I Understood That Reference! Ten Times Anime Embraced Western Memes

Anime and memes are two of my favorite things, so I love it when they come together in the same place. In this post let’s examine how internet memes are received in Japan, and ten times anime embraced Western memes!

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Why Memes Cross Boundaries

I’ve been an observer of meme culture since the very beginning, and posting memes for anime fans on X, Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram is part of my job running J-List.

The word “meme” was coined by Dr. Richard Dawkins in his excellent book The Selfish Gene. It describes a “unit of culture” that passes from person to person, evolving as it moves the same way genes do. Some early examples of memes include a specific way of making pottery or constructing arches, of using music to help your group bond, or borrowing the latest technology from your neighbors to help your group survive better.

The world of internet memes arguably began in 1996 with the CGI Dancing Baby. But what really got the ball rolling, to my mind, was the explosion of All Your Base Are Belong To Us (sound warning) back in 2000. Ever since this moment, it became clear that every time we turned on our computers, we were likely to encounter some bizarre form of entertainment we could share with friends.

But Some Memes Don’t Translate Well

But ideas don’t always flow freely between East and West due to linguistic and cultural barriers. Many memes popular among Japanese internet users would go unnoticed by most Western audiences. For example, Japanese users often use ‘www’ to denote laughter, as the Japanese word for ‘to laugh’ (warau) starts with a “w.” Since ‘www’ looks like grass growing, the word for grass (草 kusa) became another way to express laughter online.

You might expect Japanese fans to be familiar with famous memes like “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.” However, that’s not the case, as they experienced The Legend of Zelda in Japanese rather than English. Similarly, they wouldn’t understand why American fans of a certain age might chuckle at a number being “over 9000.” Instead, Japanese fans would be more likely to quote the legendary film Castle in the Sky Laputa, crack a “Bright slap” joke from Mobile Suit Gundam, or reference any number of iconic lines from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. A few memes do manage to transcend the East-West divide, such as the Hare Hare Yukai dance. But unless a meme can be communicated without needing to understand language, it will probably be limited to the English meme-o-sphere.

Let’s learn Japanese through famous anime phrases in this blog post!

When Anime Embraces Western Memes

It’s funny when you’re watching anime and suddenly the characters make some gesture or meme related to a meme we’ve seen online. We immediately sit up and shout, “I understood that reference!”

By far the most common meme that’s known in the West is the Reaction Guys meme, known in Japan as Gaijin 4koma. This meme got its start in 2003, when four reporters from IGN were watching a Nintendo presentation and reacted to a new game being announced. We see this meme show up in anime quite often.

K-On! did it too. The meme helped define the first decade of the 2000s for many fans.

Another Western meme that became so famous that even anime studios had to start dropping references was Distracted Boyfriend. This is a scene from Futoku no Guild.

What anime studio could resist riffing on the classic Anakin and Padma meme. I loved this scene from the Tensei Oujo anime.

Then there was that time MASHLE was compelled to embrace a meme from La La Land.

Mining Western memes for jokes you can include in your anime is fun! Enjoy this Salt Bae meme from That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime.

We would expect an anime like Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan to embrace fun Western memes, and it didn’t let us down.

Famous Western memes find their way into manga, too. Like the time Attack on Titan included the Funny Kid Testing meme in a background panel.

Thanks for reading this post about ten times anime gave a shout-out to famous Western memes. Do you have any other examples we should know about? Tell us in the comments below!