j1m0ne's blog

If you’ve watched Moyashimon, you might recall episode 9 where Itsuki-sensei introduced surströmming (fermented herring), allegedly one of the foulest-smelling foods in the world, to the students. Well apparently the show’s producers thought it’d be great fun to make the seiyuu bring a can of the stuff on a picnic and film their reactions to opening and eating it. The four unfortunate guinea pigs/sacrificial lambs selected for the experiment were Sakaguchi Daisuke (Sawaki), Sugiyama Noriaki (Kawahama), Kanda Akemi (Hazuki) and Ohara Sayaka (Hasegawa). I would’ve loved to have seen Noto Mamiko (Muto) trying it out though ;P

Anyway, quality of the video isn’t great – I got it off Nico Nico a few months ago but I suppose not everyone has an account there.

It’s not too hard to understand what they’re talking about, the most important word is 臭い (kusai/stinky). I think you can tell from their faces and their screaming what they’re thinking anyway.

They were all given lab coats and disposable gloves for the task. Poor Sakaguchi Daisuke was entrusted with the job of actually opening the can of surströmming, thanks to his status as the voice of the lead character. Sugiyama did give him a helping hand to finish off the job, though instead of doing it underwater (apparently it reduces the smell), they did it in an open field with only a small glass panel for protection. There was alas, no mass squirting out of brine like in the anime though >_> When a bit of the liquid started trickling out of the can, the girls started screaming like little babies. Ugh.

After opening the can, it was time to dissect what looked like some dead animal’s liver and try eating it.

Reactions:
-The first word that left Sakaguchi’s mouth upon properly tasting his surströmming snack was ‘Aaaah’. I couldn’t quite tell at first whether it was an ‘Aaaah’ of pleasure or disgust, but judging from his speechlessness, I’m inclined to believe it was the latter.
-Sugiyama jogged on the spot and muttered 臭い.
-The girls started jumping & running around and looked pretty much ready to throw up. Ohara asked for a bucket.

Other interesting points:
-If you didn’t already know, Ohara Sayaka has a bit of a devilish streak in her – she said ‘Urusai yo, debu’ (Shut up, fatso) to Sugiyama ^^;
-Kanda Akemi looked traumatised by the whole experience, prompting Ohara to comfort her, poor thing. Kanda also complained that the smell had gotten into her hair.
-If you’re wondering why Ohara was running after one of the staff members, it was cos she was trying to get her to eat the surströmming too. Sakaguchi did get his own manager to try it out (the guy in the green jacket), and I guess he didn’t like it either, you could see him stumbling off somewhere in the background…

On the topic of smelly food:
Here’s an article (in Japanese) ranking the 10 the smelliest foods in the world.
The list in English.

I’ve never even seen a can of surströmming before, so I’m pretty curious as to how bad it really smells. I wonder if compares to the smell of salted fish (ham yu) being fried? Dunno if anyone apart from Chinese people know what that smells like… I can’t even begin to describe it. Rotten eggs, fresh garbage etc etc.

I’m amused that durian isn’t on the list above though, since I’ve heard plenty of exaggerating comments on how much it stinks, especially from my UK acquaintances. That reminds me of an incident back in June last year where a bunch of foreign tourists fled the scene of a durian-eating contest in Penang after taking a sniff of the fruit, causing the competition to be abandoned xD

Me being a Malaysian, I can assure you that durians do not smell like a combination of rotting flesh, old gym socks and sewage. *shrug* It’s only when you leave the spiky footballs in an enclosed space for an extended period of time that the smell becomes overwhelming ^_^