Soy Sauce Warrior Kikkoman

The nihongo|Soy Sauce Warrior Kikkoman|醤油戦士キッコーマン|Shōyu Senshi Kikkōman — or just nihongo|"Kikkoman"|キッコーマン|Kikkōman as most people know him — is a superhero featured in a famous parody flash movie, based on the Kikkoman Japanese soy sauce brand, that emerged in the early 2000s and became an Internet phenomenon.

The Kikkoman character was originally created in Shift-JIS by members of the large Japanese 2channel message board, but it was the flash movie created by Yogatori that made him famous worldwide. The movie has several references to Japanese food, anime and tokusatsu. To people who don't know much about these subjects and Japanese culture as a whole, the movie's tone can feel funny and unusual. It is also a good example of Engrish, as seen on its translation to English ("What a suckers!", for example). The chorus is also a pun that probably passes unnoticed to most non-Japanese speakers. "Show you" refers to "shōyu", the Japanese word for soy sauce. This is also seen in the original version of the movie (the movie became famous well before an English translation was made available by the author).

There are two versions of the flash which have different variations of scenes, for example, in the scene where a cat is eating an omelet, the cat (Giko Cat) is embarrassed by stupidity and the variation, where the cat is either hanged by Kikkoman or the cat hangs himself after Kikkoman yells at him. Also, the scene where Kikkoman sleeps with the girl is noticeably different between the two versions. For example, in the version with Giko Cat hanging himself, the girl's upper half is not covered with a blanket, but with Kikkoman's arm covering it, and her left arm appears to be extended towards Kikkoman's crotch under the blanket. Obviously, in the other version, the blanket is draped over both of them. In that scene (in both versions) in the low left-hand corner, it jokingly says "Do Not Try This at Home, Kids." which also appears in the scene where Kikkoman hangs on to the bottom of a fish-shaped blimp in the sky.

The flash often circulates under the name "Kikkomaso". This is an intentional error in writing the name as it is rendered in Japanese katakana -- the character for 'n' (ン) is very similar to the character for 'so' (ソ), and, much like in many American internet communities, the intentionally-misspelled version came to be used for ironic effect.

External links

*languageicon|ja|Japanese [http://members.at.infoseek.co.jp/kikkomaso/ Official website for the "Soy Sauce Warrior Kikkoman"]
*languageicon|ja|Japanese [http://www.2ch.net/ 2channel] – The posting website where Kikkoman was born
*languageicon|ja|Japanese [http://aa5.2ch.net/mona/ 2channel Mona BBS ("Mona Ita" or "Mona Daisuki@2ch")] – The 2channel Mona-BBS
* [http://yogatori.com/movies/kikkomaso/kikkomaso_e.htm Fight! Kikkoman (戦え！キッコーマン "Tatakae! Kikkoman")] – The Kikkoman flash movie
* [http://yoga.at.infoseek.co.jp/flash/kikkomaso_e.htm Kikkoman] - The other version of the Flash movie.
* [http://yogatori.com/movies/kikkomaso/kaijin_e.htm Banana and Shrimp Showtime (怪人たちの歌 "Kaijintachi no Uta")] – A spinoff of the original movie by the same creator
*languageicon|ja|Japanese [http://aa5.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/mona/1105867290/ Soysauce Case #9（醤油入れ９ "Shōyu Ire 9"）] in 2channel Mona BBS
*languageicon|ja|Japanese [http://kikko.178ch.net "(　・∀・)さん"'s Kikkoman parody (醤油入れ　過去ログ集 "Shōyu Ire Kakorogu-Shu")] from the 2ch.net Thread Log