Aiba Manabu 2013.11.03 to 11.17 Review

I need to catch up on Aiba Manabu (相葉マナブ), so I will cover three episodes in this review – the first three November episodes. I think this might be a good way to cover more shows, and Aiba Manabu in particular could do with this treatment, since it seems to have lapsed into a funk. You know, the fact that we keep seeing the same specialist:

And every time we see her, we know we’re going to get the household tips format. Yes, it’s still charming and informative, but I like variety shows that keep me guessing about what they’ll do in the next episode, and this show had been like that for a while.

The November 3rd episode began with a VTR of the same trick with the water bottle separating the egg yolk from the egg white that we saw months ago and has been featured in other opening VTRs since.

And the recapped the way to carry boxes, too.

So my first question is – why don’t they just preview the questions that will be addressed in the episode instead of looking back at stuff from past episodes?

The first new topic seems to be removing the plastic thing that attaches tags to clothing when you don’t have scissors. I . . . don’t remember ever having to remove a tag like that without being a few steps away from scissors, and can’t imagine why I would be, so . . . not a very useful tip.

Aiba Manabu 2013.10.27 Review

It’s been a while since I’ve done an Aiba Manabu (相葉マナブ) review. The October 13th episode left me totally befuddled – it seemed to jump too quickly from topic to topic for me to follow without a translation, and I found I couldn’t review it to my own satisfaction. I couldn’t find the October 20th episode anywhere, even though I’m not sure, I think there might not have been one that week.

So, that brings us to this episode, which is the complete opposite of the Oct. 13th episode in that it is clearly focused on one thing.

Onigiri.

Onigiri is deceptively simple, yet I’m sure that we’re going to find out the intricacies of it in this episode.

Why, though do we have to discover onigiri with these two?

Watabe-san has really gotten on my bad side because of his role in the Tokyo Ii Mise Kudoi Mise segment on Arashi ni Shiyagare – I associate him so strongly with that boring segment that I despair every time I see him. Sawabe-san isn’t so bad, but the only person who has been on this show more of than him is Aiba-kun.

It probably goes without saying that there are different kinds of onigiri, and so the show begins with a popularity ranking. as an example, #4 is tuna mayonnaise, #5 is konbu, but some of the other ones aren’t as descriptive. What do you suppose the top three are?

Aiba Manabu 2013.10.06 Review

The very beginning of this Aiba Manabu (相葉マナブ) was a bit ominous:

Oh, no – don’t tell me it’s all food again!?

But wait . . .

. . . hmm, it looks like they’ll actually be making the food, and I’m generally favorable to cooking shows (in contrast to eating shows).

There’s no extended VTR at the beginning this time, and we get to Aiba-kun and his two pals Watabe Ken-san and Sawabe Yuu-san.

Their goal is to learn all about tamagoyaki, including how to make it. In other words, this isn’t a generalized chow fest but instead totally focused on a single type of fried egg-based food.

Aiba Manabu 2013.09.29 Review

I feel like I’ve seen this episode of Aiba Manabu (相葉マナブ) before . . . wait! It’s the same format they had in the August 18th episode and the September 8th episode, where they have a pretend family acting out household situations, and then the hosts discuss how to solve the problem!

So, are we going to have this every third episode or something? (and is it always going to start with a long VTR?)

It took them two minutes to bring us to the star of the show and his companions this time. Aiba-kun was joined by the two frequent offenders – Sawabe Yuu-san and Watabe Ken-san. Can they get Watabe-san to break a sweat this time?

At this point, I’m wondering: do I really need to do a new review on basically the same sort of thing? I’m definitely going to conclude that the actual material is interesting (just in the opening VTR, they discussed what to take medicine with – water, coffee, or juice – so this is very applicable stuff). The only question is whether the guys get to do some interesting demonstrations.

Aiba Manabu 2013.09.22 Review

Somehow, I totally missed the September 15th episode of Aiba Manabu (相葉マナブ), and that threw off my queue, so sorry for the delay in the review for this episode – it was totally unintentional. I’ll try to hunt for the Sept. 15th episode to find out what happened there.

This episode is a food episode. Since I don’t know if the Sept. 15th one was as well, I’ll have to wait until I do my review of that one to complain about them doing too many food episodes. Once a Japanese variety show goes down that road, the chances grow increasingly dim that it’ll ever bounce back, so I’m always on alert.

If you think the image above looks like ice cream, I should warn you – those are not the flavors you think they are. This episode is all about miso soup (味噌汁 – miso shiru) , so those are . . . yeah.

But, truth be told, this is one food topic I’m actually interested in, though only if they end up showing me how to properly prepare miso soup. I’ve messed around with miso paste from time to time, but never managed to get miso soup tasting to my satisfaction (of course, there’s a chance that I simply don’t like miso soup – I’ve never actually had it prepared by an expert).

Aiba-kun’s guests this time were Watabe Ken-san (who is always up for these food episodes because they don’t involve hard work), Sawabe Yuu-san (who is always up for Aiba Manabu episodes, no matter what’s going on), and relative newcomer Hamatani Kenji-san.

It didn’t take them long to get seated and ready to eat . . .