2009-03-16

Mune-kyun

Noticed in Bic Camera the other day: Elecom's range of web camera/headset/mic peripherals. Recommended usage patterns are conveyed via goofy headlines and cartoons, like this one:

Wai-wai kaiwa, for raucous conversations involving many people at once (wai-wai is mimetic). Here we clearly have city-living family members talking to their daikon-farming (grand)parents out in the country.

Or this one:

Terebi minagara tsūwa, "Talk on the phone while watching TV"—for those times when your boss decides to blow off some steam right when your favorite comedy duo takes the stage.

Or this one, my favorite:

Mune-kyun ♥ tsūwa. Tsūwa means "phone conversation," as above, and mune-kyun is that pleasantly tight sensation (kyun, more mimesis) you get in your chest (mune) when you see something with irresistible appeal.

What makes this one-eared mic headset so appealing? That would be the pink pom-pom styling on the mic. Close-up picture here courtesy of an apparently satisfied customer.

(Am I crazy, by the way, or is the woman in the cartoon teaching that guy a language?)

Popularity factor: 7

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無名酒:

I thought she was giving him a weather report myself.

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Tim May:

That's what I thought, too, but it doesn't really make sense. Who gets personal weather reports? & little signs with weather symbols on them are, by themselves, a pretty weak visual aid to a weather report. It's not like she can stick them on a map or anything.

A language class actually makes much more sense, though I don't have a lot of confidence that that was what was intended.

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Matt:

Yeah, if it was a weather report I don't see why she'd be holding them all at once. Surely she'd know in advance that only "sunny" was needed.

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caf:

Haha!
These are way better than the one I got, it's the same style microphone as the first one but the cartoon suggested I could do yoga whilst chatting with people.
I totally want to be talking to daikon farmers instead.

The pink pom pom looks like fairy floss. ...mmm, fairy flosss.

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denske:

She's leaning over too aggressively, so she must be lying. Probably the guy is her husband, and she's using mad props to distract him while singing Bob Marley lyrics to him:

Is this love. Is it joy, is it pain, sunshine or is it rain.

Meanwhile, her new lover, the professional archer, shoots an arrow through the guy's heart, and the two of them can now collect the insurance and run off to Okinawa together.

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Matt:

... which is always... sunny! Yes, it all fits together.

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gilgamesh:

I think the last one is supposed to be the guy falling in love with his blond, online English teacher. I mean, 話すだけでもったいない, why just talk to your teacher when you can have face to face conversations and build a false romantic relationship instead?

Even more intriguing though, is why is one of the guys in the first picture wearing what looks like a ski mask?

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