Taiwan is infatuated with a bevy of “big-breasted bodacious baby-faced babes” (童顏巨乳), so who could resist the chance to review a movie titled Oppai Volleyball, the Chinese title of which translates as “Big-Breasted Volleyball — The Determination to Win of a Hot-Blooded School Team” (巨乳排球:熱血校隊的決勝心願), from the land that inspired otaku mania? Oppai is clearly another Japanese word, like otaku, destined for inclusion in the Taiwanese, or even the English-language, lexicon, its wide-open vowel certain to inspire those who feel the need to express their appreciation of a fine rack.
The fact that Oppai Volleyball
(Oppai Bare) stars swimsuit model Haruka Ayase, who is widely acknowledged to have a fine pair (official bust/waist/hip measurement is 88/62/92, for those who need to know) gives this flick additional credentials. It needs to be stated right at the beginning that for those aiming to get an eyeful, disappointment awaits. As I left the theater, one member of the audience commented to his companion: “We had to sit though all that, and we never even got to see her tits.”
For truth be told, Oppai Volleyball is a rather innocent little piece of cinema, a junior high school version of National Lampoon with an inspirational message at the end.
Ayase is certainly very easy on the eyes, and manages a mix of confusion and determination, as well as wearing, in the opening scene, a short tartan skirt and plaid knee-high socks, which is going to have the otaku crowd positively drooling. That is, of course, the idea.
Ayase plays a teacher, Mikako Terashima, who on arrival at a new school gets given the school’s no-hope boys volleyball club. The five members are really only interested in one thing: fantasizing about oppai. Since these nerds are unlikely to get anywhere with the girls at the school, they resort to various antics to satisfy their curiosity about the female body. To give them some inspiration to become a proper sports team, Terashima agrees to let them check out her mammalian protuberances if they manage to win a game in the interschool competition. Such is the premise of the movie, which then progresses through every cliche of the underdog school movie genre, with the unlikely team members working like maniacs to hone their athletic skills for the ultimate prize: seeing their teacher’s oppai.
The story gets out, Terashima is fired, but the boys manage to make it to the main competition and give every ounce of themselves in a game against insuperable odds.
The potentially serious moral implications of the contract between the teacher and her students is at no point regarded as being of the slightest interest, which is in many ways a blessing, leaving Oppai Volleyball as an innocuous piece of inconsequential fluff with no aspirations to be anything else.
The word oppai occurs more times in the movie than one would have thought possible, and the breast gag is the only joke in the film. Well, perhaps not the only one; the director may be having his own private joke in having Ayase wear more clothes in Oppai Volleyball than she does in any number of her glamour photos.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
RSS