Hinomoto Oniko
日本鬼子 (ri ben gui zi) is a common disparaging term in China for Japanese people, dating back to the Sino-Japanese War(s). After the recent Diaoyu/Senkaku geo-political drama, the term has seen a resurgence in popularity in China, where the anti-Japanese movement comes back in fashion every so often.
Some creative Japanese folks noticed that 日本鬼子 can easily be parsed as a female Japanese name “Hinomoto Oniko” and the moé-fication project began.
A Japanese blog (that has since been made private) translated some responses obtained from Chinese netizens. Most of the reactions can be summarized as, “What is this I don’t even-” but one guy calmly said, “Please give her long straight black hair.”
More pics on Itai-News and this Chinese blog. More discussions on Slashdot JP. There’s also a YouTube video compilation of the images. I won’t be surprised if Oniko doujinshi start popping up in the Winter Comiket.
Anime otaku: helping to realize world peace one politically-inappropriate personification at a time. Personally, as a Nanjing-born Chinese, I think this is awesome.
October 31st, 2010 at 10:03 pm
I think it’s awesome that as a Nanjing-born Chinese, you think it’s awesome.
November 1st, 2010 at 6:36 am
The 8th one in the video (at 0:14–0:16) Is my favorite. I don’t suppose you archived a copy before the blog when private?
November 1st, 2010 at 6:46 am
Doh, /me follows the link.
November 1st, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Moé-fication shall bring about world peace by making all your enemies turn into objects of moe. Awesome backup plan. So otakus are going to be saviors of the world?
November 2nd, 2010 at 11:25 am
we shall counter with 支那酱！！！
November 3rd, 2010 at 3:31 am
Hi, just wondering as I’ve been following this site for ages, are you currently at NUS? Feel free to drop me an email if you are not comfortable revealing that here…
November 10th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
No, I am not.
December 4th, 2010 at 3:18 am
so, where/what are you studying btw?
December 4th, 2010 at 3:36 am
ah, never mind, did a search and saw your previous post about it.
good luck in stanford doing whatever it is you are doing! though if you’re on the IDA scholarship, its probably Comp Science….