9/21/2007 - Hare Hare Mario

Excuse me if I totally geek out right now. You know I've been highlighting these Super Mario World mods that show "self-playing" levels and the Hare Hare Yukai remixes that are also popular on YouTube. I never thought the two could combine into a mashup. So imagine my delight when I saw that a modder did just that:



That is simply one of the greatest things I've ever seen. Not only is it a decent self-playing level with some intricate cause and effect happenings, but it's all synchronized to the tune of the Hare Hare Yukai! I can only imagine just how long this took to map out each note of the song to the appropriate sound effect in the video game. And then to force the sound effect to play in a self-playing level? Damn.

9/10/2007 - More Hare Hare Yukai Goodness! (2 videos)

How many Hare Hare Yukai videos have I showcased? At least three, I think. Well, it's popularity hasn't died down yet. People are still trying out the dance and putting it on YouTube. Here is an extreme example though. Most of us have seen the video of prison inmates dancing to the same choreography as the Thriller music video (if not, click HERE). Not to be outdone, some prison inmates in the Philipines (they may actually be the same inmates, I'm not sure) also performed a mass dance... the Hare Hare Yukai!



Hmmm... that's pretty disturbing, actually. Well, here's something a little more mainstream... how about Pikachus doing the dance?



Aww, isn't that the cutest?

4/23/2007 - Hare Hare Yukai (1/2 Speed Mirrored Special TV Size Version)

From my Past Favorites, you can see that I'm (weirdly) obsessed with this Hare Hare Yukai dance. Well, I'm apparently not the only one. If you search for Hare Hare Yukai in YouTube, you'll see a lot of cosplayers attempting this dance. While I would never go that far, I can see why some would. It looks fun, encourages camaraderie amongst fellow cosplayers, and has to be rewarding when done correctly. To assist all the would-be dancers out there, some enterprising fellow put up this video:



As you can see, the video is horizontally flipped so you don't have to mirror your moves. But what makes it priceless is that it's played at half-speed, including the song. Just try to play the video without laughing.

Past Favorites - Hare Hare Yukai (2 Videos)

Yeah, I remember the good old days when American cartoons didn't suck. Anime has taken over the States and with good reason. With few exceptions, their animators are top-notch, dedicated, and show consistent quality. Take this next video, for example. This is the ending of an episode of Suzumiya Haruhi. The song (and now the dance) is called Hare Hare Yukai:



You just don't get such choreography in American animation. The fact that this was storyboarded and not rotoscoped makes it all the more amazing. The video has become quite the hit on the YouTube stage and has led to a couple of great parodies (actually, they're more like dedications). Here we have Mega Man (Rockman) doing the Hare Hare Yukai:



Now isn't that just awesome? It just astounds me the way they were able to manipulate the Mega Man sprites to match the actions of the anime characters. It doesn't look unnatural at all. I also like the way they incorporated an 8-bit musical rendition into it. Nice touch!