Kamehameha!

March 27, 2013 11:49 PM

Kotaku has an article about the latest Japanese schoolgirl trend: fake martial arts attacks à la Dragon Ball. The spoofed Kamehameha attacks aren't new, but the ubiquity of mobile phone cameras makes for some hilarious shots. Previously on Kotaku.
posted by Athanassiel (33 comments total)

Pretty clever!
posted by JHarris at 12:42 AM on March 28, 2013

I can't stop seeing "invisible swingset!" for the first photo.

(The ground punch at the end is my favorite)
posted by ceribus peribus at 12:59 AM on March 28, 2013 [5 favorites]

Beats the Harlem Shake by a mile... you could say it's streets ahead.
posted by Pendragon at 1:06 AM on March 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'm waiting for the inevitable two-frame back-and-forth POV animated GIFs that give an impression of 3D.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:03 AM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, we used to do that with Battle of the Planets but it was the early eighties and nobody had heard of mobile phones, let alone ones with digicams in them.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:05 AM on March 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

These aren't faked. The new Japanese Education Ministry PE standards are really paying off!
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:06 AM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Kamehameha, ha, ha.
posted by Gordafarin at 3:49 AM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is doubly magic for me, because I don't think I can even jump like that.
posted by lucidium at 4:09 AM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

HADOUKEN!
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:04 AM on March 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

Thanks for posting this. I love giggling through my morning cup of coffee.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 5:19 AM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Being a kid in Japan always seems to be a constant fight between scary as shit and awesome as hell. Doubly so for girls.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:29 AM on March 28, 2013

Why is it named after a 19th indigenous Hawaiian ruler?
posted by spitbull at 5:29 AM on March 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

From the wiki:

Akira Toriyama actually tried a number of poses when he was alone in order to decide the coolest pose for the Kamehameha. After much contemplation, he could not decide on a name for his "Kame" attack, so he asked his wife who came up with the name. She told Akira that it would be easy to remember the name of the attack if he uses the name of the cultural Hawaiian king named Kamehameha (lit. "the very lonely one" or "the one set apart" in Hawaiian language). Also, Kamehameha means "Turtle Destruction Wave" in Japanese.

Which is cool because (a) Goku is originally the only one of his kind on Earth, and (b) his martial arts instructor is the master of the "Turtle School."
posted by zombieflanders at 5:49 AM on March 28, 2013 [12 favorites]

HADOUKEN!

SONIC BOOM!

Guile 4 LYFE
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:52 AM on March 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

This is extremely important and I am glad you shared it.
posted by shothotbot at 6:01 AM on March 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

Came in to ask the same thing spitbull did: why is it named after the Hawaiian king who basically unified the islands under rule? Makes no sense whatsoever..... then again, it's been a while since I was a teenager, so maybe that's why I don't see it.
posted by easily confused at 6:05 AM on March 28, 2013

dang it, missed zf's update.....
posted by easily confused at 6:05 AM on March 28, 2013

World Famous: It's Dragon Ball Zee.

This is awesome. And I agree, the ground punches are by far the most awesome of the awesome.
posted by bfranklin at 7:34 AM on March 28, 2013

Is it "Dragon Ball Zed" in the UK/Antipodes?
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:36 AM on March 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

It's definitely Zed in my head.

zombieflanders: Being a kid in Japan always seems to be a constant fight between scary as shit and awesome as hell.
posted by forgetful snow at 7:48 AM on March 28, 2013

I think in Japan, it's Dragon Ball Zeddo.
posted by fnerg at 8:34 AM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

OK, I RTFA (and this being far outside my usual beat* I now need to wash my eyes out with battery acid), and this is all it says:

Akira Toriyama actually tried a number of poses when he was alone in order to decide the coolest pose for the Kamehameha. After much contemplation, he could not decide on a name for his "Kame" attack, so he asked his wife who came up with the name.[3] She told Akira that it would be easy to remember the name of the attack if he uses the name of the cultural Hawaiian king named Kamehameha (lit. "the very lonely one" or "the one set apart" in Hawaiian language). Also, Kamehameha means "Turtle Destruction Wave" in Japanese.

I love that "also." I wonder if it's true.
posted by spitbull at 8:47 AM on March 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

Yeah, 亀破滅波. That's what it means.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 12:16 PM on March 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

It is absolutely Dragon Ball Zee in the states (fun fact: my brother Mike composed the music for the American import, which I've always thought was pretty cool.)
posted by Navelgazer at 1:29 PM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

OK, these photo meme things are not my thing, but this one made me laugh out loud.
posted by bongo_x at 1:48 PM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Glorious.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:15 PM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Strange Interlude, it's definitely "Dragon Ball Zed" in Australia.
posted by Athanassiel at 7:14 PM on March 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

I can confirm it is "Dragon Ball Zed" in the UK, too.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:01 PM on March 28, 2013

Huh. I’m from Australia and grew up when DBZ (the show, obviously) fever was at its peak, and all the kids I knew pronounced it as “zee” because the voiceover guy said “zee” in the opening theme and the intro/outro segments. Pretty sure the hosts of the morning show that DBZ was a part of also said “zee”, though I can’t find any evidence of it.

Then again, don’t trust us. Our dumb country’s canonical pronunciation of “Sega” is “see-ga”.
posted by scottjacksonx at 2:30 AM on March 29, 2013

Ok, this is weird. I was convinced I had heard it called "zed" here, but the few Australian video excerpts I can find relating to it preserve the "zee". But if you google dragon ball zed, the second site that comes up is "the official Australian website". So maybe it's a bit of column A, a bit of column B.
posted by Athanassiel at 8:46 AM on March 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

We gave this a try this weekend
posted by shothotbot at 6:55 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]

shothotbot, there are no words for how awesome that is!
posted by Athanassiel at 6:58 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

In fairness, I did get her back.
posted by shothotbot at 7:00 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]