3/5/2009 - Tiny Clip-On TV

There are two possible captions for this video:

1) Lawsuit waiting to happen.
2) Resistance is futile.



Seriously, I'm a TV junkie myself, but this would be taking it too far.

6/18/2008 - The Ultimate Perpetual Mario Machine

I teased it yesterday and here it is... based on the Japanese viral video mash up is another "Perpetual Mario Machine" video that follows so many others I have blogged about. I really don't think that there will be another that tops this one though:



P.S.: I'll be back after my vacation at the Iron Man of Gaming 2008 competition!

Mortal Kombat II - Japanese version for the SNES

One of Nintendo's biggest missteps was the exclusion of blood on the SNES version of Mortal Kombat. After all, the original Mortal Kombat was not really known for its gameplay. Yes, it had digitized actors for its character sprites, but so did Pit Fighter at the time. Mortal Kombat was really about one thing: gruesome violence. When you see Sub-Zero rip someone's head off, know why it became one of the biggest franchises in the fighting genre. That's why it was so critical to put all the violence back into the sequel, Mortal Kombat too. It went on, of course, to be a huge seller.

You'd think then, in Japan, they would leave the violence in their version of MKII for the SNES. After all, their games are usually censored by the time they came to the States. For example, in the game Final Fight, the character of Poison became a man in the American version because her costume was too revealing (there's also an issue of whether or not she's actually a transvestite, but that's for another time). So it really surprised me to see that Japan censored Mortal Kombat II for their audience:



It kind of reminds me of how they brought Kill Bill over to cable TV by using black and white during the sword fighting scene. And green blood? What the heck?

11/30/2007 - Wacky Potato Chip Commercial

I'm sure you've seen some pretty strange commercials before... some that has almost nothing to do with the product that is being advertised. But nothing, and I mean nothing, will prepare you for this next video. This comes from our friends in Japan, who I have mentioned before as having some weird cultural phenomena that we here in the West just don't get. Even with those cultural differences, however, I can't imagine how they perceive this commercial as being even close to mainstream. Okay, enough with the incredulous commentary... you watch for yourself, and you just have to say... W.T.F.?!

6/20/2007 - Japanese Tetris

Well, it's not exactly Tetris, but it looks just as fun. It's another one of those wacky Japanese game shows that puts its contestants into strange and hilarious situations. This particular game tests your...flexibility, I guess. If you manage to contort yourself into the shape of the opening in the oncoming wall to let it pass you, you win. It would be pretty easy if the shapes weren't so darn abnormal!

Now, why can't we have gameshows like this here in the States? Seriously, instead of all these stupid talent shows, reality shows, and trivia game shows, why can't we have something more eccentric like this? Are the networks worried that some of the more outrageous stuff gets copied at home? Perhaps they don't think there are contestants out there that are as daring as the Japanese ones. I guess they've never met college frat boys...

Past Favorite - Pretty Intense Bowling Experience

Multiple choice answer as to why I chose this video as my Daily Favorite:

A) The sheer rarity of having an all-American girl being completely fluent in Japanese.
B) The insults in Japanese to her friends after their failure in bowling.
C) The "Evolution of a Gamer" T-Shirt on "CJ".
D) "CJ" falling on his ass.
E) The evil laugh.

The answer is... all of the above. Well, mostly E), because I laugh every time at the end. But I just thought that this was one of those rare unscripted videos where everything worked. Compare this to a typical lonelygirl15 video which IS scripted and you'll see what I mean. Kudos, applemilk1988!