“Hey, don't eat two beef bowls! Pay another 1000 yen! Idiot!”
– Kazuhiko Nishi¹⁾²⁾³⁾

1ch.tv, or 1channel TV (いっチャンネルティーヴィー, Itchanneru Tīvī), was the short-lived Japanese “human-friendly” bulletin board that was established on October 1, 2001, once claiming to be Amezou's successor and 2channel's rival. It failed, but managed to last until May 2010.

Back in 2001, the Japanese publisher ASCII Corporation was in debt, and their co-founder Kazuhiko Nishi stepped down⁴⁾ after Isao Okawa's death.⁵⁾ For some reason, Nishi apparently went egosurfing and found a 2channel thread discussing him on July 10, 2001, but the gossip merely infuriated him⁶⁾ that he spent days arguing and later concluded that 2channel was “toilet graffiti” (便所の落書き, benjo no rakugaki).⁷⁾

This would lead to Nishi inviting everyone to ASCII Corporation's headquarters in Shibuya for an “offline” version of the thread on August 11, 2011. After retelling the MSX's history,⁸⁾ he ranted about 2channel and scolded Hiroyuki Nishimura for trying to get a second bowl.⁹⁾¹⁰⁾ This “Beef Bowl Incident” (牛丼事件, Gyūdon Jiken)¹¹⁾ was also witnessed by Xevious creator Masanobu Endō.¹²⁾

“Do you use these kinds of expressions¹³⁾ on a daily basis? We are not your slaves or subordinates.”
– 1ch.tv Issuer¹⁴⁾

Out of nowhere, Nishi announced his plan to start a journalism-focused bulletin board to rival 2channel with registration fees and rewards, even seeking out Amezou for added legitimacy.¹⁵⁾¹⁶⁾ “1ch.tv” opened to the public on October 5, 2001, but they quickly encountered major problems since IPs were leaked and everyone can mess with its HTML tags, so they placed 1ch.tv in read-only mode until October 14, 2001.

After the reopening, users were generally confused about the deletion criteria, then their head administrator “1ch.tv Issuer” (1ch.tv発行人) issued a brash statement¹⁷⁾ that was shortly deleted. “STAFF@NTW” would comment on the brash statement, but his capcode was revoked and his board was shut down, so he resigned and voiced his frustrations at 2channel.¹⁸⁾ “MIZ”¹⁹⁾ and “infohands”²⁰⁾ followed suit.

The voluntary resignations would result in 1ch.tv developing a heavy anti-2channel slant. Nishi was nowhere to be seen, likely bailing on the idea or preoccupied with selling the company.²¹⁾ As a result, 1ch.tv was left with three key figures: their head administrator “1ch.tv Issuer” (1ch.tv発行人) or “Nenkin” (年金, lit. “Pension”), loyalist “Iota Fujimi” (富士見いおた, Fujimi Iota),²²⁾ and a college student named “Kensuu” (けんすう).

On December 3, 2001, the website suddenly became inaccessible and, during the downtime, users found out that you can download the entire website. This meant that every user's IP address was leaked²³⁾ and people could read everything on the secret staff meeting board, including the fact that “Amezou” sorta vanished from the project around October 30, 2001, saying “I have to try harder” (がんばらなくては).²⁴⁾

In 2002, “Iota Fujimi” kept making unusual comments, the server would migrate on February 27, 2002, then “Naki no Ryū” (哭きの竜, lit. “Crying Dragon”) resigned and lamented the fact that Nishi and Amezou were quick to bail on the project.²⁵⁾ The website switched to PHP around July 11, 2002, and most people stopped paying attention after this. Around June 18, 2005, “1ch.tv” migrated over to the “amezo.jp” domain.

Humorously, Nishi disputed his own Wikipedia page in 2006, quoting the passage saying he founded 1ch.tv and saying “I didn't make it” (作ったのは私ではありません) for some reason.²⁶⁾ Moving on from this, the website surprisingly lasted the entire decade, with posts being made as late as 2009,²⁷⁾ though the archives have a cut-off date of March 28, 2010²⁸⁾ and the website presumably died by May 2010.

Ioter Wall was a simple Flash animation that used leaked audio of “Iota Fujimi” to the tune of Beatmania IIDX song, "Outer Wall" by Shinji Hosoe, with Kazuhiko Nishi as the visuals. The animation would be shared to 2channel around December 8, 2001 and, within hours, “Nameless @ GoGoGoGo!” (名無しさん＠ゴーゴーゴーゴー!) became the default name of /net/. The raw file is at this link (video).²⁹⁾

• This was during the era of 8-character tripcodes, so #ｋａｍｉ used to generate ◆AhoNiShI, which can be read as “idiot nishi” (アホ西) in Japanese. Nowadays, it becomes ◆yGAhoNiShI.
• It's suggested that the users in the 1ch.tv/Nishi-related threads on 2channel simply got bored and the thread simply dissolved into casual discussion before vanishing altogether.

• History of 1ch That's Not Recorded in Textbooks on Chiyu 12-sai - Response to an internet textbook³⁰⁾ not having information on 1ch. It's extensive and holds all we know about 1ch.
• 1ch.tv on Niconico Encyclopedia
• 1ch.tv on Japanese Wikipedia

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