This board.
Ouija, they pronounce it as WEE-juh. 🤷
But to me, that's clearly two words combined: oui + ja = ouija.
Now why were they combined? That's comical.
Oui = yes. It's a French word. A bit like how English pronounces "we". Sometimes, "way". For instance in French telly, Oui, alors... ⬅️ that would sound, that.
Ja = yes. A Germanic word. Usually, pronounced as "ya".
We-ya. Like that Bruce-Lee yell. It's specifically Bruce Lee. Mike Tyson perhaps did it, but not recorded.
(Bruce facepalms.)
If we utter each with proper pronunciation, "ouija" will sound like a confused French in a Bavarian tavern with a Cockney barman.
(Barman.) Two quid, please.
(Ouija bloke.) Oui... Ja!
(Barman.) 🤨 Oi, guv. Two quid.
(Ouija bloke.) Deux? NEIN! 🍺 Ouijajajajaja! 🏃♂️➡️🏃🏃♂️➡️🏃🏃♂️➡️🏃
(Barman.) 👀 Blimey! Where they scarperin' off to?!
That's like calling it "Hainaeam".
"Hai" (はい) = yes (Japanese).
"Naeam" (نعم) = yes (Arabic).
(Sadako Yamamura nods from inside the telly in Qatar.)
🤦♂️🤷
At least mine sounds delicious. Hainaeam? Sounds like "Hainam" (nasi Hainam — Indonesian). Hainanese chicken rice, everyone? While Ouija sounds like a bloody drunk French-Dutch hybrid. Je m'appelle Jacques van der Wijn. Mijn gezicht ligt op tafel. Oui. Ja.
Sadako, please stay there. The countdown won't start if you stay put like a papaya plant.
🤨 But... didn't she get out from the telly after the countdown had finished? 🤔🤔 I just made an awkward timing sequence for Miss Yamamura. I believe that would confuse the writers and fans. Oh, here's an idea: "The Static Spirit". Aye, aye? Telly static, and she... is the spirit? Literally moveless, static... too. She radiates chlorophyllic menace.
Papaya plant root power, activate! 🪄
⬆️ I just brought Stan Lee's universe into this.
Notice how every superhero in Marvel's realm does that sort of proclamation. Hulk smash, activating power bonkers. Like that? That's how Stan Lee brought boy-world into his comic book. The Japanese did it first though. Intensely. Well, not all Japanese, few of them. Maybe three. Generalisation exhibit:
💢 Pose ➡️ 📢 Call out power/element ➡️ 💥 Activate / Transform / Combine.
(Sadako.) Posing inside the telly ➡️ Papaya plant root power, activate! ➡️ Still. 🌱 ➡️ Chlorophyllic menace is radiating from the telly. 🔅🔆
It's called
tokusatsu transformation call from inside the telly by Sadako Yamamura.
Or tattoo-vibe:
Yamamura Sadako no terebi-naibu tokusatsu henshin kōru!
(In broken katakana, written right to left diagonally, in a tattoo parlour in Doha.)
！ルーコ ンシンヘ ツサクト ブイナビレテ ノ コダサ ラムマヤ 😵💫😵
⬆️ It's all katakana, from right to left. Oi, we don't use hiragana because the pints said so.
Transliterated from left to right:
!Rūko nshinhe tsusakuto bunai-birete no kodasa ramumaya.
Proper tokusatsu spell. Heihachi Mishima? Leaking cerumen. ☠️ After that, he would be called Heihachi Cerumenexcretumishima.
Wossat now?
Anyhow, you thought it'd go
!urōk nihsneh ustasukot ubian-iberet on okadas arumamay
, didn't you? Admit it.
But then again, "ubian-iberet"? Interesting term. 👍 That sounds like a Slavic Harley-Davidson. I bet it's beyond Honda for the petrol efficiency, as it uses the power of legs.
-
Honda: "The Power of Dreams" – all lofty, inspirational, corporate zen. -
Ubian-Iberet: "The Power of Legs" – pure Eastern-European grind, forged in blizzards and potato fields.The advertisement: In a world where petrol is weakness... one man pedals against tyranny. Ubian-Iberet!Care for your leg muscles and cardiovascularheart. -
Harley-Davidson: "Live to Ride, Ride to Live" – that sounds... like the bloody uneven firing V-twin and exhaust pipe it has.
And the "okadas". My oh my, sweeps Adidas away. The "arumamay" seals it. "ubian-iberet on okadas arumamay". Uranus approves.
!urōk nihsneh
Ustasukot, THE fighter jet 9000. It fights its own jet and ejects the pilot whenever it feels like it.
In summary, as if this even has a summary:
Katakana is Japanese syllabic script used for writing foreign loanwords and such. Not to be confused with katana, the sword. Kana = hiragana + katakana, kanji sits on the bench with a towel round the shoulders.
Doha is the capital of Qatar.
Now we are more enlightened than before, are we not?
The kind of enlightenment where we wake up at 3 a.m. and mutter, Katakana… not the sword… Doha… Towel… Harley… Chlorophyll… Then roll over and sleep like a sage.
Etymology
This is taken from Wikipedia.
(The Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and so forth just crossing their arms.)
(Teuton lad.) Oi achtung let op se opp and such! We're the "Ja Coalition"! We've been saying ja since the Vikings wore sandals. That's right, acthung. Act hung!
Good achtung to you.
(A Finn.) We don't say "ja". But we're here, mate. Kyllä! 🥳
Anyway... from the Wikipedia excerpt (snapshot) above, the board named itself.
Oh, did it now?
Aye, we need to respect that sales pitch. That Good Luck bit above had me in stitches. As if we buy a blender and the cashier says, Good. Luck. (Deadpan stare.)
But indeed in ancient times, this sort of practice was known. Quite so.
The practice of summoning the spirit of the dead — for chatting. Minus the corpse, which would be utterly self-defeating if it were included. ☠️ No chat can even begin from the horror. That one might encounter.
It's different than reanimating the dead body, like in the context of voodoo — the zombies. ⬅️ It's more akin to controlling the dead, rather than summoning their spirit for conversation or insight.
"Talking to the dead" is largely related to our coping mechanism. But not to plonkers with shovels asking about the doubloons stash. Coping, not copying. Hm.
And surely, not the practice of naming an inanimate object by waiting for its response. Oi rock, I'm a medium. Who are you? (Waiting.) It's quite long to wait despite the medium. Other perhaps said large or small, but that still wouldn't change the outcome.
There's no "summoning the spirit of the living" since the living can give a proper feedback.
By the power of biscuits, I summon thee by the spirit!
(Dialing phone number.)
(Ringing.)
(Hung-up tone.)
Then this trope in olden world was banned, then side-eyed. Because people realised gremlins often hitchhiked the ritual.
Well, not banned. Like when we stub a toe, we can't ban that.
Think conveyor belt in factory. It goes one way, right? Well, usually. The conveyor runs one way for a reason. If one broken doll slips through, we don't shout "REVERSE IT!" — that's how we get sacked three times before lunch. System halts, alarms blare, and we've summoned Declan the packaging supervisor with his clipboards and popping-out veins. Again.
We quietly press the reverse button and hope that Declan won't find out. That clipboard is made of steel.
Doubloons
Anyway, doubloons. Doubloon = a historical Spanish gold coin. Anglicised version of Spanish doblón, from doble (double).
Can we cash doubloons somewhere? Blimey. Short answer, maybe. 🤷♂️ You should rock up to the post office with a sack of gold coins and say, Two First Class stamps, and keep the change, me heartie. 🦜🏴☠️
Yes-No
This part:
YES OUIJA NO.
➡️ YES, OUI = YES, JA = YES, NO.
Thus it says, YES, YES, YES, NO. Talk about dithering. Gremlins usually thrive upon indecisiveness.
Good. Luck. As once said by a cashier.
Remember that telly show "Kung Fu" with David Copperfield? The main character was called Kwai Chang Mai Neim. He vanished his trousers.
Kwai = why, Chang = change, Mai = my, Neim = name. — Brought to you by a Punjitsu practitioner.
No? But in another "Kung Fu", which was aired:
Cashier looks passive, quiet, monk-like.
Customer arrives, brings a blender ➡️ cashier phases out.
(Sepia flashback.) Master Po says something like: Good. Luck.
Cashier returns from memory.
Slowly walks out, says something deep. Good. Luck.
Customer is confused. Oi, I want this blender.
Cashier smacks everyone in the room. 🥊💥 From outside.
Shaolin Tesco: The Good. Luck.
Punjitsu
Punjitsu is a sport where... "jutsu" means "skill" and "pun" means "pun". Therefore, it means "punskill".
Kyllä! 🥳
Papaya Plant
Carica papaya is the scientific name.
It's native to tropical Americas: southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. VOC and the gang distributed it to their colonies. Not to be confused with VCO—the "virgin" coconut oil. It has plenty of benefits, especially for dry skin—VCO not VOC.
Papaya was valued for its medicinal properties by the Aztecs and Mayans. Not merely the sweet fruit, that wasn't the main appeal. They valued the latex (sap), seeds, and leaves. One Mayan bloke perhaps muttered, Let's chew the seeds, rub the sap on our wounds, and tenderise jaguar meat. Europeans later came in, took one bite of the orange flesh and went, Forget all that witchcraft, THIS IS DELICIOUS!
Heichachi
He's a character in Tekken — a fighting game.
M. Bison
You know that character in Street Fighter — a fighting game?
In Japan, the character is called Vega (ベガ, Bega).
Capcom Japan lineup:
Mike Bison= the boxer. A parody of Mike Tyson.Vega= the final boss, the dictator, Mr Big Cape, psycho powers, shoulder pads, floating like a villainous ballet dancer.Balrog= the Spanish parkour bloke with the claws, mask, and narcissism.
Then Capcom USA got nervous. One Cockney avocado muttered, Oi oi, lads! And they huddled on a rugby field.
It's unclear how Capcom USA had East End flora connection.
But some said, they were afraid that someone from NVIDIA — which hadn't been existed yet — writing some sort of subpoena, Excuse us… we noticed your character is named… Mike Bison... and we're very concerned. [Signed.]
(Judge.) Who is the plaintiff?
(NVIDIA.) Us, Your Honour. We represent the future of graphics.
(Judge.) But… it's 1991. You're not real yet.
(NVIDIA.) Exactly. That’s what makes this preemptive concern so visionary.
(Judge.) 👀
(Mike Tyson.) (Storming in.) OUIJA! 💥 😤 Ik ben GEBOREN IN AMSTERDAM. HIJA, JA, JA, JA, JAAA! 💥🥊💥
(Everyone in the room.) 👀🥴🤕
So they shuffled the names. Hid the "Mike" as a mysterious acronym. Can be anything, from Muppet to Muppet. In the English language market, the final boss is "M. Bison", the boxer is "Balrog", and the parkour bloke is "Vega". Thank heavens they didn't change Chun-Li to Queen Elizabeth.
By the way,
Mike Bison.
🤔
You see, Ubian-Iberet is as superior as this.
Until Next Time
📢 Power Sadako!
📢 Papaya plant!
🎵 Dakishimeta kokoro no kosumo
🎵 Atsuku moyase kiseki o okose!
In English, it goes:
📢 Power Sadako!
📢 Papaya plant!
🎵 The cosmos of your heart, embraced
🎵 Burn hotly, cause a miracle!
The first bit is... that. (Lord Drumton sighs.) The last is the first two lines from Pegasus Fantasy by Make-Up.
RIP Nobuo Yamada, 9 August 2025 at the age of 61.
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