Wherein I attempt to distract you with turtles.

Sorry everybody but further Hiroshima posts are delayed until tomorrow. However I can promise that something will be up tomorrow. I know I haven't been too good at getting the Tuesday post up recently but I do have an excuse for most of those occasions. In today's case I had to go see Josh about possibly becoming the new JET librarian and work stuff takes precedence over blogging, sadly.

To tide you over I invite you to contemplate the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Now as someone who grew up with the TMNT I don't find them weird at all. The concept of ninja anthropomorphic turtles doesn't bother me in the slightest. But even when you know the origins of them* they are still a pretty weird idea. Mutated turtles, named after Renaissance painters, armed with ninja weapons, living in a sewer and eating pizza. It isn't exactly a normal concept for a show is it.

Now imagine putting that messed up idea through the insanity filter that is Japan.



Wow! Just, wow! I mean quite apart from the super-hero versions of the already messed teenage mutant ninja turtles we've got the turtles combining bodies to form the "turtle saint", some sort of robot animal mode and a floating goddess April O'neil. I can just picture some Japanese anime director looking at the TMNT scripts and going "hrrmmm teen aged mutant turtles that are also ninjas. Nope, not messed up enough. Let's make them teen aged mutant turtles that are also ninjas, super-heroes, robots, other animals and a saint/god thing. Perfect!"

And yet, the best thing in the whole trailer is still how they say "kicks go boom boom" as "kicks go byuum byuum."




*The teenage mutant ninja turtles were originally conceived as a comic by Eastman and Laird. They set out to parody some of the most popular comics of the mid-80's. Teen Titans (hence teenage), the X-men (hence mutant), Daredevil (which had recently introduced a group of ninjas called the hand. The enemies of the turtles are known as the foot) and Cerberus, a story about an aardvark (hence anthropomorphic animals and they opted for turtles).