a&o’s newest byproduct: mind-rot.com

With the new year comes a new project by the fine folks of absurdandobscure.com; a site driven by completely unoriginal content not unlike what you would find at a&o. Rather than writing new content, the new site will be a constantly updated collection of content provided by others. It is my esteemed pleasure to introduce to the world…mind-rot.com.

I’m excited about the new project/site/portal to nonsense that will cover the work of innumerable scourges of the Earth at as rapid of a speed as possible. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be excited about it either, especially if you frequent this poor excuse for a blog/site/sounding board of relatively disreputable schlock/sheer awesomeness.

As of today, mind-rot.com is obviously still in the process of becoming completed, but the finishing touches aren’t far off. I’ve wanted to get this thing together for months, but because of reasons too boring to go into, both the new project and a&o had to suffer. I’m sure you pulled through these past couple of months though…just a wild guess from the 13,000 views that absurdandobscure.com received last year. Speaking of, I want to sincerely thank every single person that checked this site out last year. We’re hoping things will be significantly different this year, especially when it comes to digging into the depths of the worst acting caught on film, the best hardcore bands you keep ignoring for the dumbest reasons, brain melting foreign oddities and other indescribably engaging ephemera.

So be sure to check out both sites whenever you get the chance…you never know what absurd and/or obscure stuff might get the honor of being uncovered.

Monsters & Nonsense: “Useless” Japanese: Part 3

Trudging on to the latest installment of my attempting to pull out words/phrases/exclamations from a not-so-randomly selected installment of Daikaiju Battle Ultra Adventure , I present to you the following “useless” Japanese. I use the quotes, because honestly, if any of what you see below were truly useless, you’d never use any of it. Though, I can’t help but think that I’m going to have to talk about escaping, or even ultrasonic light waves…eventually (and quite possibly in the same sentence…hopefully?).

As I’ve tried to make resoundingly clear before, these translations are correct so far as I can tell, and the pronunciation for everything is written so that no prior knowledge of Japanese is required. Either way, giant monsters still rule and so does learning Japanese so that you can read comics about them.

what it means	how it’s pronounced	how it’s written
to suffer damage / to be deceived	yah-wah-ray-rew	やられる
ultrasonic light waves	cho-ohn-pah-koh-sen	超音波光線
Of course!	yap-pah-ree	やっぱり
attack (e.g. a signature move; a noun, not a verb)	koh-gek-key	攻撃
to say	“E”-ooh	言う
to consider	nahn-gah-“A”-rew	考えてる
concentration (not a verb; e.g. “to concentrate”)	shoe-chew	集中
or / or else	so-ray-toe-mo	それとも
systemic absorption	tie-nai-“Q”-shoe	体内吸収
to hit	ooh-tsu	打つ
to escape	knee-geh-rew	逃げる
to surpass	mah-sah-rew	勝る
Wow! / Awesome!	sue-goy	すごい!
to be exhausted	tsu-kah-ray-ha-tay-rew	疲れ果てる
gently	soh-toe	そっと
to creep up on	she-no-bee-yoh-rew	忍び寄る
friendship	you-koh	友好

Google Translate and rikaichan are at it again. To tell you the truth, at this point it doesn’t even matter to me whether or not anyone else finds their blatant errors amusing, but I’m still putting them up here regardless.

使(つか)う気(き)だ	came out as	Use (or) dental care (music).
尻尾攻撃(しっぽこうげき)	came out as	Tail attack (tail this pep talk)
わかえるんだ	came out as	Each frog I
くそっ	came out as	Baloney
そうだ　ガンQも　いたんだ！！	came out as	Q is also likely to get cancer!

Considering this post is the final blow in my look at Daikaiju Battle Ultra Adventure and goofy translations in general (at least for the time being), try not to sulk for weeks on end about it. Chances are there’ll be more soon. Until then…じゃあね.

Not LEGO, MEGO (or maybe it’s more like ME-go?).

Loving The Machine author Timothy N. Hornyak recently brought to my attention a little site called MegoMuseum.com…and honestly, I’m a little pissed I forgot to tell (re-tell?) the world about it right away. Why wouldn’t you want to look at a site that’s full of awesome crap like what you see below?

Also, be sure to check out Mego 8″ Super-Heroes: World’s Greatest Toys!, a book devoted to Mego toys from days gone by.

Monsters & Nonsense: “Useless” Japanese: Part 2

The following nonsense is courtesy of a wretched amalgamation of a manga called Giant Monster Battle: Ultra Adventure (大怪獣バトルウルトラアドベンチャー) and some online translation tools. Just like last time, I pretty much only put this list of words and phrases together for my own benefit, but I figured it could only help the betterment of all mankind if I posted the list here.

A few words of advice: using what you can learn below in the presence of other human beings in any variety of social gatherings has the potential to elicit an incredibly wide range of responses. However, I doubt that any of such responses will sound anything like, “Your Japanese is so good!”

Just sayin’…

what it means	how it’s pronounced	how it’s written
to be destroyed	ho-roh-“B”-roo	滅びる
to be born	oo-mah-ray-roo	生まれる
real / genuine article	hohn-mo-no	本物
I wonder	kah-she-rah	かしら
spaceship	oo-chew-sen	宇宙船
spaceport	oo-chew-me-nah-to	宇宙港
Let’s go!	you-koh-zay	行こうぜ
to ride in / to board	noh-rew	乗る
You’re kidding!	mah-tah-mah-tah	またまた
Look!	hoh-rah	ほら
groin / crotch	mah-tah	股
No way!	mah-sah-ka	まさか
EMERGENCY!	keen-“Q”-“G”-tie	緊急事態
to appear	ah-rah-wah-ray-rew	現れる
destruction / extinction	zeh-tsu-meh-tsu	絶滅
Why? / how	doh-she-tay	どうして
escape / getaway	knee-geh	逃げ

It really is too bad that there weren’t any funnier computer generated results, but I wouldn’t be surprised if funnier stuff showed up in upcoming pages of the manga. My buddies, Google Translate and rikaichan helped shit out the computer generated translations below:

滅びちゃった	came out as	Perish my pants
行こうぜ	came out as	Let’s go brittle

Again, all errors are of course my own. Corrections are obviously encouraged.

Monsters & Nonsense: “Useless” Japanese: Part 1

When trying to translate an Ultraman-themed vehicle for selling “junk” (read: a manga with cool monsters in it) earlier this afternoon, I started getting some pretty funny / interesting – but not totally ridiculous – results / “answers”. I put together a list for myself, and added a few that I already knew for others to check out. To tell you the truth, I just put this up so I wouldn’t forget nonsense like “the fourth dimension”.

Just to let you know…if you have no prior experience with the Japanese language and you try to pronounce any of the nouns, verbs or exclamations below, you will undoubtedly sound like a foreigner and will impress absolutely zero native speakers of Japanese. Honestly, it’s much more likely that you will get laughed at. But who cares? I’m just hoping that some nerd from the middle of nowhere makes a YouTube video of him or herself yelling “HAKU! HAKU! HAKU!” and then fake barfs. Over and over again.

Please make it happen.

what it means to vomit	how it’s pronounced ha-ku	how it’s written 吐く
fire-breathing	ho-noh oh ha-ku	炎を吐く
all right! (can also mean premature death)	yoh-sh!	ようし
hooray! (also: hot dog!, whee!, yowzer!)	yah-tah!	やったあ
terrible	knee-gah-teh	苦手
to gain victory	kah-tsu	勝つ
invincible	moo-teh-key	無敵
to be proud of	ho-ko-rew	誇る
dude (also: fellow, chap)	yah-tsu	ヤツ
enemy (also: opponent)	teh-key	敵
buttocks	she-ree	尻
fourth dimension	yo-“G”-gehn	四次元

The following were some better examples of why you shouldn’t rely on a dictionary when translating…or at least try to use one as little as possible. Well, unless you’ve got an eye for unintentional hilarity. After being put through the Google Translate grinder, I was awarded with the gems below:

ずってやつね	came out as	“the hard guy”
敵お尻	came out as	“ass enemy”
四次元とかもしったし	came out as	“and also the four-dimensional SHITTA”

This is the website for the comic that I got all this nonsense from.

All errors are of course my own. Corrections are obviously encouraged.

悪魔くん VS. ブースカ

I’d like to thank Japan for making the DVD box sets for both of these shows the complete opposite of affordable.

(Seller will not ship internationally.)

http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/

FUCK.

The End.

More Japanese Kids Stuff

 

Given the string of good luck (and fun) that I’ve had with other comics and magazines geared towards younger kids that I’ve gotten a hold of recently, I figured I’d roll the dice on something random again and see if my luck decided to run out or not. Judging by the contents of this month’s issue of Terebi Magazine, my streak shows no signs of wavering.

Awesome Book Week: Day 4 – Super7 Mook

If you’re already familiar with Super7, then you either already have this or want this really, really bad but you’re too much of a cheapskate to shell out the bread to call it your own. If you have no idea who or what the fuck Super7 is, here’s an abridged introduction: these maniacs have a rabid affinity for soft vinyl toys and toys in general that are weird/cool looking and/or are impossible to find. The Super7 team also has friends that are equally enamored with collecting. So enamored that I’m willing to bet that anyone featured in this book has treasure chests full of insanity that would put to shame any hipster’s paltry Dunny “collection.”

“Bring me the head of Kamen Rider!”

This month’s issue of Hyper Hobby included the Kamen Rider mask that you see above, and believe it or not, it was easier to put together than it was to take photos of. Even though I was fighting my glasses while trying to get decent photos of this 2 ¼” helmet (antennae included) without a macro lens or a tripod, I still feel like I did alright on them. If I knew that someone besides myself was going to get excited about this “kit” then I would’ve spent more time with it and done a better job. Either way, I’m sure both you and I will somehow find the strength to carry on.

Even the box that this came in is awesome.

I’ve never seen a combination of blue and brown like this, never mind that such a color combination would be used to depict a hero that an incredibly large majority of the American populace has never seen or heard of. I’ll admit, I’ve heard of the (original) Kamen Rider, but I’ve never actually seen the show…which nearly leads me to infuriation. Here we have yet another example of an internationally known phenomenon that should be available on this side of the planet, but isn’t. Maybe that’s part of the appeal? I’m sure that if I grew up with all the different versions of Kamen Rider then maybe I wouldn’t be as interested in this assemblage of plastic as I am now.

More proof of my enthusiasm:

“What’s to like?” you say. “It’s some weird bug mask thing with these cheap-looking retractable antennae and a mouth that has some bear trap type apparatus going on.” That’s exactly the strain of thinking that made me buy this, and that’s exactly why I want to see the show so bad.

Here’s a photo of the magazine and it’s contents.

(…and yes, that is a photo of a particularly uninterested looking Rick Rubin that I added for no reason.)

Even before I bought this month’s issue of Hyper Hobby (maybe three or four weeks ago), the details of the bug-eyed helmet stuck with me well enough for me to sketch the “drawing” below when I should’ve been studying for finals.

 

 

Ironically enough, someone sent in a photo of their kids decked out in Kamen Rider masks in the same issue.

It’s okay, you can admit that you wish that they were your kids.

All this effort and I haven’t even seen the show…apparently I’m out of my mind. Or maybe I’m just that excited about it? How about we settle on a combination of the two? You know, just for the time being?