I found this weird mask in the bargain bin of an Akiba used computer store. I originally thought it might be for doing video chat or holding up banks.
The truth, as it turns out, is only slightly less weird. It’s a screensaver from Popee the Performer, a 3D Japanese anime series that aired briefly on one of the satellite TV channels here.
The show takes place in a circus in the middle of a desert (flat yellow backgrounds were easier to render). Popee is a human clown and his sidekick, Kedamono, is a wolf.
Like any wolf should be, Kedamono is ashamed of his lupine nature, so he wears a never-ending series of masks to display his current emotional state. The screensaver mask is apparently one of these — “surprised”, by the looks of it.
Sadly, Popee was apparently a passing fad. It still retails for 6,090 Yen at Rukuten (here for the side-splitting machine translation), but the used computer place had it for 500.
“Whether while you are not, it can unfold the little laughing,!” …that’s the best.
Posted by: Joshua Edelstein at March 28, 2005 9:34 AM