episode 1

Tsukasa Hojo. The pilot episode was published on "Shonen Jump" in 1981, followed by 18 volumes from 1981 to 1984, and an additional short appearance in 1985.


background info, air dates, city hunter universe...

For some reason unknown to me, in the end song, the Japanese lyrics read "ah ah suteki na jikan yo" but the singer says "ah ah suteki na TOKI yo". Both "toki" and "jikan" both mean "time", but it is just a little puzzler.  

A tanooki is like a racoon. Come on, you remember Super Mario Bros 3, right? Mario had the tanooki suit and could turn into a stone monk... yeah, that one. According to Japanese superstition, tanooki are mischeive creatures that play tricks on people. So the "tanooki owner" is called such because he's trying to trick everybody.

episode 2

There was confusion over Ayus invented flare, because the word senkou can either mean a flare or incense. 

episode 3

In Japan, the kids clean the schools before leaving. 

A note from our esteemed translator Sarah: 

Oji-san is a polite term (like Sir) for men much older than you. Toshio doesnt consider himself that much older than Kazumi, so he thinks he should have been called Onii-san instead. Its kind of like the way I feel when Im called maam ^_^; Im ONLY 21 and look even younger than that!! Plus, Im cute! I should be called Miss!! ^_- 

"Onee-san" is a term of address for young women. Here, "Onee-sama" is used, wherby "sama" reflects more respect, but in the context implies something different. 

When Ai sees Kazumi appears she screams out "DETA!!!" (literally "APPEARED!!!") Japanese people sometimes say this when a person they don't want to see/talk to suddenly appears out of nowhere. We subtitled it as "it's her!!!"

More from Sarah about the fanservice in this episode:

[yes, I always pose sexily as I take my shower ^_-]

episode 4

by the title "The Challenger Has a Paris-Air to Her" we don't mean some kind of airline. It means something like "she has the scent/smell/fragrance of Paris"

Yes, not only do the Japanese misrepresent Americans in anime, they also do the same to the French! If she was supposed to be French, she wouldn't say in English, "Mister Toshio" (she should say "Monsieur Toshio"). Oh, and since she's a foreigner, she naturally has blonde hair and blue eyes... -_-   

Ais pun with the verb yaku: this term means to cook or to turn brown (to tan). Its also the verb you use for jealous in the phrase yakimochi yaiteru. This again, can be another fun pun as yakimochi, if written with different kanji, can be yaki-mochi, which means grilled mochi. This has nothing to do with the episode, but just thought Id throw it in, since its once of my more favorite Japanese puns ^_-

When Toshio says that Miss Rubert has a perfect body, he's literally saying "she's got great proportions". In other words, she has a small waist, tight ass, and big breasts. Japanese men often prefer western women's bodies over Japanese/Asian women since western women usually have larger breasts. Plus, with mostly everyone in the world, there's that "thing" where you think foreigners are sexier than your own enthic group...

Kinda interesting to note that there was a uproar in Japan many years ago when a mazagine published an article about how young Japanese women were becoming rich (or had rich parents) and becoming career women instead of wives and mothers, not marrying, and were spurning Japanese men, instead exclusively seeing foreigners (like Americans) because they thought that Japanese men were ugly and treated them like dirt.

Anpan is bread filled with anko (sweet red bean paste). pan means bread, so Ai was making a little joke off of Lupin, since its pronounced Rupan. Kinda like Ru-bread.

Puns are never funny when you explain them... 

At the karaoke, Toshio is (poorly) singing enka, which is a Japanese style of music, usually with women in kimonos singing sad songs about loss, nogstalia, and their hometowns. Enka is popular with old people (think like big band music of the 1920's-1940's here in the states) but most young people hate it and prefer J-pop, J-rap, techno, or american music. I agree with them, enka sucks. I heard this one enka song that was sad and pretty, until I realized the women was singing about how heartbroken she was that her farm cow had died x_x. 

Every year on NHK (Japanese Pubic Broadcasting) at New Year's there is this big concert countdown and it is very prestigious as a musician to sing there, but they ALWAYS have some enka singers to get the old folks to watch it.        

