Quick! Someone Hand Me An E-Club!

Earlier today, while ensconced like a zebra mussel at the redundantly-named Nina's Coffee Cafe, I was looking through previous posts in this blog to remind myself of what lies I have already told you. Since I cherish my remaining readers, it is my fervent desire to be consistent if not truthful as I crank out new entries. Eventually I led myself to an old blog entry called "Sadly, It's Come To This Once Again," published in December of 2006 (!). That post contains the following paragraph:

In conclusion I would remind you that these rules are in place to ensure your comfort and safety while at the Hulles blog. Also, let me once again point out that when the day comes when I open the gates of New Lugburz and release the ravening hordes of Hulles Death Commandos in slightly-modified Hooters uniforms upon an unsuspecting world, you will want to be one of those with the correctly-drawn Smiling Mamegoma on your door so they will pass you by. And you will only find that Smiling Mamegoma on this blog. So please check back here early and often for your own continued well-being and that of your family.

After reading the above post, I found myself chuckling at my own subtle wit and dry humor as usual: "Ravening hordes, hah hah, Hulles you kill me. Not to mention Smiling Mamegoma!" It was then that I realized that I had absolutely no idea of whatever the hell a Smiling Mamegoma might be. I immediately turned to the Hulles Mythos (which is why it exists) and found this entry:

Smiling Mamegoma

No idea what this is either

Well that wasn't very helpful, but at least I was honest. Time to google "smiling mamegoma". I did this, and on the first page of the search results I found this:


Check it out! My Hulles Mythos page is in the top 10 results! Unfortunately, this links back to:

Smiling Mamegoma

No idea what this is either

Lucky for me there were a couple other search results that were more promising. The one that fascinated me the most was an entry in Destructoid, a gaming forum. This entry contained the following video:

WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS INTENSE CUTENESS AND IS NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH, SO TIGHTEN YOUR NETSUKE STRAPS AND GRAB YOUR OMIJUKIS



The person who wrote the Destructoid entry said this about the video:

Between the ability to dress your tiny aquatic friend in wigs or anachronistic finery and staring into its beady eyes as you coo sweet promises of a life free from e-clubbings, I think it's safe to assume that this sort of thing is expressly designed to moisten the underoos of Japanese teenage girls (and a few of my female friends).

One thing I noticed immediately is that this person thinks a lot like I do. In fact, it crossed my mind to rip off the e-clubbing comment, it was so good. My atrophied moral sense was able to kaff weakly and hack out an objection to this idea however, which suprised me as much as it no doubt surprises you. As a result of this I (forgoed? forwent?) resisted the temptation to steal the phrase except for in the title. However, I should mention in passing that I thought that "moisten the underoos of Japanese teenage girls" was pretty Hulles-like as well and it provided a similar temptation.

I Still Have A Friend In Japan!

So once you're done puking day-glo pink foam over the cuteness of the above video, you'll probably start wondering where the hell I ran into Smiling Mamegomas (and Netsuke Straps and Omijukis) in the first place. I know I wondered, so I traced this all back to another blog entry of mine, called "I Have A Friend In Japan!", which contained the following paragraph:

Even better than the seal mascot costume rentals was a web site called “J-List – You've got a friend in Japan!” I found this on their site:

”Mamegoma is a super cute seal mascot franchise from San-X (Tarepanda, Nyanko, Rilakkuma) that features colorful and genki seals. This netsuke strap not only features a smiling Mamegoma, but also has an omijuki that tells your fortune!”

Yikes! I only know what three of those words mean. But I really like the idea of a seal mascot franchise.

So there you have it, the Smiling Mamegoma story, soon to be made into a cable TV miniseries. If you want to know more about seal mascot franchises etc. I leave it to you to read the aforementioned blog entry. It is, of course, subtly witty and drily humorous like everything I write except for the stuff that isn't. And if you're in the market for genki seals yourself, in spite of it sounding like a Jewish dating service try J-List for all of your inscrutable Tarepanda, Nyanko, and Rilakkuma accessory purchases. You also have a friend in Japan!

I need to wrap this up now, because my own personal omijuki just told me my fortune: "Tonight you will be lucky in love." I imagine that means the roller girls are back in town so I need to go knock over a liquor store for some cash. This fortune is ever so much better than the last one I got: "Help! I'm being held captive in an omijuki factory!". Good Lord, a Japanese Alan King is out there somewhere.

- Hulles