Domo-kun
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Domo-kun (どーもくん Dōmo-kun?) is the mascot of Japan's NHK television station, appearing in several 30 second stop-motion sketches shown as station identification during shows. Domo-kun, a strange monster-like creature born from an egg, is short, fuzzy and brown with beady black eyes and an open mouth revealing pointy teeth. He lives in an underground cave with Usajii (a portmanteau of the words usagi (ウサギ?), rabbit, and jii-chan (じいちゃん?), grampa), a wise old rabbit who loves to watch TV and drink astringent tea. Also in the cave live two bats, a mother and daughter named Shinobu and Morio. Shinobu has a drinking problem. The other main character in the shorts is a weasel girl named Ta-chan. She is 17 years old, wants to be a model in Tokyo, and is always using technology (TV, cellphones, cameras, etc). TVs play a major part in all of the shorts.
The name "Domo" was acquired during the second episode of his show in which a TV announcer said, どうも、こんにちは (dōmo konnichiwa?), which is a formal greeting meaning something along the lines of, "Well, hello there!", or "Hello, Domo!", and thus is a convenient dajare. The kun suffix on "Domo-kun" is a friendly title often used with young males. Domo-kun's favorite food is beef with potatoes in a soup and he has a strong dislike for apples (an unexplained mystery in his DNA). Domo-kun is known to pass gas repeatedly when nervous or in a bad mood.
Domo-kun cannot close his mouth and is fond of the band Guitar Wolf. He dreams of flying.
[edit] Appearances in Other Media
- In the game Half-Life 2, during the entrance to Black Mesa East, there is an elevator ride with Dr. Mossman during which several scenes are depicted. The elevator descends three stories. The rooms passed are a long hallway with generators with Vortigaunts powering them, a kitchen with Vortigaunts preparing headcrabs for eating, and a rest area with beds and a human and a Vortigaunt playing chess. If one uses the "noclip" cheat to enter the rest area, one will notice that all the mattresses on the beds are brown with Domo-kun's unmistakable face on it. In some updates of the game, the Domo-kun mattresses are replaced by the original texture. The Half-Life 2 mod, Garry's Mod, also uses the Domo-kun mattress instead of the original one.
- A joint game was made by I-Mockery and Newgrounds starring Domo-Kun called Domo-Kun's Angry Smashfest, in which the Powerpuff Girls and Sparkster also make an appearance. The Powerpuffs are in fact the villains of the game, while Sparkster is an ally, who is killed early in the game by the PPGs. Domo-Kun was also featured in several of I-mockery's minimocks including Cooking with Popinski! as a taste-tester and PILLOW & SHEET FORT WARS! where he presided over the peace meeting.
- Nickelodeon is developing 26 2-minute shorts of Domo-Kun for broadcast in America [1].
- Domo-kun are a theme on Uncyclopedia, only on that site they are called Grues.
- In the Melvins album A Live History of Gluttony and Lust one of the pages of the booklet has Domo-Kun's face on it.
