Imagine an alternate world where porn stars are actually Transformers who fight lesbian rabbits in steamrollers, all while zooming down a road at a zillion kph. Now you don't have to imagine it - just watch this bizarro Japanese machinima.
Sep 19, 2009 04:00 PM
13,426
Enter your username and password.
San Francisco, 4:33 AM
Wed Feb 10
25 posts in the last 24 hours
Imagine an alternate world where porn stars are actually Transformers who fight lesbian rabbits in steamrollers, all while zooming down a road at a zillion kph. Now you don't have to imagine it - just watch this bizarro Japanese machinima.
If you are unfamiliar with the roiling cauldron of memes represented by this video, you will feel as if you've stepped off the cultural deep end and into an alternate reality. So let me sort it out for you a little bit.
The buttsechs motorcycle guy is supposed to be popular 1980s bisexual porn star Billy Herrington. Talented at karate, Billy starred in a bunch of karate-themed porn flicks, as well as wrestling. He had a nice time and retired in the 1990s. Enter the popular Japanese video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga. One of the members of the site uploaded a chunk of one of Billy's old videos, and it exploded into a crazy meme.
I'll quote from the source of all internet-related knowledge, Wikipedia:
Thousands of mash-up parody videos of him have been made, many of which utilize deliberate mishearings (soramimi 空耳) of lines from his films. He is affectionately called "Big Brother" (兄貴 aniki) among the Nico Nico Douga community, and most of his videos are deliberately mistagged with "Wrestling Series (レスリングシリーズ resuringu sirīzu))", "Forest Fairy" (森の妖精 mori no yousei), "Philosophy" (哲学 tetsugaku), or both.
Herrington visited Japan in February 2009 to attend in a live online event hosted by Nico Nico Douga and Garage kit maker Good Smile Company. Herrington said that he is flattered and humbled by his fans' creativity. A limited-edition Herrington figure was announced for a July 2009 release. Two other limited-editions Herrington action figures were announced for the Halloween and Christmas holiday. The Halloween figure is due to release October 2009 and the Christmas one is due to release on December 2009 both are Nico Nico Chyokuhan exclusives.
In South Korea, especially on DC Inside, audio of Billy Herrington's dialogues, including "Oh my shoulder", became internet meme.
A meme expert on Reddit explains this particular video in even more granular detail:
It's a combination of several 2channel / Nicovideo memes. The ones I recognize:
Overall, the thing is a parody of the racing scenes from the racing anime Initial D, which all look kind of like this:
There is also a "Gutter run" in there, which is kind of the main characters signature move, where he hooks his wheels into the gutter to be able to go around the curve faster.
The dudes on the bike are from a gay wrestling porn movie. It's popular on nicovideo and has sparked things like this:
The steamroller is from Jojos Bizzare Adventure.
The person driving the Steamroller is Kagamine Rin, a Vocaloid personification. She and Rin are somehow associated with steamrollers now, presumably because both are yellow.
And that, my friends, is how a bisexual porn star from America became a funny action figure in Japan. It's just what internet pioneers dreamed of back in the early 1990s. The web has become a place for cross-cultural sharing.
Thanks, Eliot!
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Start a new discussion