The Mazingering Vibrator and other kinds of Easter eggs

Haha. A 55th anniversary edition of Mazinger Z needs a truckload of references to the most popular of fellow old Shōnen stories, pre-Shōnen Jump. 

Easter eggs are not as obvious, but are somewhat integral to the metafictional tale due to giving it a mild resemblance to actual real life. This includes a lot of mundane housewares and some references from pop cultural icons of long ago. 

A list of references to seminal films, books, comics and tv shows will be here. 

Korosuke Cub
Shiro was reading some vintage manga books featuring a bear cub (likely Sanpei Yoshimoto and Masao Haga’s Korosuke Cub in all but name) at the school library. 
Shiro and his friends later watch a parody movie, mashing up Korosuke Cub with a more famous young adult novella (likely Sheila Burnford’s The Incredible Journey). As its summary suggests, Korosuke Cub (nicknamed Kori), his friends and their teachers are stranded in a subtropical Taiwanese location, the Dong Yan Shan mountains. 

The Boy Champion
Kōji and Shiro read light novels and mangas of a fantasy series (likely Sōji Yamakawa’s The Wild Fisted Champion in all but name), about a foundling (likely the youngest child of treasure smugglers) travelling through various wildlife habitats until freeing his birth parents from prison, resulting in him coming back to his adoptive homeland, the Itombwe rainforest, before finally leaving it for Brazil. 
Kōji and his friends watch a bizarre tv/web series, which is based on a Kamishibai/light novel series resembling Sōji Yamakawa’s adventure fantasy. 

Kenya Boy
Shiro reads a Bildungsroman series (likely Kenya Boy in the style of Cyborg 009) at the library. 
Boss Barkley watches an anime adaptation of said Bildungsroman series. 

The Incredible Journey
Megara reads a book resembling The Incredible Journey and imagines its heroes (likely Tao, Bodger and Luath with different names attached) as southeast Scottish ruffians who speak as if they cuss around. 
Shiro hums to a song resembling Simon and Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound while reading the same book that Megara had seen before. 
Megara watches a mostly faithful Shōnen anime adaptation of a book resembling Sheila Burnford’s masterpiece, focusing on its three furry heroes. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kenya Boy and its complicated relationship with Queerness

Tarzan in Hispanic and Philippine Musicals

Here come the Robots!