Medium Hot Sabu

Medium Hot Sabu
He looked like an Indian, could only look like an Indian, but he could not be. Exploiting his unique physiognomy, he concentrated his scams on curry stalls. Sabu's only words were "med hot!" repeated with a peculiar accent, and became so popular that generated an unstoppable imitative phenomenon among people.

Shoji Kawamori
(Toyama Prefecture, 1960). Director and mechanical designer. One of the minds behind the Macross saga, he collaborated with Mamoru Oshii as mechanical designer in Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993) and Ghost in the Shell (1995). He recently directed the TV series Aquarion and designed the mechs in Eureka Seven.

WORDS
Narrator: He repeated "med hot" with a peculiar accent. The man had a deep twinkle in his eyes that could be described as "Indian melancholy." The eyes seemed to ask, "Is this medium hot?" No, the eyes asked, "Is this curry?" And Shinada felt awkward. Why was he put in the position to represent Japanese curry in front of an Indian customer - to be sure, one who could only look like an Indian? But those eyes brimmed with Indian melancholy, those pupils that carried thousands of years of curry history, stared at Shinada and did not move.

THE AGE OF MEDIUM HOT SABU
I984 * Glico-Morinaga blackmailing confectioner case. * Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India assassinated. * Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer released.
I985 * Equal Employment Opportunity Law of Men and Women enacted. * Videogame Super Mario Bros. released.
I986 * Space Shuttle Challenger explodes. * Chernobyl nuclear meltdown accident. * First case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) recognized in the UK.
I987 * Perestroika in USSR begins.
I988 * Year-to-year appreciation rate of land value in Japan hits highest record of 68.6%. * Recruit Bribery Scandal. * Japanese Red Army members bomb the US military recreational club in Naples, Italy; 5 die (April). * Video game Dragon Quest III released, selling 3.5 million copies. Children skip school and queue up in front of toy stores; cases of extortion among minors. * Medium Hot Sabu emerges. * Bubble Economy reaches its peak.
I989 * Showa Emperor dies; end of the Showa Era, Heisei Era starts (January 7). * Tiananmen Square Incident (April). * Berlin Wall demolished. * Patlabor: The Movie released. * And the Showa era comes to an end. Bubble Economy bursts and people come to realize that terrorism and war are not so farfetched.
I99O * Stock market crash reveals bubble economy. * Invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi military. * Reunification of East and West Germany.
I99I * First Gulf War. * USSR ceases to exist.
I992 * PKO Law enacted; Self-Defense Forces send PKO missions to Cambodia.
I993 * Patlabor 2: The Movie released.
I993 * Kansai International Airport opens. * Kenzaburo Oe awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
I995 * Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (Kobe area), more than 6000 die. * Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack carried out by the cult Aum Shinrikyo, 12 die and over 5500 are injured. * Ghost in the Shell released.
I996 * Mass infection of E. coli 0157. * Takeshi Abe arrested in HIV-tainted blood scandal. * Ghost in the Shell tops N. 1 of Billboard video sales chartin the US.
I997 * Explosion at Tokaimura nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. * Sakakibara Case: Kobe serial murder of children.
I998 * Winter Olympic Games in Nagano. * Bankruptcy of Hokkaido Takushoku Bank and Yamaichi Securities.
I999 * Criticality incident in Tokaimura nuclear plant, 2 dies.
2OOO * Fusako Shigenobu arrested in Osaka.
2OOI * A man irrupts in Ikeda Elementary School, killing 8 children and injuring 13 (June 8). * Multiple terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. (September 11).
2OO3 * SARS spreads (February). * Iraq War (March 19)
2OO4 * Innocence released and nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
2OO6 * Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Food Grifters released, and has its international premiere at the 63. Venice Film Festival.

© 2006 MAMORU OSHII, Production I.G / TACHIGUISHI RETSUDEN Committee