»the most famous heroes ep« by dataman

after a little break, -n comes back with 5 most famous heroes created by one of the most prolific figures in the netaudio community, dataman. to show our gratitude to dataman for providing us the most famous heroes, we’ve asked japanese flash artist, nomi to make an animation with 5 of the most famous aa (ascii art) characters loved on the most famous japanese bulletin board, ‘2 channel (it’s read ‘ni-channeru.’).’ they’ll play the heroes for us.

• you get to see the original aa characters that are mentioned here @ http://minusn.com/en/mn006.html

let’s see who we’ve got here. the first hero is ‘mr. illusion.’ this guy has the quality that paralyzes our sense of reality with dreamy drone that slowly and smoothly shifts and turns into convulsive pulse. by the time the guy starts to murmur, we’re already in the world of his fantasia. he shows us the path to communicate with other heroes that are waiting ahead of us with his acid throwing knives. he’s played by ‘hageshiku-ninja’ who always deludes us around on 2ch.

then we have ‘mr. energy.’ the name explains it all. his energetic house beat with a little twist of glitches and high-pitched sound bits keeps us going through the deep forest of quacking stabs filled with hypnotic voice samples. ‘giko-neko(cat)’ plays this role with lots of energy. he’s one of those characters that never surrenders.

now it’s the time for ‘mr. pussy.’ he’s ‘the’ hero. everything, the keyboard, the synth, the acid bass is built upon dissonance, but listen to the straight forward house beat underneath the chaotic face of the main chorus. he definitely and perfectly represents those lovable losers - men. ‘dokuo’ (poison guy - came from the japanese word ‘dokushin-dansei (unmarried man)’) is perfect for this role. he doesn’t even have to act, but he can just be himself and sit there. he’s one of the most lovable heroes of all time.

‘mr. fly’ is a real entertainer. this track is acid house of the 21st century. it’s got all the essence of good old acid, but besides all the novel sounds that tickle us and make us want to do funky moves while we’re on the dancefloor, it’s carefully constructed with off-beat hits and accents that occur without us knowing it to keep us 21st century people dancing as if acid house is the hottest thing in town today. furthermore, just the right amount of reverb successfully separates and brings up all the individual sounds up to the front, and all of those techniques make this piece sound far from nostalgic. this one’s definitely for ‘ppa-kun.’ he always entertains us good. ‘mr, fly’ is fly but extremely friendly and never turns us down.

here goes the last hero. his name is ‘mr. sunshine.’ its experimental beat in the beginning grabs us hard, and it’s just the beginning. from there, he takes us all the way up in the sky with the pad-powered pulsing synth escalator bound to what seems like heaven. up there, he welcomes and treats us gently with nostalgic melodies that almost feel like we’re back in our mothers’ wombs. then all the sudden, we realize that we’re brought back to where we began. now we know this whole thing has been a fantastic roller coaster ride provided by ‘mr. sunshine.’ it just takes us all the way to the end without a single breath. for this role, we have ‘monar,’ one of the most beloved aa characters on 2ch. he’s the sunshine. he’s everywhere shining on us.

now the show’s over. it’s time for them to go home. let’s just hope to see them again soon in the near future. - kengo miyazaki