United States of Japan-pan

About

The United States of Japan-pan (Japanese: 合衆国ニッポンポン, Gasshukoku Nippon-pon) refers to a series of MAD videos for a Japanese TV anime Code Geass. It was the most famous visual resource for parodies for this anime which was one of the pioneers breathing life into the MAD video phenomena on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND).

Origin

The 1st season of this anime, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, was aired from October 2006 to March 2007, and the source footage for this MAD series is taken from a scene in the 23rd episode in the season, where Zero, the alter ego of protagonist Lelouch Lamperouge, declares the foundation of the United States of Japan.

I shall announce here that, from now on, we will ragain our independence from Britania!
However, that doesn’t mean a revival of the previous Japan.
I won’t make the foolish mistake of repeating history!
What we are going to create is a brand new Japan.
she must have a wide embrace, ready to accept anyone regardless of race, past, and ideals.
A place where the strong wont’t oppress the weak!
A country with dignity!
Her name is… the United States of Japan!

Spread

Since NND was launched during the airing period, Code Geass had been one of the well-used visual resources for MAD videos in the quite early days of that video sharing serivice. The most famous instance of Code Geass MADs in those days is a KishimenMAD made by a Japanese professional movie creator/director Atsushi Wakamura. Meanwhile, this scene entered in the limelight by several MAD videos created by NND user yuroshi which utilizes Zero’s “pon” utterance like a percussion. Those videos were uploaded from April to June in 2008. By many derivative creations by followers, The United States of Japan-pan succeeded to earn much popularity on NND.

Left: “Electric de Chocobo” Final FantasyVII^[1] | Right: Kirby Skh High^[2]

Oppressive Actions by Copyright Holders

At the end of June 2008, many Japanese anime productions, TV broadcasting stations and music industries finally began removing copyright infringement videos on NND. And the copyright holders for this anime franchise, BANDAIVISUAL and SUNRISE, were not the exception. They removed almost all of Japan-pan MADs and still continues removing all videos sampling visuals of their contents even if those are pure fan works.

As a countermeasure to the small-minded companies, NND users reproduced Code GeassMAD videos by hand-drawn animations to avoid deletion in a similar way of Futae no Kiwami. Because of this, Japan-pan MADs became to have a unique originality compared to usual MADs videos, though its amount is a few.^[3] Additionally, many reprints of the original MAD videos are still alive on YouTube.^[4]

Notable Examples

Niconico 【手描き】「スーパーニッポンデラックス！＼(●)／」に絵をつけてみた
Left: “Slide Show Part II” from Final Fantasy VIII^[5] | Right: Hand-drawn Animated Version for Kirby Sky High
Niconico 【合作】最終鬼畜仮面ゼロ　全力でニッポンポン！に皆で絵を付けてみた
Left: UN Oven was Her? from Touhou Project^[6] | Right: Hand-drawn Animated version
Niconico 【手描きMAD】手書きでニッポンッポン！【完成】
Left: “Dancing Panda” from Gokujō Parodius!^[7] | Right: Hand-drawn Animated version

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.