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If I remember correctly, on the episode 3 of Tokyo ESP, the Ghostbusters
appeared trying to capture the flying penguin. Also, Murasaki's dad is clearly
King Leonidas from the movie 300, and when Murasaki uses her powers on her
dad's nunchaku, she was imitating Bruce Lee.

I found these references very funny, but I was wondering: why they added
American movie characters on the anime? Did it also happened on the manga?


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2014-09-28T21:41:43.943
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2014-10-05T01:52:41.257
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question
tokyo-esp
Why there are some American movie characters on the Tokyo ESP anime?


I don't know about the specific case of Tokyo ESP, but it's far from uncommon
for anime to have references to American popular culture. For example, there
was [Nerima Daikon
Brothers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerima_Daikon_Brothers), which was
vaguely influenced by _The Blues Brothers_ and contained the weird Michael
Jackson parody Yukel Hakushon. [Excel
Saga](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Saga) and [Magical Shopping Arcade
Abenobashi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Shopping_Arcade_Abenobashi)
were also full of them. The Cowboy Bebop episode "Toys in the Attic" was a
parody of the _Alien_ movies. The Yuru Yuri manga included a weird scene where
Kyouko imagines a Hollywood movie of Yuru Yuri where everyone carries a gun.
Hellsing included [its bizarre "Willis"
dream](http://hellsing.wikia.com/wiki/Hellsing_Combat_Pistol_%27Jackal%27#Trivia)
that references Bruce Willis.

Japan receives a good portion of our pop culture. If you look at [this list of
highest-grossing films in Japan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-
grossing_films_in_Japan), you'll notice that it's about an even split between
Japanese and US productions, and that _Titanic_ , _Frozen_ , _Harry Potter_ ,
and _Avatar_ are all in the top ten. Japanese voice actors often do both anime
and dubs of American films; check out [this list of dub roles by Akio
Otsuka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akio_%C5%8Ctsuka#Dubbing_roles), who
plays Rider in Fate/Zero. Even movies that many of us Americans would rather
no one ever saw, like _Con Air_ and the entire filmography of Steven Seagal,
are in that list.

So the author of Tokyo ESP was just making reference to well-known movies, for
the same reasons any author might.


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2014-10-05T01:52:41.257
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