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- This is a revision of the Wikipedia article of the same name. Why am I preserving this misspelled, poorly written version? Because all revisions after it removed some of the "unsourced" content of this page, which I am 99% sure is accurate. Licensed GFDL.
Futaba Channel (ふたば(双葉)☆ちゃんねる), or Futaba for short, is one of Japan's series of bulletin board systems. It is considered one of Japan's most populer imageboards dealing in otaku and underground culture. Futaba provides net fads, personifications, laughable crazy collages and new jargons.
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Concept
Futaba Channnel is a so-called-'mega bbs', being a matrix of 52+3 imageboards, 50 bulletin board systems each board for each catagory, anything from daily life problems to junkfood, sports, and porno. There is also an uploader to store nichy files. It is basicaly anonymous. It is mistakenly called 2chan in some foreign areas, for it rents the servers 2ch provides. Futaba uses free board scripts, later customised by the board operator. Futaba scripts had been open for use for a while and many Japanese underground sites and moe sites uses Futaba Scripts to this day.
History
2001
- Futaba Channel was set up on August 30th 2001, as a refuge for 2channel (or 2ch) users when 2channel was in danger of shutting down from excessive internet traffic. (It is not used as such anymore)
2002
- to take care of spammers uploading snuff stuff, grotesque board has been set up.
- Trouble arouse between those who wanted more Anime-manga topics and others who wanted real-life-stuff. Nijigen board (2 dimensional stuff like anime manga computer grafix drawings etc) and sanjigen (3 dimensional pictures or things relating to real-life) board were set up.
- dōjin capture shots and anime captures were raising problems, to be isolated in Nijiura (2 dimension backyard) board.
2003
- Heika, Waha-, the first of nijiura characters were born.
- While it was in style to post anonymous, the board operator changed the default name from anony to Toshiaki, in memory of lifeless Toshiaki the spammer troll.
- Wannabie-hacker-magazine 'Netrunner' copied Futaba characters and sold marchandise at the dismay of Futaba users. A deep enmity is sown.
- ME-tan was born.
2004
- Troubled Windows (とらぶる・うぃんどうず) the flash was made (English fansub). It became notorious in and out of Futaba.
- Medoi-san is born
- Toshiaki disappeared from name form from changes in scripts.
2005
- due to popularity and excessive bandwidth, nijiura was devided into 4 boards/ servers. Roleplay server and creator's server were sealed underground to stop falling into leet dude's hands.
Futaba culture
Nijiura style
There are several unsaid rules that are more or less in ineffect. Some are taken seriously, some are not taken seriously. here are several:
- hantoshi-rom Before you start posting newbie trash, stay a reader for half an year. In the mean while you will be able to post decent stuff just like anyother user.
- stay anon. Those who use nicknames are bashed upon. Names (or individuality) are unnecesary. One Toshiaki is as good (or as loser) as another.
- Daikuji Ayu moe When someone post a girl with golden braids, Toshiaki will play Daikuji-Ayu-moe word link game. Every Toshiaki will post 1 letter, trying to match Dakuji Ayu moe.
- Restrain from showing off. Share your goofup.
Futaba characters
- Toshiaki - the default name for anonymous posters on the "Nijiura" board (as of April 12th, 2003) and also all other "isolated" boards. The origin of this has to do with a certain self-important poster who called himself Toshiaki. Futaba users in general also often refer to themselves as Toshiaki when communicating outside of Futaba as well. Variations of the "Toshiaki" nomenclature exist outside as well as inside Futaba. For instance, the default name on Futaba's yuri board is "Yuriaki".
- Nijiura - kind of an "anything goes"-2D board on Futaba. There are actually three, although only the newest one is being linked from the frontpage. The first one was set up in March 2002 to separate normal anime discussion from the growing trends towards posting of gag pictures and photoshopped images. From July 15th, 2004 to May 25th, 2005, names for users had been completely disabled on the respective default Nijiura board. The two older Nijiura boards are still retaining this custom.
- Waha, Musu and Choia. The cute character Suzuran was featured in the eroge Suigetsu; Toshiaki changed her appearance somewhat and called her "Waha", after a common exclamation she utters in the game. Her sister, Musu, and her "pet human", Choia, are from different games.
- The Nijiura maids, a collection of maid characters most of whose personalities are based on puns involving their names. The first of these, Medoi-san's name is a pun on "meido", the japanese pronounciation of the english word "maid". Medoi is slang for "bother", so Medoi-san is finds everything to be a bother. Kudoi-san's name means "verbose", so she always talks a lot. Most of the rest follow a similar pattern.
- Yaranaika? Literally means "Shall we do it?" As it does in English, in Japanese this phrase can have an erotic subtext. It was used in a homosexual erotic comic book "Kuso Miso Technique", which was endlessly parodied by Futaba users.
- Heika, aka 'His Majesty', a strange-looking man with a pointed helmet from the TV show Space Warriors Baldios, has been transformed from a murdered monarch into master pimp by Futaba.
- Taicho, or 'the Captain', in reality Marine Sgt. Parish J. Harvey of Company L, 3/8, whose commanding visage has been mutated into countless parodies. Taicho's appearances are mostly concentrated at Futaba Channel's military related imageboard, even if the pictures he's in aren't.
- Sadako-chan, a bishojo version of Sadako Yamamura from the Ring films. She is sometimes accompanied by a cartoon horse and a tall, attractive blonde version known as "American Sadako-chan".
- Saizensenkun, aka 'Mr. Front Line', a creepy-looking photographer from somewhere in Japan who is infamous for frequenting anime conventions. On Futaba's image boards he is spliced into warzones, crises, press conferences, and movies.
- The OS-tans, a set of fan-made, cute mascots for various operating systems, the first one being ME-tan, posted for the first time on August 6th, 2003.
- A gaijin yonkoma is a 4-panel comic with many variations, usually interspersing 'good' and 'bad' images with two stock reactions. The reaction pictures used show four attendees at E³, apparently a group of editors from IGN responding to news of a Zelda video game. One picture has the four sitting in chairs, with little emotion; the other shows a similar group cheering wildly. The images have also been used as models for anime characters drawn in the same poses, most notably Akane, Mitsuki and Haruka from Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien. An interesting thing to note is that some people have swapped seats and changed their clothing between photographs, whereas the comic form implies they're immediately sequential.
Some of the characters that appear on Futaba Channel have entered the real world in the form of various real-life goods, such as figures, dolls or images printed on pillows. Such items are mainly produced by Japanese dōjin artists and groups.
Foreign Affairs
The Futaba bulletin board system being popular, it has small followers abroad. American, Chinese and Taiwan Futaba brotherin were acknowledged. Due to traffic restriction and protection against DoS attacks, non-Japanese people are not allowed to post on image boards. American created "4chan", which is similar to Futaba except that the major board divisions are between pornographic and non-pornographic content as well as two-dimensional and three-dimensional content, and the primary language is English.
Non-Japanese internet users sometimes refer to Futaba Channel as "2chan," due to the url of the site. It is frequently unclear whether this is intended to mean Futaba Channel or 2channel, and sometimes it even refers to both, as if they were a single website. To eliminate confusion, the names "Futaba" and "2ch" are preferred by Toshiakis who have grown grudges agaist 2ch counterparts over the years.
External links
Note: some of these links may not be safe for work.