Commando is the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger action film that became a long-running live-posting and remix fad on Japanese sites 2Channel and Nico Nico Douga.

Where did Commando come from?

The meme grew out of 2Channel's live-coverage boards during a June 18th, 2004 Japanese TV broadcast of the film, then spread to Nico Nico Douga as MAD remixes after the video site launched in 2007.

What does Commando mean?

In this context Commando refers to the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and the Japanese fan ritual around it, not the older slang for going without underwear.

How do you use Commando?

Fans quote lines from Katsushige Hirata's Japanese dub in sync with the film, or edit Bennett's final fight into MAD remix videos on Nico Nico Douga.

Is Commando still popular?

It is a classic of Japanese internet culture with over 300 MADs cataloged by 2011 and an active Nico Nico Pedia entry, though its peak live-posting traffic was 2006 to 2007.

Commando

2004viral videoclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Commando is a 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie that became an unlikely internet meme on Japanese message board 2Channel starting in 2004. Fans piled into live-coverage threads whenever the film aired on TV, and after Nico Nico Douga launched in 2007, users turned Bennett's final fight into hundreds of MAD remix videos.

japanese internet memes movie quote memes nico nico douga memes mashup video memes so bad its good memes

Overview

Commando is a 1985 American action film directed by Mark L. Lester and distributed by 20th Century Fox, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as retired Delta Force colonel John Matrix1. B-movie fans latched onto the film for its stiff line readings, over-the-top violence, and quotable one-liners6. In Japan, a TV dub translated by Katsushige Hirata first aired in 1989 and is the specific cut that later fandom obsessed over3.

As an internet meme, Commando is a live-posting ritual: viewers flood Japanese chat threads during broadcasts of the film, machine-gunning quotes back at each scene as it plays5. Bennett's climactic knife fight with Matrix is the single most-remixed sequence in the fan community, and its shouted Japanese-dub lines became copypasta that circulated far outside the movie itself3.

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Origin & Background

Platform

2Channel (Japanese forum) / Nico Nico Douga (viral spread)

Creator

2Channel users

Date

2004

The Commando fad took shape on 2Channel's live-coverage boards (実況板), threads built for real-time posting alongside TV broadcasts and famous for their punishing scroll speed5. Momentum picked up during a June 18th, 2004 airing of the film, when users piled into a thread to shout along with each scene5. By 2006 the ritual was a repeat fixture on the schedule, with regulars showing up whenever a station queued the movie back up2.

How It Spread

On March 5th, 2006, a Commando broadcast pulled so many simultaneous posters onto 2Channel that several of the site's strongest servers went down under the load5. The peak came on July 20th, 2007, when one thread hit 1,937 posts per minute and finished with more than 50,000 total posts while the film was on the air5. The scale of the traffic was written up by the Japanese portal Livedoor News in 20082.

After Nico Nico Douga opened in 2007, editors began cutting Commando footage into MAD videos: comedic remixes that sync dialogue to music or splice scenes into unrelated anime6. Bennett's last battle was the most reused scene, and by May 2011 there were over 300 Commando MADs on the site, with mirrors going up on YouTube as originals kept getting pulled for copyright4.

When 20th Century Fox released a Japanese Commando DVD in May 2009, it shipped with Katsushige Hirata's dub, the exact track fans had grown up quoting7. Its Amazon.co.jp product page filled with joke reviews written in the voice of Matrix and Bennett, turning the retail listing itself into another Commando thread7.

How to Use This Meme

Watch the Japanese-dubbed cut of Commando (Hirata's translation is the canonical one) with a chat window open, and post shouted Bennett or Matrix lines at exact scene beats to sync with other viewers3. Video edits typically loop or subtitle the final knife fight, or drop Commando dialogue over unrelated anime and music tracks in the standard Nico Nico Douga MAD format6.