What is Japanizing Beam?

Japanizing Beam is a three-panel image macro where Ultraman Tiga fires a laser that transforms a character or object into an anime-style Japanese version[3].

Where did Japanizing Beam come from?

The original joke was posted to Twitter by @IsMaGuzHer on January 31, 2017, pairing Aztec god Quetzalcoatl with Lucoa from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid[1].

What does Japanizing Beam mean?

It pokes fun at Japanese media's habit of redesigning foreign characters, gods, or objects as cute anime girls[3].

How do you use Japanizing Beam?

Place the original subject in the top panel, keep Ultraman firing the beam in the middle, and put the anime-girl version in the bottom panel. Variants like Americanizing Beam swap the middle panel to target other countries[3].

Is Japanizing Beam still popular?

The format saw its biggest surge on Know Your Meme in February and March 2017, with dozens of edits and national variants like Americanizing Beam appearing at the peak[3]. Indonesian site Keepo.me's roundup of 17 edits pulled over 4,000 views in that same window[2].

Japanizing Beam

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Japanizing Beam is a three-panel image macro built around Ultraman Tiga firing a laser that transforms any character or object into an anime-style Japanese girl. It started on Twitter in January 2017 and blew up on Know Your Meme that February, spawning national variants like Americanizing Beam and Indianizing Beam.

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Overview

Japanizing Beam is a three-panel comic template that jokes about the way Japanese media tends to redesign foreign characters, mythological figures, or everyday objects as cute anime girls3. The top panel shows the original subject, the middle panel shows Ultraman Tiga from the Ultra series firing a laser with the caption 'Japanizing Beam!', and the bottom panel reveals the anime-style Japanese version.

The gag rests on the assumption that anything, from Aztec gods to inanimate objects, can be rendered as a moe schoolgirl once Japan gets its hands on it. The format shares DNA with the #UpgradeChallenge, another three-panel setup where a middle-panel change transforms the subject.

How It Spread

In the two weeks after Adept Samuel's upload, Know Your Meme users flooded the site with dozens of Japanizing Beam edits3. National variants started appearing almost immediately, including Americanizing Beam and Indianizing Beam, applying the same three-panel gag to different cultural stereotypes.

The template jumped to other meme aggregators soon after. Memecenter picked up its own Japanizing Beam tag6, and on February 27, 2017 the anime Facebook page Tohsaka's Cave Explorers posted early examples to its followers5. Indonesian humor site Keepo.me published a roundup of 17 Japanizing Beam edits on March 1, 2017 that pulled in over 4,000 views2.

Reddit was a slower burn. On March 5, 2017, user aRandomDudeOntheNet posted a Japanizing Beam variation to r/MemeEconomy, but the post never picked up much traction4.

How to Use This Meme

Making a Japanizing Beam edit is a fill-in-the-blank exercise. Pick any character, object, or figure for the top panel, keep the middle panel of Ultraman Tiga firing the beam with the 'Japanizing Beam!' caption intact, and drop in the anime-style Japanese reinterpretation for the bottom panel. Variants typically swap the middle-panel country to fit an alternate target, so an American flag with 'Americanizing Beam!' or an Indian setup with 'Indianizing Beam!' works the same way.

Frequently Asked Questions

References (6)