Shintaro and the pinnacle of technology

Recently we upgraded our home internet link to broadband.  We decided that this was not a passing craze after all.  No ADSL2 in our neighbourhood but still considerably faster than what we have been used to.

Now we can tune into things like this item from YouTube:

Amazing that such things from my childhood are re-surfacing on such platforms.

The Samurai was an early excursion into multiculturalism in 1960s Australia - before the word was invented!  This TV drama series was hugely popular on Channel 9 Sydney, causing small boys across Sydney to dress up in dressing gowns in the blazing sun to look like Our Hero, whilst waving fake swords, sticks, &c, in mortal combat.

The star knives, in particular, must have had the Emergency Departments of our public hospitals here very busy as small boys lacerated their fingers as they converted the lids from tin cans into home-grown versions of these weapons (and I am embarassed to own up to this myself).

Our Hero's sidekick, Tombei The Mist, also was responsible for adding a term to Australian English.  This form of English borrows one of its forms from Cockney rhyming slang - "German  band" for pair of hands, "trouble & strife" for wife, and so on.  "Tombei The Mist" became an Australian term for being pissed (drunk in Australia English, rather than angry in American English).

And the voice dubbing!  The voices go at an entirely different speed to the images.  And such emotion!  Listen to Shintaro intercept the street thug:  "So you want to steal my wallet, eh?" he says in a monotone reminscent of the fellow who makes train announcements at Wollongong railway station. (And anyway, did wallets exist in medieval Japan?)

There's a lot of dross on YouTube, but there are also gems like this item.  I am grateful to 8dramaqueen for posting this.