By What do you get when you take two of my favorite things — Japanese manga and Android — and combine them into an awesome concoction of awesomeness? A very big smile on my face, of course. When Chris told me about this light manga named “Sweet Android High-School” I was teeming with excitement. A series of stories that feature characters which represent mobile OEMs and software vendors? Yes, please!
Unfortunately, my smile turned into a very big frown because I realized the manga’s not in English — I’d need to get off my lazy butt and learn Japanese to read this one. While that might take a bit more time than I would like to spend for the chance to read this short collection of episodes, I figured some of you Japanese speaking folks might be able to help us uni-lingual peasants out and throw us a translation or two in the comments section.
The cast of characters are named hilariously bad, but that only adds to the fun and cheeky atmosphere that this manga seems to set up:
The international students
- Moto-Laura-chan (Motorola)
- Sam-Sung-chan (Samsung)
- H-T-Syee-chan (HTC)
- Elle-G-chan (LG)
- Soni-Eri-chan (Sony Ericsson)
- Apple-kun (Apple, yeah, they get a character too, apparently)
The Japanese students
- Sharp-chan (Sharp)
- Fuji-Toru-chan (Fujitsu-Toshiba)
- Kashio-Nko-chan (Kashio-Nko-chan)
The comic runs each week in issues of the Japanese-based PC magazine Weekly ASCII, and the folks at that publication keeps the story going using actual news and happenings from around the mobile world. This is the first comic that has ever made me want to spend $600 on Rosetta Stone, and I just might be crazy enough to do it. Let us know if you can help us decipher the slides above in the comments section below.
[via GeekoSystem]
This looks awesome, i think. at least Mr Google gets a blowski at the end.
Kashio-Nko-chan must be NEC Casio.
I’ll impatiently wait for the translations…
it’s an age of war….. (andoroido school)
kill or be killed in the smartphone warring states period!!
at this school there were five faces that stood out as the teacher’s favorites: Moto-Laura, Sony Eri, H T Syee, Elle G, Sam Sung.
Kashio N-ko: I wish we were good at english too….
HuaWei: Hey Sharp-chan, you have to go to your club? (all japanese j.h. s.h. students belong to either a club or sports team)
Sharp: y, yeah. (sharp-chan is in the docomo, au, and softbank club)
huawei: must be tough being in 3 clubs.
Sharp (thiniking) it is, but..
a few days ago-
google: you’ve been working really hard lately, sharp-kun.
sharp: sensei!!
google: i bet you’re hungry? have this (ice cream sandwich)
sharp: th, that’s what only favorites get to have first, google-sensei’s sweets!!!!
end flashback
sharp (thinking) i want to tell her what happened but if those 5 find out i’ll be resented so i can’ttt…….
random student: heeeey news news! sharp got ice cream sandwich from sensei!!
bleh
oh my-
as expected
elle g: sensei what is the meaning of this? (hateful stares)
sharp: i’m scared! so scared! (cough)
but- i won’t back down
sharp: i moved into the neighborhood!! (moving to silicon valley city episode)
(studying english really hard episode)
you watch-…
i’m gonna survive this era no matter what!! (chewing)
apple-kun: awww what a drag…
end
I love you.
Wow, thank you!!! :)))
Japanese Anime looks like everyone is strung out on coke & acid
It basically retells what is happening in the real world. For example Moto-Laura-chan (Motorola) and the teacher who represent Google are married. Apple-kun is the only male and a douche (like Real life) Engadget had this story out a few months ago and I actually took the time to learn to read Japanese just to read it. There are rumors that two new characters being permanet(But may not because of the tense relations between China and Japan now). These two characters are based on ZTE and Huwaii . What I dont like is the anime made Samsung look like the bad guy during the Apple and Samsung lawsuits. Other than that, its pretty good.
Isn’t this old news?
Isn’t there an app that’ll translate with a real-time video overlay?
or does that not work with Japanese?
There would be an app for iOS :) There’s always an app for everything there :)
Google translate
Oh I love manga a lot :))) And I know Japanese a bit and can read manga if kanji have furigana (that’s when they write how this or that kanji should be read). But this one doesn’t have them :(((
This is awesome..
Google Translate?