Kappa Mikey

Kappa Mikey
File:Kappa Mikey, the Whole Group.JPG Kappa Mikey
Created by	Larry Schwarz
Starring	Michael Sinterniklaas Stephen Moverley Annice Moriarty Pete Zarustica Sean Schemmel Gary Mack Jesse Adams Evelyn Lanto Dan Green
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	26 ordered for the first season, 52 in total, 21 aired as of February 19, 2006
Production
Running time	22 minutes approx.
Original release
Network	Nicktoons Network
Release	February 25, 2006 – present

Kappa Mikey is an American animated television series created by Larry Schwarz, which premiered on the Nicktoons Network on February 25, 2006, and premiered on Nickelodeon on August 20, 2006. It is MTV's first global acquisition. In April of 2006, it was picked up for a second season, of which the first episodes are close to completion. In Canada, the show airs on the Teletoon channel.

Kappa Mikey is marketed as "the first anime to be produced entirely in the United States" (without any overseas animation), according to press releases from MTV, Nicktoons Network, and various other sources, as the term anime in English is generally reserved for animation originally produced for the Japanese market. It is produced by Animation Collective in New York City with voiceovers recorded at NYAV Post (sometimes by 4Kids Entertainment in random episodes, mostly like Dan Green), and animated using Adobe Flash, with some moments of CGI rendered in Maya.

Plot

The series centers around Mikey Simon, a teenage actor from Cleveland, Ohio, who embarks to Japan after winning a scratch-off card contest to star in the country's formerly popular anime series, LilyMu, and in doing this, rockets the show back to the top of the ratings, and becomes Japan's biggest anime star. Segments of LilyMu are seen at the beginning and end of each episode, but the show focuses primarily on the actors' and producers' lives off-set and Mikey's adjustments to the new world he has entered (similar in concept to The Famous Jett Jackson). The humor comes from the fact that because Mikey is an American, he actually stands out visually from the other cast members. While most characters on the show are drawn in an anime-inspired style (thin outlines, big, detailed eyes, small mouths, and all ten fingers), Mikey (and all other American characters) is drawn in a retro-inspired American cartoon manner (thicker outlines, single black dot pupil eyes, a larger mouth, and only eight fingers.

Each episode starts with the cast filming a Lilymu segment, but the take is ruined, sometimes revealing the conflict that they deal with through the rest of the episode, with a minor subplot running beneath the main plot. After the problem is resolved, the LilyMu segment will be shot again and successfully completed the second time, often changed to incorporate whatever lesson was learned during the main story.

The show has a large comedic overuse of face faults, such as a character's face and/or body turning into an exaggerated general appearance, or becoming much smaller. Clichés common to anime include the sweat drop, lines over the eyes or no eyes at all, big heads, flaming eyes, bodies becoming smaller (or chibi as referred to in anime fandom). Sometimes Mikey will try to do these things which are one of the show's running gags, but cannot due to being drawn in an American style.

Critisism

Kappa Mikey has taken some brash critisim from anime fans, especially on the internet. Many anime fans are angered by the fact that Kappa Mikey labels itself as "anime", though it is an American show. Kappa Mikey is also critised by its lack of knowledge of the Japanese culture (as seen in cultural errors).

Characters

Main article: List of Kappa Mikey characters

The main characters in Kappa Mikey are:

• Mikey Simon, portrayed by Michael Sinterniklaas
• Gonard, portrayed by Sean Schemmel
• Mitsuki, portrayed by Evelyn Lanto
• Lily, portrayed by Annice Moriarty
• Guano, portrayed by Gary Mack
• Ozu, portrayed by Stephen Moverley
• Yes Man, portrayed by Jesse Adams

Theme Song

The Kappa Mikey theme song is called Hey (x2) Look (x2) by Beat Crusaders

List of episodes

Main article: Kappa Mikey episode list

References

References to American Pop Culture

• In Easy Come, Easy Gonard, the countdown clock shown is from the American television series 24.
• In the episode Sumo of all Fears, the Lilymu episode is almost identical to the climax to the first Spider-Man film.
• In the episode Lost in Transportation, when Mikey is in the coffee shop with the bikers, he tries to "dance his way out", so he jumps up on the counter and does a dance very similar to the Pee Wee Herman dance. The scene is a reference to "Pee Wee's Big Adventure".
• Many of the "Kappa Mikey" episodes are parodies of famous movies, books, & more. For example,
  • The Sumo Of All Fears - The Sum Of All fears
  • Mikey Impossible - Mission: Impossible
  • The Fugi-Kid - The Fugitive
  • Easy Come, Easy Gonard - Easy Come, Easy Go
• In the episode Ship of Fools The Videogame has graphics straight from Donkey Kong.
• Lily tends to frequently use the Internet-lingo term, "OMG"... so much that her friends have started saying it out of habit as well.
• Many of the characters like to say "w'ever" instead of whatever. Lily refers to this as "the dumbest thing in the world". Mikey's catchprase is w'ever when he becomes bad in the episode, "The Good, The Bad, & The Mikey". He uses it frequently in the succeeding episodes.
• Lily's Punchbug's name comes from the children's game "slug-bug" or "punch-buggy", in which one child yells out "slug-bug!" and hits another in the shoulder or arm when they spot a VW Beetle. This is usually played as a car game (that is, played in a vehicle driven by an adult).
• Socky may be a parody of G4's ED the Sock's Night Party
• During the theme song, there is a scene where it shows Mikey dancing in a white, button-up shirt, his underwear, socks, and sunglasses accompanied by a pair of Dobermanns. This is a scene taken from Mikey Impossible, and is likely a reference to Tom Cruise in Risky Business.
• In A Christmas Mikey:
  • The title is a parody of the movie "A Christmas Story"
  • Mitsuki's performance in the mansion scene is a parody of Gloria Swanson's role as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Also in A Christmas Mikey, Mitsuki has a monkey named Professor Bobo, likely a reference to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 character of that name.
  • Lily's career doing voice-over work (to Mikey's and a passerby's disgust) is a meta-reference on the show itself.
  • Guano as a chimney sweep with a British accent may be a reference to the chimney sweeps in Mary Poppins - he is in fact whistling "Chim Chim Cherrie" when he first appears in this role.
  • When Mikey is upset over Ozu not giving him a new contract, Gonard says, "Don't worry, we'll get you that monkey assistant," and he puts on a yellow hat, which is a reference to Curious George.
• The instructor in The Lost Pilot greatly resembles Simon Cowell. Also in the episode, the audition LilyMu has for a new actor is reminiscent to the Idol series. (Pop Idol, American Idol, Australian Idol, etc.)

References to Japanese Pop culture

• The show's title is a variation on the word kappamaki, a type of sushi. It is suggested that it was the inspiration for naming the title character Mikey, and uses the prefix kappa, which is a Japanese water demon, though, the demon has not been referenced in the show as of yet.
• In the theme song, a character resembling Gō Mifune from Speed Racer is driving the limousine that Mikey, Ozu and Yes Man are joy-riding in. In The Lost Pilot, it was revealed that he is the Lily Mu limo driver.
• Sean Schemmel (Gonard) is one of the many English voices of Goku and miscellaneous characters from Dragon Ball Z, which Gonard's [off-set] design is deliberately spoofing. His character's appearance on the "LilyMu" show is also a spoof of the typical demon-like characters Goku and his friends constantly fight against in Dragon Ball Z. Gonard's love of food may also be a spoof of Goku's large appetite.
• The phrase "Oh, Mikey!", which is said several times in the show, seems to be a nod towards the Japanese television show Oh! Mikey, which also has the premise of Americans moving to Japan.
• Masaka Masako could be a play on Nozawa Masako, Japanese seiyuu best known for voicing Goku in the original Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z.
• In the episode "Battle of the Bands" mostly all the guitars are blue rickenbacker Model 4003 basses, simlar to Haruko's bass guitar in FLCL. Also, in this episode, Rock stars Yori & Ori Are similar to the cartoon version of Puffy AmiYumi from the Cartoon Network Tv Show, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
• In "Big Trouble in Little Tokyo" Dr. Igor bears a resemblance to Vash The Stampede of Trigun.
• In the auditions in The Lost Pilot, one of the auditioners looked exactly like Mega Man, or also, Astro Boy.
• One of the background characters in The Lost Pilot was an almost perfect lookalike of Kakashi Hatake from Naruto, complete with a face-covering mask and a forehead protector (though it was engraved with a picture of fish bones instead of the familiar Leaf emblem).
• Character Dr. Takashi Katashi also looks similar to Kakashi Hatake from Naruto. Also, his office has four well-known anime character's portrait (the first three becoming references), whom Dr. Katashi claimed to be his works are:

• Black Jack by Tezuka Osamu (who had his facial scar removed)
• Chii from Chobits by Clamp (got an new head implant, to make her look more robotic), and
• Daisuke Niwa from D.N.Angel (unknown just by an appearance; he just smiles).
• Kosuke Ueki from The Law of Ueki (appeared in the office's background, he is noticeable by the spiky green hair, clothes and what seemed to be Tenko on his left arm).

• In the episode "Reality Bites", in the crowd, mild parodies of three anime characters - Kagome Higurashi and Shippou from InuYasha and Chii from Chobits - can be seen.
• In the episode "Saving Face" spoofs of a few well known anime characters appear:

• Shampoo from Ranma 1/2 appears in 'chibi' form. (She also can be seen very briefly in the opening sequence.)
• Kakashi from Naruto as a doctor who is supposed to remove Mikey's pimple.
• A picture of Chii from Chobits on the Kakashi's spoofs wall.
• Kagome from Inuyasha appears in the background of Socky's group when he goes to mock Lily.
• Batou from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is also in Socky's group, but in the front.
• Princess Sakura from Tsubasa Chronicle appears on a billboard in the background.

• In the episode "The Lost Pilot", a character that looks like a cross between Kakashi Hatake from Naruto and Franky from One Piece can be seen at the airport.
• In the episode "Ship of Fools", there is Conan Edogawa from Detective Conan (without glasses) wearing Mikey's costume and Chun Li/Lady Myao from Ran the Samurai Girl in red dress.

Cultural errors

• Since the show is made in, and for, the United States, nobody in the show talks in Japanese, and the main characters all have American accents, with the exception of Ozu and Yesman. There are even minor characters who have accents from other countries, like Pierre the waiter (French), even though they are clearly supposed to be Japanese citizens. This may be a spoof on the way American studios redub anime to fix the cultural gap between translations.
• In the episode Ship of Fools, the video game boxes for the Lily-Mu video game have a rating of "E for Everyone" from North America's Entertainment Software Rating Board rating system rather than a rating from Japan's Computer Entertainment Rating Organization rating system.
• Whenever books appear in the show, sometimes the front cover is on the left instead of the right, which is because in Japan, people read from right to left. But other times, the front cover is still on the right. Strictly speaking, this is not entirely in error, as some Japanese books do have the cover on the right, but they're not common. This also may be a spoof on the practice in early dubs to heavily edit the animation to the point of various frames being flipped to give the impression of a show being set in America (ex. flipping books, cars on the "right side" of the road). Sailor Moon relied on this heavily, as well as extreme zooms (to cut off foreign text), reassigning gender, names, locations, etc.

External links

• Kappa Mikey fansite
• Official site
• Kappa Mikey on IMDB