Balse

About

Balse (Japanese: バルス, Barusu) is the Magical Spell to devastate Laputa, a flying castle appearing on Studio Ghibli’s 1986 animation movie Castle in the Sky.^[1]
Since around 2003, casting this magical spell to the threads in 2channel along with this movie aired on TV has been the annual event among the Japanese internet users. Since 2009, this event has spread to Twitter as well.

Origin

The scene chanting “Balse” is the last part and the climax scene in this movie. Pazu and Sheeta, the protagonist boy and the heroine, cast this secret spell taught by Sheeta’s grandmother to defend Laputa castle from colonel Mooska who proposes to monopolize Laputa’s super technology. The script of this scene is:

MOOSKA :
I’ll wait three minutes.

SHEETA :
Pazu!!

PAZU :
Sheeta -- calm down. Listen closely. Tell me those words. I’ll say them, too. It’s in my left hand.

PAZU :
I’ve freed Auntie and the others.

MOOSKA :
It’s time!! Let’s hear your answer.

PAZU AND SHEETA :
Balse!!

MOOSKA :
Ah. . . My eyes. . . My eyes! My eyes. . . My eyes. . .

Via: GhibliWiki!^[2]

The movie clip can be seen in the videos section.

The depiction of this scene is different between Japanese version and English version.

In the original Japanese version, Pazu and Sheeta are shouting the spell “Balse!!” by their strong determination. Meanwhile, they are murmuring the spell “Balse…” as if they are philosophical in English version.

Spread

Ghibli’s animation series have a nationwide popularity in Japan, and their every single movie has been regarded as something like the compulsory subject for Otaku since before. Therefore, “Balse” and other impressive phrases in this movie such as “Don’t take more than 40 seconds.”, “Look!! The people are like garbage.” “Ah. . . My eyes. . . My eyes!” are well-known among Otaku people and frequently reused and parodied by them.

Because of this, when it’s aired on TV, many Japanese Otaku get together on the “live coverage” boards in 2channel that focus on TV programs being watched in realtime and enjoy watching the movie with posting their love and excitement for every single scene to the threads. The moment when they reach a peak of excitement is “Balse”.

This online trend started gradually when this movie was aired on TV in March, 2003, and have been increasing its attention because this magical spell of devastation always crashes several 2channel’s strongest servers by the heavy traffic load by “Balse” posted over a thousand times per minute and its destructibility is also increased in every time when it’s aired. Somewhere down the line, the subject of online news reports for airing of Laputa on TV became “if 2channel servers can endure Balse?”.

This trend was much more encouraged by the popularization of Twitter in Japan since 2009. Balse has become also casted to Twitter by zillions of non-otaku people. As a result of this, Balse was tweeted 25,088 times per second during the 13th television screening of the movie in December 9th, 2011.

This was announced officially as a new Tweets-per-second record^[3] and it made a headline in many online news.^[4][5][6]

Videos

The moment of Balse on Twitter (12-09-2011)

The moment of Balse on Nico Nico Douga live Chat (12-09-2011)

Search Interest

On-Air Log^[7]

External References