Well, that escalated quickly. First, Japanese schoolgirls started uploading photos of faux Dragon Ball moves. Then, Westerners replied with Star Wars style Force Grips. And now?
Japanese schoolboys, it seems, are now uploading photos of imaginary Quidditch games. Quidditch, of course, is the broomstick-based team sport from the Harry Potter books. Why "imaginary"? There already are Muggle versions of Quidditch, that's why.
Recently, on 2ch, Japan's largest bulletin board, a photo of ballplayers from a high school baseball team enjoying Quidditch went viral. The image was retweeted thousands of times, and it seems to have inspired a handful of other schoolboys to take up flying broomsticks, too.
In Japan, students are responsible for cleaning their classrooms and also the school itself (for baseball players, this would also mean the field and the clubhouse). Thus, students have easy access to brooms, making phony games of Quidditch possible. After Dragon Ball and Star Wars, photos influenced by Harry Potter, which is very popular in Japan, would be the next logical step, no?
The top photo isn't the first "Playing Quidditch now" (クィディッチなう) pic to hit the internet. In February, this photo (below) popped up on Twitter.
And then, there's this photo of Russian soldiers "flying" through the air. Honestly, I don't know how old it is (I'm sure there are other "old" Quidditch pics!), and these photos recently emerging out of Japan probably didn’t influence the Russian troops.
Still, the recent photo trend has gone from Japanese schoolgirls to the outside world and now back to Japan. We've nearly come full circle. Isn't the internet magical? Yes, it is.
この野球部ｗｗｗｗｗｗ [2ch]
あき, はにゃれん, とらちゃん, げろげろーす [Twitter]
Meanwhile in Army [English Russia]
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.