There’s absolutely no mistaking the reference. Both Araragi and Suruga are in the exact same poses as the nearest two dudes and their expressions are nearly identical as well — just Suruga’s eyebrows seem to make her a bit more “Holy shit!” than “Hell yeah!”

I hadn’t realized just how widespread this meme apparently is though!  Hell, I didn’t know the “official name” of it until I googled around trying to find a clean version of the image. The photos apparently originated from E3 2003, so the source has at least existed for a good many years, but my first encounter with them was in a meme (contains spoilers) about all the episodes of Gurren Lagann. Was that the first occurrence? Probably not.

4chan memes come and go (and even if it didn’t actually originate on 4chan, we can probably still rightfully credit them with any meme’s viral spreading), but it’s interesting to see which ones persist throughout the years. How long did it take poor Domo-kun to vanquish his image as the kitten-killing hand of God? Or has he actually gotten rid of that image? You don’t see it around as much anymore though, and I wonder if Nickelodean and Target would still have been keen on adopting the character if the masturbation meme were still widespread. Meanwhile, Pedobear still makes regular rounds on the boards as well as conventions, and I doubt we’ll see the end of fake motivational posters any time soon. Beside them, the Reaction Guys don’t seem nearly as prominent, which I guess is also part of why I was so surprised to see it referenced.

And probably part of why it’s so freakin’ awesome. SHAFT and their cultural references indeed! Though actually, I also find it interesting that the reference was made in Bakemonogatari rather than whatever season of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei we’re on now since the latter certainly has many more otaku-related jabs. Then again, I haven’t finished the second season (ZSZS) yet, so maybe they have? And the Reaction Guys probably aren’t in widespread usage solely in the anime otakusphere — after all, the image came from a gaming trade show. Who knows? This is just another reminder that on the Internet, we’re being watched. :o

The first season of Code Geass aired in a late-night slot in Japan. Thanks to its unexpected popularity though, R2 was upgraded to a prime-time slot. Drama ensues. You can read the details of it yourself, but it basically boils down to Taniguchi having to change, alter, or rewrite completely parts of the story because he had to deal with a new audience in a new timeslot. New elements were added in — /a/’s theory about Rolo has gained widespread acceptance in the few hours since it was formulated — and other elements were taken out, notably Kallen’s backstory and Suzaku’s funky connection with geass as seen in S1 episode 22.

Without knowing what we’re missing, it’s hard to decide whether those things were just supplemental storylines or if they were really supposed to be important, but honestly, considering the unfortunate mess of executive meddling, I think R2 has turned out pretty decent so far. I’ll save the long opinion for when the series finishes in five weeks, but yeah. Even though plenty of people have been ragging on it since it started, and even though I also subscribe to the near-universal belief that the first season was better, my general opinion of R2 is still positive. After all, the general themes seemed to have been preserved pretty well enough. There are a lot of parallels with the first season, such as the Shirley-centric episodes 12-14, followed by geass-centric episode 15, but those feel pretty natural too. And even though I would have loved for R2 to have picked up the second S1 left off, I think the flashback thing worked out okay. I mean, it isn’t horrible, anyway.

I also can’t decide if R2 has been more crack-filled than R1, and if it is, if that’s a consequence of this apparent not-as-planned-ness. Hmmm. Code Geass always did walk a thin line though.

I think Taniguchi has done a great job considering the circumstances, but I also think it’d be great if we could find out exactly what he had had planned originally. DVD extra? Magazine interview? Long letter to the fans? It’d definitely give greater insight into the inner workings of the series to see what was deemed critical enough to stay and what was tossed or changed. Code Geass is a complicated series as it is, but stuff like this makes for an even better discussion. I guess we’ll see what happens.

As for gg‘s cancellation, I’m not really sure how much of it was based on this revelation. A lot of people are calling it a hoax already. I’ve always liked Eclipse‘s release a bit better, but if anything, I’ll definitely miss their “Everything is FABULOUS~!” in the second OP.

Addendum: Oh, look. It was a joke after all. Figures.

But even though these instances are always highly amusing and full of lulz, and even though I usually participate myself, I kind of wonder about the effects of it all. Poll-sabotaging seems innocent enough, especially when compared to the sometimes very questionable activities of neighboring /b/, but polls are usually highly informative. There’s always a general public interest in the popularity rankings of characters, but I also can’t help but think that the companies that put out these polls intend to use their results for something. The BANDAI poll, for example, I wonder if they had wanted to use the results to decide what sort of merchandise to put out? Or what kind of character-centric extras to include with DVD releases? The Japanese poll could have had similar goals, though theirs might also expand to include possible characters to have in future voice actor radio shows and drama CD releases.

Do we really want merchandise with Clovis on it? Or of “NANI, MAI HANI” Miya? (That’s largely a rhetorical question.) Of course, I don’t think the companies behind the polls are stupid enough to think that Clovis or Miya are actually the most popular Code Geass characters — a quick glance around the Internet can easily pick out the real winners — but what’s the point of polling at all if all their attempts are thwarted by /a/tards’ quest for the lulz? There are still magazine polls, I guess, and it’d be much harder to coordinate a sabotage of those since they require much more effort to respond to. (That said, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it happened.)

We’ve clearly demonstrated the power of the swarm. We’ve done it over and over again. /b/ organizes DDOS attacks. /a/ breaks anime polls. We’ve gotten plenty of lulz. The series themselves provide us with plenty of lulz. Now what?

I dunno. I don’t really think I’m against the poll-sabotage (like I said, I often participate myself), but I guess sometimes, I’m actually really curious about real poll results, at least for the real rankings of characters that don’t make up the top five.