Loituma Girl

[
right|thumb|320px|The_Orihime Inoue twirling her leek is the background of the Flash animation.] Loituma Girl (also known as Leekspin) is a Flash animation set to a karelian gibberish section of the traditional Finnish folk song "Ievan Polkka" (sometimes misspelled Levan Polka) sung by the Finnish quartet Loituma. The song is taken from their 1995 debut album "Things of Beauty". [cite web |url=http://www.noside.com/Catalog/CatalogAlbum_01.asp?Album_ID=45 |title=NorthSide Catalog - Things of Beauty - Loituma] It appeared on the Internet in late April 2006 and quickly became popular, drawing over nine thousand viewers.cite web |url=http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/3625 |title=Global Hit |first=Marco |last=Werman |date=2006-08-18 |format=radio |work=The World |publisher=Public Radio International |accessdate=2006-08-18] The animation consists of a 4-frame animation of the "Bleach" anime character Orihime Inoue twirling a leek to a 27-second loop from the song. The animation s continuously.

Content

The animation of Loituma Girl is taken from episode two of the "Bleach" anime series. In the clip, she is twirling a Welsh onion (negi) while talking to other characters. The scene is an instance of a recurring joke surrounding her character, in which she wants to cook something so unusual that it seems almost inedible. The animation uses the second half of the fifth stanza (four lines) and the complete sixth stanza (eight lines) from the song. Unlike the rest of the song, these two stanzas have no meaning, consisting mostly of phonetically-inspired gibberish that vary from performance to performance and are usually made up on the spot by the singer (compare scat singing in jazz). These stanzas are therefore not generally listed on lyrics pages, causing confusion for people looking for lyrics that match the animation.("See Ievan Polkka.") There has been some confusion concerning the exact nature of the vegetable in the animation. In the Japanese version of the anime, it is identified as a Welsh onion, but the American dub identifies it as a leek, from which the name of the animation is derived.

Popularity

The origin of the animation came from the website 4chan.org, appearing in the Flash section of the website. Within a few days of its appearance, tens of thousands of pages either directed to the possible origin or had the file uploaded on their own server. On 10 July 2006, the Finnish newspaper "Helsingin Sanomat" reported that Loituma Girl had caused a resurgence in Loituma's popularity, and the band had received thousands of fan letters from around the world. [cite news |url=http://www.hs.fi/uutiset/verkko-hesari/artikkeli/Hittibiisi+kulman+takaa/1135220601104 |title=Hittibiisi kulman takaa |work=Helsingin Sanomat |date=2006-07-10]

Band member Timo Väänänen describes his initial reaction to the video:

BBC's "The World" radio program even covered the animation in a segment, in which they noted the clip's trance-inducing qualities. Patrick Macias, who was interviewed in the program, described the animation:

As with most Internet phenomena, there are numerous videos, remixes, and parodies that have been inspired by the Flash animation. These may feature the animated background, the song clip, or otherwise reference the style of the animation.

Commercialization

In August 2006, German ringtone provider Jamba! began selling a collection of media based on the animation. The video shows an anthropomorphic donkey (called "Holly Dolly") dancing to the animation which is displayed (flipped horizontally) in the background.cite video |url= http://order.jamba.de/storage/view/93/do/HollyDollyDollySong2.mpg |title= Holly Dolly Song |medium= MPEG |publisher=Jamba! ] The song/animation is marketed as the "Dolly Song", and the music is played faster than the original Loituma version. It was also given an extra 30-second drum preface, which was not present in the original version.

In January 2007, a similar video, entitled "Holly Dolly - Dolly Song (Ieva's Polka)", appeared in the Google Video Top 100, though it was present on the Internet for a while before. It features the same donkey, along with some dancing sheep and a snowman, but the leek-spinning girl in the background is there briefly. [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2295360340367941531&hl=en] In April 2007, a Dutch power company (Eneco) used the song/melody of Loituma Girl in its TV commercial for "ecostroom" (green energy). [cite web | url=http://youtube.com/watch?v=6brHh8FArrA | title=Dutch Eneco commercial]

In May 2007, Wrigley's used this song in their German TV spot for their Extra gum. [http://www.wrigley.de/images/movies/extra_trackfinal.mp3] The Dutch company Artiq Mobile launched a website where people can upload home-made Loituma girl spoof videos. TV commercials state the best video will win 500 euros. [cite web | url=http://preidols.nl/ | title=Preidols.nl - Jouw eigen meisje met de prei! | language=Dutch | accessdate=2007-06-11] The Romanian company Romtelecom uses the song in one of their commercials for Dolce, a satellite television service.Fact|date=January 2008 In October 2007, McDonald's Hungary used this song in their Hungarian TV spot for their McCafé commercial. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVCHi6GJLOE]

Vocaloid adaption

In September 2007 Yamaha's Vocaloid voice synthesizer was given an makeover with the Character Vocal Series, featuring an anime-style character named Hatsune Miku as the mascot for the software. One of the initial promotional videos set the already popular Loituma Girl song to an animation of Miku Hatsune waving a Welsh onion, using Vocaloid software for the voice. [citeweb|url= http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/0802/25/news017.html|title=How Hatsune Miku opened the creative mind: Interview with Crypton Future Media |date=February 25 2008|accessdate=2008-02-29|language=Japanese] To date, this video has over four million views on Nico Nico Douga and YouTube combined. [http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm982882] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG_kz6Sp500] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbbA9BhCTko]

References

ee also

*Ievan Polkka
*Internet phenomenon
*Orihime Inoue

External links

* [http://dojo.fi/~rancid/loituma__.swf The flash animation]
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2295360340367941531&hl=en The Holly Dolly video]
* [http://lyricstime.com/loituma-ievan-polkka-lyrics.html Complete Lyrics (with Animation part)]
* [http://leekspin.info/ LeekSpin with spin counter]
* [http://www.leekspin.com/ LeekSpin with time counter]