Meet Sakana-kun

Okay, just taking time before preparing my lesson to make a quick blog post.

I think it's important to let people know just how much different Japan is from everywhere else.  It's a really weird yet lovable place, and nowhere is this more obvious than in their pop culture.  As an example I present to you Sakana-kun.

Who is this bizarre little man-child wearing a blowfish on his head?  Despite all appearances, he is one of Japan's chief experts on fish.  All the species, all the recipes - Sakana-kun (which translates directly as "Fish Boy") knows everything.  And he gets giddy about it.  On TV yesterday, he was on a fishing boat hopping up and down for joy as the fishermen brought in their nets full of snapper. Later he was joined by another child-like man dressed in a plaid schoolboy uniform and a person in a floppy dog suit.  They went to fish restaurants, getting Sakana-kun excited and generally just annoying people.

To get a better idea of how this all went down, here's a video of Sakana-kun in action.  With English subtitles too!

EDIT: I changed the video because I got the link wrong and didn't realize it until now.  This is the one I meant to post originally!



Anywhere else in the world, acting like that would doom you to a string of elementary school presentations and a retail job.  But in Japan, Sakana-kun is somewhat well-regarded.  He is a regular guest on cooking shows, talk shows, and nature shows.  He has a series of successful children's books and educational guides for adults (all about fish, of course).  He even served as a guest professor at the University of Tokyo in the Marine Biology department in 2006.

That's another thing about Sakana-kun - he's been doing this crazy fish schtick (fish-stick?) a long time.  Since, like, 2003.  Maybe his whole life.  It sort of makes me feel better that someone like Sakana-kun can do so well for himself here.  If he can do it, I can do it!  But first I need to find a fish hat.

You can learn more about Sakana-kun at his website, http://www.sakanakun.com .  It's all in Japanese but there are a lot of nice pictures!