I wrote recently about the “peace” sign that the Japanese are fond of making whenever they see a camera, despite the fact that no one is consciously aware of where the gesture came from or what the “peace” in question might be referring to. The “V for Victory” sign is just one of a great many super-cute poses that women from Japan (and Korea, Taiwan etc.) are capable of. Some others include puffing up the face in a cute pout, looking sad while drawing invisible tear tracks with a finger, reenacting Sailor Moon’s transformation pose while winking, and making several variations of nyan nyan (cat girl posing). Whenever I see one of these manga-like poses there’s an almost feral reaction that takes place in my brain, causing me to think kawaii thoughts, but that might just be me. It’s hard to know where this bizarre posing culture came from, but I believe it’s tied to the rise of the Puri-Kura or “Print Club,” those automated photo machines that took Asia by storm in the 1990s and which are still found in all the fashionable parts of Tokyo.
Japanese females have a huge arsenal of cute posing gestures.
