El Shaddai

Lucifel : そんな装備で大丈夫か? / Sonna Soubi De Daijoubu Ka ? (You sure that’s enough armor?)
Enoch : 大丈夫だ、問題ない。 / Daijobu Da, Mondai Nai. (No problem. Everything’s fine)"

About

El Shaddai : Ascension of the Metatron is an action video game produced by Ignition entertainment to be released on the Xbox360 and PS3 consoles.

A trailer released in E3 2010 became a viral video, and the subject of many fanfics, and video remixes through Nico Nico Douga, and YouTube because of weird face of Enoch the protagonist of the game and their high-falutin’ remarks.

Origin

The game has religious themes as the title itself is a reference to a religion of the same name, the story centers around Enoch a priest sent to prevent the “great flood” from happening with the aid of archangel Lucifel along with four other angels.

The trailer for the game premiered at world-renowned gaming convention E3 2010.

Spread

Online Popularity

Soon after this trailer was uploaded to YouTube on June 2010, Enoch’s weird face and their remarks caught the attention among 2channel and several blogs. The oldest MAD video for El Shaddai had already been uploaded to Nico Nico Douga (NND), a video sharing service in Japan, on August 23rd, 2010^[1].

But it began to be spread all over the internet for real when Tokyo Game Show was held on September 2010. Over 600 MAD videos were uploaded to NND in that month.

The amount of videos that had been uploaded to NND in its first year since the trailer was released were over 5000^[2], and many of them were uploaded to YouTube^[3].

El Shaddai also caused a big sensation on pixiv, a Japanese social network site for illustrators. Not only parody illustrations but also pure fan arts are being uploaded to there continuosly. In especially, Enoch and his partner Lucifel are so much loved in Yaoi^[4] art works by many female Otaku. So, many of illustrations draw homosexual love of them.

As of June 2011, the amount of illustrations related to this game is over 23000^[5], and they score over 32 million page views in total^[6].

This online phenomenon was described in several Japanese internet encyclopedia such as uncyclopedia^[7], Nico Nico Pedia^[8] and Wikipedia^[9].

Media Coverage

This online phenomenon was reported by many Japanese media such as ITmedia^[10], Getnews.jp^[11] and Kotaku.jp^[12]. And it also reported by Kotaku.com^[13] in English.

Doujin Event

Event’s title : No problem. Everything’s fine.

Though the game hadn’t been released yet at that time,, Doujin event specialized for El Shaddai has been held by its fanatics since November 2010^[14]. Hundreds or thousands of people join this event every time, and the number of them are increasing as the event is held.

According to online news reports, almost all visitors are female Otaku described above^[15].

Buzzword

A : Sonna X De Daijoubu Ka ? (You sure that’s enough X?)
B : Daijobu Da, Mondai Nai. (No problem. Everything’s fine)"

This high versatile dialogue soon became to be used on everywhere on the internet by Japanese people who were impressed by this phrase.

In the result, “You sure that’s enough armor?” got the first prize of Japanese internet buzzword contest 2010^[16].

Developer’s Reaction

Sawaki Takeyasu the producer of the game commented about this online phenomenon and fan activities in several interviews. Among them, Getnews.jp reported his comment on Nico Nico Live^[17].

To some extent, we designed Enoch’s face and their dialogue purposefully to catch the attention of internet users. But we are surprised at this big sensation caused in such way, and appreciate to it. We planned it in 2007 and targeted mainly 2channel users because NND wasn’t so active at that time, and boom of online videos hadn’t come yet.

We fell new era has come because the online video led to an explosion in the popularity of El Shaddai.

Videos

For more videos, check out the videos section

MADs

そんな恋愛サーキュレーションで大丈夫か？【エルシャダイ】^[18] (See also : Renai Circulation)

ワールズエンド・エルシャダイにＰＶつけてみた【エルシャダイ】^[19]

イーノックボンバイエ【炎のファイター×エルシャダイ】^[20]

そんなニコニコ動画流星群で大丈夫か？【エルシャダイ】^[21]

Reenactment

エルシャダイ　演ってみた^[22]

MikuMikuDance

(See also : Miku Miku Dance)

【MMD】るしるしにしてあげる♪^[23]

Handmade Animation

【エルシャダイ】パンティーノック＆ルシッキング【手描き】^[24]

Illustratitons

For more Illstrations, check out the Images section.

Fan Art

Enoch’s facial expression parody

Its template file was uploaded by pixiv user SYO on August 25th, 2010^[25], and over 200 image responses has been posted to there^[26].

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.