Why Blood Tastes like Copper

Sorry for the long time away. Life is happening. I got a wife and baby and job and stuff. But anyway, here I am.

While my wife is sleeping off her night shift, I have spent most of the day working on my current novel in progress, which happens to be volume 3 of Jake and the Dynamo, currently under the working title of The Shadow of His Shadow.

Anyway, as I was working, I happened to find myself asking a trivial question—why do we typically describe blood as tasting like copper?

This question led me to an interesting article on LiveScience. Although some speculation appears to be involved in the article’s conclusion, the apparent answer is that copper and other metals, including iron, don’t actually have the metallic odor we attribute to them. Rather, the smell comes from an oil in our skin, which breaks down in the presence of metal.

So, when you grab a piece of metal, the breakdown of the oil in your hands leaves behind the “metallic” smell. Naturally, since metal coins get a lot of handling, this makes coins smelly. Thus, the distinctive odor of copper pennies.

Similarly (this part appears to be more speculative), the iron in blood can produce the same smell for the same reason, and (this part is conjecture) we may be sensitive to this metallic smell specifically so that we can be alert to the smell of blood.

So, we smell blood because blood reacts to skin oil in the same way coins do, and then we turn around and attribute the smell of coins to blood.

So there you go.

Jake and the Dynamo: The Shadow of His Shadow
Phase:Writing
Due:3 years ago
33.2%

‘Magical Girl Raising Project’: The Final Verdict

It’s a bloody mess.

Magical Girl Raising Project, episode 11, “Server Down for Maintenance” and Episode 12, “File Not Found.” Directed by Hiroyuki Hashimoto. Studio Lerche. Produced by Genco (2016). Two episodes of 24 minutes (approx. 48 minutes). Rated PG-13. Available on Crunchyroll.

I was going to review this earlier in the week, but my Flash player kept crashing for some reason. Anyway, let’s get this over with so I can get back to injecting Sailor Moon S straight into my bloodstream. As I mentioned before, Magical Girl Raising Project gave me a hankering for Sailor Moon S, and then Viz Media turned around and supplied.

I’m a heroine addict, and these distribution companies are my dealers.

Here be spoilers. Since we’re talking about the two final episodes, I assume that’s obvious.

Continue reading “‘Magical Girl Raising Project’: The Final Verdict”

‘Magical Girl Raising Project,’ Episode 6

Magical Girl Raising Project, episode 6, “Get the Super-Rare Items!” Directed by Hiroyuki Hashimoto. Studio Lerche. Produced by Genco (2016). Approx. 24 minutes. Rated PG-13. Available on Crunchyroll.

Screw you, Magical Girl Raising Project. Screw you and the talking animal mascot you rode in on.

The show, it appears, is not doing what I’d hoped, but is doing what I predicted. I now return to the opinion I formed initially in my review of the first episode.  Right now, at what I assume (?) is the midway point (and I’m well aware that I’m four episodes behind), I hate the show and just want to get it over with. I’m going to gird my loins, grit my teeth, and watch the whole thing—but only because it has “magical girl” in the title.

If I wanted a sneering, mean-spirited, blood-soaked, nihilistic magical girl story, I’d go read Magical Girl Apocalypse and at least get a few chuckles out of the deal. Magical Girl Raising Project doesn’t even provide the chuckles.

The last time I watched a magical girl anime this unpleasant, it was called Day Break Illusion, which, like our present offering, is an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Puella Magi Madoka MagicaDay Break Illusion at least has a tight structure: its creators clearly knew what their story needed, and they put the pieces together with workmanlike competence and efficiency. The result is respectable, if not exactly enjoyable.

Magical Girl Raising Project doesn’t even have that going for it. It is utterly undisciplined, and its scenes appear disjointed and random. This episode, which swerves into over-the-top gore, is an emotionless mess.

I’m glad I’m watching Revolutionary Girl Utena at the same time to remind myself that there are other, more intelligent ways to deconstruct or go “meta” with a genre. In fact, when I finish MGRP, I might go re-watch the perfection that is Princess Tutu to get the bitter taste out of my mouth.

Major spoilers after the break.

Continue reading “‘Magical Girl Raising Project,’ Episode 6”