It’s no longer Koha’s b-day in my time zone, but it’s still Koha-day in most time zones west of here, so …

MORE DOUBLE DACTYLS FOR KOHA! YAYZ ^_^

Seriously, the double dactyl is the most demented form of poetry ever … hence, perfect for Koha. ^_^

(see Part 1)

Futari wa NS

Futari hitori,
Hikaru, Kirari
Team up to try to dis-
Prove Gauss’s rule.

Finding no monopole,
Sadly they figure that
Ferromagnetically
Poles must be dual.

Ramutara

Ramutaarattattan!
World-weary Koha-chan
Cuts ‘cross Kamchatka to
Kolkata … more!

Finished with traveling,
Koha now looks for a
Nongeographical
Place to explore.

Sansan GOGO

DNA → RNA:
Misinformed MilkyWay
Err in directing us
Which way to go.

5-prime to 3-prime’s how
Nucleotides link up
Ribonucleically
All in a row.

Olala*

Olala olala,
Mademoiselle Kusumi
A commencé à chan-
Ter en français.

Cependant, tout le monde
Trouvait son accès de
« Francocacophonie »
Vraiment mauvais.

* A rough English translation that loses all of the delicious rhyming tonguetwistery of the French:

Olala olala,
Miss Kusumi
Started to sing
In French.

However, all the world
Found her outburst of
“Francocacophonie”
Truly bad.

Yayz! I wanted to do 16 double dactyls in honor of Koha’s turning 16, but since double dactyls do double duty, so to speak, 8 should be enough. ^.^

I’ll probably have more double dactyls to post in the near future, though….

Happy birthday Koharu!

In celebration of Koha’s birthday (07.15), here are a few double dactyls I’ve composed:

Papancake

Pancakey pancakey,
Master chef Kirari
Proves she can pancake-sort
Faster than SHIPS.

Quite inexplicably,
This method takes but a
Subpolynomial
Number of flips.

SUGAO-flavor

Flavor Flav, baklava,
Koha-chan’s talk of a
“Genuine flavor” is
Just a disguise—

Hard-to-find particle
Actually is quantum
Chromodynamics’s
Largest in size.

Hana wo Pu~n

Kirari pikari,
Koha and Mai, though
Experts at tangent and
Cosine and sine,

Find themselves thwarted by
Trigonometrical
Hippohypoteni:
Transforms affine.

Konnichi pa

Konnichi pa-pa-pa!
Kirari’s tra-la-la
Seizes the heartstrings and
Moves one to tears.

Poignantly touched by her
Einführungsmelodie,
Passersby nonetheless
Cover their ears.

More double dactyls are in the works, so stay tuned!

(see Part 2)

I. Tsunku: The Enigma

If one follows the development and output of Hello! Project, one is likely well acquainted with Tsunku, the Producer:

Of course, Tsunku does not produce everything in Hello! Project, nor is his work limited only to production. A prolific lyricist and composer, he is also responsible for writing most of Hello! Project’s songs. One need only scan any recent (Tsunku-produced) Hello! Project release to see Tsunku’s name emblazoned across the front cover, acknowledging his role in producing the record. In addition, on the interior of the liner notes, one may often see both the lyrics and composition of the tracks attributed to Tsunku, his name rising elegantly above the very words he has penned.

Indeed, let us journey together, dear reader, through the experience of gazing upon Tsunku’s name as it appears on the Berryz Koubou single “VERY BEAUTY”, selected arbitrarily as a typical example of a Tsunku production.

Observe in particular how the three simple hiragana strokes (つんく) are embellished with a Mars symbol (♂), prominently displayed yet not intended to be pronounced. An interesting touch, otherwise attributable to Tsunku’s idiosyncratic whims but for the fact that this name appears differently on the interior:

Here the Mars symbol is noticeably absent. One might dismiss this as a mere typographical error, but closer examination of other recent Tsunku productions reveals that the Mars symbol is consistently missing from the lyrics and composition credits while present on the cover production credits.

One might fancy the notion that behind the “Tsunku” nom de plume lies a team of two individuals, one a producer and the other a lyricist and composer, differentiated only by the presence or absence of the Mars symbol. While there is some merit to this possibility, one must consider the history of this peculiar symbol as it is displayed on the covers of Tsunku-produced releases over the ages. In particular, one must note that early Hello! Project releases credit Tsunku as producer without the Mars symbol.

Immediately some pertinent questions arise: At which point did Tsunku the producer begin adopting the Mars symbol as an essential feature of his pseudonym? Did he consistently omit the symbol prior to this point, and has he consistently included it since then? And perhaps most importantly, why are there two Tsunkus now when once there was but one?

Speculation about Tsunku’s gender identity and/or sexual orientation aside (to be addressed in due time), let us examine in detail, dear reader, the evolution of this name, in hopes that such an endeavour may uncover heretofore unacknowledged clues to illuminate this enigmatic figure and to guide us in dissecting this mystery.

II. The Evolution of a Mystery

Let us proceed by scrutinising the covers of Hello! Project recordings that bear Tsunku’s name, beginning with Morning Musume.’s second single, “Summer Night Town” (the group’s debut single does not have a production credit on the cover), and examining each release in turn:

Title	Artist	Release Date	Production Credit
Summer Night Town	Morning Musume.	1998.05.27		Produced by つんく
Daite HOLD ON ME!	Morning Musume.	1998.07.08		Produced by つんく
Last Kiss	Tanpopo	1998.11.18		Produced by つんく
Odaiba Moonlight Serenade	Nakazawa Yuuko & Takayama Gen	1998.12.02		Produced by つんく
Dai Isshou	Nakazawa Yuuko	1998.12.12		Produced by つんく
Memory Seishun no Hikari	Morning Musume.	1999.02.10		Produced by つんく
Motto	Tanpopo	1999.03.10		Produced by つんく
Tsuki to Yaiyou	Taiyou to Ciscomoon	1999.04.21		PRODUCED BY つんく
Manatsu no Kousen	Morning Musume.	1999.05.12		Produced by つんく
Tanpopo	Tanpopo	1999.06.16		Produced by つんく
Gatamekira	Taiyou to Ciscomoon	1999.06.23		Produced by つんく
Furusato	Morning Musume.	1999.07.14		Produced by つんく
Futari no Hokkaido	Country Musume.	1999.07.23		サウンドプロデュース　つんく
Halation Summer / Summer Night Town (English Version)	Coconuts Musume.	1999.07.23		Produced by つんく
Uchuu de La Ta Ta	Taiyou to Ciscomoon	1999.07.28		Produced by つんく TSUNKU
Everyday Everywhere	Taiyou to Ciscomoon	1999.08.25		Produced by つんく TSUNKU
DANCE & CHANCE	Coconuts Musume.	1999.08.25		Produced by TSUNKU つんく
LOVE Machine	Morning Musume.	1999.09.09		Produced by つんく
Magic of Love	Taiyou to Ciscomoon	1999.09.29		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Seinaru Kane ga Hibiku Yoru	Tanpopo	1999.10.20		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Chokotto LOVE	Pucchi Moni	1999.11.25		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Yukigeshiki	Country Musume.	1999.11.30		サウンドプロデュース　つんく
Marui Taiyou ~winter ver~	Taiyou to Ciscomoon	1999.12.08		Produced by つんく TSUNKU
Koi no Dance Site	Morning Musume.	2000.01.26		Produced by つんく TSUNKU
Amai Anata no Aji	Melon Kinenbi	2000.02.19		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Akai Nikkichou	Akagumi 4	2000.03.08		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Kiiroi Osora de BOOM BOOM BOOM	Kiiro 5	2000.03.08		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Aoi Sportscar no Otoko	Aoiro 7	2000.03.08		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
3rd-LOVE Paradise	Morning Musume.	2000.03.29		Produced by つんく TSUNKU
DON’T STOP Renaichuu	T&C Bomber	2000.04.19		Produced by つんく “TSUNKU”
Hokkaido Shalala	Country Musume.	2000.04.27		サウンドプロデュース　つんく
Happy Summer Wedding	Morning Musume.	2000.05.17		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
One Room Natsu no Koi Monogatari	Heike Michiyo	2000.05.17		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Tokonatsu Musume	Coconuts Musume.	2000.05.17		Produced by つんく TSUNKU
Kokuhaku Kinenbi	Melon Kinenbi	2000.06.28		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Otome Pasta ni Kandou	Tanpopo	2000.07.05		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Shanghai no Kaze	Nakazawa Yuuko	2000.07.12		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
HEY! Mahiru no Shinkirou	T&C Bomber	2000.07.19		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Seishun Jidai 1.2.3! / Baisekou Daiseikou!	Pucchi Moni	2000.07.26		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Watashi mo “I LOVE YOU”	Coconuts Musume.	2000.07.26		Produced by つんく TSUNKU
Koi ga Suteki na Kisetsu	Country Musume.	2000.07.31		サウンドプロデュース　つんく
Ai no Chikara	Heike Michiyo	2000.08.09		produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
I WISH	Morning Musume.	2000.09.06		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
2nd STAGE	T&C Bomber	2000.09.27		produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Kokoro no Pheromone	Sheki-Dol	2000.11.01		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Renai Revolution 21	Morning Musume.	2000.12.13		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Mini Moni. Jankenpyon! / Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu Daisukki!	Mini Moni.	2001.01.17		つんく プロデュース TSUNKU PRODUCE
Kekkyoku Bye Bye Bye	Heike Michiyo	2001.02.07		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Kuyashi Namida Porori	Nakazawa Yuuko	2001.02.15		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Koi wo Shichaimashita!	Tanpopo	2001.02.21		Produced By Tsunku
BABY! Koi ni KNOCK OUT!	Pucchi Moni	2001.02.28		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Denwa Matteimasu	Melon Kinenbi	2001.03.07		Produced by つんく ‘TSUNKU’
Ai no Bakayarou	Goto Maki	2001.03.28		Produced by つんく
Tetteiteki Unmei	Sheki-Dol	2001.04.13		Produced by つんく♂
Hajimete no Happy Birthday!	Country Musume. ni Ishikawa Rika	2001.04.18		サウンドプロデュス：つんく♂
Tropica~l Koishite~ru	Matsuura Aya	2001.06.13		Produced by つんく♂
Zentaiteki ni Daisuki Desu.	Sheki-Dol	2001.06.27		Produced by つんく♂
Chu! Natsu Party	3nin Matsuri	2001.07.04		Produced by つんく♂
Summer Reggae! Rainbow	7nin Matsuri	2001.07.04		Produced by つんく♂
Dancing! Natsu Matsuri	10nin Matsuri	2001.07.04		Produced by つんく♂
The☆Peace!	Morning Musume.	2001.07.25		PRODUCED BY つんく♂
Jounetsu Yuki Miraisen	Coconuts Musume.	2001.08.22		Produced by つんく♂
LOVE Namida Iro	Matsuura Aya	2001.09.05		Produced by つんく♂
Mini Moni. Telephone! Rin Rin Rin / Mini Moni. Bus Guide	Mini Moni.	2001.09.12		つんく♂プロデュース
Afurechau… BE IN LOVE	Goto Maki	2001.09.19		PRODUCED BY つんく♂
This is Unmei	Melon Kinenbi	2001.10.11		produced by つんく♂
Koibito wa Kokoro no Ouendan	Country Musume. ni Ishikawa Rika	2001.10.17		sound produced by つんく♂
Mr. Moonlight ~Ai no Big Band~	Morning Musume.	2001.10.31		PRODUCED BY つんく♂
Propose	Heike Michiyo	2001.11.07		Produced by つんく♂
Pittari Shitai X’mas!	Pucchi Moni	2001.11.14		Produced by つんく♂
Oujisama to Yuki no Yoru	Tanpopo	2001.11.21		Produced by つんく♂
100kai no KISS	Matsuura Aya	2001.11.28		Produced by つんく♂
Minihamuzu no Ai no Uta	Minihamuzu	2001.12.05		つんく♂プロデュース
Ai wa Muteki ~Hatachi no Yoru no Chikai~	Sheki-Dol	2001.12.05		produced by つんく♂
Country Musume. Daizenshuu 1	Country Musume.	2001.12.12		Sound Produced by つんく♂
First Kiss	Matsuura Aya	2002.01.01		Produced by つんく♂
Mini Moni. Hinamatsuri! / Mini. Strawberry Pie	Mini Moni.	2002.01.30		つんく♂プロデュース
♡Momoiro Kataomoi♡	Matsuura Aya	2002.02.06		Produced by つんく♂
Saa! Koibito ni Narou	Melon Kinenbi	2002.02.14		PRODUCED BY つんく♂
Souda! We’re ALIVE	Morning Musume.	2002.02.20		PRODUCED BY つんく♂
Aenai Nagai Nichiyoubi	Fujimoto Miki	2002.03.13		produced by つんく♂
4th “Ikimasshoi!”	Morning Musume.	2002.03.27		PRODUCED BY つんく♂

From the above evidence, we can trace the evolution of the Tsunku name as it transforms from a simple “つんく” in 1998 to a composite appending the hiragana spelling to the romaji spelling “TSUNKU” circa July 1999, which usually positions the Latin letters below the kana, sometimes to the right of the kana, and once above the kana, often enclosing the letters within a pair of single quotes and once in double quotes.

A few notable exceptions are also introduced: the Country Musume. releases credit Tsunku with “Sound Produced by” after a general production credit given to another individual; Mini Moni. eschews the “Produced by” format and opts for the unorthodox “Tsunku Produce” (which brings to mind images of Farmer Tsunku at the market selling fruits and vegetables packaged as audio recordings); and Tanpopo’s “Koi wo Shichaimashita!” drops the hiragana altogether in favour of a design resembling a shoddily constructed bootleg edition.

These anomalies aside, however, we find that the general “Produced by つんく” line returns to its original version with Goto Maki’s “Ai no Bakayarou” in late March 2001, after which the Latin rendering of “TSUNKU” never again emerges. Shortly thereafter, the Mars symbol makes its first appearance on Sheki-Dol’s “Tetteiteki Unmei” and remains on every subsequent release, including the alternatively styled Country Musume. and Mini Moni. releases. This pattern has continued until the present date, so it is not particularly fruitful to examine the covers of later recordings.

III. Curiouser and Curiouser

Having determined the point at which Tsunku the producer first adopted the Mars symbol and demonstrated the consistency both of its absence prior to April 2001 and of its presence after April 2001, we may now attempt to answer the question of what prompted Tsunku’s momentous name change.

Our first step in this direction is the realisation that one Hello! Project single, Matsuura Aya’s “Dokki Doki! LOVE Mail”, was released on 2001.04.11—after “Ai no Bakayarou” but before “Tetteiteki Unmei”—precisely during the period in which Tsunku undergoes his transformation. Indeed, both tracks are credited to Tsunku the lyricist-composer, and from this we may suppose that Tsunku the producer is responsible for the production … were it not for the fact that no such production credit appears on the cover:

Clearly we have a Conspiracy at hand! This is no coincidence, dear reader. One does not innocently append a Mars symbol to one’s name at the exact same time one produces the debut single of a solo artist while atypically choosing not to give oneself credit for doing so. Tsunku is obviously trying to cover up a most devious scheme of truly epic proportions, and having ascertained its existence, we must now strike deeper to uncover the heart of this infernal plot—quickly and silently, lest Tsunku and his minions catch wind of our enterprise and initiate a counterattack against us.

At this point, much remains unclear, but we may construct one or more hypotheses regarding the nature of this Conspiracy. Given the association of the Mars symbol with the male sex and masculinity, we may suppose that つんく♂ is actually the masculine component of the original つんく, whose gender was a superposition of feminine and masculine eigengenders, and that a decisive Decoherence Event occurred at the beginning of April 2001, one that forcibly tore Tsunku apart, giving rise to two independent entities, the masculine つんく♂ and the feminine Matsuura, whose true origin has been concealed behind a façade presented to the public. For Matsuura was no innocent singer launching her solo career with a debut single; she is in fact half of the original Tsunku, separated from his masculine half through a quantum bifurcation of incomprehensible magnitude. In support of this hypothesis is the preponderance of rockets in the “Dokki Doki! LOVE Mail” music video; such overt Freudian imagery does not escape our observant lens.

This nefarious scheme has been laid before our eyes, and lest any disbelievers dismiss it as pure confabulation on the part of a hyperactive imagination, allow me to remind you of the compelling evidence brought forth in the preceding sections. That such unlikely coincidences could arise naturally is inconceivable. This masterful diversion has been orchestrated by forces beyond our immediate comprehension, forces that will stop at nothing to thwart our steady and determined advances. For we have seized upon the crux of this mystery, and it is a foul beast that has remained hidden for far too long. Now is the time to unearth this elusive leviathan for once and for all. We must embark upon a voyage fraught with dangers lurking behind every corner, in order to shatter the endless walls of mirrors that shield the darkest secrets of this Conspiracy from view. The Truth shall be revealed!

Going over the last few installments of Pocket Morning Weekly Q&A, posted in translation at Hello!Online, one might notice a developing interest in mathematics by none other than Michishige Sayumi:

2008.03.30
Question: Is there something about which you’ve thought, “Certainly this year, I want to challenge myself with this!”?
Michishige: Math Problems ☆

2008.05.11
Question: Fill in the blank to the right with one word. “I’m surprisingly ___”
Michishige: I’m surprisingly intellectual.
Please try to understand that somehow. m(・-・)m

2008.06.15
Question: Among your fellow members, what about you makes you think, “At this, I definitely can’t lose!”
Michishige: Simultaneous equations!!

The evidence is indisputable. Sayumi is a math geek. XD

While her fellow MoMusu are busy with more mundane interests, our Sayumi is off challenging herself with math problems (here, Sayu, try Project Euler) and has apparently discovered the wonders of linear algebra (I’m assuming at least some of those simultaneous equations are linear). No doubt Sayumi has mastered the techniques of Gauss-Jordan elimination, Cramer’s rule, and LU decomposition and is well on her way to achieving world domination.

In addition to this, Sayumi has listed Tetris as a hobby and as a “special skill”. This is by far the geekiest interest I’ve seen in any H!P member. Because Tetris is not your average video game. It is a mind-stretching mathematical puzzle, and several of its subproblems are NP-complete. NP-complete, I tell you! This places it in the class of difficult problems that includes Boolean k-satisfiability, determining the existence of a Hamiltonian path, and Minesweeper.

Sayumi is hardcore.

For this, she gets an Excellence in Unabashed Geekitude Award.

And I still need to give Koharu one, don’t I?

Just for fun, and because Goto Maki’s name makes a great programming pun, here’s a function in C/C++ that uses Goto’s name to actually do something (it computes the factorial of a number; the goto maki statement makes the program loop over the individual multiplications until the final product is computed):

int factorial(int n)
{
    int p = 1;
    maki:
    if (n == 0)
    {
        return p;
    }
    else
    {
        p *= n;
        n--;
        goto maki;
    }
}

You can put this in, say, a C++ program like the following:

gotomaki.cc

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int factorial(int);

int main()
{
  int n;
  cout << "Enter a nonnegative integer to factorialize: ";
  cin >> n;
  cout << "The factorial of " << n << " is " << factorial(n) << ".\n" << endl;
  return 0;
}

int factorial(int n)
{
    int p = 1;
    maki:
    if (n == 0)
    {
        return p;
    }
    else
    {
        p *= n;
        n--;
        goto maki;
    }
}

and then you too (yes, you!) can factorialize away with Gocchin:

% g++ gotomaki.cc -o gotomaki
% ./gotomaki
Enter a nonnegative integer to factorialize: 1
The factorial of 1 is 1.

% ./gotomaki
Enter a nonnegative integer to factorialize: 2
The factorial of 2 is 2.

% ./gotomaki
Enter a nonnegative integer to factorialize: 3
The factorial of 3 is 6.

% ./gotomaki
Enter a nonnegative integer to factorialize: 4
The factorial of 4 is 24.

% ./gotomaki
Enter a nonnegative integer to factorialize: 5
The factorial of 5 is 120.

% ./gotomaki
Enter a nonnegative integer to factorialize: 6
The factorial of 6 is 720.

% ./gotomaki
Enter a nonnegative integer to factorialize: 0
The factorial of 0 is 1.

Fun, ne?

Countdown! The Top 100 Hello! Project PVs

After a three-month hiatus, the Countdown continues! And you thought I’d abandoned it!

60.
Mini Moni。 - Mini Moni。 Jankenpyon! (2001)
Tsunku / Tsunku / Konishi Takao / zetima

In addition to being Rivers Cuomo’s introduction to J-pop, this single put Mini Moni on the map as one of H!P’s most successful and influential acts to date. The video is pure madcap pandemonium and features interstellar hijinks, bovine lactation, various veggies, a creepy black-clad adversary (named W?), and some philosophical meditation on the merits and pitfalls of simultaneous symmetric zero-sum games. As much attention has already been given to the history and mathematics of jankenpon, I don’t need to dwell on it, but Mini Moni offers an interesting take on this classic game, combining it with a Japanese children’s game involving red and white flags, though I can’t seem to find any info on it other than this post by Celestia at Bikkuri Project. This combination could potentially establish a binary relation (rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock—but only if your color matches your opponent’s; otherwise, the opposite relations hold), making the Cartesian product {rock, paper, scissors} × {red, white} a six-element commutative magma. Also, I find the unorthodox spelling of NY-Maket rather amusing.

59.
Country Musume。 ni Ishikawa Rika (Morning Musume。) - Hajimete no Happy Birthday! (2001)
Tsunku / Tsunku / Takahashi Yuichi / zetima

This classic PV is a throwback to an earlier era of filmmaking, complete with a moon scene reminiscent of the Golden Age of science fiction and plenty of bizarre and random silliness, not to mention the priceless expressions on the chef’s face. (Mmmmm…. strawberries…) The overexposed appearance of the video also gives it a nice retro feeling.

58.
Tsukishima Kirari starring Kusumi Koharu (Morning Musume。) - Balalaika (2006)
BULGE / Sako Shigeki / Sako Shigeki / zetima

Everyone’s favorite energetic bundle of extreme returns in a semiotic flurry of stars, moons, hearts, and circles to unleash an epic tale of magic, illusions, deception, and quantum teleportation, and illuminates (pun maybe intended?) the role of measurement in the decoherence of elements in a quantum superposition.

Also, the juxtaposition of star and moon presents an astronomical anomaly, albeit a consistent one, positing a star visible in front of a partially illuminated crescent moon. The anomaly is that the moon is larger than the star, though this size difference is possible for, say, a neutron star with a 10-20 km radius and Earth’s Moon with a 1737 km radius; it’s consistent because the points of the star actually do appear in front of the moon. Unfortunately, the national flags of Algeria, Pakistan, and the Comoros do not have such a saving feature to indicate that the stars depicted are of an unusual size and are appearing in front of the moon. One is left to assume that the stars in these flags are indeed distant and yet somehow able to shine through the unilluminated part of the moon. (Turkey’s flag escapes this fate, but just barely.) I won’t comment on the actual shapes of the crescents and stars in any of these depictions.

57.
Minihamuzu (Uta: Mini Moni。) - Mirakururun Grand Purin! (2003)
Tsunku / Tsunku / Takahashi Yuichi / zetima

Fast-paced craziness from the Minihamuzu, against a visually stunning backdrop full of twists, turns, and other topological mind-bogglers … (Mmmmm, Möbius strips …) I suppose one would be correct in describing this topological tapestry as a Mini Moni Manifold.

56.
Country Musume。 ni Konno to Fujimoto (Morning Musume。) - Uwaki na Honey Pie (2003)
Tsunku / Tsunku / Morio Takashi / zetima

Country Musume and Friends tackle some hardcore physics in this evocative video portraying wave-particle duality, among other topics. The tennis ball is obviously a particle, yet its shock waves are highlighted as discrete rings, characteristic of a wave exhibiting periodic peaks. This duality shows up all over the place, including the actors themselves, who diffract into several copies upon coming into contact with the ball, thus not only reinforcing the de Broglie hypothesis that all matter exhibits wave-particle duality, but also dramatically portraying multiple-slit diffraction (the ball can be thought of as passing through the surface of a tennis racket, which consists of many slits; in fact it passes through all of the slits at once, each part then interfering with the other parts to create the characteristic intensity pattern of alternating light and dark bands, symbolized here by the splitting of each actor’s image into lighter copies spaced at regular intervals). Relativity is also examined through the constant shifting of reference frames as well as the scrolling backdrop and arrow strip (denoting a time dimension perhaps?), and the rectangular grid design of the floor and ceiling. Some effort is also made to show the effects of time dilation and length contraction when Lorentz-transforming to the ball’s reference frame. And to cap it all off (pun maybe intended?), the ball’s smacking Konno in the head at the end is a nice demonstration of Compton scattering, with the ball clearly losing some energy in the process, as exhibited by its loss in momentum (energy and momentum being related, of course, in the “full”, relativistic version of Einstein’s famous formula, [E is energy; m is mass; p is momentum; and c is the speed of light]).

I haven’t seen this much physics in an H!P PV since Futari wa NS. And people ask me why I like Hello! Project so much. Really, all this wonderful unabashed nerdiness!! How could you not love H!P???

This is a pointless post to say that asparagus (and specifically GREEN ASPARA) reigns over all other vegetables and has the support of Natsuyaki Miyabi:

In return, this blog announces its complete support for Miyabi … because seriously, asparagus rocks.

MIYA FTW!!! <3

(yeah, I know, I’m late… whatever)

Hihihi… I’m a-changing my main handle to

Kirarin☆Snow ☃

(not to be confused with the Veoh user by the name of kirarinsnow … my handle has a STAR, or alternatively a space/dash/exclamation point if you’re not Unicode-compliant)

I’ll respond to Kawaiirrhea, but that name’s getting kind of old, and everyone (including me) keeps misspelling that pesky double i double r (which is now separated into nonconsecutive i’s and r’s). So I am now

Kirarin☆Snow ☃

Yippee!!

Konnichi pa! コンニチパ！！！！ Konnichi pa pa kon nichi pa!!

I’ve gone by various names over the last couple of months, including the following (you can trace the etymology of Kirarin☆Snow ☃ accordingly):

Kawaiirrhea
Kawaiiflow
K-flo
K!Flo
K!
K.
K
☃
Snowperson
ksno
k_sno
⁂ Kirarin☆Snow ⁂ ☃
~¡Kirarin☆Snow!~

I’ll respond to any of the above, as well as these alternate transliterations in various writing systems (I’m not an expert at most of these, so please correct me if I mangle the orthography of your language…):

Kirarin☆Snow ☃
きらりん☆スノー ☃
キラリン☆スノー ☃
きらりん☆すの〜 ☃
キラリン☆すの〜 ☃
kiɾaɾin☆snoʊ ☃
Κιραριν☆Σνω ☃
Кирарин☆Сно ☃
키라린☆시노 ☃
☃كرارن☆سنو
כררן☆סנו ☃
किररिन☆सनो่่ ☃
คิระริง☆สโนว์ ☃
ਕੀਰਰੀਨ☆ਸਨੋ ☃
કિરરિન☆સનો ☃
ᎩᎳᎵᏅ☆ᏍᏃ ☃
Կիռառին☆Սնո ☃

Gah! My eyes! I can’t take any more of this! Sorry if I didn’t get to your writing system. And the n in Kirarin is problematic … I transliterated it using alveolar [n] but this isn’t exactly the Japanese pronunciation.

It’s over!

Congrats to IndigoSkies, who submitted a correct solution on 2008-05-28 at 17:18 and was the only person to have submitted a solution before the deadline. IndigoSkies is the winner of a 20USD gift certificate to YesAsia.com.

Here is a complete solution.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you should check out Weezer’s music video for “Pork and Beans”, which appeared today:

It features reenactments of a whole bunch of viral videos, including the infamous “Dramatic Chipmunk” (actually a prairie dog) clip:

This clip actually had its origins in the Mini Moni Chiccha! segment on the 2000.11.26 episode of Hello! Morning (the prairie dog turning its head is at ~2:40):

Weezer’s reenactment of the Dramatic Chipmunk (seen near the beginning and near the end) features stand-ins for the members of 1st generation Mini Moni that appeared in the original episode, but alas, they don’t look anything like the real Mini Moni … and all I see of Mika is a hand on the table (!) … :(

Compare:

Original:

From “Pork and Beans”:

I am very curious what the text is on the design on the fake Mini Moni’s shirts. The original one was:

But I can’t make it out due to the low resolution.

Anyway, awesomeness indeed!

MINI MONI and WEEZER FTW!!!

More H!P in Western media PLZ!!!!!!111

Update: Further investigation brought up what looks like the transcript of an interview Weezer lead Rivers Cuomo gave on January 23 on the radio show SCHOOL OF LOCK!, in which Cuomo says he was introduced to J-pop through Mini Moni’s first single, “Mini Moni. Jankenpyon!”. (If this is not actually what he said, please let me know.)

Coincidentally, I actually saw Cuomo in person a few times in Spring 2006, when I cross-registered for a class at Harvard that met right before a class he was taking, in the same room (this was when he was re-attending Harvard to finish his degree). I should have gotten that autograph when I had the chance… >.<

(more coverage here and here and here and here and here and here and here)

I had a dream last night where my friend and I were visiting Hello! Project Land, which was like the H!P counterpart to Disneyland. And we were walking through the Kirarin☆Land section of the park (where “Chance!” was playing on the loudspeakers) and I wondered if that was what they named the album after…

Unfortunately, I can’t remember anything else…. >.<

But anyway …

★★★IT’S PUZZLE! TIME AGAIN★★★

Indeed.

If you were put off by the excessive verbiage of my last puzzle, here’s a treat for you (perhaps): this one’s a wordless puzzle, so much so that I’ve obscured all the text in the puzzle. And this time there’s no nitpicking about what is or isn’t the correct way to spell or format something. Spell stuff however you want to. There isn’t even a grid to fill in.

Rules

1. Submit your solution as a comment. I will approve each comment, so your submissions will not be seen by anyone else. (You may also submit normal comments, but I may edit them if I feel you’re giving away anything.)
2. Only the final answer is needed. You do not need to submit information found during intermediate stages of the puzzle.
3. The final answer should be included in the text of your submission. There is no single correct spelling/formatting of the answer; anything reasonably close enough will be judged correct.
4. You may submit any number of possible solutions, though please keep your guesses to a minimum.
5. You may submit partial solutions, but you should be aware that you will not benefit from this in any way, as you will neither increase your chances of winning a prize nor receive any feedback.
6. I will also not confirm correct solutions, but if you got the right answer, it should be somewhat obvious that it’s right.
7. This contest ends on 2008 May 29 at 23:59:59 UTC.
8. After the contest is over, I will post a list of the names of everyone submitting a correct solution before the deadline. If you wish to have your name listed, please explicitly include your name, with your preferred formatting, in the body of your submission or in the name field of your comment. Otherwise, I will assume you wish to be anonymous. If you include your name and state that you wish to remain anonymous, you will remain anonymous.
9. The first person to submit a correct solution wins a 20 USD YesAsia.com gift certificate. If no one submits a correct solution by the deadline, no one wins.
10. Unlike the last contest, you may feel free to consult others for help or collaborate on this puzzle. However, there will still be only a single prize. So use your own judgment as to how much information you are willing to share, and how you want to divvy up the prize. If you are collaborating and are submitting an answer, the person who submits it will get the prize (if it’s correct and ahead of other correct submissions). If you wish to have the names of your collaborators listed on the Wall of Awesome, you may include their names in your submission.
11. I may post hints later. Some hints have been added to the new Hints section below.

“Instructions”

1. Don’t fill in the grid. There isn’t even a grid to fill in.
2. Don’t do anything illegal, or at least don’t get caught.
3. Don’t forget to do whatever else you should be doing instead of this puzzle.
4. Don’t follow these instructions. They’re useless.
5. The final answer is a word or short phrase that has something to do with Hello! Project.

Notes

1. Knowledge of Japanese is not required to solve this puzzle, and I have no idea how helpful it might be.
2. Having a large collection of H!P releases is probably very helpful. However, it is possible to solve this puzzle using publicly available web resources alone, especially if you know where to look (see hints). You don’t necessarily need to own any H!P product.
3. For the purposes of this puzzle, it is not relevant whether a disc is part of a limited-edition release or a regular-edition release.
4. If there is a discrepancy regarding information about anything, the official Hello! Project discography is correct. Missing artists are irrelevant.
5. You may find other, non-official sources to be more helpful, however. Feel free to use whatever you wish.
6. Some of these images were scanned/uploaded by other people. I will give them individual credit in the solutions.

Hints

1. To state the obvious, identifying these discs is a good idea.
2. To state the not-so-obvious, think about what kind of information you want to have about these discs.
3. If you’re having trouble identifying them, remember that Google does not give you direct access to the entire Internet. In particular, for this task, you may have better luck searching on an auction site like eBay (http://www.ebay.com). For best results, try using one of the popular auction sites in Japan like Yahoo! Japan Auctions (http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp) or Bidders (http://www.bidders.co.jp). People often post photos of the products they’re selling.
4. The discs are given to you in a certain order. This may help in identifying them.
5. The discs need to put in another order. There are clues pointing to what order this is.
6. Pay attention to whether the center of each disc is black or white.
7. There are three groups.
8. How many discs are there in each group?
9. Each group should be grouped together.
10. Pay attention to the “PUZZLE! TIME” image and the text below it.

The Puzzle

Every single issue will be addressed in time.

Part 1

It appears I’m being devoured by a number of final projects/assignments (four!), all of them related to linguistics, so I decided to take some time aside to post some H!P-related linguisticizing of my own.⁰

This is a brief examination of the exhortative-participle construction in Japanese English (English as spoken in Japan; cf. American English or Australian English), or perhaps it is peculiar only to Hello! Project English: that is, the construction which places an exhortative particle (let’s) next to a verb in its present-participle form (as in let’s dancing) as opposed to a verb in its infinitive form (let’s dance), which is typical of most varieties of English. If we suppose that this is a genuine product of a variety of English that differs from most others in this regard, then this particular construction is deserving of continued study as part of an effort to illuminate the rules that constrain natural human languages and the processes by which languages evolve.¹

This interesting construction appears in this video of Disney-brainwashed² Morning Musume, which was kindly brought to my attention by Celestia at Bikkuri Project:

In this clip we observe the utterances “let’s singing” and “let’s dancing”. Alone, they may simply be an indication that Hello! Project English permits the present participle in an exhortative context; yet we also find “let’s enjoy”, featuring an infinitive rather than a participle. Assuming that all three constructions are products of the same grammar, despite being spoken by three separate individuals, we can hypothesize that Hello! Project English permits either the infinitive or the present participle following an exhortative particle. In the absence of additional data³, there is no way to disprove this hypothesis.

However, for the sake of argument, let us imagine instead that both infinitive and participle are permitted, but that they arise in complementary distribution: where one is allowed, the other is prohibited. If this is true, we would expect the constructions *let’s sing, *let’s dance, and *let’s enjoying to be ungrammatical in this dialect.⁴

I can think of two alternative explanations for this distribution. The first is prosodical. We may easily observe that both sing and dance are monosyllabic while enjoy has two syllables with primary stress on the second. The explanation for finding “let’s enjoy” alongside “let’s dancing” may simply be that Hello! Project English prosody has a preference for an unstressed syllable following an initially placed stressed syllable, which may sound abrupt and unpleasant by itself. In this case, the infinitives dance and sing are avoided in favor of their prosodically preferred present-particle parallels dancing and singing; enjoy, however, has an existing syllable preceding the stressed one, so there is no prosodical rule to disfavor its use. Under this hypothesis, we would predict this distribution of allowed and disallowed constructions: let’s feeling happy/*let’s feel happy; *let’s destroying/let’s destroy.

The other possible explanation concerns thematic relations. Both sing and dance are verbs that require an agent: Singing and dancing are actions deliberately performed by an animate entity. The verb enjoy, on the hand, does not have an agent. Instead, it requires an experiencer: An entity experiences the feeling described but does not deliberately perform an action. Perhaps it is the case that verbs that require an agent appear in participle form and those that do not require an agent appear in infinitive form (other hypotheses along these lines are also possible). Under this hypothesis, then, we would predict the following distribution: *let’s feeling happy/let’s feel happy; let’s destroying/*let’s destroy.

The examples given are contrastive and in the presence of experimental data could be used to test and distinguish the two hypotheses given. I am, however, not a native speaker of Hello! Project English and cannot provide such experimental evidence myself. Given the limited amount of available resources⁵, I am afraid I must leave this problem as a mystery for now, though future inquiries may yield fruitful conclusions.⁶

(Update! I have made some progress on this problem, so there will be a Part 2! Stay tuned…)

⁰ Actually, I’m procrastinating, but don’t tell anyone that. ;-)

¹ No, it is not particularly enlightening to dismiss these idiosyncratic constructions as “bad grammar” out of hand and to demand that their users “learn English”. That’s kind of an elitist attitude, I might add. Someone should found a support group called Prescriptivists Anonymous. You know, for people like your middle-school grammar teacher, if they were the type that insisted on avoiding the use of they to refer to a singular antecedent, or that instead of who to introduce a relative clause modifying a human subject, or like instead of as to introduce a clause rather than a noun phrase, like I’m doing in this very sentence sentence fragment.)

² That the anthropomorphic rodent so deified therein remains protected by copyright in the United States is an utter embarrassment and a disgraceful perversion of the spirit of the Constitution’s provision “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries,” but that is besides the point.

³ Hey, I’m lazy.

⁴ An asterisk (*) preceding a construction indicates ill-formedness.

⁵ Like I said, I’m lazy.

⁶ Disappointing, I know. If you want something more substantial, though, I suggest my latest remix, “The☆Kiss!☆Kiss!☆Peace!”, which appears with an accidentally awesome exemplification of the choreographical merits of the Seizure! Dance.

Congratulations to the following people, who submitted correct solutions to my puzzle contest prior to the deadline:

(Time puzzle was posted: 2008-04-21 18:55 UTC.)

Celestia is the big winner of this contest, but has generously declined the prize, so the $20 gift certificate will be going to kyttyee instead. Apologies to maiZe for not having a second prize. :( Maybe you’ll win next time! I have more puzzles planned…. :)

Here is a complete solution. (Lots o’ spoilers, so don’t take a peek if you want to do the puzzle on your own.)