Obscure Adventures in Geek and Nerd Culture

Channel K, otherwise a popular tv station in military controlled Myanmar, has its own festival teleplay show, ‘A Drama I don't want to forget’, which has gotten a bizarre reimagining of the Broadway Tarzan musical in its first season.  Two of the actors known to regular Burmese theatre goers are Myo Shwe Mann and Ko Po Chit (Tar Phoe Chit), who starred in such a frankly crazy early episode of this teleplay show.  It is a frankly entertaining experience.

The Kusube Lineage  Kusube School (Kusube Rockabillies)  Daikichiro Kusube > Norimoto Tokura Yusaku Sakamoto > Naotoshi Shida *Oddly enough, Sakamoto and Kusube did do occasional work at Toei Animation at two points in their lives, whereas Shida and Tokura occasionally work somehow more so at the same company. Thus, Dezaki and both fellow animators are linked together more so than we think, resulting in an explosion of highly experimental animators decades later. Kusube on the other hand, is more related to Shida in terms of effects, while Sakamoto’s style remained more similar to Norimoto Tokura’s. All of them remain unique animators either way, it’s just that those two have become quite more well known internationally than their seniors.  Hisashi Mori School Osamu Dezaki > Hisashi Mori (aka Hisashi Nakayama) Hironori Tanaka  Ryo Imamura  *Hisashi Mori’s school remains the animation school somehow closest to Osamu Dezaki’s overall legacy. It’s so unner...

Vlaamse Filmpjes, the modernisation of postwar period Vlaamse Filmkens, remains a much longer runner than its predecessor’s Francophone spinoff Presto Films. It’s pretty telling when Presto Films’ sole major claim to fame is perhaps Jean Ray’s Hirro the Jungle Boy, which is basically a Tarzanesque shipwreck story cashing in on the Jungle Book expy trend.  The first postwar period is known for tropical stories which not just have felt too colonialist even for the 1960s, but are often offensive to almost everyone involved except for grandparents who vote for hyper corrupt politicians regardless of any political wing. Nonetheless, there is a good reason why even it evolved positively from featuring such boring, stodgy colonialist stories into darker and edgier, also more mindful, weekly Shōnen Magazine style contemporary stories. But that was before the third period has now become a mild Shōnen Jump style Mecca for Flemish school stories and fantasies from the early 2000s onward....

To put into context, Konkani Tiatr as both a (largely) coastal south-central Indian phenomenon and a diasporic phenomenon has inspirations not just in Portuguese Teatro plays but also in Tamil Kattaikkuttu plays, British Pantomimes, Parsi theatre plays, and mid-northern Indian Nautankis.  People, wake up! The Goan Konkani Tarzan Musical is (in fact) a rather goofy Tiatr classic from Goa in southwestern India. More deserving of the dubious title than the short lived T.Zee project or even the slightly later, yet somehow more faithful Douglas Ballantine musical, it’s safe to say that such a Konkani Teatr classic is perhaps the first and oldest known significant musical take on the Tarzan character to date.  It most likely debuted in the mid 1970s (I think 1974-75 are good choices, though not without shortcomings) and still has starred a load of actors (who are mainly known in the Goan diaspora) throughout the decades of its existence. Though still a fun revival in its own right, ...

It shall be noted that Barumba is himself historically unsung outside of Japan, especially because his author inspired the late and great Akira Toriyama of all people.  It’s safe to assume that a Hakusensha edition of both series will be made possible, since not only was even basic level accurate research much less available in the Cold War than it is now, but also because many older versions of both series (in which he appears) are all gigantic cliche storms, even by Showa standards.  The franchise is canonically going to be renamed Barumba land after a proposed sequel series.  In the sequel series, Barumba himself has 3 sons and 3 daughters, who all look pretty different from him aside from their beauty. 

To take a look at hair in the various postwar decades throughout much of the world, I am covering Japanese hairstyles first.  Hime cuts  Modern Hime cuts are probably the longest running hair trend in Japanese history. They might’ve begun their lives in the late 1960s, until taking a major stride from the early 1970s onwards. Such cuts of both the first and second generations come in many sizes.  In other words, Megumi Asaoka is the one big Japanese talent who has spawned a generation of curtained haircuts! Her trademark hairstyle, the Megumi cut, codified the hime cut family revival in the first place.  People have indirectly been imitating and doing Hime cuts or any relative thereof since the 1970s thanks to Asaoka herself and the more workout friendly Saori Minami.  The Saori cut, which defined Minami’s early career, does have rarely seen medium size front bangs, but has otherwise been popularised internationally by Chichi in both Dragon Ball and at least ear...