Anime, of course, is rife with fun memes that have emerged over the years, passed from creators to fans and back again. Some iconic anime memes include the “south seas episode” that’s loaded with swimsuit fan service, the “sudden onsen hot springs vacation” episode which somehow gets a male character in the girl’s bath, the “rich girl who’s the daughter of a powerful zaibatsu conglomerate,” or the new visual image of “boned meat” showing up from time to time. Another archetype is a female character who’s hinnyu, a word which literally means “impoverished chest,” also known as pettanko (peh-TAN-ko), which is more or less the “sound” of something being completely flat. These pettanko characters are great sources of comic relief, terribly concerned about the fact that they can still fit in their school swimsuit from the sixth grade. Recently there was a discussion on 2ch, Japan’s ubiquitous BBS, about the top flat chested anime characters. The list included such favorites as Konata (naturally), Mikoto from Index/Railgun, mai waifu Taiga from Toradora, Aria of the Scarlet Ammo, and Erio from Denpa Onna. (If you’re an old school City Hunter fan, you might realize that the opposite of pettanko is mokkori (moh-KOH-ree), essentially an onomatopoeia for the “sound” of something sticking up, for example a hill or a Japanese burial mound, or in the case of Ryo Saeba, a certain region of his pants. Ah, the useless Japanese words you learn from J-List…)
Konata’s catchphrase, “a flat chest is a status symbol!”
