assume silk like properties, most fish might be to large/strong to be captured in a web of "normal" thickness. Making a thicker web might be too energy consuming and it will make it easier to spot.

3) Due to their hydrodynamic forms it might be way too easy for most fish to push through the gaps in the web. Kind of like a needle going through fabric.

With spiders, buoyancy is a feature, not a fault

I am thinking a more complex "reactive" structure than just monofilament found in spider webs.  We have a very strong polar solvent all around the structure that can be used to "inflate" it chemically once it is secreted by the creature.  So, say a combination of long support fiber, with axially branching short "sticky" fibers that absorb water on contact, which then fill in the gaps in the web, while still being free flowing in the water's currents.  (think a "bottle brush" like structure. When freshly secreted, the bristles lay flat against the fiber, so it is secreted easily by the creature-- but on exposure to water, integration of hydrogen bond pairs raises the bristles out, and activates the gel-coat on them, making them strongly adhesive, and transparent.)

[Reelya]

* Although basically all American animations look like fart jokes compared to ones like Mushishi

I had to google what that was. Yeah, it's a dumpster fire, as expected.

How exactly do you measure that

https://www.google.com/search?q=mushishi+images&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ACYBGNSVyGxN-G4p5G0qPCeSnact3IamDQ:1574668459429&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj32KaR8YTmAhVWbysKHYqdDlgQ_AUoAXoECAoQAw&biw=1772&bih=969

The artwork is gorgeous, it has a great soundtrack, the stories are enlightening.

Being generous, i'll assume you didn't look into it at all and are trolling, rather than that being an informed opinion. The biggest criticism of Mushishi is that it's too chill. But a cartoon being a bit too slow for some folks while have beautiful artwork and atmosphere hardly seems like it would be "dumpster fire" territory.

[wierd]

I have watched a few of that series.

the series concept is very Japan-- that's for sure.  Nicely animated, but the stories have glaring holes that make it hard to suspend disbelief.  [if the Mushi Men were a thing, like depicted, they would be ubiquitous, not obscura, given the prevelence of the Mushishi-- see for instnce, the Golden Saki episodes, where people get to actually see all the Mushishi that are out there.  Additionally, the lifespring thing-- theres serious chicken and egg things going on there. You would NEED a deus ex machina to settle into the current status quo of the Mushi Men assisting the flow's reguar eruptions, to prevent the stagnation of the flow, and resulting corrupt lifeforms. This kind of thing would be so ancient that human are "new" by comparison, so what was doing the mushimen's work before humanity? etc..]


if taken in the same vein as "attempting serious drama with bros Grimm tales" in western culture, and you dont look too closely, it meshes well with Edo period Yokai like story telling, which makes it familiar and enjoyable to a Japanese audience, but as stated, I find glring holes in the story framework.

[Ulfarr]

With spiders, buoyancy is a feature, not a fault

I am thinking a more complex "reactive" structure than just monofilament found in spider webs.  We have a very strong polar solvent all around the structure that can be used to "inflate" it chemically once it is secreted by the creature.  So, say a combination of long support fiber, with axially branching short "sticky" fibers that absorb water on contact, which then fill in the gaps in the web, while still being free flowing in the water's currents.  (think a "bottle brush" like structure. When freshly secreted, the bristles lay flat against the fiber, so it is secreted easily by the creature-- but on exposure to water, integration of hydrogen bond pairs raises the bristles out, and activates the gel-coat on them, making them strongly adhesive, and transparent.)

Complex indeed.  What you describe sounds similar, in shape at least, to some corrals/sponges, maybe structures like this need a more solid construction in order to function than what a deployable "web" would allow.

[Reelya]

I have watched a few of that series.

the series concept is very Japan-- that's for sure.  Nicely animated, but the stories have glaring holes that make it hard to suspend disbelief.  [if the Mushi Men were a thing, like depicted, they would be ubiquitous, not obscura, given the prevelence of the Mushishi-- see for instnce, the Golden Saki episodes, where people get to actually see all the Mushishi that are out there.  Additionally, the lifespring thing-- theres serious chicken and egg things going on there. You would NEED a deus ex machina to settle into the current status quo of the Mushi Men assisting the flow's reguar eruptions, to prevent the stagnation of the flow, and resulting corrupt lifeforms. This kind of thing would be so ancient that human are "new" by comparison, so what was doing the mushimen's work before humanity? etc..]

You're confusing me because you're using the terminology wrong. Mushi are the lifeforms. Mushishi are the experts who investigate the phenomena.

I don't think that there should necessarily be more experts in mushi just because you point out how many mushi there are floating around. Almost all strains of mushi don't interact with humans, so they're irrelevant. The experts focus on ones that are a problem, which is a tiny amount. This isn't a plot-hole. Most mushi are ubiquitous, but also completely harmless.

As for occasional flare-ups as you describe, nobody had to be doing the mushishi's job before them. They're aware of the Bad Thing which will happen if they don't intervene, which means they must have records of the Bad Thing happening previously in history. Which implies that it's a type of natural disaster that flares up occasionally, but can be mitigated, rather than an "end of the world" scenario.

[wierd]

the translation I watched [subs, as intended] was kinda not the best.  It had "mushi" translate as "misshapen spirit", but imho, a better one would be "formless spirit". [iirc, 'Mu' in this capacity is 'void, empty, without substance', with 'shi' being 'spirit, ghost, or similar being'] Perhaps 'incorporeal beings', since the entities in question have a fixed and consistent perceptual nature [eg, if you are naturally able to see them, you can identify them by appearance, even if you cannot interact with them meaningfully--likewise people who drink the golden sake can see them, and should be able to give reliable descriptions. This means they have "form", but lack corporeation-- they are not physical beings.] "Mushishi" seems redundant in the use of shi. maybe I am just mistaken. [shrug]

the series translates the experts as "mushi men". I was confused, because I kept listening for --tachi, but never heard it.  It could be wordplay that the experts are themselves supernatural beings, just ones that do have a corporeal form. [no spoilers about the protag. Just this shoutout- he's not quite normal. ] That might explain why the villagers that strangely do know about these experts treat them suspiciously/nervously.

as for the "sheer numbers" statement, I meant it in the sense that 'even if only 1% cauxe trouble, the fat that no matter where you look, you will find them, and in large numbers, means interactions will be frequent enough that the experts will be well known and consulted regularly."  see western parallel with Germanic Volva.  Instead, these experts are instead themselves obscural in their presentation-- only really old people know about them, and almost universally speak poorly of them, which seems really odd to me.

[Reelya]

as for the "sheer numbers" statement, I meant it in the sense that 'even if only 1% cauxe trouble, the fat that no matter where you look, you will find them, and in large numbers, means interactions will be frequent enough that the experts will be well known and consulted regularly."  see western parallel with Germanic Volva.  Instead, these experts are instead themselves obscural in their presentation-- only really old people know about them, and almost universally speak poorly of them, which seems really odd to me.

Well this doesn't really necessarily hold up. If only certain types are problematic, then it doesn't matter how frequent the interactions are with non-problematic types. The only thing that matters is the frequency of interaction with the bad types.

As for people not liking the mushishi, that's not really a plot hole. You go to some rural village, you claim to know things they don't, you only go there when there's some sort of mysterious plague or illness. Maybe you're just there to help, but it's not hard to see how villagers might not like your presence.