Absolutely Tasty Tapioca

・Streaming / Download on MEGA: Absolutely Tasty – Tapioca
・Streaming on VK: Absolutely Tasty – Tapioca

Again, this episode wouldn’t be online if it wasn’t for RIDDELL‘s amazing typeset (& QC!). So before anything else, here’s yet another huge THANK YOU for your work!
Today’s episode is the latest one from the popular Absolutely Tasty series, which is (together with Limits, Silent Library and Kiki) one of the first Gaki no Tsukai series I discovered back then in twothousand… something I don’t remember I don’t even know what year am I in right now to be honest (I think I’m still in 2016, mentally speaking).
Anyway, it’s an absolute (pun intended?) honor to translate an episode from this series, it feels like a milestone for this website and I’m proud of its result.
What’s tapioca? Boring answer is “a starch extracted from the storage roots of the cassava plant” (wikipedia), fun answer is “those shiny balls drowned inside cold tea”. Here in Italy, there’s always been “tapioca” around in stores, and we call it “bubble tea”. Last year there has been a huge boom of “tapioca” (they use this term to refer to “bubble tea”, not the starch itself) in Japan, and I hated the hell out of it (I lived in Japan right in the middle of it).
What can our beloved Gaki members create with the tapioca pearls? Something edible? Some weird horror movie creature? Some fun theme park attraction? Watch this episode and find it out! And if you have time, I suggest you to read the following

Notes:

– First off, I only translated some of the on-screen boxes, only those which add important info not said by the narrator. Untranslated ones are 85% same as narrator voice and 15% description of what you’re looking at (ex. “X adds the tapioca inside the frying pan” etc.). I also added few upper notes to quickly explain few dishes / names of food as they’re displayed / refered to.
– 1:09 Matsumoto says the verb “tapiru”, which is (god I hate this so much) the way young people in Japan refers to “drinking tapioca”. They made a verb out of it. 腹立つわぁー。
– 1:30 Hirunandesu is a variety show running since 2011 on NTV, with Endo Shozo as one of the regular cast members; it focuses on popular places, fashion and reviews.
– 10:33 Yamazaki is talking about the “texture (shokkan) of the buns”, but then he gets confused and says “shoppan” instead, which is a shortened phrasing of the word “shoku-pan”, meaning “bread”.
– 13:07 Chad Mullane is a australian-born comedian who got really popular in Japan. Don’t know what Matsumoto is refering too, could be a recurring gag of him, some personal experience or just a joke. Wikipedia’s entry.
– 14:29 Matsumoto is refering to the tabletop game “Bellz“, which they played on the latest Let’s Play With Tabletop Games From Around The World series episode (which has been subbed by someone else).
– 21:40 “Sworn enemies, same boat” (呉越同舟) is a yoji-jukugo (4 kanji compound) sentence in japanese. Those are always hard to translate in other languages, but the meaning is pretty much that. It’s used to refer a situation in which two things which are in conflict between them are forced to be together in a same environment / situation.
– As explained on an inside note, the last “dish” Matsumoto prepares is a variant of the popular nagashi-somen way of eating noodles. Read more on this article by japan experience.

And that’s it for today, I hope you enjoyed this episode! I hope there’ll be more episode in the future, but I also hope the outside world returns normal soon. Those things could be… 呉越同舟, you know. But still, we’ll catch up soon. Smash that mofo like button on FB page or follow me on twitter so you won’t miss any update! Stay safe, stay absolutely tasty.

Info:

episode #1489, aired 2020/01/19