Princess Yotaro

Text Hola Angero
Illustration Toshikazu Ozawa
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

It is not widely known, but the Kabayaki Yotaro produced and sold by Kado Co. uses a slightly unusual ingredient other than pollock. It is the surimi of the peach-bellied salamander, which lives in the canals of Nicaragua. In fact, the bright red colour of Kabayaki Yotaro is derived from the colour of the body tissue of the giant salamander.

The Nicaragua Canal was planned by the United States of America as a rival to the French-planned Panama Canal, which was abandoned in the 1910s because of fears that Momotombo, Nicaragua's pride and joy, was an active volcano and would erupt. Construction was halted after 150 km of the project had been completed, and the unusable waterway became a breeding ground for the peach-bellied salamander.

The elder of the peach-bellied salamanders, Matsui, was one of those looking forward to the opening of the Nicaragua Canal at the time. The mere thought of thousands and thousands of tons of cruise ships and cargo ships passing through made my heart skip a beat,’ Matsui sighs, his long, silvery lashes down. But a hundred years after the project was abandoned, the dream has come back to life! As the saying goes, if you live long enough, stars are born' In 2014, the Nicaragua Canal project resurfaced and construction resumed with a target completion date of 2019.

One day in the spring of 2015, when it looked as if Matsui's century-old wish would be fulfilled, Mount Momotombo shuddered. As soon as it seemed to shake the earth, tens of thousands of tonnes of volcanic bombs shot up from its crater, raining searing bullets all over the country. Some of them reached the old Nicaragua Canal and landed on Matsui and other peach-bellied salamanders.

By the way, when faced with death, the peach-bellied salamander secretes a special substance from its gall bladder. This substance was proved to be a panacea by Professor Tadataka Matsui of Kyoto University, who gave it the highly punny name of docudetrin. Volcanic bombs crushed the hapless Matsui, and after more than 100 years of growth, enlargement and maturation, his gall bladder secreted a thick concentration of docudetrin, turning his body a bright pink colour.

The Kado Corporation picked up the corpse and used it as an ingredient in Kabayaki Yotaro. Kabayaki Yotaro, which contains Matsui's dokudetrin, is distributed in the Nippon Kantou area and sold at the 7-Eleven Nishi-Shinjuku 7-chome shop. It then enters the mouth of a young girl (nicknamed ‘Princess Yotaro’ because she loves ‘Kabayaki Yotaro’ so much) who is hospitalised in a nearby hospital with an incurable disease. Matsui's special dokudetrin is now sinking into Princess Yotaro's five organs.

PICTURE BOOK STUDIO #003
2024.11.16