On a slow, sleepy Monday, it's good to look back at the time some headband-wearing idiot decided to trot out his bad Japanese in front of videogame designer extraordinaire Shigeru Miyamoto.
This is the only surviving photo of the dork in question. It is from Japanese game magazine Famitsu:
The year was 2001, when life was a little bit simpler. George W. Bush taught us all to love again, and disco, thankfully, remained dead. At the E3 press conference, one young lad thought he would try out his Japanese by asking a question to Miyamoto in his native tongue. What followed, simply, was one of videogame's most humorous non-game related moments.
See the video here.
Anyway, what the video doesn't show was what happened after the question was asked. Nintendo spokesmen couldn't figure out exactly what question was being asked, and asked the guy to repeat the question in English.
And for completists who want to know what the Famitsu article said, this is a rough translation:
We found a weirdo at the Nintendo booth in the E3 convention center -- a college student with a "Nintendojo" bandanna wrapped around his head and speaking fluent Japanese. He's a man, but his name's Nathan [sounds like 'nei-san', Japanese for "elder sister"]. Apparently he plans to cut school in order to visit Japan for Nintendo Spaceworld, held at Makuhari in August. He's a bit of a blockhead. We thought he was a Nintendo fanboy, but he proved us wrong by going up to anyone with a mustache and saying "You must be Mr. Sakaguchi from Square. Can I get your autograph?"