Shift JIS art
Encyclopedia
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
intended for Japanese usage. Naturally there are many similarities between Shift_JIS artwork and ASCII art
ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
.
Shift_JIS has become very popular on web-based bulletin board
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
s, notably 2channel
2channel
is a Japanese textboard. In 2007 there were 2.5 million posts made every day. Launched in 1999, it has gained significant influence in Japanese society, comparable to that of traditional mass media such as television, radio, and magazines. As of 2008, the site generates revenue upwards of ¥100...
, and has even made its way into mainstream media and commercial advertising in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Within the Japanese community, Shift_JIS art is sometimes abbreviated as SJIS art, but is most commonly referred to as "AA" meaning ASCII art, although it rarely restricts itself to the 95 printable characters within the ASCII standard.
As with ANSI art
ANSI art
ANSI art is a computer art form that was widely used at one time on BBSes. It is similar to ASCII art, but constructed from a larger set of 256 letters, numbers, and symbols — all codes found in IBM code page 437, often referred to as extended ASCII and used in MS-DOS and Unix environments...
, SJIS art is sometimes used for animation. However, due to technical advances, SJIS art also appears in the form of Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
files and animated GIF
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
s.
Unlike Western ASCII art, which is generally designed to be viewed with a monospaced font, Shift_JIS art is designed around the proportional-width MS PGothic
Japanese gothic typeface
Sans-serif typefaces are a type style characterised by strokes of even thickness, reduced curves, and lack of decorations, akin to sans serif styles in Western typography...
font supplied with Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, which is the default font for web sites in Japanese versions of Windows. However, many characters used in Shift-JIS art are "Fullwidth"
Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms
In CJK computing, graphic characters are traditionally classed into fullwidth and halfwidth characters...
CJK characters, and so are the same width. However, this dependency has led to the development of the free Mona Font
Mona Font
Mona Font is a Japanese proportional font for the X Window System, derived from the Shinonome raster font family. It aims to represent Shift JIS art graphics properly, almost all of which require the MS PGothic font. Mona is named after Mona, a character-based mascot of 2channel. Current version...
, each character of which is the same width as its counterpart in MS PGothic, for the use of users of other operating systems such as Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
/UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
and non-Japanese-capable versions of Windows.
In Japanese media
The Japanese movie and television show, , frequently included Shift_JIS art both during screen transitions and within the story itself. One of the recurring characters during the series was a Shift_JIS artist who would often draw full-screen Shift_JIS works of art as a way of expressing his support and encouraging the lead character.See also
- ASCII artASCII artASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
- ANSI artANSI artANSI art is a computer art form that was widely used at one time on BBSes. It is similar to ASCII art, but constructed from a larger set of 256 letters, numbers, and symbols — all codes found in IBM code page 437, often referred to as extended ASCII and used in MS-DOS and Unix environments...
- East Asian emoticons
- Mona FontMona FontMona Font is a Japanese proportional font for the X Window System, derived from the Shinonome raster font family. It aims to represent Shift JIS art graphics properly, almost all of which require the MS PGothic font. Mona is named after Mona, a character-based mascot of 2channel. Current version...
- Soy Sauce Warrior KikkomanSoy Sauce Warrior KikkomanThe ' — or just — is a superhero featured in a parody flash movie, based on the Kikkoman Japanese soy sauce brand, that emerged in the early 2000s and became an Internet phenomenon....
Further reading
- Tarou, Maruheso, ed. 2ちゃんねる AA大辞典 ("Ni-channeru AA Dai-Jiten" (romanized), meaning "2channel AA BIG Dictionary".) ISBN 4-7973-2275-6. Tokyo, Japan: Softbank Publishing, 2003.
- 2-ten Project, ed. 2典 ～2ちゃんねる辞典～ ("Ni-channeru AA Jiten" (romanized), meaning "2channel AA Dictionary".) ISBN 4-8354-4033-1. Virtual Cluster / Book-ing, 2002.
- 2ちゃんねるAAキャラクターの一覧 ("Ni-channeru AA Kyarakutaa no Ichiran" (romanized), meaning "2channel AA Characters at a Glance")