[OT] Big hearty fun for your "WTF?" pleasure center

[Horacio]

My innocent inner child just died...

Let him rest in peace...

 

[Chaldfont]

I find more strange web sites from this bulletin board than anywhere else. WTF is a great description.
I think the web site describing the commercial is even funnier than the actual commercial.

BTW--Here are a few more I have seen on this board, for your surfing pleasure:

The Official Ninja Web Page

VillainSupply.com

YMCA, in Chinese, by Skeletor

Origami Boulder

Keep em coming!

 

[Rackhir]

I remember some of the original Arnold commercials for this product when I was in Japan back in the early 90's. They were hysterical. The commercial is for what the Japanese call Genki Drinks. They are basically lots of sugar and caffine, the new drink "Red Bull" is essentially the same thing. You'll notice the "Red Bull" commercials, have a somewhat similar advertising approach, basically "Your life sucks up until you drink our product, at which point it will be wonderful". Genki is a japanese word meaning basically - happy, energetic and healthy. A four year old on a sugar rush is pretty much the definition of genki.


barsoomcore, were you also an AET? That three year time period sounds awfully familar. I was in Niigata-ken.

 

[Gizzard]

So, does the name of the drink mean anything? Looking at the video again, the words:

arinamishi
redorishiwa

taketa no uyaitamisodorisoku ...

show up, as far as I can tell with my bad Katakana. I'd expect them to form up into some semblance of English if I think about them long enough, but I am drawing a blank. And curse them all for stylizing the character set, is that "V" even supposed to be a "re"??

I can't even find the word "Buway!" that Arnold shouts out a couple of times. Although I imagine his Japanese accent is even worse than his English one. ;-)

 

[Rackhir]

So, does the name of the drink mean anything? Looking at the video again, the words:

arinamishi
redorishiwa

The name of the drink is Arena-Min, V Drink. V Drink means that it's a vitamin drink (aka. Genki drink).

taketa no uyaitamisodorisoku ...

show up, as far as I can tell with my bad Katakana. I'd expect them to form up into some semblance of English if I think about them long enough, but I am drawing a blank. And curse them all for stylizing the character set, is that "V" even supposed to be a "re"??
[/B]

I'd have to check my dictionary for one word (maybe later), but the taketa no ... is saying it's a Vitamin drink of "Taketa". One of the keys to understanding "Nihonglish" aka english words that have been adapted into Japanese, is being able to figure out how the Consonant-Vowel pair structure has mangled the original english word. Vitamin in Japanese comes out as "uatamin" and drink as "dorinku". There are basically no single consonants in Japanese, except for "n", it's all ta, te, ti, to, ha, he, hi, ho.... etc.

I can't even find the word "Buway!" that Arnold shouts out a couple of times. Although I imagine his Japanese accent is even worse than his English one. ;-)

Arnold's "Buway" is actually supposed to be him saying "V" as in the V part of the drink's name. You'll notice that he's making a "V" shape with his fingers when he says that. It's incomprehenability is actually mostly not his fault, there is no "V" sound in Japanese, so it gets pronounced more like "Buwe", which is a sound in japanese. The comercial is for the Japanese market after all, so they probably had him pronounce it in japanese fashion (of course its not like his accent helps anything).

 

[Gizzard]

OK, now that you say it, its all so clear. I dont know why I thought the "n" was actually a "shi", but in my defense, I still think thats a crappy looking "ku" at the end of "V drinku".

But that's my average transliteration rate, about 75%. Just enough to get myself into trouble. ;-)