Forum - View topicTea and tea culture.
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
|
||
|
I've just finished Hyouge Mono and started to wonder about place of tea in anime.
One may wonder why tea doesn't seem to get more prominent role- apart from that series I can't recall any anime that takes place in Japan featuring tea as a major theme- and HM in fact was more around tea culture and ceremonies rather than tea itself. In most series tea appear, but blends into background like a bowl of rice- something so common that you may only notice it when it disappear. Poor tea can count on some spotlight just in Victorian themed pieces as a staple of period, along with maids, fancy mansions, and social inequality. Did I miss something? And I made a little bet- is there an anime where Japanese character uses a teabag? You may dress in western suit, eat hamburgers and play baseball, but when it comes to tea everyone turns to leaves. |
|||
|
|||
DavidShallcross
 Posts: 1008 |
|
||
|
K-ON is largely about tea. And cake. After all, "After School Tea-Time" is the band's name, in English translation.
It seems common for anime set on the job to have the lower status workers, either the newbies or the women, to make tea. |
|||
|
|||
wcsinn
 Posts: 186 |
|
||
|
If you mean traditional tea culture, as in Tea Ceremony, it is not extremely popular but does appear. Two come immediately to mind: Amagami SS particularly during the Rihoko Sakurai arc, where she is a member of the Tea Club, and Aquarion, where Commander Fudou is often seen in a Tea House preparing tea in the traditional manner.
|
|||
|
|||
WhiteHairGirls
 Posts: 4713 Location: New York City |
|
||
|
Well in Yuru Yuri their club was originally the tea club.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6607 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
|
||
|
In Fate / Stay Night Rin Tohsaka is a tea afficianado. She is surprised when Archer proves to be expert at making it. Later she teaches Emiya how to do it. It's one of the sly hints in the series.
More people should watch Hyouge Mono. What did you think of it, EireformContinent? |
|||
|
|||
EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
|
||
And of course, the many....(sigh) MANY...Ranma 1/2 Season 5-6 episodes where girl-Ranma had to take on the dojo of Tea-Ceremony Fighting, who fight from a kneeling position and use bowls and whisks as weapons. (And whose members are all old traditional grandmas, since the Japanese complain that young girls don't like to learn tea-ceremony anymore.) Most, however, clearly remember Usagi's first experience attending the rituals of tea ceremony, in Sailor Moon S. And although the meme graphic was removed, have to admit, I didn't really get the point of what the OP thought he was joking about either. 
|
|||
|
|||
BesuDesu
 Posts: 89 Location: Florida |
|
||
|
Well... I kinda remember this one episode of Pokemon when Ash and co came across these sisters who worked at some kinda tea/dance dojo, and I think they may have shown/explained a bit about ritual then. I remember that episode mainly because of the eevee evolutions X3
|
|||
|
|||
|
Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7585 Location: Wales |
|
||
It is such a normal thing I don't think I would take much notice if I did see it. What did stand out, since I'd never seen one before, was vacuum coffee makers which I've seen in at least two anime. |
|||
|
|||
|
Mesonoxian Eve
Posts: 1858 |
|
||
|
I've seen tea used in anime more times than I can count, but now that the bet was thrown down, I actually have no memory of seeing anyone using a tea bag. The tea is always poured.
Damn that bet! Now I'm going to be actively looking for this from now on. 
|
|||
|
|||
|
Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18571 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
||
|
I have seen tea bags come up at least once or twice before. It was/they were in some situation where the main character and one of the lead supporting characters lived together and were so poor that they had to reuse tea bags to economize. However, I cannot at this time place what series that happened in.
Traditional tea ceremonies have appeared in innumerable anime over the years, from My-HiME to Ai Yori Aoshi to The Story of Saiunkoku, but they have rarely been major or even central story elements. |
|||
|
|||
TsunaReborn!
 Posts: 4713 Location: Cheltenham UK |
|
||
|
Belldandy from Oh My Goddess when at "home" always seems to be poring tea.
|
|||
|
|||
|
EireformContinent
Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
|
||
It was prefect. The anime I've dreamed of. Seriously, I completely adore period comedies, especially that kind that makes fun of concrete events, people and customs of era. Apart from UK, Japan seems to be the only country that can poke fun of it's own history for larger scale. HyougeMono perfectly balances drama and comedy, managed to present chosen era in funny light and- what is probably the most important and rarest thing in such kind of fiction- managed to make a completely believable characters while giving them psychology and morals reflecting their history and social standing. However those pros turns into cons when it comes to foreign audience- to be funny, it requires a bit of knowledge about Sengoku Jidai. Not a special one, something that regular Japanese can remember from history class and absorb from domestic popculture plus some bonuses for nerds, but it can be too much for most of anime fans, whose cultural background doesn't contain memes from Japanese history. Not that it cant be helped with an hour with wiki, but it's not instant series. Key, thanks, but if you will be in need of reusing tea, remember that even the cheapest leaves bear reusing better than the best bags 
|
|||
|
|||
Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10090 Location: Virginia |
|
||
|
@EireformContinent
In Fate/Stay Night when Rin comes to stay with Emiya she complains that he only has tea in bags and the wrong kind of bags at that. I don't remember actually seeing the bags, but Emiya did use them. I think the reason you don't see tea as the focus of a show (as opposed to the tea ceremony) is that it is so central to Japanese life they don't think of it, like the bowl of rice you mention. |
|||
|
|||
|
Animegomaniac
Posts: 4179 |
|
||
|
I find the idea of green tea in bags to be silly. If the point is to be contemplative then convenience is hardly useful.
Mixing the tea by using brush and bowl {or something like that. Wisk? All I know is what I see} is the central part of the ceremony of making tea; I'm not sure if you mean the same thing by "pouring". Ignoring that, then there's the everyday guest tea. Right, if the tea came in a bag, would it floating upright be a sign of good luck? Or a sign of really bad tea? It's also a matter of decorum; they are your guests after all and "Here's a bag, do it yourself" is, well not just tacky but kind of insulting. Also, I could name a couple of shows where the time it took to make the tea was part of the plot, ie stalling for time or making distinct plot important conversation. Just pouring the tea just doesn't work as well. Tea for yourself? Eh, bag it. No one's looking... That includes the audience. |
|||
|
|||
|
dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
|
||
It's really quite simple. By "pouring" they mean making the tea first then serving it by pouring it from the container to the tea bowl or cup which the person drinks out of. This is different to using a bag in which the tea is not poured into the cup but rather placed in. |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group