Mona saying "Omae mo nā"

Monā (モナー) is the most well-known Shift JIS art character. His name comes from his favorite phrase, "omae mo nā!", which is best rendered in English as "You too!" or "So do you!". He is considered to be one of the mascots of 2channel, the largest Internet forum in the world. Image File history File links Mona_standard. ... 2channel Shift_JIS art (AA). An example of American Shift_JIS art. ... 2ch home page. ... Gaia Online, the largest English language forum-based community as of April 2005 — powered by a modified version of phpBB. An Internet forum is a facility on the World Wide Web for holding discussions, or the web application software used to provide the facility. ...

Mona is distinguished by his pointed ears, and a face consisting of the universal quantifier symbol (upside-down capital "A") for a mouth, flanked by an apostrophe and grave accent for eyes. When rendered from behind, he has a small, round tail. In predicate logic, universal quantification is an attempt to formalise the notion that something (a logical predicate) is true for everything, or every relevant thing. ... An apostrophe An apostrophe (French, from the Greek αποστροφος προσωδια, the accent of elision) ( ’ ) is a punctuation and sometimes diacritic mark in languages written in the Latin alphabet. ... The grave accent ( ` ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek until 1982 (polytonic orthography), French, Catalan, Welsh, Italian, Vietnamese, Scottish Gaelic, Norwegian, Portuguese and other languages. ...

Mona was invented very early on in the history of 2channel. An Internet troll constructed the Mona character with his keyboard and had him say a standard complaint about Internet forums: "You people have too much free time". The first post following up to this simply copied and pasted the artwork and said, "You too!" This became an instant catchphrase and Mona was put to use across the forum. In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who posts rude or offensive messages on the Internet, such as in online discussion forums, to disrupt discussion or to upset its participants (see Anonymous Internet posting). ... Gaia Online, the largest English language forum-based community as of April 2005 — powered by a modified version of phpBB. An Internet forum is a facility on the World Wide Web for holding discussions, or the web application software used to provide the facility. ... A catch phrase is a phrase or expression that is popularized, usually through repeated use, by a real person or fictional character. ...

Variants

There is also a taller variant, known as Hattoushin Mona (literally, "eight heads high Mona"), or simply Hattoushin, frequently spelled "8toushin". He is frequently depicted in mock-homoerotic poses, or pursuing 1-san, originally with murderous but more recently lustful intent. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by esthetic attraction, romantic love, or sexual desire exclusively for another of the same sex. ... >>1-san (>>1さん) is a common Shift_JIS art character on the popular Japanese BBS 2ch, usually standing in for the user who started a given thread. ...

A variant with dots (in Shift_JIS art, the katakana middle dot) for eyes, rather than the apostrophe and backtick, has been named Morara (モララー, sometimes spelled "Moraler" or "Moralar") or Matari (マターリ, also spelled "Matterly" or "Mattarly") and is considered a separate character. He sometimes characterized as being more sensible than the whimsical Mona, but in many cases they are interchangeable. Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Katakana (片仮名) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems. ... A middle dot is one of several types of dots that occur in the middle of a character space, such as the examples in the following table. ...

The ā (アー) sound in Japanese is generally used to represent an "ar" or "er" sound in loanwords from English, so the character is often referred to as "Monar" or "Moner", even though the name is etymologically Japanese. There is of course no "official" English spelling since no single person owns the character. A loanword is a word directly taken into by one language from another with little or no translation. ...

Mona and Avex

In fall 2005, Avex Group Holdings has come under fire from fans and supporters of Mona and the variants for promoting and commercialising their own Shift-JIS art character, named Noma neko, which probably first appeared in the music video for "Koi no Maiahi", a Japanese release of the Moldovan band O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei". Avex claimed that Noma neko was an adaptation of Mona, but denied that they were using the online popularity of Noma to increase sales. Due to pressure from 2channel fans, Avex ceased distribution of Noma neko merchandise and cancelled plans to obtain rights for the character. avex trax, is the music department of the Japanese commercial giant Avex Group. ... O-Zone was a pop group made up of Dan Bălan, Radu Sârbu, and Arsenie Todiras(aka Arsenium). ... Dragostea din Tei is the most successful single by the Moldovan band O-Zone. ...

However, 2channel fans says that a Noma neko goods is still sold, and a problem is not solved.[Noma neko problem]

External links

• mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp. Mainichi news press release concerning Noma neko merchandise
• jns.ixla.jp. English discussion of the similarities between Mona and Noma neko.

See also

• Giko Cat
• Shift JIS art