To quote:

This is, in fact, a form of intellectual fanservice. It can be played on many levels, depending on the complexity and obscurity of the foreign words used. The Servants in Fate/stay night are a fine example of fanservice for mythology buffs. Neon Genesis Evangelion’s opening sequence is, like the segmented structure of Foucault’s Pendulum, an exercise in fanservice for fans of Kabbalah. Kyon’s nickname is fanservice for fans of the Cynics. ‘Vader’ means ‘father’ in Dutch. And so forth.

This comes pretty close to redefining the term "fanservice". But we had this discussion before (via):

The scene with the HP-41 in episode two of Rocket Girls is pure engineer fanservice.

Going down that route pretty soon makes the term meaningless. Fortunately, Daniel's piece thrusts in an entirely different direction, I'm just quoting out for context here and placing a warning stake at the precpice.

BTW, I was about to rage about "остранение", which is the same crap as "governmentality" and "subalternal": a word invented by pseudo-intellectual wankers who infest European, American, and Russian universities. But then I remembered that it's an anime blog, not the place to mock Derida for stealing the slippage of the signifier from Lacan.

UPDATE: Daniel was quick to point that Derrida has two 'r'.

It occured to me that I should disclaim any agreement with the article on defamiliarization which I linked above. It rejects defamiliarization as "pre-marxist concept of dramaturgy", which seems like a pretty weak argument to me. Unfortunately, "made by intellectual wankers" is too broad and thus not very forceful either, but I'm not claiming any intellectual rigour here. I just wanted dates and names on record.

UDPATE A: Aziz suggests “brainservice” and “engineerservice”.