Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Torichan

Continuing our examination of the panelists we turn the second panelist who appeared on the 14th episode of B&GND:

Reina Triendl (b. Jan. 23, 1992).

First of all, how do we get from her Austrian name to "Torichan"? Japanese often uses one of its two syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, to write foreign words. Her last name is written トリンドル in katakana. Each of the symbols represents a vowel or a single consonant followed by a vowel sound (with the sole exception of ンand its equivalent in hiragana which represent an "N" sound with no following vowel). Thus, トリンドル would be pronounced To - Ri - N - Do - Ru or "Torindoru" which gets shortened to "Tori" which, coincidentally and appropriately means "bird" in Japanese. The -chan suffix is a more informal and friendly honorific and is, perhaps, slightly diminutive. Torichan is our little bird on the panel.

(TANGENT. It was not until the announcement of the upcoming series, Terrace House: Opening New Doors that I realized the strange feature of the show's names in Japanese: they are all written and pronounced as English words. Episode 1 opens (nearly three years before the show would seek an international audience via its affiliation with NetFlix) with the name of the show displayed as "Terrace House Boys X Girls Next Door" with テラスハウス in green below that. This latter became the franchise name:テラスハウス. which is pronounced Te - Ra - Su - Ha - U - Su - "Terrace House". The first NetFlix series was also only written in English, "Terrace House Boys X Girls In The City", but, otherwise. used the franchise name. The most recent series is written テラスハウス アロハ ステート that is, Te - Ra - Su - Ha - U - Su - A - Ro - Ha - Su - Te - (e) - To. And the next series is テラスハウス オープニング ニュー　ドアーズ or Te - Ra - Su - Ha - U - Su - O - (o) - Pu - Ni - N - Ngu - Ni - Yu- (u) - Do - A - (a) - Zu or "Terrace House Opening New Doors".)

Torichan was the youngest member of the panel in B&GND, but she has, nevertheless, already had a flourishing career as a model and an actress in TV dramas and film. In fact, she plays the protagonist in a film available right now on US NetFlix called Tag.

Unlike, YOU's film Nobody Knows, I do recommend watching Tag. It is a horror film, but it is not torture porn and the violence is ridiculously over-the-top and cartoonish. If (spoiler from the first few minutes of the film) seeing two busses of school girls get sliced in half by a mysterious wind decapitating everyone except Torichan's character (who was reaching for something on the floor at the time) or occasional panty-shots or the lack of a full explanation for what is happening are deal breakers for you, do not watch this film. Otherwise, it's an enjoyable, evocative film with some striking moments of utter beauty. Torichan does play the protagonist, but the main character changes actresses, character and location a few times. Her character does begin and end the film, and she has the screen-presence and charisma to anchor your interest in the narrative.

Torichan is a superb addition to Terrace House. As we see from the few episodes where she is absent. she tempers the bawdier elements in the panel (generally, Tokui and YOU). She does not speak as often as others on the panel - part of that may be cultural since younger members in a group will often be expected to be silent unless their opinion is solicited. Fortunately, YOU does often ask what Torichan thinks of various moments in the show, and Torichan responses are generally sweet, romantic, sometimes surprisingly lusty, and frequently insightful. She's my favorite member of the panel.