I have been recently rewatching the 1989 anime Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (Cat Ninja Legend Teyandee); which in English is called Samurai Pizza Cats. The English Dub was purely played as a gag dub and in many respects abandons the Japanese script entirely, either because the translators were never furnished with it or because the translations were so poor that they were useless; so what we got is arguably anime's most delightfully dubious dub.
Yes the anime is in many respects just like any other Monster Of The Week show, and yes it does play with tropes and frequently not only breaks the fourth wall but hangs a lampshade on the pieces of broken glass left behind, but because it was so bonkers bananas mental, it was also able to play very heavily into satire.
Given that this is now 35 years later and that there are wikis and podcasts for everything (including this show), if you want to do a deep dive then you certainly have the ability to do that but for now, I want you to consider the Emperor Iei Iei Tokugawa. He is not a main character. He does not appear in many episodes. However, he is himself a problem and the elemental cause of many of the troubles which become plot drivers.
Emperor Iei Iei (who is a Panda) is in every respect a mentally incompetent buffoon. He speaks in nonsequiturs and straight up gibberish, he makes nonsensical decrees, he is possibly quite quite senile, and it is often hinted that he might not actually be aware of where he is.
Now given that the show was written in 1988 and put into production while the actual Japanese Emperor Hirohito was also quite old, it probably reflects the very real worries that Japanese society had at the time, with regards the mentally competence of the Emperor. Fears were soon dissipated though as Hirohito died at the age of 88. In relation to Kyatto Ninden Teyandee, this meant that the sting of the satire was taken out a bit, as Hirohito died before the first episode aired.
Nevertheless, there are two very long sub-plots which play out over the course of the show.
One is that of the Royal Household trying to either get Emperor Iei Iei's daughter Princess Usako married off so that they can install her as empress, or trying to make Princess Usako aware of the responsibility which she is going to inherit. Princess Usako though, is incredibly selfish, stupid, conceited, and at the same time completely fully aware of the power that she wields, and she does so in a selfish, stupid, and conceited way. In keeping with the naming conventions of this show, her name Usako means "Bunny Girl"; which seems rather straightforward as she is a rabbit.
The keeper of the Royal Household, Inuyama Wanko-no-Kami (which means "Dog Mountain") is basically the last remaining line of defence against both Emperor Iei Iei and Princess Usako from running the city of Edoropolis into total chaos. Inuyama is also the one who contracts the Pizza Cats to do various jobs including fighting the Monster Of The Week; which almost suggests that Inuyama is actually the one who runs the government in lieu of Emperor Iei Iei's incompetence and Princess Usako's uninterested belligerence.
The second long very long sub-plot involves that of the Prime Minister, Kitsunezuka Ko'on-no-Kami (which means "Lord Fox"), who somehow even though he lives in the Palace complex, is actively trying to overthrow the government in almost every episode. As with many Kitsune (foxes) in Japanese folk-lore, Lord Ko-on is a trickster. Somehow, he is able to command a private army, and unleashes said Monster Of The Week in the form of some ill-thought out and underfunded robot, all while doing so on the public coin.
Probably the best thing about Kyatto Ninden Teyandee as a show, is that it is not real. It is an animated cartoon. There are no lessons that we can learn from a piece of media as frivolous as this. The situation and the satire is not real. There are no real world parallels.
In 2024, we can not possibly imagine a mentally incompetent buffoon in charge of a great nation, which may or may not be in possession of nuclear weapons, who speaks in nonsequiturs and straight up gibberish. We can not possibly imagine that mentally incompetent buffoon being quite senile and unaware of where he is.
In 2024, we can not possibly imagine the leader's presumptive second in command, inheriting the office, and having to keep at bay the society of animaloids who are driven into mass-hysteria by media networks.
In 2024, we can not possibly imagine a trickster who is actively trying to overthrow the government, who is somehow able to command a private army however unorganised, and we we can not possibly imagine that trickster abandoning all notion of truth in favour of a constant barrage of lies which end up being the political equivalent to the Monster Of The Week.
We especially can not possibly imagine anything like this in the real world, on 5th November 2024... yet.
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