Video: Hal & Bons and the Yappy Mochi Journalist

Reading Lisa's entry about mochi deaths, I was overcome with the urge to eat some myself, so I microwaved some frozen mochi squares. As I happily ate them (with natto, no less), I remembered "mochi-kun," an anthropomorphic mochi character in one of the sillier creations I'd seen in recent years: Hal & Bons. It was a DVD series that became a bit of a sensation in 2001. It's a bizarre, hilarious and absolutely pointless collection of animated shorts about a socially awkward but loveable mochi who tries to interview a pair of beer-swigging, couch-potato dogs. In 2006, Katsuhito Ishii (the director of The Taste of Tea) created The New Hal & Bons. A few from the original series have been subtitled and available on YouTube, but I haven't found any subtitled versions of the new series online yet.