The Kikkoman soy sauce animation that I linked to a couple of weeks ago was hard to get out of my head, between the off-key singing, bulked-up men with non-human heads, and the fact that 96% of the thing was in Japanese. Having questions I couldn't answer, I called in a specialist. Kudos to Eddie Roth, a former BU colleague and current Northwestern University area coordinator, whose knowledge of Japanese allowed him to answer my three main questions.

1. Did the cat hang himself? Was he hanged by someone else? And what was the reason for the hanging? According to Eddie, our fish-headed hero belled the cat (so to speak) when the cat questioned what condiment he should use to top his food. To consider anything but Kikkoman soy sauce was an affront of apparenly homicidal proportions.

2. What's the deal with Fish-Head bedding the woman? Eddie's not too sure what's going on with that. There's not much by way of explanation. The writing on her shirt means "dragon girl," which may or may not have anything to do with their eventual coupling.

3. The fish-head guy is pouring out soy sauce, another guy's dispensing sugar cubes. What's the white stuff the third guy pours? That's apparently vinegar, based on what's printed on his shirt.

I hope answering these questions puts minds at ease. I know they've been keeping you up nights.