Happy Birthday! You taught us to never give up. For that, we are eternally grateful. イキイキするぞ！

YES! I’m feeling super genki after that!

HOT!

K-ON mashup? Yes please.

Technorati Tags: やってみた, birthday, 誕生祭, 誕生日, foreigners, gaijin, Matsuoka Shuzo, Tennis, 外国人, 外人, 松岡修造

In any case, someone took the opening for the game and used photos of actual heads of state to celebrate the release of the game. It is nothing short of brilliant. Don’t miss the Putin/Kim Jong-il kiss scene!

Technorati Tags: adult game, エロゲー, ero game, Kim Jong-il, MAD, My Boyfriend is the PRESIDENT, My Girlfriend is the PRESIDENT, obama, Osananajimi wa Daitouryou, Pope, president, Putin, 幼なじみは大統領

My number one favorite change? The ability to embed videos on any blog. Yes, Yamatologic will now have the NicoVideos embedded right here; no account needed. The draw backs are that the ads are annoying, and my sherpa service isn’t as useful, but you know you want to experience the joy of the site first hand. Click here to get your account.

There is now a menu that you can bring up that give you access to things like もう一度再生 (”Play Again”), この人の他の動画 (”other videos by this person”) or ブログに貼付 (”post to blog”). These are handy dandy. The other ones are less useful to me personally, so I’m going to skip them for now.

The マイページ (”My Page”) has some neat new features. The most notable is the ニコレポ (”NicoReport”). It is essentially a NicoDou twitter feed. However, in keeping with the anonymity of the site, you don’t get to say anything in it, it just registers when you マイリスト (”my list”) a video or one of your videos goes up in the rankings; just little stats really. You can then register other people in your watchlist so that their accomplishments and actions are listed in your report. That plus community postings makes for an active report list!

Speaking of マイリスト, they now have an extra とりあえずマイリスト (Toriaezu Mairisuto) that is just an extra my list that never gets full, just kicks out old videos if there are too many, first in, first out style. I love it since that it essentially what I used one of my lists for anyway! It’s like a temporary queue, so then you can save the ones you really like later in your normal my lists.

The last major change is the ranking page. It’s no longer one long list of the top 100, now it is a crazy grid of the top 20 videos for various categories. It’s information overload, but I think I like it.

So those are the major changes I can think of. If you have questions, bring them to the NicoNicoDouga Help page, and let’s get some walkthroughs of what you want to do made!

Technorati Tags: 9, マイリスト, ⑨, Internet video, memes, My List, new version, NicoDou, NicoNicoDouga, videos, youtube

Yes. Flying underwear. This is the ending to the second episode of そらのおとしもの (Sora no Otoshimono), a crazy wish-fulfillment anime (Ep 1, Ep 2, Ep 3, Ep 4, Ep 5 on SayMove). The song is called 岬めぐり (Misaki Meguri), a hit from 1974, covered by one of the voice actresses, I’d imagine.

While the flying panties do have an reason in the show, really, there’s no excuse for this. And that’s why it is just so amazing.

There’s now a 初音ミク cover of the song. And a guy on NicoDou who constructed his own flying panties in response to this ending.

Oh Japan.

Technorati Tags: anime, そらのおとしもの, パンツ, crazy japan, flying panties, flying underwear, imi fumei, panties, pants, panty, sora no otoshimono, underwear, 意味不明

BRAVO!

Technorati Tags: ニコオケ, chamber, cosplay, music, NicoDouga, NicoOke, NicoOrchestra, orchestra, Rainbow Colored NicoNicoDouga, Rainbow NicoNicoDouga, Seven Colored NicoNicoDouga

BTW, if you don’t understand Japanese, don’t worry, it’s not really that essential. XD

(UPDATE: Here are some links since the YouTube is on its way out:
Ep. 1 – MegaVideo
Ep. 2 – MegaVideo
Ep. 3 – Veoh, MegaVideo
Ep. 4 – MegaVideo

And don’t forget the awesome Denki Groove song that is the ending theme: 誰だ！)

Technorati Tags: Denki Groove, Dogu-chan, drama, idol, Japanese girls, Kodai Shoujo Dogu-chan, monsters, tv shows, Yazawa Erika, yokai, youkai

I have been watching the 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu) rebroadcast for months now. I did watch from the beginning, but I was a little late jumping into it, but needless to say… months. Oh yes, there were the hard times, such as the whole エンドレスエイト (”Endless Eight”) thing (which took 8 weeks to finish). I thought it was fantastic art, if not entertainment, and will go down in history. And there were the good times, such as reliving all the old episodes and the making of the Mikuru video (especially the talking cat).

And now, they have announced 涼宮ハルヒの消失 (Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu), oft translated as The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya (yes, it is a real word). Which will be a movie released Spring of 2010:

(YouTube link)

A movie? Dang, I had a hard enough time getting a hold of the らき☆すた (”Lucky Star”) OVA, which I just saw recently. I’m the kind of guy who likes finding the raw videos put up shortly after broadcast on SayMove (a ghetto, piratey NicoDou).

However, after seeing the らき☆すた OVA, I realized my annoyance with the series, which was way too long for something without a story, had faded over the months and I truly enjoyed the little revisit. Especially 初音ミク (Hatsune Miku) type かがみ.

So, really, spring isn’t that far away. The けいおん！(”K-ON!”) OVA will be here in January, and then it will be Spring before I know it. Who knows, maybe I can save up enough to go see it on opening day. Time to start planning my trip now.

Technorati Tags: anime, Haruhi, kyoani, kyoto animation, movie, otaku, ova, Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya, 涼宮ハルヒの消失

However, this is quite possibly the best 釣り動画 ever. It poses as K-ON! AV (AV generally meaning Adult Video) but delivers awesomeness in a totally safe for work sort of way.

Technorati Tags: Animal Video, animals, AV, AV (Animal Video), けいおん！, ナイト・オブ・ナイツ, barrel roll, K-ON!, keion, Knight of Knights, Night of Knights, Night of Nights, puppy, yui, 唯

The 1.0 version had a lot of good features for searching, even by ローマ字 (romaji) or 部首 (bushu), but the new one has multiple radical search (they call it “By Component” search) and even search by conjugated form. I think my favorite new feature is the ability to use the by component entry system to look up things in the main dictionary. Brilliant.

In addition, they are challenging Anki mobile with their own flashcard system and a JLPT study list that also has how many days until the next test! I wonder if they account for the fact that the test is done twice in Japan per year, but only once overseas…

The animations showing you how to draw the 漢字 (kanji) are back. That was really one thing that set 1.0 out and above everything else.

Anyway, it is normally $20, but was on sale until 2.0 was released… which seems like it was today. The app store description and website aren’t updated yet, so go get it NOW while it is still cheap! Even at $20, you get the functionality of a $300 piece of equipment. After breaking 3 electronic dictionaries over the years, I’m glad to have this all in 1 app. Go convergence! (More screen shots after the jump.)

Pics:

Component Search

Flash Card System

Emailing Vocab Lists

Technorati Tags: anki, Anki Mobile, Apple, code from tokyo, iPhone, iPod Touch, Japanese, jlpt, kanji, nihongo, 日本語, 日本語能力試験, 漢字

What if that chime was techno’d?!

(YouTube link)

Or even Akiba’d?!

(YouTube link)

いらっしゃいませ！！！

Technorati Tags: Akiba, コンビニ, ファミマ, conbini, convenience stores, 秋葉, 秋葉原, 萌え, Family Mart, Famima, moe, remix, techno