laura_seabrook | Hellsing and Nekos

The whole first season of Hellsing finally came in at the library, and I've started watching it today. Very nice - everything I was expecting although a little cheesy too. The British accents are very odd, and one scene of Picadilly Circus has neon sign for "Loster's" beer!

I love it.

Anyway, Kevin was commenting about Neko and how it was a big thing in Japan. The most I'm familiar with is the cat's ears and tails I see on avatars in Second Life. I did a Google search and came up with all sorts of stuff.

The thing that first caught my eye was Neko for Windows - a program that adds a cute cat (or others) to your desktop which runs around chasing (or avoiding) your mouse cursor. Then there's It's Neko where you can do this on a web page. I was surprised however that Neko is also a programming language, though exactly what advantages it has over other languages remains to be seen.

I was also surprised to discover it was a (Japanese?) gay slang referring to the femme partner in a lesbian couple. Mostly though it seems to be a Maneki Neko - one of those cat sculptures I often see in various restaurants (sometimes one arm moves), which seems to have origins in Shinto. I always wondered what those were.

Seems the most popular meaning is an abbreviation of Nekomusume or "Cat Girl". That explains that avatars in Second Life, as this is undoubtedly what they're based on.