Uzushio - Blog Posts
Tsunade Headcanon
I hc that she’s FREAKISHLY good with sealing but doesn’t do it often bc yk… reminds her of her dead clan-
When jiraiya was learning sealing, she would come over randomly and correct his work like it was nothing and would walk off. This would make jiraiya spiral because ‘holy crap I’ve been working on this for weeks and she just?? Figures it out??’
Imagine she was taught by mito from the time that she could put ink on paper how to seal. After the uzushio massacre, that she HATED seeing anything remotely close to sealing.
It’s only until after the war that she finally thinks she’s able to do what she used to with her grandmother. She is still as good as she remembers but the first couple of times she tries, she leaves tear stains on the scrolls shes working with.
Tilting Diesels!
In June, we said さようなら to Japan's first tilting electric multiple unit (see that post also for why you'd want tilt in the first place), launched in 1973. For some reason, adding tilt to Diesel multiple units needed a bit more time - my guess is engine vibrations play a part. Nonetheless, in 1989, JR Shikoku did it, launching the 2000 series tilting DMU. The company has continued with the technology, and the latest generation, the 2700 series shown above, is 5 years old this month.
The 2000 series is still in service, but I haven't yet seen any. However I have seen and ridden two derivatives of the 2000: the JR West KiHa 187 above, which reminds me of trains in England with its yellow front, and the streamlined Chizu Kyûkô HOT7000 below.
These trains run intercity services along the picturesque San'in coast - the Super Matsukaze and Super Oki in Yamaguchi, Shimane and Tottori prefectures -, and between the San'in and San'yô coasts - the Super Hakuto and Super Inaba in Hyôgo, Okayama and Tottori prefectures, which is how the HOT7000 got its name.
With these trains, Tottori to Himeji is done in under two hours, a similar time frame to what electric tilting trains can do between Okayama and Yonago. The mountains are also quite scenic, and the HOT7000 has a feature that I don't think I've seen anywhere else: a live cab cam.
Another country worked to develop tilting DMUs: Germany. This culminated with the high-speed ICE T, which I'm yet to encounter, but in the late 1990s, at a similar time to the Japanese examples above, Adtranz built the RegioSwinger, officially Baureihe 612. These yellow and white examples work in the South-West corner of Germany, along the Rhine between the Bodensee and Basel, with a couple of incursions into Switzerland.
Riding a tilting train is peculiar. 8° of tilt doesn't sound like much, but it adds up with the camber of the tracks to produce a visually impressive experience. The tilt is really noticeable, and it does what it's supposed to do, compensating the G-forces so you don't feel the pull to the side through corners. The downside of DMUs is that they tend to be quite noisy - the engines sound like they're giving 110% all the time! On the whole, I really like them.
