I'm not sure how analogous this is to the much-maligned l33tspeak of the English-speaking Internet, but I've been idly fascinated by how some Japanese words can be expressed with a sequence of numbers. This could very well be the equivalent of our going "2″ for "to" or "too", or "4″ for "for". It probably does not take much to decipher a phrase like "all 4 1 n 1 4 all", although one may feel the urge to scoop one's brains out with a spork afterwards.

Still, with the various ways of pronouncing a number in Japanese and the possibility of using the English pronunciation, I get the feeling that the number substitutions in this case is a bit more lax. The foremost example I can come up with offhand in anime would be in Keroro Gunsou, aka Sgt. Frog. (I'll keep to the original Japanese title not out of anime elitism, but entirely because I'm far too used to it and hate having to backspace-and-retype the name every single time.)

In the series, Natsumi Hinata sometimes goes by the handle of "723″, which can be broken up into: "na" (7, "nana"), "tsu" (2, as in "two"), mi (3, "mitsu"). This would be easily understood by context, but considering that the 2 can be read as "tsu" ("two"), "ni" (one way of saying "2″), and "futatsu" (another way of saying "2″, mostly used for counting objects), the decryption may not be as simple as in a simpler cypher.

Similarly, Mutsumi becomes "623″, Kururu becomes "966″, and Kogoro turns into "556″. Explaining all of this would probably take a lot more time than anyone would probably feel like spending.

More common words and phrases have also been numerified. "Thank you", when pronounced quickly using Japanese syllables, turns into "Sankyuu", which in turn can be converted into "39″, "san" and "kyu". I would imagine that going "39″ would indicate extreme informality, like tossing off a quick "thanks" instead of a full "thank you".

And then there's "yoroshiku", which would translate very roughly as a sort of request for a favour, but distilled into a mere (and yet expected) formality. This appears to have two ways of numerifying that I remember seeing in anime: 4649 and 4679, depending on whether one uses the "shi" pronunciation for "4″ (plus the first "yon"/"yo" pronunciation), or the "shichi" pronunciation for "7″. Searching for "yoroshiku 4649" yielded 1,540 results on Google, while "yoroshiku 4679" a mere 104.

On the faintest of tangents, I pondered about all this while watching Keroro Gunsou. It's surprising how enjoyable it is, although I have to say that I much prefer the human characters (or really, anyone else) to the alien frogs. It's gotten to the point where any non-loli Chiwa Saitou role always brings to mind Natsumi Hinata, and any Mamiko Noto role period reminds me of Angol Mois.

I suppose part of it is that when not going through Wacky Hijinks in Trying To Take Over The World, the quieter episodes deal heavily with nostalgia and the happier, peaceful side of life. Also, the character designs for the (humanoid) female characters are invariably incredibly cute.