Have you ever posted on an Internet Message Board? If you have you've probably noticed people from all parts of the world posting. Alaska, France, Turkey, Australia, China, you name it you can usually find a diverse mix of contributors. But one group is noticably absent for the most part - the Japanese. Where are they hiding? How do they converse as a group on the Internet? Do they use IRC, Usenet, or just plain Email? Well the answer you've been looking for is here.2 Channel is one of the largest Message Boards in the world, and the most popular website in Japan. 2 Channel or
(Pronounced "nee-channel") is the "keijiban" or king of all message boards in Japan. It's owner/founder/operator Hiroyuki Nishimura began the site on May 30th 1999, and since then it has rapidly grown to truly gargantuan proportions. 
Some quick facts to blow your mind: 2ch handles 1 million posts a day, 20 million thread views per day, 600 million page impressions per month and has over 200 topics for discussion ranging from "hacking to today's dinner".
2 Channel started after the implosion of Ayashii World (Strange World) and many users migrated from there to 2ch due to the similar BBS format known as "thread floating with pushout style" that 2 Channel has now made famous.
It's insane popularity is attributed to a number of factors but largely due to two important things.
Anonymity: All posts on 2 Channel are truly and utterly anonymous. Users can post and reply without fear of reprisal from anyone. Hiroyuki, a self confessed 'hikikomori' (someone who has withdrawn from society) says of the reasoning behind why 2 Channel is anonymous, and why it works: "If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don't know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, "it's boring," if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work." Hiroyuki has stood by his ideology countless times in the face of danger, even when posed with criminal investigation, which leads to the next point..
Media Attention: On May 3rd 2000 a user by the name of "Neomugicha" (Neo Wheat Tea) posted a message to 2 Channel 45 minutes before hijacking a bus and stabbing several passengers, one fatally. His message was simply "Saga City (near Fukuoka) 17-year-old, HIHIHIHI". Minutes later he held 10 passengers hostage at knifepoint on a bus bound for the city of Hiroshima. 5 hours, 275kms later he was apprehended by police who stormed the bus with tear gas after the bus stopped as a service station outside Hiroshima. 1 Passenger was stabbed to death and 3 others had been stabbed and beaten. The hijackers motives were unknown, although some speculate he became enraged after missing out on getting the 1000th post in a thread on 2 Channel. Media attention was fierce and 2 Channel was unwillingly thrust into the spotlight.
More incidents followed. On June 8 2001 a man stabbed 27 children 5 fatally at an Osaka elementary school. The man Mamoru Takuma was a 2 Channel user who frequently posted messages of anger in the days before the stabbings "My pride has been destroyed. I hate university-affiliated schools," Takuma wrote. "Some may say my anger is misplaced and misdirected, but it's all their fault. I am very vindictive." Once again 2 Channel was in the news, and this time Hiroyuki's defense of the anonymous was stretched to the limit and a lawsuit judgement ordered 2 Channel to retain all IP Address information of users in the event of criminal activity.
Even more incidents abounded, groups of people meeting on 2 Channel to organise group suicides, a 17 year old boy posting that intended to "shock the world" before assaulting a man with a hammer, and of course many many hoaxes.
But it's not all bad news. As reported by Mainichi Daily News the users of 2 Channel have a list of more positive achievements to their names:
* Forcing Toshiba Corp. to apologize in July 1999 after a man used the bulletin board to reveal that his complaints about a faulty VCR were greeted with obscenities from the electronics giant's service staff;
* Eliciting a shame-filled explanation from the boss of music powerhouse Avex after superstar diva Ayumi Hamasaki complained that a group of disabled people given front row, center seats to one of her concerts were "sickening."
* Inspiring hundreds of people to get out and clean up notoriously dirty Shonan beach just hours before the Fuji TV planned an identical campaign to protest the network's shoddy coverage of World Cup soccer games. Network executives arrived at the beach expecting to film hundreds of people picking up trash on the seashore, but were instead greeted by a pristine beach and raspberries from the hundreds of 2 Channel fans who had cleaned it.
* Encouraging busloads of schoolchildren to pay their respects at Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan's war dead are enshrined, on the anniversary of the end of World War II. War-talk among the young is not widely encouraged in Japan.
* Prompting a 1,000 Burger Eat Off when McDonalds started selling hamburgers for 59 yen apiece. About 40 2 Channel users turned up at a Tokyo outlet of the giant food chain and proceeded to chomp their way through some 400 burgers in a few hours. True to form for 2 Channel users, participants celebrated the occasion by taking a snapshot -- with everybody facing away from the camera!
2 Channel Culture
Frequent visitor of 2ch BBS is usually called (and call themselves)
(2ch'er, pronouce "nee-chan-ne-rah"). Even though topics vary a lot between each thread/ita, 2ch as a whole keeps its unity though its unique cultural backplane. "2ch slang", "2ch AA (ASCII Art)", "2ch Flash" are example of such culture. 2 Channel is a text only BBS, and so the users have become quite adept at using ASCII to form simple pictures to convey emotions, up to impressive works of art. As such 2 Channel has developed it's own host of colorful characters to bring a little more life to the boards. The most famous of these is Mona, who has his own seperate section on this site. Here is a selection of some of the characters you can find doing all sorts of things throughout 2 Channel.
Mona. 2 Channels "Mascot". He is sort of Bear/Cat
Giko. Giko is a cat. He came from the Ayashii World BBS and now lives at 2 Channel
Shii. Another cat, this one is a girl, usually the love interest of Giko.
Onigiri. Usually depicted as a trio, the black thing on his head is a rice cake. Usually depicts happy, playfulness. 
Morara. Monas friend. 
Zonu. Depicts unaccountability.
Fusa-Giko. Wooly Giko
Fusa-Mona. Wooly Mona
Nida. Usually depicted as a Korean Mona. Often shown being hung, shot, stabbed etc.
Hikki. DepressionEven more characters and 2 Channel art here (Worth a look at least once).
You can also find loads of crazy Flash Movies on 2 Channel, starring all of the above and more. Here are some of the more popular ones.
Click One of the most famous flash movies to come out of 2 Channel. Seems cute right? It's actually about Shii worrying because her period is late after she slept with Giko.
Click Chinko. A very rude "traditional" song in which 2 Channel characters bring to life. An english version here although I think it's better without it.
Click UNIX. A story about how 2 Channel nearly came to it's end but was saved. This movie really highlights how even though the 2 Channel members don't know each other, they all stick together for the good of the board.
Click KIKKOMAN! This movie is how Kikkoman soy sauce is better than all the other sauces, and he beats them up etc. It's great. I think there's an english version somewhere but I can't find it.
You can find more movies by doing a carefully constructed Google Search. You can tell the ones that are from 2 Channel quite easily.
2 Channels popularity has of course produced more than a few spinoff sites. There's even a 2 Channel for international users World 2ch. The best of these spinoffs is 2chan. The thing that sets this spinoff apart is the large number of Image Boards. Here users can not only talk about Food, but actually post images of it. This makes things a lot more interesting for people who can't read Japanese as well.
So are you sick of reading about 2 Channel yet? Want to actually participate in this vibrant and extremely active community? Want to get the Japanese "word on the street" on just about any topic you can think of? Go and visit 2 Channel now!
