This week’s featured something-or-other comes from Renku, who is our resident talented artist. Her entry simply titled “mermaid” is a picture of a mermaid she drew. Isn’t that just the president’s suspenders?

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If you have your own Fan Friday submission that you would like to see posted up on 91.8 The Fan, wrap it up all pretty in an e-mail and ship it off to Kibs(at)918thefan(dot)com titled “Fan Friday Submission”.

This week’s featured article comes from…Shidohari again! Who has re-written the lyrics to some song or another.

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CHRISMAS IS COMING – A 91.8 THE FAN HOLIDAY PARODY
BY
SHIDOHARI (I’M SO SORRY)

Christmas is Coming
The IRC is getting packed
Please schedule more interviews
S.T.A.T

If there are no interviews
Some music blocks will do
If there are no music blocks
You know we’ll still love you.

When I’m getting sleepy
Or a little slow
That’s when I tune in
To the Best station that I know

In the Nevada Sun
Or the Northeast Rain
You can hear everything you want
And also Every Fight which causes Pain

Christmas is Coming
As Kana starts to Sing
The praises of Girls Generation
And the Goodness that they bring

Christmas is Coming
And Elk’s been in the Nog
But let us not forget
Darth Chico his cute Dog

Christmas is Coming
And what do I see
Oh God it’s Cerulaine
Kissing a Zombie

Christmas is Coming
Oh God what am I going to do
I better end this song now
As I run from Kibs, Haku
And the rest of the Staff too.

If you have your own Fan Friday submission that you would like to see posted up on 91.8 The Fan, wrap it up all pretty in an e-mail and ship it off to Kibs(at)918thefan(dot)com titled “Fan Friday Submission”.

Today’s submission is by our long-time friend Shidohari,who expertly re-wrote the lyrics to the American Sailor Moon opening theme. Likely to go along with Renku’s awesome illustration found here.

SAILOR BRIE OPENING THEME
by
SHIDOHARI

:: DUN DUN…DUN DUN DUN DUN::
Fighting Piracy by Moonlight
Spinning tunes by Daylight
Never running from a Real Fight
She is the one called Sailor Brie

She is the one in who we can Confide
Epic interviews she will Provide
With the Power of Radio on her side
She is the one called Sailor Brie

Sailor Mist
Sailor Haku
Sailor Cam
Sailor Renku
Sailor Zero

Tuxedo Elk And Cat Advisor Musa too
The team will always defeat
Evil Zombie Queen Ceru

She is the one called Sailor Brie
She is the One
Sailor Brie
:: insert ending tone ::

If you have your own Fan Friday submission that you would like to see posted up on 91.8 The Fan, wrap it up all pretty in an e-mail and ship it off to Kibs(at)918thefan(dot)com titled “Fan Friday Submission”.

Yeah, you thought we’d forgotten about this. Joke’s on you, I’m just super lazy! So here’s how this stuff works:

• Write some content you want posted on 91.8 The Fan
• Send your content (titled “Fan Friday”) to Kibs(at)918TheFan(dot)com
• Wait until Friday to see your content posted on 91.8 The Fan

It’s that simple, three awesome things happen; I get more work to do, 91.8 The Fan gets more content, (which we totally do not have any of), and you get your stuff posted up for all of our 5 fans (including your mom) to read. We do, however, reserve the right to not post up your content if we find it offensive, illegal, or just simply think it sucks.

Seriously, what the heck are you waiting for? Send some e-mails already, get crackin’, chip-chop-chip!!]]> http://918thefan.com/2011/fan-friday-yes-it-still-exists/feed/ 5 http://918thefan.com/2011/leviathan-mists-memories-of-91-8-the-fan-contest/ http://918thefan.com/2011/leviathan-mists-memories-of-91-8-the-fan-contest/#comments Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:55:24 +0000 Leviathan Mist http://918thefan.com/?p=22366

One year ago today, I joined 91.8 The Fan. As I have spent the majority of my time either on the site or in the IRC, I have loads of memories to share, but I will generally stick to memories from 2010. In the process, I will be profiling some of the staff members as I have perceived them.

We’ll start with the day I joined: August 6th, 2010. The first time I turned on the radio, I heard our weekday afternoon DJ, Elk, telling everyone to get us more listeners for a contest to win a copy of Super Street Fighter IV.

Elk: Formerly known as AnarchoElk, our resident anarchist has always got something different to talk about. He knows a lot about politics and the world around him, and if you ever feel the need to discuss fighting games, he’s your man. Elk loves The Protomen and anything Mega Man related.

I then proceeded to head over to the forums and write an introduction. At the time, I really didn’t know what to expect, and I was blatantly honest about that fact. This is where I first met the bosses, Kanashimi and Kibs.

Kanashimi: What can I say? Without her, there’d be no radio station. She buys all the music completely legitimately, and she usually does all the tagging as well. Add in the DJing, DJ managing, and countless other things she does for the site, it’s amazing she still has any time left to do anything. I’ve noticed she plays a lot of Korean and dancey tunes for her show. Kanashimi likes prinnies and maids.

Kibs: The other boss dude. He is a banana. He also does the site’s graphic work and manages the site content, as well as run the forums. Occasionally you’ll find him on the radio, usually with a special guest. Kibs likes vocaloids, and loves his cat.

I ended the day by checking out the IRC. Little did I know that by doing so, I sealed my fate there. I spent most of that week in the IRC and listening to the radio. This is where I met most of the DJs.

EagleEyes: There is just too much to say about our resident Australian. He used to hold EagleEyes’ Round Table every other week, a feature involving a discussion with the fans. He likes Mell, Skankfunk, and Mini Moni, and Air Gear is his favorite anime. Also, the ending to Clannad made him cry. Poor guy.

Cerulaine: Every weekend, “Ceru Ceru Time” would attract all the creepy guys to the radio. (Just kidding Cameron, I don’t think you’re creepy. Not to single anyone out, Cameron.) Cerulaine used to have her “truth game” segment and request hour, which were my favorite parts of her show. She has an unhealthy obsession for zombies, and likes The Protomen, Angela Aki, and Final Fantasy IX. Also, she’s good at keeping me from getting into trouble.

Christmas: When he’s not sitting around with cool shades on boosting his smug level, he’s watching lots and lots of anime. As a former morning DJ, I often missed his show, but he had Mario RPG music as one of his music beds which is awesome. He is currently in charge of booking our guests, and his favorite artist on the station is Uverworld.

Litespeed: Straight from the UK, Litespeed was our only British DJ. Having his show early in the morning on weekends meant hardly anyone was around during his show, but I was usually there. Every weekend, the “Jolly Good Show” would feature some of his favorite rocky tunes and usually a game or two.

DS: If there is one word to describe DS, it’s “Apathy.” If someone had a gun pointed at his head, he probably wouldn’t even look up. I remember him making themed playlists out of songs of similar names, and he once went on-air to talk about every staff member, much like I’m doing now.

Raug: Hosts the website, and does some coding work. He can usually be found in the IRC but doesn’t say much. He often plays fighting games with Elk.

Before I found this radio station, I had maybe 3 or 4 favorite Japanese singers and artists. After the first week alone, I had probably doubled that number. Every day, it became a task for me to remember songs I liked so I could use them in Kana’s IRC game. I still have the list I made, but I don’t need it anymore.

Less than two weeks after I joined, I bought a fanatic subscription, a decision I wouldn’t regret. Having access to the full song list meant I knew which artists I needed to request. Commence Operation “Get Minori Chihara on the station!”

One day, Elk decided that the priority system for requesting new artists and albums was nice, but a little too expensive. Therefore, he made the “Priority system combo thread!” Multiple people who wanted the same artist bad enough could split the costs. We managed to get the Sailor Moon discography and the Minori Chihara discography through the system before Kana had to temporarily close it.

Jubilee: A news director for The Fan. Every week he posts “Jubilee’s News Jumble” in which he talks about various anime-related news articles. He is a sasnak who kills people by eating their hands. Jubilee likes Lady Gaga and Ali Project.

Twilly: A pink starfish. When he was a DJ, he’d spend most of his talk time saying how awesome everything is. Used to have a game called Starfish Scramble, in which participants would unscramble various names, usually anime-related. Twilly likes X Japan, Stereopony, The Pillows, and lots of dancey tunes.

Brie: Brie is 91.8 The Fan’s mascot, conceived by Kanashimi and originally drawn by Bara-chan. She is pretty.

About a month after I joined, 91.8 The Fan had its biggest contest to-date: A contest to win free tickets to see X Japan live in concert! I wasn’t gonna let this opportunity pass up, so I promptly entered the contest. It was about that time when I thought to myself, “I’d love to be part of The Fan.” But what could I do? It took a little nudging, but Kana finally got me to apply as a translator.

Leviathan Mist: Translator for 91.8 The Fan. Most of the Japanese song titles on the radio were translated by him. Leviathan Mist can usually be found in the IRC, and he likes penguins. His favorite artists on the station are Minori Chihara, Elisa, and Fripside.

Being part of staff made me appreciate exactly how much work goes into running a site like this. It’s a team effort, everyone pitches in and does their part, and the result is what you see before you: A site with a radio station and lots and lots of content. After the madness that was Anime Vegas, 91.8 The Fan had the honor of being invited as special guests at Another Anime Convention. Though I could not attend, I made sure to tune in and catch all the madness on the radio! By the way, I never did win those X Japan tickets, I became staff before the contest ended, thus nullifying my entry. Sadface.

HeikaHaku: A weekend DJ and a programmer. The Brie bot in the IRC was made by him. He will not make you rice. Haku’s favorite song is Guidepost of the Moonlight by Stereopony.

Sailor Moon: The early morning weekday DJ. Sailor Moon is her favorite anime. (No way!) If you’re funny enough in the IRC, you can make her snort on-air.

Soundbreaker: The former morning weekday DJ before Christmas. A man of many voices, who would constantly interact with the IRC users. Some of his old antics are posted on the forums, and for an early morning show, he had a very good listener count. Soundbreaker likes anything Nintendo-related, but Mario and Zelda seem to be his favorite series.

Kusari: An early morning weekend DJ for The Fan. Like Soundbreaker, he can do many voices, and he loves to interact with his audience. His young daughter, who we call “Kusariette”, can sometimes be heard being cute on the radio. Kusari likes anything related to chains, especially the song “Chain” by Back-On.

From then on, my routine was pretty much the same: If there was a DJ on, request a Minori Chihara song. Translate stuff for the site. Keep the IRC active.

If you’re a staff member and I didn’t talk about you, it’s probably because I never see you enough to be able to describe you. Come onto the IRC more often! I’d love to talk about non-staff and all my favorite IRC peeps, but if I did, this would go on forever. If you want me to describe you, post a comment below and I’ll respond!

What’s this, a contest?

That’s right! How would you like to win your very own Minori Chihara album for free? If I were you, I’d be all over it like ants on sugar. I am giving away this brand new Yuki Nagato Character Single to a randomly chosen entrant! If you want to enter the contest, simply send an e-mail to:

mist(at)918thefan(dot)com

…and include any memories you want to share with me. Make sure to put “Contest entry” in the title so I don’t accidentally count you out! If you are brand new here and have no memories, just tell me your first impression of the website. Trust me, you WANT this single. This was the first J-Pop album I ever owned, and it’s what got me into the genre. If enough people enter, I might do this again someday, so get all your friends and family to enter the contest! The contest ends Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 11:59 PM PST, and the winner will be notified by e-mail.

Fridays belong to the fans, that means if you have an article or video you want us to post up, go ahead and submit it! While we have very talented Content Providers, we believe that everyone should have a chance to have their work published on 91.8 The Fan!

This week’s FanArt is submitted by Jessileo127

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Her lovely art is a depiction of member Renku and staffer LeviathanMist.

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If you would like your content posted right here on 91.8 The Fan, send your e-mail titled “Fan Friday” to Kibs(at)918thefan.com.

Here comes the most fun part of the contest. You all get to decide who wins so we don’t have to you all feel involved!

Here’s how it’s going to work, I’m going to put up the past 3 winners. You will vote in the comments. One vote per person. Voting will end on Monday, May 2nd at 11:59 PM. No later, if you vote late your vote won’t count and the poll fairy will visit your house tonight and remove your kidneys while you sleep. We figure out who the winner is later that night, and then I mail it out to whoever it is that won. They receive their prize, open it, and have super-happy-fun-DVD-time.

The Winners
• Week 1 – Renku
• Week 2 – Knuckles6K
• Week 3 - NerdWerld
  History of Japanese Heavy Metal
  
  Okay for those of you who don’t like banging your heads, disrespecting authority, and having a great time this article will not be for you. As you may not know rock and roll has a long and influential history in Japanese history and culture, but we are going to be discussing rock’s drug induced speed up younger brother and how it has transformed the Japanese music scene.
  
  I’ll go into this article how any good metal article should introduce the early bands such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. I won’t go into the origins of metal because that can be quite tricky. How does this relate to Japanese culture, well one of these bands is not like the other being that Deep Purple was huge and I mean huge in Japan?
  
  Deep Purple’s legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore sets the stage and story for the popularity of extravagant heavy metal in Japan. 1973’s monumental Who Do You Think We Are hit was an important rock and roll and heavy metal monolith. It even talked about Japan with its hit single “Woman From Tokyo”. This also released a “Live in Japan” album which would later be used by other forign heavy metal acts. Ritchie Blackmore would continue to be in Deep Purple and astound the Japanese audience with is improvised performances and guitar riffs until in 1975 he left Deep Purple because new members Cloverdale and Glen Hughes were making funky, “soul-shine” music.
  
  In 1975 Ritchie Blackmore had left Deep Purple and formed Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow which consisted of himself and the members of a Deep Purple headliner band named Elf fronted by the late great Ronnie James Dio. Rainbow was a success from their first album all the way towards the 80’s after Ronnie James Dio would be replaced by various other vocalists including Graham Bonnet (we will get back to him later) and Joe Lyn Turner.
  
  By 1975 with the success of foreign metal bands such as Rainbow allowed Japanese homegrown acts to prosper. The first Japanese metal band to access some sort of success was Bow-Wow a.k.a Bow Wow. Though really only a blimp on the screen they were an influential heavy metal band and the first one that is documented from the land of the rising sun. However, as we will soon see they diffently won’t be the last.
  
  The late 70’s brought punk rock to the tables of Japanese youth and competed like it did in both America and England for youth listeners. By this time various small punk scenes developed in Japan, as well a small metal scene backed by Deep Purple and Kiss fans helped fuel a successful metal scene. From this late 70’s scene brought Earthshaker, and later their more famous contemporaties Ezo, Anthem, and Loudness.
  
  Earthshaker’s early hard rock roots would fuel some success out of Japan, but by the mid 80’s they would focus on more Japanese pop songs than that of the metal community and isolate themselves. Earthshaker lost their vocalist to Lazy in 1981. Lazy unlike Earthshaker were completely inherinent of Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar rifts. 1981 was the time when Lazy switched its name to Loudness and with their new vocalist Minoru Niihara and the guitar antics of Akira Takasaki Loudness pioneered a classic heavy metal sound that showed hope in the Japanese metal scene.Loudness would continue to rock stadiums home, but their Deep Purple routed music would change into a more popular act with the success of Thunder in the East. Though it selled well in America as nothing more than an exotic good the band viewed the limits of their Japanese vocalist and hired Mike Vescera in 1988 for another great hit Soldier of Fortune, though it failed to chart in America and Loudness’s reign was about to end. Sharing Loudness’s success were two smaller, but equally incredible Japanese bands. These two bands Anthem led by the charismatic Eizo Sakamoto and Ezo. Ezo never got the credit it deserved in the states, but influences such modern artists as Bangles and Red Cross (not that those are metal?). Anthem were second only to Loudness in the 80’s though not as successful Anthem didn’t get destroyed by misguided western dreams of success. Eizo Sakamoto would help coin the two main hits: Wild Anthem and Warning Action. Anthem would continue to pump out success songs in their home country. However, the 90’s represented a change in music not just in Japan, but globally. The wave of alternative rock ushered by grunge thanks to Nirvana’s Nevermind released in 1991 hindered metal’s dominance, and in Japan a threat from its own metal community in the form of extreme black metal on one hand and the glorious rise of Visual Kei music would end Anthem, Loudness, Earthshaker, and Ezo’s reign as heavy metal kings.
  
  In America as in elsewell metal had to hide underground and thrive as it always had, but this led to many scenes throughout the world and this happened in Japan as well. Around the beginning of the 90’s the Japanese metal underground had a split. Many bands were influenced by the upcoming death metal and grindcore genres and opened to that as a influence, however there was a minority of bands who were influenced by the Bay Area Thrash Metal that brought the world Metallica, Megadeth, and of course Slayer.
  
  The Slayer and other darker thrash bands would influence Japan’s Black Metal scene. Black Metal drew on ambient sounds, and an almost punk like view of technology and the recording industry. Of these bands the two that became important were Sigh and Sabbat. While the Norweigian Black Metal scene of paganism, pseudo-satanism, death, discord, and church burnings spread these Japanese bands took the old samurai order and flipped it on its axis honoring the dead samurai of old. Sigh and Sabbath spew forth anti-Christian anthems and the reclaiming for their old family ties.
  
  This of course made them popular with underground circuits, but there was a huge Japanese grindcore (similar to death metal) sector as well as a slow tuned down doom metal scene. Doom metal draws more from the tone of Black Sabbath songs and similar bands. A weird concoction of grindcore, death metal, and doom metal was seen in The Corrupted who you might find interestingly enough speak their lyrics in Spanish and have songs usually twenty to thirty minutes in length.
  
  Sigh, Sabbat and Corrupted are not popular and by their lyrical themes and experimentation many could see why? However these movements didn’t interfere with the old guard of Japanese metal scene to make other projects like in 1996 Anthem front men Eizo Sakamoto created Japanese metal cover band Animetal (see the play on words anime and metal). Animetal covered old anime and tokusatsu film songs in a metal style. Animetal throughout its career covered various songs, but also supplied to Rurouni Kenshin a song entitled “Eternal Future”. The underground scene of the 90’s was full of bands that were typical of underground scenes else well though one could debate the weirdness and creativity of some of those bands with others of similar international scenes. By far Japan’s success in metal wasn’t from the underground it was from its mainstream support and in Japan the most successful style of heavy metal that until recently was an entirely Japan phenomena and that was Visual Kei Music.
  
  Visual Kei Music? How does one describe such a phenomena? Visual Kei evolved along the outgrowth of glam metal in America, however the music coming from such bands as Buck-Tick, D’erlanger and leaders X Japan were not acoustic ballads that faded in a year from success. The Visual Kei movement was purely a Japanese phenomenon in its early years evolved eventually to what we see know as a global movement. The main success story of the movement was Luna Sea, Glay, and Sex Machine Guns, but no surprise it was the soaring guitar rifts and piano keys of X Japan that became the biggest. X Japan originally known as just X was a Japanese band that started around 1985 with original vocalist Toshimitsu Deyama and Toshiki Hayashi. However it wasn’t until 1987 that guitarist Hideto “Hide” Matsumoto joined the band that things started to become successful. It was with the released of their second album (because the first one is no comparison to the second in my opinion) Blue Blood in 1989 that the band started its slop into stardom. However, Art of Life released in 1993 was a beautiful composition of musical talent. Instead of a heavy follow-up the next album was the ballad rich Dahlia and would be the last album with Hide. By 1999 the popularity of the genre had hit is maximum and Luna Sea, Buck-Tick and X Japan would all call it quits by the end of the decade.
  
  Japan’s obsession with visual kei however can still be seen because Visual Kei’s influence is almost completely hard to ignore. Even the alternative bands such as Maximum the Hormone are influenced to an extent in X Japan’s flamboyant stage show. Modern metal Japanese acts such as Dir En Grey which not including German Ramnstein is the most successful non-English speaking band in the world. The Visual Kei tradition was seen Malice Mizer, though a pioneer in the movement its vocalist GACKT would embark on a successful solo career and besides hide before his late and tragic passing the only one of the movement to have a successful solo career.
  
  The 2000’s brought back heavy metal giants of the past, Deep Purple,Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, who had all released live albums in Japan were seen with the resurgence in the 90’s of Europeon Power Metal who at various times such as Children of Bodom and Blind Gaurdian also released live albums from Japan. The resurgence of Anthem (For a while fronted by Graham Bonnet of Rainbow fame) , Loudness, and more recently X Japan headlining Japanese stage with domestic and forign acts at such large venues as Loud Park. It doesn’t take one to understand that metal is and will be big in Japan in its future.

Now get to voting, you lazy sons of mothers.

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And we have our winner; ignoring the fact that I just began a sentence with a conjunction, LIKE A BOSS, the votes have been tallied. Renku is our winner. Congratulations. I will be contacting you for your name, address, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, social security number, and bank PIN number.

Guess what happens when I work 12 hour days on jobs that are an hour from home? Things get posted late. This is one of those times. But guess what? I get weekends off, so that’s a plus.

So I bet you’re wondering why you should care about my personal life. I am too, stop being so nosy.

So anyway, that contest thing. I bet you thought a drawing was going to win this week. You’re wrong, because, unlike some other websites that hold contests that ask for several different types of entires and yet award prizes to the artists which will remain nameless, we actually vote based on how much everyone sucked compared to you. This week’s winner is NerdWerld for his second (rather long) article.

Which you can read by clicking this. Magic.

According to that post I made 3 weeks ago, tomorrow you all get to vote on the winner. so that people don’t get upset at us if they lose, since we didn’t choose because we like to give our readers the illusion of some involvement.

Also, for those of you who actually read this far, congrats, you’re now at a third grade reading level, your reward is the runners up for this week:

• Renku
• Drewid
• JinnRemona
• Nirvash Redemption
• Nirvash Redemption (again)

Is it that time of the week already? And no, I don’t mean the time EagleEyes comes home late at night half drunk and ready for Goofy Time. I mean Fan Friday Contest time.

Since I’m preparing for a convention right now I’m going to skip the witty bater and just get down to brass tacks: Nobody won because you were all terrible.

Okay, so Kana tells me I’m not allowed to do that. We voted, and our winner this week is Knuckles6K, who, after disappearing for several months decides to show back up when we’re giving stuff away. Like my ex girlfriend. Her entry can be viewed by finding some way to scroll the webpage down a few hundred pixels:

Luka wants to Just Be Friends, again, just like my ex girlfriend.

You’ve still got one more week to enter, so get on that before you lose your chance, then you’ll have to live with the disappointment of knowing that you missed out on the chance for me to actually pay attention to an e-mail that you send me.

Since everyone has to be special because Barney says so, here are the failures runners up:

But first, there are 6 billion people in the world, even if you’re one in a million, there are still 6,000 other people in the world exactly like you, tell that to your mom the next time she tells you you’re special;

• Nerdwerld
  What is Japan’s fascination with the Three Kingdoms?

  Romance of the Three Kingdoms it is one of China’s classic novels along with Water Table, Dreams of Red Chamber and Journey to the west. So what do Chinese novels have to do with Japan well actually to be precise Japan’s production of films, video games, manga, and anime adaptation of Chinese classics is rivaled only by China. As you may or may not know China was important in the development of Japanese early state politics… but don’t worry I’m not here to talk to you guys in a boring history lesson I’m going to be talking about what is up with Japan’s fascination with the mighty Lu Bu, the splendid Ma Chao, and holy cow its Zhuge Liang.
  Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a great piece of Chinese historical fiction by the great Lou Guanzhong who actually didn’t come up with the title nor the contents of his masterpiece he basically took various stories told about the great conflict of China during the late Han Dynasty (206 BCE- 220 CE) more importantly the later half of Han rule and the Era of Three Kingdoms (220-280 CE) of Wei, Wu, and Shu and their eventually overthrow by that of the Jin Dynasty. Romance of the Three Kingdoms was a great hit and despite its historical inaccurate the novel sold really well and became a classic of Chinese literature.
  Lou Guanzhong who lived (1330-1400 CE) of course was not around to witness the Three Kingdoms nor was he around when Japan’s actual fascination started to occur. When the Japanese got a hold of the story it spread like wild fire and one could assume the volumes sold like Harry Potter or even Twilight series. This is where the craze began and unfortunately or fortunately this is where we begin.
  The original Romance of the Three Kingdoms had 120 chapters and contained an odd total of over 9000…. Well I mean exactly 800,000 words. It was translated into English years later during the proxy-European imperialist carving of China. It was a hit in England and elsewhere, but if you compare it to the success in Korea, Japan, or even say Vietnam it doesn’t even hit a best seller in the West though it is still taught in Chinese and Asian History classes as I can vogue for.
  The Japanese began a massive translation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms during the Edo Period like they did to all the great Chinese classics before this of course to read it the Japanese needed to understand Chinese. With these interesting translations and eventually abridging of the stories of the Three Kingdoms came the revival during the later Edo period of a romanticized yes… romanticized fad about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms get it? It peaked in popularity in Japan until Meiji Era and faded until after WW2.
  Going back to the abridging and translated and even original Chinese novel the Japanese manga, anime and video game industry looked at this old Chinese piece of literature with dollar signs. All the characters, the armies, and the events these things could hold some profit for these new industries appearing in the fifties and still to this day. This of course with that became beginning of a commercial resurgence in the selling of Romance of the Three Kingdom.
  There are a lot of these adaptations, but I will only give a list of the more familiar and more recent adaptations to this phenomena. The most obvious example of this is KOEI’s Dynasty Warrior, Kessen 2 (apparently unlike the other Kessen games this one was not based off Sengoku period, but instead Three Kingdoms Era) and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
  For me Dynasty Warriors was my first involvement with this part of Chinese history and though I confess I didn’t play any of these games until Dynasty Warriors 4 and I’m more found of the Samurai Warriors series I find the games enjoyable none the less. The game is a basic hack and slashes game where you play one of multiple characters from the Three Kingdom Era and bring wrath upon the battlefield. The original Dynasty Warriors was an arcade battle, but the other games are hack and slash strategy games. In fact Dynasty Warriors 7 recently came out and I must say it is a great game.
  Dynasty Warriors 7 is like its predecessors, but focuses on the story of the eventually end of the Three Kingdoms Era when the Jin Dynasty becomes everyone master in the end. It also is more partial to the original novel than any other previous game of the series. It has new characters not just in the new instated army Jin, but as well in the three Kingdoms.
  Anyone who has played knows how some characters can be quite difficult and none more powerful than the mighty Lu Bu. Lu Bu lived in a world where the great Han was collapsing and is a bit of a nuisance historically, as well in the novel and even more in the game. Considered the games ultimate character in the new game Lu Bu is just as beast as he as always been.
  Koei’s other famous title from this theme of Three Kings is of course the aptly named Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Honestly I have never played the game, but apparently it plays similar to Koei’s Kessen however recently they have been released as MMORPG’s to my and others dismay. Kessen 2 also focuses on The Three Kingdoms Era while the other games focus on Sengoku Era Japan.
  However video games are not the only adaptations of this great story. There are chinese manhou, Japanese manga, films, and anime about this wonderful story. (Don’t you love a milked out series that is everywhere.) A recent adaptation was Ikki Tousen where the souls of these dead warriors, warlords, and people have become re-incarnated into modern Japanese teens. The names are of course the translated Japanese names dating back to those Edo Era translations.
  Interesting enough one of my favorite light novel authors Ryohgo Narita references Romance of the Three Kingdoms in his two most popular series Baccano and Durarara. Baccano’s reference to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is aboard the Flying Pussyfoot when Issiac Dian talks to Jacuzzi about who the Train is like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms he of course is historically inaccurate and doesn’t have all the facts straight famously putting Billy the Kidd in the Era which of course a huge anachronism.
  Ryohgo’s 2007 hit Durarara also loosely follows Romance of the Three Kingdoms and has loosely references to the novel. The Yellow Scarves or Yellow Turbans in history and in novel are a major antagonist. The Yellow Scarves of course along with those loyal to the Saika, and the Dollars form what could be at best a three kingdom power struggle, and like in the novel a fourth party comes to overtake them all. This could be either seen as the Blue Squares or even the plotting of Izaya Orihara.
  One of the more interesting Japanese adaptations on this novel is the anime series and visual novel Koihime Muso where the characters are portrayed as females. Personally I think the commercialization of the series hits its low when the characters are treated as such, but it is was an interesting series non-the-less. The characters mostly just share relations as they do in the novel, but it for the most part has no historical significance to the novel besides the names of translated Japanese version.
  In all the history of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a long one and if you ever have time find a copy at local library if you can or even dare to try to read some of the volumes of the Wade-Giles version of the novel and there are various abridged versions of the series and if reading isn’t your boat watch one of the dozens of anime or buy some of the manga about this series. It really has been told and retold so many times who cares if a few historical inaccurate are present. If you’re still not impressed pick up a copy of Dynasty Warriors or Romance of the Three Kingdom games and you too just like the Japanese will be entranced with this magical novel.

• Mitamaking
• Renku
• JinnRemona
• Drewid

We have our first week’s winner! I bet you wanna know who it is and what they did. Well, I’ll tell you, but first, have I mentioned before that 91.8 The Fan is awesome? So awesome that your submissions not only will be posted on the site, but will also (possibly) win you DVDs! Sweet potatoes!

Anyway, enough beating around the proverbial bush, let’s get down to business:
Our first week’s winner is Renku, with a lovely drawing of an apparently phalangeally-impaired Brie, as seen here:

Ain’t she just the bees’ knees?

So there you have it. For those of you who haven’t entered yet, firstly, what’s wrong with you? Second, you can check out how to enter and the rules and such here.

Oh, and I guess I should let you see the runners up, since you’d all just whine and complain if I didn’t:
Drewid
Shidohari