www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThmUt7fXX6U

I was starting to think Perfume had disappeared off the face of the earth after their disappointing 紅白 (kouhaku) performance. (Side note: it was a fine performance as Perfume performances go, but I still think the red team did lost partially because they had a lip-syncing group on the SINGING performance show.)

But they are back! If I had been paying attention to sites like Perfume City, I’d have known they were working on something new! Their new single, scheduled for release on March 25th (1 day before my birthday; what a nice present). It’s a cute little song called ワンルーム・ディスコ (wanruumu disuko) about the trials and tribulations of living on your own.

Anyway, it’s cute and technopop and I’m already hooked.

What’s that? Where did I find out about it? Um… nowhere in particular. What? No, of course I wasn’t because of Danny Choo entry a dannychoo.com news entry. He’s my mortal enemy! I would never be caught dead anywhere near his site. Not even if he linked one of my entries. No, sir, that’s definitely not where I found it.

Update: lol, I’m 馬鹿 (baka). It wasn’t the guy himself, it was just a forum user on dannychoo.com posting his own topic. So yes, that is where I got it.

Update2: There’s a new video that is a remix of the song done with none of the original track and the voices are all vocaloid! Nice!

【ニコニコ動画】【初音ミク・巡音ルカ・MEIKO】 ワンルーム・ディスコ (yks remix)

Technorati Tags: ワンルーム・ディスコ, cute, Danny Choo, idol, Idol Master, Japanese girls, music, music video, nicovideo, One Room Disco, perfume, techno, technopop, ystk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=THnRByFR_Kk

A new IOSYS arrangement CD is coming out on the 8th! And that can only mean one thing! A new promotional video! This one is about the hellishly ultimate 焼肉 (yakiniku) restaurant, based on the song 死体旅行　～ Be of good cheer!. The CD is called 東方超都魔転 (Touhou Choutomatten). The English title is “Toho just a moment!” Until I read that, I didn’t get the pun. ><;

Not much to say about this one... probably will take me a few weeks to process all the jokes. Poor チルノ (Chiruno) gets melted at one point. ;;

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: anime, チルノ, chiruno, Cirno, cute, 焼肉, hell, iosys, japanese bbq, korean bbq, music, nicovideo, shrine maiden, touhou, yakiniku, 東方

Anyway, here are the 3 “My Maid” videos on ニコ動. Be sure to read the comments. They are gold!

【ニコニコ動画】私のメイドが『星間飛行』を踊ってみた

【ニコニコ動画】私のメイドが『みらくるアンコール』を踊ってみた

【ニコニコ動画】私のメイドが『Be MYSELF』を踊ってみた

Technorati Tags: comments, cute, dance, Japanese girls, lol, maid, maid cafe, maid outfit, nicovideo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj_rnOxus_A

If this song was playing as Darth Vader came by, you’d just want to give him a big hug.

(No, I don’t get why there is food in this YouTube video, it is just the song. Please see the embedding disabled live performance here. Don’t miss Highway Star either.)

Technorati Tags: @BGM, cute, Darth Vader, Imperial March, music, nicovideo, recorder, Star Wars, ukulele, 帝国のマーチ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uq54C61zgg

I can’t stop watching it. So here it is for all of you too. The person who put this together said it took 2 months! Geez!

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, I love the Internet.

Technorati Tags: aya ueto, かわいい, ナイト・オブ・ナイツ, cute, 犬, dog, MAD, music, Native Faith, nicovideo, Night of Knights, Night of Nights, project shrine maiden, remix, softbank, video, 東方, 上戸彩, 信仰風化曲

Ninja is a theme where there are little ninja guys sticking out everywhere. The stars are of course 手裏剣 (shuriken, aka “Ninja Stars”) and there are little things going on at the bottom between a ninja and a geisha. Sometimes they are courting each other, and other times they are quarreling. The background message is もしもし (moshimoshi), which is what people say for hello over the phone. Not exactly sure how that relates to ninjas or even Gmail, but it is interesting.

The tea house theme features an asian looking house and garden where various cute animals have tea with each other. It looks like the fox is the proprietor of the tea house and it seems to be tied to the season or time of day or something. Not quite sure. It is very Animal Crossing/SnoogleZoo. If you are into either of those, you’ll probably like it.

I’m personally partial to the ninja one since the cartoons at the bottom of messages are just so awesome and slightly less girly than the whole tea house one. Apparently these Japan-related ones were designed in house at Google, so I don’t have the name of the designers/artists. Too bad, I’d love to see more by them!

There is another vaguely Japanese one called Cherry Blossom. It was designed by Vania Sofandi. But it is hard to really call it Japan-themed for sure.

Technorati Tags: animal crossing, art, どうぶつの森, computers, cute, design, e-mail, email, gmail, google, ninja, snoogle zoo, software, tea, tea house, web, websites

Really, it’s short gags about what happens when anthropomorphic cats and fish live together in the world. And one of them even features 初音ミク!

Without further ado, you can see the videos after the jump or on 森井ケンシロウ’s livedoor anime site. His homepage is here.

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

Episode 5:

Episode 6:

The biggest question I have… Why would fish ride in a boat anyway?!

Technorati Tags: animation, anime, さかな, ねこ, cats, comedy, cute, 猫, 魚, fish, Kenshiro Morii, video, 森井ケンシロウ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbs6poMd6jE

This is a funny little video clip where 坂下千里子 (Sakashita Chihiro) and アンタッチャブル山崎 (Antacchaburu Yamazaki) visit 小林由佳 (Kobayashi Yuka)’s house in search of something to bring back. 山崎さん is fixated on her ヌーブラ (nuubura), but then 由佳ちゃん (Yuka-chan) wallops him one.

由佳ちゃん was the 3rd place karate champ at some point, from what they are saying. All I can say is don’t mess with karate girls.

Technorati Tags: アンタッチャブル山崎, ヌーブラ, ユカちゃん, comedy, cute, 空手, girls, idol, Japanese girls, karate, Kobayashi Yuka, new bra, nubra, punch, Sakashita Chihiro, Untouchable, Untouchable Yamazaki, video, 坂下千里子, 小林由佳

The points will be used for buying clothing (?) for your character in the anime MMO/Second Life game ai sp@ce, but until that starts, the only place you can use them is the ニコニコメダルゲーム(仮称) (“Nico Nico Medal Games (temporary name)”)! Medal Games are a staple of ゲーセン (geisen, “Game Centers”) where you can basically gamble, without actually gambling. So for the NicoNico version, they are currently giving away free medals (which you normally have to buy with points) for the various game. So, I tried them out. What I found after the jump…

First off, you need a ニコニコ動画 account. Second, all the games are really just anime/cute-ized versions of your traditional betting games. There even is a daily free lottery to win a bunch of medals. The only question in my mind at the end of the day is, “If I win a whole bunch of medals… what would I do with them…” Another thing about the games is they open in a separate window, specifically so you can keep watching ニコニコ動画 while you play them! They even have little sounds to tell you that you need to focus back on them at a certain point. You can even open them up from the chat box under any video. The command to pop them up in a new windows is ＠ゲーム. You can also add the name of the game after the ＠ゲーム command to bring up that specific game. No need to go browsing around. It’s command line, baby!

The first game I tried was the ねこねこダービー (Neko Neko Daabii, “Kitty Kitty Derby”). Basically, you bet on one or two cats and if that one or two win, you get a return. Yeah, it’s just horse racing with cats. The odds are shown while they are waiting to start the race. You can also buy snacks for the cats. And then, after a few minutes (while others are betting?), the cats race! I’m notoriously crap at betting on the ponies, so the kitties are really no different.

(And yes, there just happened to randomly be two cats ジェシー and やよい in the first race… Of course I bet on the two of them winning).

The next game I tried was Bingo Break. This is a bingo game where 4 numbers are called at a time, and there are 8 rounds (plus the Bingo Break bonus which comes up when that bar at the top is at 100%). It’s bingo, what do you want? Remember, リーチ (reach) means you have one more until you hit bingo.

Then there is アリスの危険な冒険 (Arisu no kiken na bouken, “Alice’s Dangerous Adventure”). It’s some kind of RPG style game… looked like I pain in the ass, so I didn’t really play it much. I do like the idea of skill-based gambling, but at the same time, some times you just want to know if they are going to take your money quickly. If you are a big RPG fan, you’ll like that you use your winnings to buy better equipment and such. I didn’t play long enough to figure out how to play or whether it has a save feature or not, so play at your own risk!

The last game is 南国ビーチパラダイス (Nangoku Biichi Paradaisu, “South Seas Beach Paradise”). This one is a slot machine, with the dubious feature of a busty anime girl named ナツミ (Natsumi) who giggles happily when you win and goes through a variety of emotional responses when you lose. And this isn’t because she is sad for you, but her outfit is mismatched… Not only are you playing for medals, but each spot on the tumblers also has a little clothing icon. Yep, you guessed it, when you match the clothing on a line, you change her clothes! No, nothing really scandalous, but who knows what she puts on if you hit the Jackpot.

Anyway, you could totally waste your life on NicoVideos already, and now you can waste your money on NicoPoints! No word on whether or not you can buy points overseas, mainly since I didn’t want to waste $10 plus fees on 240 medals, although that would be a lot of play time!

Oh well, I’m just happy ニコニコ動画 is doing something to keep it afloat!

Technorati Tags: arcade, スロット, ニコニコメダルゲーム(仮称), ニコニコ動画, パチスロ, メダルゲーム, betting, bingo, cat racing, cats, cute, gambling, horse racing, neko, Nico Nico Medal Games, NicoNicoDouga, slot machines, slots, web, websites

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-xEq5t03Jc

OMFG, ウサビッチ (Usabicchi, also known as ), the silly adventures of the Russian Jail Rabbits, is back! I first heard about this show almost a year ago when season 2 was coming out… and now, a year later, it is back. This, episode 27: 1階 (first floor), is the first episode of their adventures in the city!

The STUPID thing is that it was released on ニコニコ動画 (NicoNicoDouga) by MTV Japan, but region locked, so I got this message when I first tried to watch it: 「残念ながら、こちらの動画はアップロードされた地域のみから視聴可能です。」 which translates to “We are sorry, but it is only possible to watch this video from the region it was uploaded in.” This is so not fair for expats like me, or even some people in Japan! Of course, there are ways around this (besides just looking for a bootleg on YouTube). For the Japanese impaired, I have an brief explanation after the jump.

If you have never seen ウサビッチ before, you should catch up. It won’t take you long since each episode is about a minute and a half long and there have only been 26. Add it up, it’s like watching one episode of Lost. And the only thing that is actually in Japanese are the titles of the episodes, but those aren’t really essential.　I’ve included YouTube links to catch you up after the jump.

ウサビッチ Ep 1~5:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybUmzWClDio

ウサビッチ Ep 6~10:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s011Mnn5BM

ウサビッチ Ep 11~15:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFeggbqIsxU

ウサビッチ Ep 16~20:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGfNURjjjp8

ウサビッチ Ep 21~25:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHXboyUWGI

ウサビッチ Ep 26:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd_XkU9b4Ak

As for how to fix windows to make it so you can watch it on ニコニコ動画 if you are outside of Japan:

1. Grab a free Japanese proxy server address (Ex. Multiproxy / Proxy Lists)

2. Insert the proxy address.

3. Try it out!

I can’t wait for the next episode! I’m guessing it will be 2階.

Technorati Tags: anime, うさぎ, アニメ, ウサビッチ, cute, mtv, mtv japan, rabbits, scary, Usabicchi, usagi, Usavitch, video