Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 8 - Chapter SS3

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? In this era of Verona’s history, noble houses were divided based upon their support of either the Holy Roman emperor or the pope. The Montagues are supporters of the emperor, while the Capulets side with the pope...

Although this bit of Romeo and Juliet lore isn’t commonly brought up (outside of Japan, anyway), it does actually have a degree of historical basis! To make a long and complicated story short, some sources tie the conflict between the Capulets and the Montagues as depicted in the play to the real-world conflict between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which dated back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. That conflict more or less matches up with Andou’s description, with the Guelphs supporting the pope and the Ghibellines supporting the emperor. There were, by all accounts, real-world families called the Capulets and the Montagues who were supposedly involved in this conflict (both of which were referenced in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which we’ve covered in previous notes sections).

? ...“Snow White,” “Cinderella,” “Momotarou”...

Snow White and Cinderella are likely familiar to most of our readers, but Momotarou is potentially less so! Momotarou is the main character and namesake of a classic Japanese folktale, the title of which is sometimes rendered as “Peach Boy.” That title’s rather apt, since the story begins with baby Momotarou emerging from a giant peach that his adoptive parents, an elderly couple, find floating down a river. Momotarou grows up to become a capable warrior, and he eventually journeys out to Onigashima, an island infested with oni, to defeat its inhabitants. Along the way, he bribes and befriends various animals, including a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant, all of whom aid him in his quest. In the end, he topples the oni and returns home victorious. As Andou implies, Momotarou is a very common choice for school plays, though mostly for younger casts and audiences.

? Not just Shakespeare either—it worked with Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Ortega, Thomas Aquinas, Dazai Osamu, even the Bible!

Some of these names are a lot more obscure than others, but in the interest of time and fairness, I’ll be covering all of them equally briefly! Friedrich Nietzsche was a philosopher from the nineteenth century who is deeply associated with the philosophy of nihilism and who we’ve discussed in previous sections. Søren Kierkegaard was also a philosopher, deeply associated with the existentialist movement. Pascal—surprise surprise—was a philosopher too, though from an earlier era and known just as much, if not more so, for his work in the field of mathematics. José Ortega y Gasset was... Y’know what, I’m just going to start noting the ones who weren’t philosophers. Gasset was Spanish, and his philosophy was rather political and advocated for liberalism. Thomas Aquinas takes us way back in time again to the thirteenth century, and his work, centered largely around Christian theology, got him sainted by the Catholic Church. Next, at long last, we have our (perhaps debatable) first nonphilosopher, Dazai Osamu, a Japanese novelist known for extremely influential stories such as No Longer Human, some of which have been referenced by previous Supernatural Battles volumes. Last, but not least, the Bible is neither a philosopher nor a person at all, but rather a collection of texts held to be sacred by a number of prominent religions.

? I’m talking JoJo’s Part 5 levels of pacing here.

The fifth arc of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, somewhat notoriously, canonically takes place in its entirety over the course of nine days. Considering the sheer amount of stuff that happens in the arc (not to mention the sheer number of injuries its characters sustain and recover from), “bizarre” kinda fails to do the pacing justice. For context, Part 5 was 155 chapters long—compare that to Part 4, which was just 19 chapters longer and took place over the course of four months.

? They spoil the scene where Clara stands up in Heidi, Girl of the Alps, they spoil the scene where Nello dies in Dog of Flanders, they spoil the big confession of love in Touch, and they spoil the “He stole your heart” scene in The Castle of Cagliostro!

Time for some much more specific classic anime spoilers! Heidi, Girl of the Alps is the rather legendary anime adaptation of the novel Heidi, which in turn was written in the late nineteenth century by Johanna Spyri. In both versions of the story, Clara is a girl who is forced to use a wheelchair on account of a case of rickets. She befriends the titular Heidi, and eventually manages to overcome her condition and walk on her own toward the end of the series.

Dog of Flanders is another classic anime adaptation of a European novel, this time written by Marie Louise de la Ramée under the pen name Ouida, which famously ends with the death of its main character, Nello, and his dog, Patrasche. Touch, in contrast, is a manga-original story! Created by Adachi Mitsuru, it centers around a pair of twin brothers who vie for the affection of their childhood friend while also doing baseball stuff. Its anime adaptation is something of a classic as well, and it ran for 101 episodes in the ’80s.

Finally, The Castle of Cagliostro is a film in the ever-famous Lupin III franchise! Cagliostro is especially famous even by Lupin standards, largely on account of being the theatrical directorial debut of one Miyazaki Hayao, who would go on to become perhaps the single most acclaimed director in anime history. The “He stole your heart” scene refers to an iconic line spoken by Zenigata, a police inspector and Lupin’s persistent nemesis.

? Y’know how that one tutoring company used Heidi as their mascot for a while?

The tutoring company in question is called Trygroup Inc. It was founded in 1987, and is still in operation. The Heidi promotion that Andou refers to began in 2012, and initially involved a version of Heidi’s opening sequence edited to include a Japanese businessman in a suit, who represented the company. The promotion continues to this day, though it’s gotten real weird in the intervening years, with the most recent Heidi tutoring ad I managed to track down involving Heidi standing on top of a Japanese skyscraper and singing about the company’s AI-assisted teaching methodologies while her grandfather plays a synthesizer in the background. Yes, I realize how fake that sounds, but I swear to god I’m not making it up—you can search “シンガーハイジ” on YouTube and see for yourself, if you’re curious and/or brave enough.