Category Archives: Franchises

January 10, 2014

What Did the Foreigner Say? (^q^)KUEOUEOU-EEOEUOO

By omo

A blog about a western take on Japanese anime-manga-game-nerd stuff is going to be a blog about explosive Japanese memes involving Sakura Tange voicing a virtual girlfriend-type character. Yeah?

Technically she saysÂ ã‚¯ãƒã‚¨ãƒ»ãƒ«ãƒ¡ãƒ¼ãƒ«Â or Chloe Â Lemaire, but I can only shrug and laugh at the (^q^)ããŠãˆã†ãˆãƒ¼ãƒ¼ãƒ¼ã‚‹ãˆã†ãŠãŠãŠ going on.

Here’s Youtube’s embed, which has fewer hits than the Nicovideo one (that reached 1M view in 4 days).

Basically, this mobile game about virtual girlfriends is still in beta, in Japanese, and region locked, but some people has taken to it as per usual. There’s this Chloe character who is neigh incomprehensible because it’s Tange trying to speak like a French person, which is, well, I won’t assign a value judgment on something closer to a divide-by-zero than most other descriptors. The core meme is actually just one of the commercials uploaded for this game, as you see above. The new year campaign for the game decked these virtual GFs in traditional wear and is on TV. The meme took off fast, but I don’t know if it has legs. More over, as I’ve been looking at the meme towards the first days of its birth, the thing looks like what happens when you microwave a CD-R. Smoky, fractal-like in beauty, and a little fascinating.

Learn more about Chloe’s … situation here. Nico Nico Pedia’s entry is also not a bad start.

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Girl Friend (Beta), Modern Visual Culture

January 9, 2014

Seitokai Yakuindomo Is the Viagra of Four-Panel Comedy…

By omo

…Because it goes on about the same stuff for ever and ever.

And I am ever happy about its return to television. The first season and subsequent OAD/OVAs were relatively what you would expect of a late 00s television anime in terms of look and feel. It was almost a late 00s television anime after all. The return was gloriously spiffier, like a proper introduction episode of some new-fangled television adaptation of some high concept SF animation. Except this anime is probably still set in the period before people used tablet computers, and is as basic as a toilet joke.

It’s just that, I recently caught up on the OADs to make way for episode one of the second TV series (#seitokai2), and it just struck me that this anime is an one trick pony. Granted adding the little sister, the yankee, and the other president did change things up a good deal, Seitokai Yakuindomo still applies the same tricks, just now spread around to more characters. Moreover, we have the same number of tsukkomi, which is really unusual in that we’re something like 22 episodes in now.

Maybe the magic is in the voice acting? In the timing? Or the way the tsukkomi stays out of the way (fast, but not furious)? Maybe it’s all these things.

It’s so weird, that I felt this was such a big deal, this new season, that I wrote it up with a clickbait headline.

PS. It’s also so weird that a high school comedy is way more lewd than Space Dandy, a “TOTALLY UNEXPECTED, NOT KIDS’ STUFF” sort of Adult Swim content about boobies.

2 comments | posted in Seitokai Yakuindomo

January 7, 2014

Space Dandy: Paionium

By omo

Having finally watched the second coming of Mushroom Samba, I can say that there needs to be more boobs.

Dandy

Less jokingly, the best thing about Space Dandy 01 is the ending joke, which is the one most faithful thing from the esteemed comedy side story of Cowboy Bebop. Other than the possibly psychedelic influences. When you take the mushroom out of Mushroom Samba it is really just kind of dull.

And that’s kind of how Space Dandy is so far. I think to help with this, they added boobies, and unfortunately some people take breasts really seriously so the effects will vary.

I watched the Cartoon Network premiere and the EN dub was okay. It’s easy to get overblown in terms of pointing at the differences, but after watching the JP dub (which is probably best watched on Hulu for Americans), I think it’s pretty okay. I think the Space Ball joke about going to Plaid just didn’t work out the same if you didn’t work in the Paiotsu angle, but that aside, everything is tolerably localized. Oh, I guess it was missing that ending. It’s Yoko Kanno arranging an Etsuko Yakushimaru song, which is A Big Deal in my book. Even if said Big Deal sounded only Okay in the TV cut.

Thanks for Noucome, we know what a Paiotsu is. And yes, this is basically also the first episode’s most consistently running joke. The dub can’t work out the pun, understandably so, and we miss out on probably the one life saver Space Dandy episode 1 had. Oh well.

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Space Dandy

January 3, 2014

Year in Review 2013: Signs from a Mermaid

By omo

This is the last post, I promise.

I Â want to post Muromi-san’s opening, because it’s that special.

Thanks, Yuyucow. Anyway, the OP sequence itself is so full of this short anime’s essence, it’s basically an episode all on its own. I don’t think any other anime in 2013 was twice itself in the same duration as any given episode. It’s also so cool *_* with the gang signs, the evolutionary creationism, the rocking Sumipe number, the meteor, the mermaid-in-space pan, the way their chests wiggle back and forth in the water, the yeti, the paper buttons, basically this.

It is also much like 2013 for me–frantic, lots of fun, and it’s over way too quickly. In it, it’s a whole year’s worth of crap, but it felt like a buck-thirty long. I visited friends all over the place, went to some lives in JP, hit up the usual haunts, hung out with more local Ps. Ate good stuff. Can’t really complaint about any of this, but it did gave me less time to be contemplative and write more.

Hoping 2014 will be better in those ways!

Year in Review 2013 Index: