Evil Crabs?
May 21, 2007 8:04 AM   Subscribe

Joe Is Japanese So far all there is are some Myspace profiles and a nifty teaser but I'll be darned if this doesn't look five shades of awesome. Desperate for more information? DeviantArt account of one of the animators.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia (15 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Looks like fun!

I didn't notice if this is going to be a strictly web-based toon or if it was having a wider debut. Am I missing it?
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 9:02 AM on May 21, 2007


I can't tell for the Japanese, but the English voice-acting is setting me on edge. Emphasis on the wrong words and so on. Premise is kinda cool though.
posted by grobstein at 9:27 AM on May 21, 2007


I did lots of things over the telephone in Japan and didn't experience any problems. True, it was tough because my foreign name never popped up in any databases, but my Japanese is at "Joe's" level, and no one ever made an issue of my being foreign.

Other things I did besides phoning NTT or the gas company:

- I registered my son's name at city hall
- Got his Japanese passport (which was funny, because, before handing it over they asked if my ten-month-old son had ever committed a crime)

I found that as my Japanese got better, I experienced fewer and fewer problems.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:33 AM on May 21, 2007


I thoroughly enjoyed the intro, where he tries to convince people that 1) his name is McCunney, not Matsukani, despite the fact that he speaks perfect Japanese, and 2) they should help him anyway. And I enjoyed the start of the second clip, where he's switching between Japanese and English in the bar. Very well done. But then it got to the senseless violence and I lost interest. There are lots of things I enjoy about the 21st century, but why does all the entertainment have to involve senseless violence?

*tells kids to get off lawn, falls asleep, drools*
posted by languagehat at 9:36 AM on May 21, 2007 [1 favorite]


But this is what happens when Japanese people speak English.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:09 AM on May 21, 2007


KokuRyu: Why does the girl get the drink poured on her head?
posted by languagehat at 11:10 AM on May 21, 2007


First link possibly NSFW.
posted by spiderskull at 11:45 AM on May 21, 2007


Language hat:

After the American has been defeated, the girl sees the error of her ways and pledges her love for the Japanese Tough Guy.

Girl: Won't you go out with me?

The Japanese Tough says: "Yesterday you went out with a !@#$$ foreigner (he use the word 'gaijin,' which is not a nice word) and today you want to go out with a Japanese guy. I hate stupid girls like you..." Then he pours his drink over her head.

Anybody out there familiar with the series?
posted by KokuRyu at 11:52 AM on May 21, 2007


I don't know if it's actually representative of anything, but at least one other person has had a similar experience... and attempted to express it in (non-animated) cartoonery.
posted by CKmtl at 1:23 PM on May 21, 2007


'The bitter gaijin' is such a played out idea.
posted by dydecker at 2:36 PM on May 21, 2007


I mean sure Japan is totally racist, but you won't get that kind of shit from an NTT operator.

Unfortunately, the truth is too compilcated to tell in a cartoon.
posted by dydecker at 2:38 PM on May 21, 2007


When you say "Japan is totally racist", kindly leave out my wife (who's Japanese), her family, our friends, their families, the people I work with, have worked with, the cops in the town where we used to live, the clerks at the grocery store where we used to shop, the old guys who run the rec center, and the various people I met walking in the country. Thanks.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:15 PM on May 21, 2007


I think part of the point of the cartoon is the guy ISN'T a bitter gaijin, he's just a Japanese guy who happens to have a gaijin father. Plus it doesn't seem like the cartoon is going to focus solely on the sort of jokes shown in the first part of the video. There's also the second part, with all the excessive violence.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:59 PM on May 21, 2007


Sexist too, apparently - out of seven characters, only one is female and she doesn't even get to wear clothes. True, Joe doesn't get clothes in his image, but the other five males do.
posted by arcticwoman at 6:58 PM on May 21, 2007


I never have this problem over the phone; it's always afterwards when I see them in person and they say "I thought you were Taiwanese" and I have to tell them that I actually am.
posted by Poagao at 12:05 AM on May 22, 2007


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