Japão (As Aventuras de Gui & Estopa)

Japão (lit. Japan) is the fourth episode of the first season of As Aventuras de Gui & Estopa, originally premiered in 2008. In this episode Gui and his friends travel to Japan where they cosplay in order to get along with the Japanese people, but Estopa is mistaken for a sumo wrestler because of his costume.

Why it Sucks

 * 1) The episode is supposed to depict Japan, however they only show the otaku side of the Japanese people showing them cosplaying as anime characters in the middle of the street, which doesn't make sense, because not all Japanese people are otaku and neither walk the streets cosplaying.
 * 2) The episode, like several others, makes MASSIVE use of pop references, in this case just references to Japanese franchises just because the episode takes place in Japan.
 * 3) Plotholes:
 * 4) *How are Gui, Estopa, Fifivelinha and Piti allowed to travel alone to Japan without being accompanied by an adult if they are just children?
 * 5) *In one scene Piti tries to flirt with Fifivelinha, not recognizing her after she dresses up as Sailor Moon, but that doesn't make sense since all four of them entered the costume shop and came out together in costumes.
 * 6) *How was Estopa confused by Hotto Doggu (that is a sumo world champion) and still having his image dressed as Hotto Doggu marketed by the city if Estopa is a dog and Hotto Doggu is a human?
 * 7) *Why Estopa ignored calling his friends after he was taken to Hotto Doggu's apartment and stayed there eating for days?
 * 8) The design of the Japanese people can be considered somewhat racist, as everyone is portrayed with closed eyes and some being toothy (like Hotto Doggu's boss).
 * 9) Bad ending: After the image of Estopa dressed as Hotto Doggu is marketed around town as if he were the real Hotto Doggu, Hotto Doggu is frustrated, as he thinks that people will not watch his next match because they believe that Estopa is him. Gui and his friends decide to fix the problem by advertising Hotto Doggu in the middle of the street dressed as hot dogs, which ends up making them embarrass themselves in public.
 * 10) *That also doesn't make sense, because if Hotto Doggu is already a world champion and even having products based on him (the costume that Estopa used), why did people come to believe that Estopa was Hotto Doggu?

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) The theme song for this episode is catchy.
 * 2) Despite the forced use of pop references, it's cool to see references to Japanese characters all together like Astroboy, Sailor Moon, Naruto, Pokémon, and others.
 * 3) The scene in which Piti claims to know how to speak Japanese and speaks "taka a kara no muro" is funny.

Trivia

 * This is the only episode to have two writters instead of only one.
 * This episode was made in the period when animes like Naruto were highly relevant in the west.

Video
tRHW2AHX75c

Comments
