Latest / Ridiculous History / Japan is Overrun By Raccoons Entirely Due to a Single Cartoon
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
- 0:27Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
- 0:31Speaker 1: much for tuning in Kenichiwa. We might say hello, welcome
- 0:36Speaker 1: to Tanuki Tanuki. I love it, dude, I love a Tanuki.
- 0:41Speaker 1: That's our falls of Steel, that's our super producer, mister
- 0:45Speaker 1: Max Williams.
- 0:48Speaker 2: Is that that's not a me as zaki, but it's
- 0:50Speaker 2: a ghibli. And there is about a family of raccoons
- 0:54Speaker 2: that use their giant testicles as implements of magic.
- 1:00Speaker 1: I don't know how else to describe it. It's true,
- 1:02Speaker 1: it's old it's old school Japanese folklore as well. You're
- 1:06Speaker 1: Noel Brown, I'm Ben Bowling, and we are we are
- 1:11Speaker 1: talking to Nuki right now. For this episode, we're going
- 1:15Speaker 1: to be talking raccoons because, as you may know, folks,
- 1:20Speaker 1: Fella Ridiculous Historians, there is a bit of mischaracterization and
- 1:25Speaker 1: assassin character assassination afoot when we come to the humble
- 1:30Speaker 1: and ever cute Tanuki.
- 1:33Speaker 2: I don't know about this. Are we talking because they
- 1:35Speaker 2: have creepy human hands? Because they're characterized as being verminous
- 1:40Speaker 2: bandits of some sort? We are we talking here, Ben,
- 1:43Speaker 2: tell me of this malign How dare they malign the
- 1:45Speaker 2: raccoon community.
- 1:46Speaker 1: I love the idea of a singular malaid. Tell me
- 1:49Speaker 1: of your maligny, mal So this is the deal. Think
- 1:54Speaker 1: of it this way, folks. If you had let's say
- 1:57Speaker 1: you ad a twin brother, right, since we're all dudes,
- 2:01Speaker 1: you have a twin brother, and you are an upstanding
- 2:04Speaker 1: citizen in your neck of the woods. But your twin
- 2:07Speaker 1: brother is an absolute menace, and you get in trouble
- 2:12Speaker 1: for a lot of the stuff your twin did even
- 2:15Speaker 1: though you were not your twin. That is the story
- 2:18Speaker 1: of the raccoon and the Tanuki in Japan.
- 2:21Speaker 3: This sounds like a fable of sorts set up.
- 2:25Speaker 4: Yeah, what are you talking about? Is Thomas Riker versus
- 2:27Speaker 4: William Riker?
- 2:28Speaker 1: Oh nice, nice cut there, man. I like that as well. Yeah,
- 2:32Speaker 1: that's a deeper startark cut. Yeah. Yeah, let's boldly go
- 2:36Speaker 1: into this story. Guys. We're all from the United States,
- 2:49Speaker 1: which is a pretty I'm gonna be diplomatic, a pretty
- 2:54Speaker 1: big deal. Still hasn't had the best time being has
- 3:00Speaker 1: had the best reputation all the while, all the time,
- 3:03Speaker 1: we know that, but no person, no country or perfect,
- 3:06Speaker 1: but no, when you were growing up, a young lad
- 3:12Speaker 1: is a small German by a small German American boy
- 3:16Speaker 1: by this point the.
- 3:17Speaker 3: Way, look at this guy. Yeah, this is my small
- 3:20Speaker 3: German boys missing out a limb. But this is me.
- 3:23Speaker 1: I wish y'all could see this.
- 3:24Speaker 3: It's a little Rosie figurine rosie cheeks a little little
- 3:29Speaker 3: bit arians and he's wearing later hosen and has a
- 3:32Speaker 3: key of some sort.
- 3:33Speaker 2: Of round, isn't I think it was a gift to
- 3:35Speaker 2: me from a trip that my kid took to Portland.
- 3:37Speaker 1: Heart shaped keys. So, okay, you're you're growing up in
- 3:41Speaker 1: you're growing up in the southern part of the US.
- 3:45Speaker 1: Did you guys ever see raccoons?
- 3:48Speaker 3: You know?
- 3:48Speaker 2: I had a friend growing up whose name was shell
- 3:50Speaker 2: Is Sheldon. We're still friends. And his parents were real
- 3:55Speaker 2: animal lovers and kind of conservationists. They worked in labs
- 3:59Speaker 2: and they, like you know, work with wildlife, and they
- 4:01Speaker 2: had a pat.
- 4:03Speaker 3: Raccoon at Taine. Was my exposure.
- 4:07Speaker 2: I don't know that I really ran across any in
- 4:10Speaker 2: the wild, but as an adult living here in Atlanta,
- 4:12Speaker 2: you certainly see him rummaging your rumblings, rummage around.
- 4:19Speaker 1: I love to see a raccoon run quickly because they
- 4:22Speaker 1: don't look like they're designed to do so. But they
- 4:24Speaker 1: have the goofiest looking parkour and they're just adorable.
- 4:29Speaker 2: I'll tell you where. It's huge these days, and the
- 4:30Speaker 2: most of my raccoon exposure is from meme pages on
- 4:34Speaker 2: oh yeah, in the internet, on Instagram. They are beloved
- 4:36Speaker 2: and there's so many delightful raccoon goofy raccoon meme pages.
- 4:41Speaker 2: If you're in.
- 4:41Speaker 1: Washing your hands, just getting into all kinds of little
- 4:46Speaker 1: misadventures before you give it, yes Skins, ne'er do wells,
- 4:50Speaker 1: Dennis the Menace types. So before I give a little
- 4:54Speaker 1: anecdote about raccoon experiences in my old life, we've got
- 4:59Speaker 1: We've got none other then mister Max Williams here, who
- 5:01Speaker 1: may have a story to tell.
- 5:03Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a few years ago now, but it was
- 5:06Speaker 4: like one night, my cat, Sylvia was sitting by the
- 5:08Speaker 4: glass door, just like looking out, you know cats do,
- 5:12Speaker 4: and a raccoon just like sat right next to her
- 5:15Speaker 4: on the other side. And the raccoon was very well
- 5:17Speaker 4: aware there's a glass between us. The raccoons like whatever
- 5:20Speaker 4: Sylvia was not and Sylvia, you know, she's solid white fur.
- 5:24Speaker 4: So she just I look over and see the giant
- 5:25Speaker 4: cotton ball. I'm like, Sylvie, wait, oh, there's a raccoon
- 5:28Speaker 4: right there. And the raccoons like, I'm a lot bigger
- 5:30Speaker 4: than you.
- 5:31Speaker 1: You want to go? You want to go?
- 5:33Speaker 3: The glass between us?
- 5:34Speaker 1: We can go. They can be chonky boys, for sure,
- 5:36Speaker 1: the raccoons.
- 5:38Speaker 4: This was a quite chonky one too.
- 5:40Speaker 1: I remember growing up in the Southeastern United States. I
- 5:45Speaker 1: spent a lot of time outdoors in my childhood, and
- 5:48Speaker 1: raccoons always, to me seemed so inquisitive and clever. You know,
- 5:53Speaker 1: they washed their food before they eat it. And we
- 5:57Speaker 1: were talking about their little hands off air.
- 6:00Speaker 3: They like to keep those clean too.
- 6:02Speaker 2: They're always rubbing them together, and it does make them
- 6:04Speaker 2: look a little bit mister Burns esque, but they are
- 6:06Speaker 2: doing it out of a need for cleanliness. They've got
- 6:09Speaker 2: in good hygiene. To your point, Ben, unfairly maligned is
- 6:13Speaker 2: like trash creatures.
- 6:15Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, But they do eat trash to be cle
- 6:17Speaker 1: that's also true. That's also true. They also do eat
- 6:20Speaker 1: a lot of trash. I love when they rub their
- 6:22Speaker 1: hands together because they look like they're scheming what we're
- 6:25Speaker 1: saying is raccoons are not uncommon sight in many parts
- 6:29Speaker 1: of the United States and across the country. If you
- 6:32Speaker 1: are in the US, you have probably accepted these little
- 6:36Speaker 1: rascals as a fascinating part of the natural world because
- 6:40Speaker 1: they're they've got pinashed, they're just sort of We did
- 6:43Speaker 1: an episode on what makes things cool recently on Stuff
- 6:48Speaker 1: they Don't Want You to Know, And raccoons are kind
- 6:51Speaker 1: of cool, right they are.
- 6:53Speaker 2: They're very cool. They got a lot of personality. They Yeah,
- 6:57Speaker 2: that's what it is. They I think they're they're so
- 7:00Speaker 2: big on the internet is because of that copious amounts
- 7:04Speaker 2: of personality that the little fellas have.
- 7:06Speaker 1: Yeah, and we anthropomorphize the heck out of them, right,
- 7:10Speaker 1: because of that personality, that sass and that swag. Yet,
- 7:14Speaker 1: it may surprise a lot of us to learn their
- 7:16Speaker 1: relatively positive reputation in the United States doesn't always translate
- 7:21Speaker 1: to other places, including Japan, where right now, as we record,
- 7:26Speaker 1: raccoons are a very divisive life form. They're considered they
- 7:31Speaker 1: are still considered cool by a lot of the public,
- 7:34Speaker 1: but the government doesn't think of them as a nifty
- 7:37Speaker 1: little woodland scamp. They are seriously concerning invasive species. As
- 7:44Speaker 1: we record right now, raccoons are wreaking havoc across the
- 7:49Speaker 1: nation of Japan. And get this, folks, it's all due
- 7:53Speaker 1: to one cartoon.
- 7:55Speaker 3: Oh geez, which one.
- 7:58Speaker 1: It's Rascal. It's a cartoon about a raccoon. Now I
- 8:04Speaker 1: go on a tick. You might be saying, hasn't Japan
- 8:07Speaker 1: always had raccoons? Why were nol and Max and Ben
- 8:11Speaker 1: able to get that kick ass power suit in Super
- 8:14Speaker 1: Mario THREEI Mario Tanuki Mario. There's also the one that
- 8:19Speaker 1: just gives you the ability to kind of float where
- 8:21Speaker 1: you're still Mario, but you.
- 8:22Speaker 3: Have a tail.
- 8:23Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
- 8:24Speaker 2: It just sort of like beats the air back and forth,
- 8:27Speaker 2: and it allows you to sort of float around.
- 8:29Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Mario three tail flip move.
- 8:31Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it's this gets us to our first
- 8:35Speaker 1: common misconception, and this might be surprising to a lot
- 8:38Speaker 1: of us. Japan does have a native mammal that looks
- 8:43Speaker 1: a whole heck of a lot like a raccoon. That's
- 8:45Speaker 1: the tanuki uh commonly known as the Japanese raccoon.
- 8:51Speaker 3: Dog m okay.
- 8:54Speaker 2: They are endemic to Japan, and they, as we mentioned
- 8:57Speaker 2: earlier with the giant, the testicleed cartoon ghibli characters. They're
- 9:03Speaker 2: big in Japanese folklore, similar to how other cultures regard
- 9:08Speaker 2: actual raccoons. The tanuki is seen as the sort of
- 9:12Speaker 2: mischievous king, puckish trickster type figure, a master of disguise,
- 9:17Speaker 2: and a real Bachanalian kind of fellow.
- 9:20Speaker 1: Right yeah, lover of good times. We pulled up in
- 9:24Speaker 1: our research just just for reference for us, a side
- 9:28Speaker 1: by side look at the tanuki and the actual facts
- 9:32Speaker 1: shout out law and vocal bomb raccoon, and they look
- 9:36Speaker 1: so alike Noel, that I would argue if someone made
- 9:39Speaker 1: a police sketch of a raccoon criminal, the cops would
- 9:43Speaker 1: probably end up profiling and arresting an innocent tanuki.
- 9:48Speaker 3: I mean, hence your twin ref earlier. I think it
- 9:52Speaker 3: makes a lot of sense they do.
- 9:53Speaker 2: They both have those dark kind of shaded circles around
- 9:57Speaker 2: their eyes. They both have ears that are approximately the
- 10:01Speaker 2: same distance apart. They've got kind of little puffs tufts
- 10:04Speaker 2: of white hair, the same kind of patterns of color.
- 10:09Speaker 2: I would argue the tanuki is a little more hound like,
- 10:13Speaker 2: with the snout a little more elongated snout and the raccoon.
- 10:18Speaker 2: Raccoon has a little bit more of a squished face,
- 10:21Speaker 2: such a little wider face, a little more distance between
- 10:24Speaker 2: the eyes, but the color patterns very similar if you
- 10:28Speaker 2: ignore the whiskers.
- 10:30Speaker 1: And this is the thing. The Japanese raccoon dog, the
- 10:35Speaker 1: tanuki is not an actual raccoon. The raccoon and the
- 10:39Speaker 1: raccoon dog or actually not that closely related. Japan had
- 10:45Speaker 1: tanuki forever. Japan did not have the raccoon until the
- 10:49Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and when the raccoon did reach the shores
- 10:53Speaker 1: of that country, things got nuts so quickly. But how,
- 10:58Speaker 1: pray tell no, how on earth did raccoons make it
- 11:03Speaker 1: all the way across the Pacific Ocean from the United
- 11:06Speaker 1: States to the nation of the Rising Sun. Well clearly
- 11:10Speaker 1: they flew with their magical raccoon tale, of course, yes,
- 11:14Speaker 1: and that's our episode of folks. Theakes has always so
- 11:17Speaker 1: much for tuning.
- 11:17Speaker 3: In yep, no, no, no, no.
- 11:26Speaker 2: It starts right before the seventies, nineteen seventies, with a
- 11:28Speaker 2: Wisconsin worn author named Sterling North. In nineteen sixty three,
- 11:32Speaker 2: North wrote a young adult novel called Rascals, A Memoir
- 11:36Speaker 2: of a Better Era about his childhood, and in that
- 11:40Speaker 2: book he adopts a baby raccoon for one year. And
- 11:44Speaker 2: the book was a huge smash when it came out.
- 11:47Speaker 2: And admittedly I was not aware of this this work.
- 11:51Speaker 1: Hey, same and Max, had you ever heard of this
- 11:55Speaker 1: as well?
- 11:56Speaker 4: No, I had not heard of this one myself. So yeah,
- 11:59Speaker 4: this is all new news.
- 12:01Speaker 1: Yeah, this is strange because for us, we're not of
- 12:05Speaker 1: the generation that would have encountered Rascal the young adult novel.
- 12:12Speaker 1: In the book, as he said, he adopts our protagonist
- 12:16Speaker 1: sterly and adopts a baby raccoon for a year, And
- 12:19Speaker 1: a lot of us might be surprised in the audience,
- 12:22Speaker 1: especially the younger amongst us, to realize that this is
- 12:26Speaker 1: part of the reason people in America still frequently describe
- 12:31Speaker 1: raccoons as rascals. Look, this was such a big hit
- 12:36Speaker 1: that The Tale After was published in nineteen sixty three.
- 12:41Speaker 1: By nineteen sixty nine, it was made into a live
- 12:45Speaker 1: action Disney film. I don't know if the mouse will
- 12:48Speaker 1: let us play the theme song, but it's very nineteen seventies.
- 12:52Speaker 2: We better act in deference to the mouse. You know,
- 12:55Speaker 2: we don't want to get We don't want to get sued.
- 12:57Speaker 1: We don't want to get moused. Yeah, so you can
- 13:01Speaker 1: fast trapped, even mouse trapped. Even better, so you can
- 13:04Speaker 1: find on your YouTube of choice any number of clips
- 13:09Speaker 1: from the live action Disney adaptation. At this time, this
- 13:13Speaker 1: is all great for our author, mister North, and it's
- 13:17Speaker 1: also great for kids growing up, both the readers of
- 13:20Speaker 1: the original book the fans of the film adaptation. Yet
- 13:23Speaker 1: this is just the beginning of the story. If we
- 13:27Speaker 1: like we're starting in America, how about we fast forward
- 13:31Speaker 1: to nineteen seventy seven Japan.
- 13:37Speaker 3: So here we are, fast forward into nineteen seventy We
- 13:39Speaker 3: did it. We made Yeah.
- 13:42Speaker 2: The Japan based animation company Nipon Animation creates a cartoon
- 13:47Speaker 2: series called aria Guma Rasukaru.
- 13:52Speaker 3: Which isn't that kind of one.
- 13:53Speaker 2: Of those Japanese sort of americanized words, because the word
- 13:59Speaker 2: is rascal. Rasukara almost sounds like a phonetic kind of thing.
- 14:04Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I like that. I think you're onto something.
- 14:07Speaker 3: Rascal the raccoon is that would be the translation.
- 14:10Speaker 1: Yeah, And unlike the young adult novel, unlike the I'm laughing,
- 14:16Speaker 1: unlike the Disney film, Oh my gosh, it's so it's
- 14:20Speaker 1: so of its era. Please just please check out the
- 14:23Speaker 1: Disney film, even if the mouse won't let us do it.
- 14:26Speaker 1: Unlike those things, this is an epic anime series. It
- 14:30Speaker 1: runs for fifty two episodes. The Disney film tried to
- 14:36Speaker 1: be a little more playful. There are lots of bucolic
- 14:40Speaker 1: fun shots of this boy and his dog playing with
- 14:43Speaker 1: the raccoon, But this adaptation says, no, we're gonna cut
- 14:48Speaker 1: to the quick. We're getting to the dramatic roots of
- 14:51Speaker 1: this young adult novel.
- 14:53Speaker 3: Okay okay.
- 14:53Speaker 2: So kids in Japan, originally this was kind of alien
- 14:57Speaker 2: to them, this creature. They certainly never read the original book.
- 15:02Speaker 2: But something about the kid featured named sterling Uh and
- 15:07Speaker 2: his animal sidekick is familiar. Rascal it It really took
- 15:13Speaker 2: the the nation's children's hearts and minds by storm.
- 15:18Speaker 3: Airing all year round, the show was a huge hit.
- 15:22Speaker 2: Think of it like almost a precedent setting the type
- 15:27Speaker 2: of property for something like Pokemon or other big pop
- 15:31Speaker 2: cultural crazes there in the country.
- 15:33Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, people were cuckoo for raccoon puffs. I guess
- 15:39Speaker 1: you could.
- 15:39Speaker 3: Says there were rococo.
- 15:44Speaker 1: So uh. This is where we see a turn in
- 15:48Speaker 1: the story because arguably Ari Russell Power became a little
- 15:53Speaker 1: too successful, And to tell you why it became too successful,
- 15:57Speaker 1: we have to spoil a book from thenineteen sixty three.
- 16:01Speaker 1: So before you get mad at us on the internet,
- 16:05Speaker 1: this is the spoiler warning.
- 16:13Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, we'll give you a little ten second countdown
- 16:16Speaker 3: ten ninety seven fourth or two spoiler time time.
- 16:20Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Like like so many coming of age stories
- 16:24Speaker 1: in young adult novels, from Old Yeller to My Side
- 16:28Speaker 1: of the Mountain.
- 16:29Speaker 3: No, racl didn't get Old Yeller, did he.
- 16:32Speaker 1: He did not get Old Yellow.
- 16:33Speaker 3: Oh thank god.
- 16:34Speaker 1: So at the end of the novel, what happens instead
- 16:37Speaker 1: is our childhood hero Sterling realizes, Hey, I love my raccoon.
- 16:43Speaker 1: I love baby Rascal, but all raccoons are in fact
- 16:47Speaker 1: wild animals, not domestic animals. So as much as I
- 16:51Speaker 1: adore my little buddy, he isn't a pet. And so
- 16:56Speaker 1: with great regrets.
- 16:57Speaker 3: You gotta let those ponies run, you gotta.
- 16:58Speaker 1: Let those ponies ride. Yeah, ye, Sterling ultimately does the
- 17:02Speaker 1: right thing. He releases Rascal into the wild, so it's
- 17:06Speaker 1: definitely not as bleak as Old Yeller, which we're not
- 17:09Speaker 1: gonna spoil because.
- 17:11Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's you. You can tet you together, you
- 17:14Speaker 3: probably get there.
- 17:14Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, and it's still too close to both
- 17:18Speaker 1: of us, it sounds like. But the ending of Rascal
- 17:22Speaker 1: is bittersweet, and it's it's a good way to give
- 17:25Speaker 1: a lesson to kids. It shows our protagonists growing up
- 17:28Speaker 1: in the story. He learns his lesson, He loves his
- 17:32Speaker 1: time with Rascal, and he lets Rascal live his own
- 17:35Speaker 1: life as a wild animal.
- 17:37Speaker 2: And what, however, appear to the children of the pan
- 17:39Speaker 2: did not take the meaning or the message. It's d
- 17:42Speaker 2: art no, it's that led to an explosion in raccoon
- 17:48Speaker 2: importation for pet purposes.
- 17:51Speaker 1: Right, It's kind of like uh if. A film critic
- 17:55Speaker 1: saw the first twenty minutes of Titanic and said, this
- 17:58Speaker 1: is a film about it. A amazing boat.
- 18:02Speaker 3: Real luxury liner.
- 18:04Speaker 1: So requiem for a dreams of feel good buddy comedy.
- 18:11Speaker 1: It's about friends.
- 18:12Speaker 2: It's about the friends we made along the way and
- 18:15Speaker 2: the limbs we lost.
- 18:16Speaker 1: Oh jeez, So all right, you're absolutely right, folks nailed
- 18:20Speaker 1: it here are Raskoru was so very popular in Japan
- 18:27Speaker 1: that the idea of having a real life raccoon pet
- 18:32Speaker 1: became like the hottest Christmas toy would be in the
- 18:35Speaker 1: States like an Elmo of yesterday.
- 18:38Speaker 2: Yeah, and this led to fifteen hundred raccoons being imported
- 18:44Speaker 2: from the United States every single month, to the delight
- 18:50Speaker 2: of children and perhaps the chagrin of parents all across Japan.
- 18:54Speaker 2: And just like the real life Rasukaru or Rascal, these
- 18:58Speaker 2: animals were very.
- 19:00Speaker 3: Much not suited for domestic life.
- 19:03Speaker 2: I want to backtrack real quick to my friends parents,
- 19:05Speaker 2: pet raccoon theirs was very much a rescue situation, right,
- 19:09Speaker 2: which could not have made it on its own in
- 19:12Speaker 2: the wild. So that was they were coming at it
- 19:14Speaker 2: from that conservationist perspective.
- 19:16Speaker 1: It was probably acquired as a child, perhaps due to abandonment,
- 19:20Speaker 1: and it was tame and familiar, possibly through the Yeah
- 19:24Speaker 1: their research, Yeah, yeah, exactly, that makes sense, and that
- 19:28Speaker 1: still happens today across the country. As as you were saying, no,
- 19:32Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy seven on, we see so many raccoons
- 19:39Speaker 1: imported directly from the US to families across Japan per month.
- 19:44Speaker 1: These guys are lovable, furry balls of beat me here, Max,
- 19:51Speaker 1: fucking chaos, no cabinet, no drawer left unexamined, pooping everywhere.
- 19:57Speaker 2: Massive, they've got opposable thumbs. They can anything right, right.
- 20:02Speaker 1: You would have to babyproof. You would have to raccoon
- 20:05Speaker 1: proof your house the same way you would babyproof a house.
- 20:09Speaker 1: And there's so much damage to these homes, this property,
- 20:13Speaker 1: these apartments. True stories, some families did get raccoon pets
- 20:18Speaker 1: in their apartments. And also just like the old Vietnamese
- 20:23Speaker 1: pot belly pig craze where everybody thought the pig would
- 20:27Speaker 1: say small and babyish for a moment, these guys do
- 20:32Speaker 1: grow up and they get bigger, and as they become
- 20:35Speaker 1: adult raccoons, they could also turn violent towards humans because
- 20:40Speaker 1: you know, they're wild animals and they're in a place
- 20:43Speaker 1: that is very stressfully different from their natural environment. So, dude,
- 20:48Speaker 1: just like Sterling North as a child, these kids and
- 20:52Speaker 1: their families are learning a hard lesson about wild animals
- 20:56Speaker 1: in your home.
- 20:57Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not quite as bad as like justin Bier
- 21:00Speaker 2: we were abandoning his pet monkey at the border, but
- 21:02Speaker 2: it happens.
- 21:03Speaker 3: In It did happen. It's in the same vein.
- 21:06Speaker 2: It becomes one of those irresponsible moments in pet ownership
- 21:09Speaker 2: where you sign up or bite off more than you
- 21:12Speaker 2: can chew and then all of a sudden you maybe
- 21:14Speaker 2: have to make the easy, easier decision, which you know,
- 21:18Speaker 2: while it is the plot of the book, and in
- 21:20Speaker 2: the context of the book, it does make sense all
- 21:25Speaker 2: of this happening at once, all of these creatures being
- 21:27Speaker 2: released back into the wild at once, creates a real
- 21:31Speaker 2: problem with the ecosystem.
- 21:32Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one hundred percent. And life imitates art, as
- 21:37Speaker 1: they always say, and they say it for a reason.
- 21:40Speaker 1: I forgot to mention, Noel Max, You guys will both
- 21:44Speaker 1: love this fact because we're I think all three big
- 21:46Speaker 1: fans of Studio Jibli. Was it pomp Poco?
- 21:49Speaker 3: Is that what it's called?
- 21:50Speaker 1: Pomp Poco?
- 21:52Speaker 2: Pomp Poco is the Jibli film that we were talking
- 21:54Speaker 2: about with the anthropomorphic talking, big bald raccoon. Sorry, I
- 21:58Speaker 2: don't know if that's what you're talking about. Record they do,
- 21:59Speaker 2: you their testicles to fly around. They inflate them like
- 22:03Speaker 2: like parachutes or zeppelins or something.
- 22:06Speaker 3: It's it's odd, to say the least.
- 22:08Speaker 1: But it's historically accurate for the folklore. What will interest you, guys,
- 22:13Speaker 1: I think, is that a Russell Korro please partner our
- 22:18Speaker 1: pronunciation here. We're not native speakers. The anime of Rascal
- 22:24Speaker 1: also has a sleeper Easter egg in it. It features
- 22:28Speaker 1: very early work by none other than Miyazaki.
- 22:32Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So back around, like Pompoko was not a
- 22:35Speaker 2: Miyazaki directly created film, but it was part of his
- 22:38Speaker 2: animation studio.
- 22:40Speaker 3: Yeah, and High Walt Disney of Japan.
- 22:42Speaker 1: He's often yes, yeah, and it seems a little bit
- 22:46Speaker 1: cooler than The Big Mouse anyway, So maybe there is
- 22:50Speaker 1: a sort of artistic or esthetic through line here from
- 22:56Speaker 1: Arima Russel Caro to Pompuro because Miyazaki was literally working
- 23:03Speaker 1: on this anime cartoon anyway. So like you said, they're
- 23:09Speaker 1: these well meaning families, right, tried to get their kid
- 23:13Speaker 1: the coolest present. It didn't work out. It caused pandemonium
- 23:17Speaker 1: in the home. They let them out, you know, drive
- 23:20Speaker 1: to the edge of the city, just like the old
- 23:22Speaker 1: trope of letting a dog go free, or dogs probably
- 23:27Speaker 1: would just want to get back in the.
- 23:29Speaker 3: Car, but we don't watch you anymore.
- 23:33Speaker 1: Rocks. All that means, yeah, everybody's crying. So the thing is,
- 23:39Speaker 1: the raccoon friends here are hardy, resourceful. They're real mcguvers
- 23:45Speaker 1: of mammals and most Importantly, they're omnivorous. They don't turn
- 23:49Speaker 1: down a free lunch, so they quickly begin to thrive
- 23:53Speaker 1: in areas across Japan. And this is where we see, uh,
- 23:58Speaker 1: something that we will call naturalization in the world of biology.
- 24:02Speaker 1: They're an invasive species, but they like where they're moving in.
- 24:07Speaker 1: They like the neighborhoods. So they're going across through the
- 24:10Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and the eighties to all different prefectures of Japan,
- 24:17Speaker 1: even unto the very far northern part of Japan, Hokkaido,
- 24:23Speaker 1: which is just so everybody knows, it's very far away.
- 24:28Speaker 1: It's tough to get there. And they did a great job,
- 24:31Speaker 1: and they became a menace. There's no other way to
- 24:35Speaker 1: say it. They're popular. Like, look, you're raccoon. You just
- 24:39Speaker 1: did your time in a Japanese home based on the
- 24:42Speaker 1: fact that this one cartoon compelled the nation. You get
- 24:46Speaker 1: out and then you meet a lady raccoon who's been
- 24:49Speaker 1: in a similar situation, and you say, oh, hey, babe,
- 24:53Speaker 1: we had a lot in common. You know, we're not
- 24:56Speaker 1: doing raccoon ginder.
- 24:57Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah, we're.
- 24:58Speaker 1: Not doing raccoon hin. We met naturally. I like your vibe.
- 25:02Speaker 1: So these raccoons trying to settle down, it's not a
- 25:06Speaker 1: raccoon family. Yeah, they start a family of their own.
- 25:10Speaker 1: Their population shoots up so quickly, and they engage in
- 25:15Speaker 1: continual acts of crime. These are all all raccoon families
- 25:21Speaker 1: in Japan now are considered crime families.
- 25:27Speaker 2: Yeah, and it makes sense, you know, with the whole
- 25:28Speaker 2: bandit look of them, you know what, it looks like
- 25:30Speaker 2: they're doing crimes, tippy toeing around.
- 25:32Speaker 3: I thought that was a funny bit on Uh what
- 25:36Speaker 3: was it.
- 25:36Speaker 2: It was John Oliver recently where I was talking about
- 25:39Speaker 2: crime rates, and uh, it's it was something like a
- 25:43Speaker 2: It was a it was a publication for crime and
- 25:45Speaker 2: it was called Reasons to Tiptoe or something, and it
- 25:48Speaker 2: showed like a criminal with a mask and a bag
- 25:51Speaker 2: of cash, just like tiptoeing.
- 25:52Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
- 25:53Speaker 1: Oh, a domino mask. Yeah, we're just exactly which raccoons
- 25:57Speaker 1: naturally have. And also I want to say it does
- 26:01Speaker 1: folks correct us if we're wrong here? Do you like
- 26:05Speaker 1: how I encouraged you guys to be wrong with me?
- 26:09Speaker 3: Of course, let's all be wrong together.
- 26:10Speaker 1: Let's all be wrong together. A domino mask seems like
- 26:13Speaker 1: the most inefficient mask, you know what I mean, Like
- 26:17Speaker 1: the one that just goes over part of your eyes
- 26:20Speaker 1: and the rest.
- 26:21Speaker 3: Of the Superman rules right, Like it's like, come on,
- 26:24Speaker 3: we know it's you Clark somehow. And the crux of
- 26:29Speaker 3: his secret identity.
- 26:30Speaker 1: That's another question too, and not to derail us too far,
- 26:34Speaker 1: but riddle me this. If Superman's glasses are his only
- 26:42Speaker 1: real disguise, does his optometrist know his real identity?
- 26:47Speaker 2: You know who I saw pose that very question, Ben,
- 26:50Speaker 2: Who's that? It's a singer. She's her name is Aurora,
- 26:53Speaker 2: and she's a delight. She's from Iceland and she gets
- 26:56Speaker 2: compared to Buick a lot. But okay, she has some
- 26:58Speaker 2: really fine hot takes and that may well be a
- 27:00Speaker 2: thing that's been floating.
- 27:01Speaker 3: But she asked that very question. Uh, does his optometrist
- 27:05Speaker 3: know his secret identity?
- 27:06Speaker 1: Does he have to go to the optometrists? Even well?
- 27:09Speaker 3: Vision argued, are a prop drug.
- 27:12Speaker 1: Store reading glasses or what are they? What do they
- 27:15Speaker 1: call it? Readers?
- 27:16Speaker 3: Another question that she poses in that same vein is
- 27:19Speaker 3: why is it that superheroes are always trying to keep
- 27:23Speaker 3: things the same and super villains are always trying to
- 27:25Speaker 3: change things.
- 27:26Speaker 1: Oh, I love that. I have a philosop that's great,
- 27:30Speaker 1: that's deep. What was the name of that musician, Aurora? Aurora?
- 27:34Speaker 3: Just one real cutie like metal, Yeah, Aurora.
- 27:36Speaker 1: Okay, I'll check out the music. These guys. The raccoons
- 27:47Speaker 1: are reading crops across the nation of Japan. They're doing
- 27:51Speaker 1: it as we record right now. They're causing hundreds of
- 27:55Speaker 1: thousands of dollars US equivalent every year. The government does
- 28:01Speaker 1: eventually ban the importation of raccoons, but it's too little,
- 28:07Speaker 1: too late. The Invasive Alien Species Act, which they've had
- 28:11Speaker 1: for a very long time, now includes raccoons, and in
- 28:16Speaker 1: two thousand and five they were called an invasive alien species,
- 28:20Speaker 1: which means that you can no longer watch a sick
- 28:23Speaker 1: anime and buy a raccoon from the US. You also
- 28:28Speaker 1: can't transfer it, and if you like, you can't sell
- 28:31Speaker 1: it to someone else in Japan, and if you have one,
- 28:35Speaker 1: you also cannot just throw it out into the woods. Dude.
- 28:39Speaker 3: That's the thing.
- 28:40Speaker 2: Anytime you see these crazes that involve like living creatures,
- 28:44Speaker 2: they're almost always ill informed and really rushed without thinking
- 28:50Speaker 2: about the aftermath for humans and for the creatures.
- 28:55Speaker 3: Themselves and you really do hate to see it.
- 28:58Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So it doesn't sound like we're casting stones here.
- 29:03Speaker 1: Two of the most famous and sadly continual examples in
- 29:07Speaker 1: the United States are going to be rabbit sails in
- 29:13Speaker 1: Easter and black cat sales around Halloween. Those things continually happen,
- 29:20Speaker 1: and unfortunately it doesn't always work out for the rabbits
- 29:24Speaker 1: or for the cats. In addition, however, to the agricultural terrorism,
- 29:29Speaker 1: all right, it might be exaggerating a bit there. Invasive
- 29:32Speaker 1: raccoon crimes also include the following, and maybe we do
- 29:37Speaker 1: it like a hit. Listen, all uh, these guys are
- 29:39Speaker 1: getting everywhere.
- 29:42Speaker 2: They are now. They're they're doing crimes, they're taking names.
- 29:47Speaker 2: They are destroying historic sites, including temples, which of course
- 29:51Speaker 2: have you know, incredibly important cultural and historical significance.
- 29:58Speaker 1: A lot of those are built of wood. The raccoons
- 30:01Speaker 1: are also stealing fruit and fish from human vendors, usually
- 30:06Speaker 1: because they're getting into storage spaces. After me that they
- 30:10Speaker 1: of business. Yeah, but sometimes sometimes it's a land version
- 30:15Speaker 1: of a seagull who just swipes something from a tourist
- 30:19Speaker 1: eating at the beach, you know what I mean. A
- 30:21Speaker 1: raccoon looks at you when you are selling fish or
- 30:24Speaker 1: buy fish, and thinks can that person get goat?
- 30:28Speaker 3: I think they can. Yeah.
- 30:29Speaker 2: They're also you know, similar to the issues you might see, well,
- 30:33Speaker 2: raccoons do this here in the States too, campsites and
- 30:36Speaker 2: garbage cans and mountain areas or like kind of more
- 30:39Speaker 2: like camping type areas. People put locks on their trash
- 30:42Speaker 2: cans and their dumpsters because of bears and other critters.
- 30:45Speaker 2: Raccoons you will see often with like overturned trash cans
- 30:50Speaker 2: spilling refuse every wish where. And that's what they were
- 30:53Speaker 2: doing there too, messing with garbage cans and dumpsters. And
- 30:55Speaker 2: then I think most importantly in terms of the overall
- 30:59Speaker 2: ecosystem question of it all, they're pushing out native species
- 31:03Speaker 2: with their sheer numbers. Yeah.
- 31:06Speaker 1: Yeah, And sadly, ironically, paradoxically, one of the native species
- 31:11Speaker 1: under the most direct threat is going to be none
- 31:15Speaker 1: other than the humble tanuki.
- 31:17Speaker 3: Yeah, the irony is thick.
- 31:20Speaker 2: Despite them not being super closely related, the tanuki and
- 31:23Speaker 2: the raccoon are competing for a lot of the same resources,
- 31:27Speaker 2: which means that these American invasive species raccoons are moving
- 31:32Speaker 2: in on the native tanuki's territory.
- 31:37Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's a country wide phenomenon. By twenty
- 31:42Speaker 1: twenty one, raccoons had provably naturalized in forty four of
- 31:48Speaker 1: Japan's forty seven prefectures. A prefecture imagined it like a
- 31:53Speaker 1: state basically. So these populations are now widespread in relatively
- 32:03Speaker 1: relatively more remote areas like Hokkaido, as we mentioned across Honshu,
- 32:07Speaker 1: and the crisis continues today. So this is a p
- 32:11Speaker 1: s A and a plea to protect your local tanuki
- 32:15Speaker 1: if you are in Japan. Luckily, if we want to
- 32:19Speaker 1: end on a positive note, the humble tanuki has some
- 32:22Speaker 1: serious balls, and because we are grown people literally figured
- 32:27Speaker 1: we haven't. We have alluded to this in a very
- 32:30Speaker 1: responsible way through multiple times thus far.
- 32:34Speaker 3: Yeah, do check out Pompoko.
- 32:37Speaker 2: It is a children's movie, uh that does depict these
- 32:42Speaker 2: magical members doing all kinds of crazy crazy stuff.
- 32:48Speaker 3: Standing scrotum is how you put it here, Ben?
- 32:51Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could learn a lot about
- 32:53Speaker 1: this due to the the folklore here. So we mentioned
- 33:00Speaker 1: that the tanuki have, similar to the kasuni or the fox,
- 33:04Speaker 1: have long been treated as an animal of myth with
- 33:09Speaker 1: magical symbolic powers in Japanese folklore. And yes, one of
- 33:14Speaker 1: the ideas for the one of the like stories you
- 33:18Speaker 1: see about tanuki in the wild is that they can
- 33:22Speaker 1: stretch their ball sack to the size of eight to
- 33:24Speaker 1: Tommy Matts, I love.
- 33:27Speaker 2: How is that the metric, benc I don't think, I know,
- 33:31Speaker 2: is that like a futan?
- 33:32Speaker 1: What is like you remember when you see the traditional
- 33:37Speaker 1: Japanese rooms and they've got that semi sitting Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
- 33:44Speaker 1: it's it's a measure that maybe native to Japan.
- 33:49Speaker 3: Uh, go go gadget balls is kind of what we're
- 33:51Speaker 3: talking about here.
- 33:52Speaker 1: That's well done. Yeah. So just like in the film
- 33:56Speaker 1: we were mentioning earlier, Uh, they're depicted using their scrotums
- 34:01Speaker 1: as boat sails, as nets to catch fish or umbrellas.
- 34:06Speaker 1: It's very go go gadget, go, go gadget godads. Right, Yeah,
- 34:11Speaker 1: it's really good. It's true.
- 34:12Speaker 2: Yeah, it's and this isn't just and it's that's the
- 34:15Speaker 2: thing that's so interesting. It's it's i think because of
- 34:17Speaker 2: the cultural you know, awareness around this lore, like it
- 34:22Speaker 2: would not have been shocking to a Japanese audience, but
- 34:25Speaker 2: when I was watching it, like with my kid.
- 34:27Speaker 3: We were both sort of taken aback because we did not.
- 34:29Speaker 2: Know about this and did not expect there to be
- 34:32Speaker 2: expanding Harlem Globetrotter's esque Macgiver balls you.
- 34:36Speaker 1: Know likely Yeah, and this also just for the note here,
- 34:40Speaker 1: this dates back to the Ede period. In the like
- 34:44Speaker 1: in the sixteen hundreds. Oh, people you could find.
- 34:47Speaker 2: Like calligraphic kind of you know, scrolls and things depicting
- 34:51Speaker 2: these various parachute sacks.
- 34:55Speaker 1: And uh and Max our good friend, Max, our brother,
- 34:59Speaker 1: Max's off camera and off mic and I'm having such
- 35:03Speaker 1: a great time imagining your facial expression. There, yep, there
- 35:07Speaker 1: it is dead.
- 35:10Speaker 4: Go go gadget goads.
- 35:12Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good. That's good. It's not our best work,
- 35:16Speaker 1: but we're working live, and so are the Tanuki. So
- 35:20Speaker 1: is the government of Japan. So are the raccoons. Despite
- 35:24Speaker 1: all the problems caused by the Rascal boom, which is
- 35:28Speaker 1: the again, how ridiculous is this nineteen seventies a cartoon
- 35:33Speaker 1: is the entire reason raccoons are an invasive species in Japan.
- 35:37Speaker 1: Ever since then people have been trying to fight against it,
- 35:42Speaker 1: trying to save the native animal population. These ancient wooden
- 35:47Speaker 1: temples and so on. But if you ask members of
- 35:51Speaker 1: the public who are not experts in biology or invasive species,
- 35:56Speaker 1: they're going to tell you they love Rascal the Raccoon.
- 36:00Speaker 1: There's a video game that came out in the nineties.
- 36:04Speaker 1: There have been pop up stores that people have spent
- 36:07Speaker 1: a lot of money at. It's the merchandising is crazy.
- 36:11Speaker 1: You can still see plush dolls, cell phones. It's a
- 36:14Speaker 1: brand now, Rascal is a brand.
- 36:17Speaker 2: This would probably be of the same era as like
- 36:22Speaker 2: the kind of animes that I grew up watching on
- 36:25Speaker 2: Nick Junior, like David the Gnome and those fairy tale
- 36:29Speaker 2: those Grim's fairy Tale Maybe those are more like early eighties,
- 36:33Speaker 2: but this is late seventies, so seventy seven, and it's
- 36:36Speaker 2: got the same vibe of that era of animember. Remember
- 36:39Speaker 2: those ben they were huge, like on Nickelodeon and Nick Junior,
- 36:43Speaker 2: because I guess they were cheap, they could acquire the rights,
- 36:46Speaker 2: and they just you know, were dubbed. But I remember
- 36:48Speaker 2: some of those Grim fairy Tales ones that are very
- 36:50Speaker 2: much in the style of this Rascal cartoon.
- 36:53Speaker 3: Pretty dark stuff.
- 36:54Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which I think was appealing to a lot
- 36:58Speaker 1: of a lot of kids when you saw a darker cartoon.
- 37:03Speaker 1: It's kind of like when you go to the Scholastic
- 37:05Speaker 1: book Fair, which we're always big fans of, and you
- 37:07Speaker 1: saw scary stories to tell in the dark.
- 37:10Speaker 3: Right, So Grim's fairy tale Classics. Oh, yes, I remember that.
- 37:16Speaker 2: I remember that was more or it was a little
- 37:18Speaker 2: little later than what I was talking about, But it
- 37:20Speaker 2: very much is the same style, and almost wonder.
- 37:23Speaker 3: It's by animation. Yep, it's like it's a house style.
- 37:29Speaker 1: There we go, there you go, and here we arrive
- 37:32Speaker 1: at the end of our show. We hope you appreciate it.
- 37:37Speaker 1: There is a parable here. We could argue in that
- 37:41Speaker 1: the story of the American raccoon in Japan has a
- 37:47Speaker 1: ridiculous origin, but it has real world consequences that continue today.
- 37:53Speaker 1: So we'd love to hear your thoughts on other ridiculous
- 37:57Speaker 1: origin stories of invasive speed or just weird pop culture,
- 38:02Speaker 1: or let's say, weird fascinating pop culture. In the meantime,
- 38:07Speaker 1: it's a.
- 38:07Speaker 2: Little bit of a different vibe. But I can't help
- 38:09Speaker 2: think of the cobra story.
- 38:11Speaker 1: The cobra, Oh, the cobra effect, the cobra cobra effect.
- 38:15Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just you know, it's just not the same,
- 38:17Speaker 2: but it's just the knock on consequences remained similar.
- 38:21Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. If there's one thing human civilization loves,
- 38:25Speaker 1: its consequences that they did not foresee, uh we do foresee.
- 38:31Speaker 1: The close of the show, thank you, as always so
- 38:34Speaker 1: much for joining us, fellow ridiculous historians. Thanks to our
- 38:37Speaker 1: super producer mister Max Williams, as well as his brother
- 38:43Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed this slap and pop and nope,
- 38:46Speaker 1: we got to get Alex back on the show. But
- 38:49Speaker 1: he's even more nomadic than me. He sure is.
- 38:53Speaker 2: And speaking of you, Ben, huge thanks to you as always,
- 38:55Speaker 2: but in this one for your research prowess coming to
- 38:59Speaker 2: us from that region of the world. Not to docks
- 39:02Speaker 2: you too much, but I know this is close to
- 39:04Speaker 2: you and something that is very much on your mind,
- 39:07Speaker 2: and I was really fun to talk to you about.
- 39:08Speaker 1: Oh Man, same same, big thanks to our favorite invasive
- 39:14Speaker 1: species on this show, Jonathan Strickland aka the Quizzer and Nola.
- 39:19Speaker 1: I gotta tell you not to big, not to big
- 39:22Speaker 1: up us to ourselves too much, but I think we
- 39:26Speaker 1: have on a metal level, we've been doing a great
- 39:30Speaker 1: job sliding in one insult for the for the quiztor
- 39:34Speaker 1: related to whatever we're talking about per.
- 39:37Speaker 3: Episode, It's sure it's on theme. I do appreciate that.
- 39:40Speaker 3: Ben a huge thanks to Christopherraciotis and needs Jeff Coots here.
- 39:43Speaker 1: It'spiat Rachel Big Spinach.
- 39:44Speaker 2: Lamb, who we owe an email back to to get
- 39:46Speaker 2: her back.
- 39:47Speaker 3: On the show.
- 39:48Speaker 2: She just pinged us again this morning, so I'm super
- 39:50Speaker 2: excited to bring her back and.
- 39:52Speaker 3: Talk about underwater explosions again.
- 39:54Speaker 1: Yes, it's a true story, folks. We know the world's
- 39:58Speaker 1: foremost expert on I'm.
- 40:00Speaker 2: Not crediting this person in every episode after having her
- 40:02Speaker 2: on one episode like five years ago, and we just
- 40:05Speaker 2: were that impressed by her.
- 40:07Speaker 3: And it's all coming full circle, y'all.
- 40:09Speaker 1: Yeah, the hugly right, check out that episode.
- 40:11Speaker 3: That's right.
- 40:12Speaker 1: Also, no big thanks to you as we were. The
- 40:15Speaker 1: energy is really great today as we were hopping in
- 40:19Speaker 1: to record. You have not just a statue at action
- 40:23Speaker 1: figure or a small German boy, but you've also been
- 40:26Speaker 1: acquiring some pretty cool choskis. Could you play a little music.
- 40:35Speaker 2: Bhudo wishes you a happy and productive life.
- 40:42Speaker 3: We'll see you next.
- 40:42Speaker 1: Tip folks.
- 40:50Speaker 3: For more podcasts.
- 40:51Speaker 2: From iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
- 40:54Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.