japanese cartoon

Strong Bad Email #57

watch ← current status dragon →

"Japanese cartoons are weird, man. Though I may be on to something with that blue hair."

Strong Bad describes what he would look like as a Japanese cartoon, and 20X6 is born.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, Stinkoman, Cheatball (spaceship), 1-Up, Pan Pan, Homestar Runner (Easter egg)

Places: Computer Room, Planet K, Homestar Runner's House (Easter egg)

Computer: Compy 386

Date: Monday, January 6, 2003

Running Time: 2:02

Page Title: Compy 386!

DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc Two, Sbemails' 50 Greatest Hits DVD

Transcript

STRONG BAD: So cool an email. I thought you would enjoy it. Ding dong, {reading}

Dear Strong Bad,
what would you look like as a
japanese cartoon and what would
it be about?

-james f.

{Strong Bad pronounces "f." as "fffffffffff"}

STRONG BAD: {typing} A Japanese cartoon, eh, James? I saw one o' thems once. Let's see what I can remember.

{Cut to a white screen with Strong Bad standing there. As he describes how he would look, the changes are applied}

STRONG BAD: Okay, so first of all, my head would have to be a little bean. With real, real big eyes. Get rid of my thumbs, make me all shiny {clean noise that sounds like a harp, or bells, or both} ...my boots would be a whole lot cooler. Like robot boots. {robotic 'shooo' noise} And for some reason, I got blue hair. You gotta have blue hair. Then there's my mouth. Real tiny when it's closed; ridiculously huge when it's open. And then you basically just put me in space and let me fly around in cool poses!

{Stinkoman, the anime version of Strong Bad, flies around in assorted cool poses. He then lands down in a futuristic anime rendition of the field. Video game music plays in the background.}

STRONG BAD: And they'd probably have somebody else do the voices.

{1-Up, the 20X6 counterpart of Homestar Runner, walks in}

1-UP: Hey Stinkoman! Everybody says you're the guy, but I wanna be the guy too!

STINKOMAN: No way, you're just a kid! Maybe when you're older.

{Pan Pan, the anime version of Pom Pom designed to look like a panda, bounces in and squashes 1-Up}

STINKOMAN: {laughing and stomping from one foot to the other, with miniature mushroom clouds appearing around his head} Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Pan Pan is fat! Ha ha ha ha ha! He fell on you! Ha ha ha ha! He's a good bear!

{Suddenly, the cartoon transitions into an ink-drawing of the scene. The Stinkoman K theme song starts playing. The lyrics are:}

Challenge and fighting and
Fighting the challenge tonight.

Everybody's fighting for the
Challenge of the fighting and the

Challenge and fighting and
Fighting the challenge tonight.

{While the song is playing, the background then changes to a similar sketch of Stinkoman powering up, upon which the credits appear:}

Executive Producer

H. Yamauchi

Producer

S. Miyahon

{The backdrop changes to Stinkoman in a different pose.}

Director

S. Miyahon

Ten Ten

Designer

Ten Ten

{The backdrop changes to a portrait of Stinkoman with with huge spikes for hair and bulging veins in his neck. Only his head is drawn, appearing in a somewhat more realistic style than his typical bean-shaped proportions.}

Programmer

T. Nakazoo

MaruMaru

Sound Composer

Konchan

{Cut to the Compy with Strong Bad typing}

STRONG BAD: {in Stinkoman's voice, typing} Japanese cartoons are w— {clears his throat, his voice returns to normal} Oh, ahem, excuse me. {typing} Japanese cartoons are weird, man. Though I may be on to something with that blue hair. {stops typing} Look pretty nice, it look-a pretty nice!

{The scene does an ink-transition and more credits appear as Strong Bad sings the 20X6 theme tune:}

Director

Mike Rock

Designer

MattMatt

Combolations

Oolong Singy

Click Here To Email Strong Bad

{This final "credit" is clickable to email Strong Bad.}

Easter Eggs

• At the end, click on the words "Japanese cartoons" to see Stinkoman running. He jumps off the screen, then his head pops up in the logo over the words "Stinko Man K 20X6".

  STINKOMAN: 20X6!

• At the end of "Stinko Man K 20X6", click on "Japanese cartoons" again to see Homestar Runner watching it and singing along to the theme song.

  HOMESTAR RUNNER: Challenge and fighting and fighting that challenge tonight, somethin' and a somethin' and a somethin' and a somethin' and a...

• During the second Easter egg, click on the "NES Endings" video tape to see various endings to NES games. Once the NES Endings window opens, click on it to show more.
  • The endings for the Nintendo games are as follows:
  1. Rad Racer (also the source of the background music in this email)
  2. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (Normal Ending)
  3. Mega Man 2
  4. Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario USA in Japan)
  5. Hoops
  6. Ghosts 'n Goblins (Good, Second Ending)
  7. Blaster Master (This has "BLUE HAiR" and an arrow pointing to the character's hair written on it)
  8. The Legend of Zelda (First Quest)
  9. Metroid (with a suitless Samus Aran)
  10. Jackal
  11. Rygar

Fun Facts

Trivia

• The summary on the Podstar Runner RSS feed for this video reads, "Strong Bad makes up his own japanese cartoon."
• The YouTube description for this email is "Strong Bad makes a Japanese cartoon."

Remarks

• At the beginning of the email, Strong Bad recites a haiku, which is very fitting (although in Halloween Fairstival, he claims that he doesn't "know or care what a haiku is", and would later admit on Twitter that this was unintentional):

So cool an email
I thought you would enjoy it
Ding dong dear Strong Bad

• When Strong Bad is reading the email, the a> is at the bottom of the screen.
• The Paper does not come down at the end of the email.
• When Homestar is seen from the back in the Easter egg, he is drawn in an older style.
• In the TeeBee Easter egg, Stinkoman eventually stops running on the TV, freezing in place, meaning the animation is not actually looped like most of the other animations on the site.
• Though this isn't noted by Strong Bad, the shape of his body is altered at the same time that his thumbs vanish.

Goofs

Are those overlapping windows asking for a challenge?

• In the scene with Stinkoman and 1-Up, the windows on the second far right building overlap onto the building next to it. This is best seen when zoomed in on the swf file.

Inside References

• The name Stinkoman is a reference to island, when Homestar calls Strong Bad "Stinkoman". Coincidentally, the alias of the sender of said email was Yami Yugi, the name of the main character of a popular anime series and card game Yu-Gi-Oh!.
• The first line of Strong Bad's haiku is similar to Strong Bad Email #34, weird dream, in which The Cheat's computer, Tangerine Dreams, has an icon labeled "So Cool A Flash", and the image Strong Bad brings up entitled "So Weird a Dream". (see also Real-World References)
• The two videos next to the NES Endings are "Joy of Painting" from the TV Time Toons Menu.
• Stinkoman's first cool pose shows him holding a Big Knife.

Real-World References

• Stinkoman's overall design and the "cool poses" sequence appear to be based on the Ganbare Goemon video games, also known as Legend of the Mystical Ninja.
• The illustration on the third slide of the credits for Stinkoman K parodies the Super Saiyan transformation from the Dragon Ball series, which notably features a long spiky hairstyle standing on end, with Stinkoman drawn in a manner resembling the series' artstyle.
• The credits for Stinkoman K are lifted from The Legend of Zelda for the NES.
  • "H. Yamauchi", "S. Miyahon", "Ten Ten", and "Konchan" refer to Hiroshi Yamauchi, Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, and Koji Kondo, respectively.
• 20X6 is a reference to Mega Man, which is set in 20XX, or the first Metroid game, which is set in 20X5.
• Stinkoman's "robot boots" are similar to the ones that Roll, a female character from the Mega Man games, wears.
• The spaceship strongly resembles one of the spaceships from the NES game Galaxy 5000.
• The background music and sung credits song is taken from this MIDI of the Sunset Coastline theme from the NES game Rad Racer, which was composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
• The first two lines of Strong Bad's haiku are very similar to an infamous subject line used by the Klez email worm, which read "so cool a flash, enjoy it". (see also Inside References)
• Oolong is a Chinese tea, as well as a character from Dragon Ball and a song from Three Little Words.
• The "K" in "Stinko Man K 20X6" is a homage to anime mega-series such as Dragon Ball, Gundam, and Sailor Moon, which use letters to separate different series or seasons (e.g., Dragon Ball Z, Z Gundam, Sailor Moon R, etc.)
• The line, "No way, you're just a kid! Maybe when you're older" is a reference to the anime movie Akira, where Kaneda refuses to let Tetsuo ride his motorbike because he's "just a kid". Also, Stinkoman's voice is similar to Cam Clarke's dub of Kaneda.
• Pan Pan was also the name of a panda who lived from 1986 to 2016.

Fast Forward

• As The Brothers Chaps mention in the DVD commentary, "combolations" would also be given by Senor Cardgage in flashback.

DVD Version

• The 20X6 and Homestar watching Easter eggs are now opened by different icons. The Strong Bad's head icon on the right side of the Compy 386 screen opens the former, and the one in the lower left corner of the Compy 386 opens the latter.
  • If the Homestar Easter egg is opened, the toon must be restarted in order to see the other one.
• The NES endings are still accessible, though the Homestar video must finish before they can be accessed.
• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch the DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Matt Chapman, Mike Chapman)

MATT: This is CD number one.

MIKE: Number two.

MATT: Number three.

MIKE: And number four.

MATT: That's from that Flaming Lips four-disc thing.

MIKE: All right.

MATT: So this is when we started this email at, like, 10 PM on Sunday night, didn't we?

MIKE: I think so.

MATT: {simultaneously} And we didn't finish until early... or late Monday?

MIKE: Ummm...

MATT: {simultaneously} Or early Tuesday.

MIKE: No, I think it was up on Monday.

MATT: Okay.

MIKE: But it was definitely later in the day.

MATT: I remember Matt and Jenna, our friends Matt and Jenna came over and we had just drawn some of these preliminary drawings of Strong Bad as Stinkoman and we showed it to them.

MIKE: I don't remember that.

MATT: They did! They came over—

MIKE: I believe you! I'm just saying I don't remember it.

MATT: Well I don't—

MIKE: I don't have anything to add to that, uh, line of—

MATT: I don't know why we did, we probably had a good time for a little while—

MIKE: Maybe.

MATT: —and then they left.

MIKE: Yeah?

{pause}

MATT: This is another email, nobody likes this email, everybody hates this email.

{Mike laughs a little.}

MATT: You know. There's that ship! Originally we were going to say that ship was The Cheat.

MIKE: Oh yeah, that's right! {laughs}

MATT: That was going to be, the 20X6 version of The Cheat was that ship.

MIKE: We should still do that.

MATT: Yeah, maybe—maybe so.

MIKE: Um... I like Homestar's boots there.

MATT: Yeah. I mean, I think we didn't—until we recorded this line, we weren't going to, like, call him Stinkoman, were we? And it was, we were just making that reference, to the old, to the island email.

MIKE: {at the same time, overlapping} You've got to remember... right.

MATT: I love those mushroom things. I love those—the mushroom things—

MIKE: There's the tear over your head.

MATT: The tear, the snot...

MIKE: And the snot bubble.

MATT: There's some other stuff.

MIKE: {simultaneously} So many weird things that happen in—

MATT: {simultaneously} Those mushroom things happen in, uh, Animal Crossing, when they get mad at you.

MIKE: Oh yeah, that's right! Yeah, Matt!

MATT: Of course, these are all the credits from, uh, the original Legend of Zelda.

MIKE: Konchan, the sound composer. Does good work.

{Matt starts singing the Legend of Zelda theme song, then Mike continues it.}

MATT: Sorry. Um... so yeah. So the one-two punch of Trogdor and Stinkoman are probably—

MIKE: Yeah, back to back weeks.

MATT: —are probably the most popular emails. Combolations. {laughs a little}

MIKE: Later, uh, Senor Cardgage gives combolations to Strong Bad in the 100th email.

Fun Facts

• The Flaming Lips album referenced at the beginning is Zaireeka. Consisting of four music CDs, Zaireeka was a highly experimental album designed to be played on four separate audio systems simultaneously. The countdown the brothers imitate happens at the beginning of each track, serving as a way for the listener to verify if the discs are synced properly.
• The talk about the Cheatball being a spaceship is likely a reference to the Japanese series Tenchi Muyo!, where the cabbit Ryo-Ohki could transform into a spaceship several hundred times her size.
• In the video game Animal Crossing (as well as later entries in the series), villagers express emotions with cartoonish icons that appear near their heads. When villagers get angry, steam clouds come out of their heads rather than the mushroom clouds Matt describes. When the villagers are laughing, words that indicate laughing (such as "ha ha") flash around their heads in a way similar to the way that mushroom clouds appear around Stinkoman's head.

External Links

• watch "japanese cartoon"
• watch "japanese cartoon" on YouTube
• watch "japanese cartoon" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "japanese cartoon"