Once upon a time there was a pleasant little make-believe
world called the "Weird World." However, over time, the
creator of this world decided that it needed a better name,
and so she dubbed it the Nikai. To find out why, read below.

Nikai: What Does It *Mean*?!
By: M.E.

All right, the name "Nikai" comes from two (or three,
depending on how you look at it) different things. First of
all, the "ni" part is from Mandyish. In Mandyish, ni means
weird (how did Mandy introduce it into Mandyish in the
first place? Why, she got it from Monty Python and the Holy
Grail, of course!). The "kai" part is from Yu*Yu*Hakusho. In
YYH, there are three worlds, the Ningenkai (human world),
Reikai (spirit world), and the Makai (demon world). Among
some fans, the universe in which YYH takes place is called
the "Yu Yu Kai." Taking all of this into consideration, I
figured that "kai" meant world, or something close to that.

And so, for a while, the Weird World was known off and on
as the Nikai.

I recently bought a English-Japanese/Japanese-English
dictionary. Curious, I looked up "kai" and found that it
actually means level, or floor. Among the examples listed
was "nikai," which apparently means the second floor.

While I was on a car trip with Rapunzel, I told her about
this, and we both agreed that it was a big let down since
"second floor" doesn't seem like a very cool name.
Then Rapunzel's father commented that maybe we were on "the
second floor of a one story building." The weirdness of this
remark suited us perfectly, the Nikai became official, and
everyone was happy.

Sort of.