Oishinbo - Vol. 26 Ch. 242 - Embracing The World

[MangaDex]

 

[SonnyShizuku]

Man, reading this chapter makes me miss more of Yamaoka's personality from earlier volumes. dunno why Kariya changed him.

Thanks for the chapter as always

 

[BippidiBoppetyBoob]

It's just one of those things that happens when things last a long time. Characters get Flanderized (even in a time before Flanders himself existed).

 

[TakesatoKeita]

It's just one of those things that happens when things last a long time. Characters get Flanderized (even in a time before Flanders himself existed).

I actually liked Ohara back when he was actually much more relaxed and calmer in the earlier volumes. He could get angry or at least skeptical of Yamaoka's antics, but for the most part, he was as cool as a cucumber, not a raging hysteric that he became later on.

 

[TakesatoKeita]

Reading this chapter really showed the age of the story, back when it was Japan, not China today, that many people in Western countries thought of as the country that would rule the world, thanks to their economic power and products.

 

[BippidiBoppetyBoob]

I actually liked Ohara back when he was actually much more relaxed and calmer in the earlier volumes. He could get angry or at least skeptical of Yamaoka's antics, but for the most part, he was as cool as a cucumber, not a raging hysteric that he became later on.

I did too. Ohara gradually becoming more of a lunatic was not a change for the better in any way...

Reading this chapter really showed the age of the story, back when it was Japan, not China today, that many people in Western countries thought of as the country that would rule the world, thanks to their economic power and products.

Yeah. I can speak to this as an American who grew up and still lives in a rust belt city (and as someone whose primary day job is as a historian). It's certainly hyperbolic for Kariya to claim that there could've been another war. There wasn't ever going to be a war over the trade deficit.

Japan was however an easy scapegoat to blame the losses of manufacturing jobs (such as in the auto industry where, if you were caught driving a Toyota in Detroit, you could expect it to be vandalized) and for the fact that at the same time this was happening, the continued heavy chipping away at regulations, labor union power, and government supports by the Reagan Administration meant that many of these workers who were losing their jobs also had very little to fall back on. Instead of blaming the sunny Great Communicator Reagan, they blamed the evil foreign menace.

Of course, the difference of the situation is that while that was a source of tension with Japan, they were one of our primary geopolitical partners and allies. China certainly could not be described as either.