Maetenloch has discovered Pixel Maritan.

It's possible he doesn't know the whole story behind it. Back at the beginning of time, there was a series of graphic novels about a character named Moetan. She was a magical girl, and had a crush on a high school boy. So she'd transform to her magical form and visit him, to help him study English.

That was the point of it all; was to help the readers to study English.

Well, Pixel Maritan was a satire of that series. To the extent that it had any goal besides being riotously funny, the goal was to teach the readers how to cuss like a Marine.

The basic story was that Maritan was a princess of the magical kingdom of Parris Island, where she worked as a Marine drill instructor. There were three other main characters: Army-tan was a recruit soldier under Maritan's tender care. J-tan represented the Japanese self defense force. And Navy-tan was an officer, always seen wearing dress whites and daintily drinking a cup of tea.

"-tan" is an ultra-cutesy version of -chan, and given Maritan's character its use is part of the satire because Maritan is not cute.

There were three volumes, and all of them had the same format. At any point, the left hand page was a comic, entirely in Japanese except the last word balloon which was in English. The right page, then, was a gloss explaining that last word balloon, which was invariably profane or obscene, with careful attention to the meaning and proper use of words like "fuck", "cocksucker" and so on.

In the first volume all the English lines were from the movie Full Metal Jacket, mostly from the gun sergeant. The other two books were a bit more varied but the basic format was the same in all of them.

My understanding is that it was a wild success. There was a drama CD released, and the voice actress who did Maritan visited the American base on Okinawa and was photographed there with American Marines, who seemed to really enjoy it all.

All in all, quite a run for what really has to be thought of as a one-joke pony.

UPDATE: I haven't read the books, and I really wonder how you fill three volumes out. After you've done Carlin's "six words", then what do you do? English isn't really a very rich language for cursing.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 09:25 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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If you're obsessive like I am, you've noticed that nyaatorrents has been up and down. Yesterday I got curious so I left a copy of pingplotter running monitoring it.

It's interesting. The route comes up and down a lot, but the point that's breaking isn't the last step, not even close. It's a step named "staminus.net", about 7 steps before nyaa.se (a synonym).

Anyway, all last night, the pattern was that this link would be down for 20 minutes or half an hour, then come up for a few seconds (typically half a minute but sometimes up to 4 minutes) and then go down again. I suspect someone there is working on a fix for something; they bring it up briefly for a test, which has always failed, so they bring it down again and work on it some more.

The web site for staminus.net says it's all about protecting customers from DDOS's. I wonder if someone has been trying to attack Nyaatorrents, and the guys at Staminus are trying to find an adequate block rule?

The site came up again this morning about 9 (my time) and just went down again at 2 (my time) so I guess they're making another try. Unless they find an answer, probably it's going to be up-and-down all night again, mostly down.

UPDATE: I assume that the global routing announcement for "nyaatorrents.org" and "nyaa.se" is to send it to staminus.net, which is rerouting it to the actual server farm that hosts nyaa.se, located in Montreal.

That's pretty elaborate for what is basically a hobby site. Did nyaatorrents get attacked by a DDOS before, forcing them to take this kind of action?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 03:31 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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It's the birth of a new meme: Nekomimi Mai! I expect to see fan art beginning any day now.

This series just keeps getting stranger and stranger. But what was nice about this one was that they won it by getting along with the phantom, not by destroying it. It was actually a rather nice one; the problem was just that it turned almost everyone in the school into cat people.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 11:03 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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(From here)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 01:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'll take your pulse and your wallet!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 10:35 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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DARPA is about to "unveil" a robot ship here in Portland. It's intended as a sub hunter and it has no crew. Nor, apparently, is it remotely controlled. This isn't a drone; it's a completely autonomous killing machine. Ummmm.......

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 04:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Another rewatch. The frustrating thing about that series it that it's only 10+1 episodes and only covers two major plot arcs. I know there's a lot more story than that, so I decided to see if someone had done a Wikia on it which covered some of the light novels, and there it was.

I almost wish I hadn't bothered. The story becomes a major mishmash, with the "problem children" constantly climbing the "sorting algorithm of evil". (The power-up rate seems to rival DBZ.) But what really disturbed me was: Laius didn't die. Algol didn't die. Black Percher didn't die. (She actually joins the No Names!) Sorry, it's just too strange.

Now I'm glad the anime stopped where it did.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 04:00 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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A couple of days ago I suddenly had an urge to rewatch Shingu -- Secret of the Stellar Wars. And I finished it a couple of hours ago.

That really, really was a good show, you know? It's been years since I last watched it, and there are so many things that are right about it.

I do wish the future had been more futuristic, though. 2070 didn't seem so much different than now. But that's a minor carp...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 05:19 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Welcome to the magical city of Rondel. It dates back further than the empire, and was founded by two people who later became the Gods of Education, so it's a pretty big deal.

Lelei has to wear this robe the entire time she's there. It means she is vying to become a Master. If she fails her exam, the masters will throw ink and oil all over her, and she has to keep wearing it as long as she's in the city. That, apparently, is the tradition.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 04:27 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Never let it be said that Australians don't know how to have a good time.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 06:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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