Even the big noggin fish is wearing a mask
and one of us comes out as a furry
Welcome to (Mostly) Good Dumb Fun, an email newsletter that we hope will deliver on exactly what the title promises.
This email is written by Jordan Zakarin, Emily Gaudette, and Eric Francisco. We’re gonna collect the best of the weird stuff we find throughout the day and then send it to you every evening. Everything is bad right now, so hopefully this helps a little bit.
Anyone notice the immediate rise of fashion masks on Instagram? I get it, it’s capitalism and when there’s demand the private sector will supply. I just think it’s tremendously interesting how places like Asia have been wearing masks for years, Americans never did and thought it was a weird thing Asians did (I say this all as an Asian person)… and now every brand on Instagram is hawking masks for $35 for a pack of three.
Not hating on it, it’s whatever. I just think it’s tremendously interesting how we, specifically the west, behave when the chips are down. Up side, we’re this much closer to a cyberpunk future I’ve always wanted. - Eric
Back in 2016, when I went to Japan for the first time (true story: I’ve been to Japan, but don't tell Emily and Eric), I went to two Yomiuri Giants baseball games. The Giants are the biggest and most historic team in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the second-best professional baseball league in the world. Held at the Tokyo Dome, it was unlike any professional game I’d ever been to before or since, with a multitude of mascots, designated cheering sections, uniformed beer vendors, and concessions that put MLB stadiums to shame.
I was planning on going to another game while in Tokyo for my honeymoon, a trip that should be happening right now but had to be pushed back to late October. NPB also had to push back its season; the KBO in South Korea is the only baseball league in the world to be playing competitive games right now. KBO games are supposed to be even wilder than NPB games and I’d love a chance to watch them. Plenty of baseball fans have been saying the same thing, creating enough of a buzz that ESPN even approached the league for North American broadcast rights. Unfortunately, ESPN offered KBO execs exactly zero dollars, making the same proposal that many shitty publishers still offer intern candidates: Your hard work in exchange for “exposure.”
Now, to be fair, being broadcast on ESPN would definitely give the KBO an unprecedented boost. But even the goddamn bowling league gets some money from the Worldwide Leader in Sports to show their unbearably boring tournaments, and ESPN isn’t exactly in prime negotiating territory right now — they had to broadcast the NFL Draft via webcams planted in team executives’ unbearably boring offices last night.
Thank god for Reddit. - JordanHey
Hey. It’s my section of the email. I’m going to recommend another anime series to you, reader, but only if you keep an open mind. There is a series currently streaming on Netflix called Beastars, and it is based on a manga written by a Japanese woman named Paru Itagaki. I saw a clip of the show’s stop motion opening sequence online weeks ago, and I immediately fell down a research rabbit hole (lol), purchased all of the available English manga volumes, and watched the series. I really, really want to order a Beastars stuffed animal, but I can’t quite allow myself the extreme level of greed it would take to make an Amazon employee fetch one for me and ship it. Also, Jordan and Eric mercilessly mocked me when I suggested that I wanted one.
Anyway, the story follows an anthropomorphized wolf (see above) who has extreme social anxiety due to his size, and due to the negative reputation omnivores have in his world, which pits herbivore animals and omnivores together in a cohesive society. He falls in love with a confident little anthropomorphized rabbit girl named Haru. The animation is extremely inventive—there’s a scene where Legoshi (the author named him as an homage to Bela Legosi) realizes Haru is interested in him as well, and he has a panic attack that manifests as him being stuck on an escalator. When he sees her flirting with another boy (who is a deer), he touches his face and doesn’t realize his paw is covered in paint, so there’s this beautiful, freaky moment in the manga where his speech bubble says, “I think I love you,” and his wolf face is smeared with neon colors.
It’s just one of the most fascinating and transportive things I’ve ever seen in my life, and I love it down to my bones. And also: no one I know likes it. No one will even allow me the chance to talk about it. Even the fact that the author Paru didn’t bother changing her name charms the hell out of me—clearly, the spunky rabbit is just a stand-in for her, and I can relate because I am currently writing a novel with a protagonist who is basically just me. I suspect we’re soul sisters. If you like anime + animals + romance fiction + Japanese culture + sci-fi worldbuilding, please watch Beastars and reply to this email with your thoughts. Unless your thoughts are mean and stupid, in which case I don’t want to know. - Emily
