# Ranka Lee's Kira Pose Kira is a signature hand gesture performed by pop idol Ranka Lee during the song Interstellar Flight in the 2008 anime Macross Frontier, where she flashes the \m/ sign next to her face and shouts the Japanese word for sparkly. By late 2008, Nico Nico Douga uploaders had posted thousands of dance and singing covers of the song, with the pose anchoring most thumbnails. ## Origin The pose debuts in episode 12 of Macross Frontier, the 2008 Satelight TV series set in a space colony fleet under attack by alien Vajra[1]. Mid-battle, Ranka Lee is dropped onto the field inside a Variable Fighter rigged with external speakers and performs her debut song Interstellar Flight in mid-air, with the fighting pausing around her improvised concert[3]. During the song she does the Kira pose twice, and that framing, a tiny idol number cutting through a war scene, is what fans latched onto. The song itself is performed by Megumi Nakajima, who also voices Ranka Lee, which collapsed the character and the real-life singer into one promotable act[2]. The single release and its televised performance by Nakajima fed directly into the cover-video boom that followed on Nico Nico Douga[3]. - **Platform:** Macross Frontier (anime) / Nico Nico Douga (viral spread) - **Creator:** Macross Frontier production (Satelight), with vocals by Megumi Nakajima - **Date:** 2008 ## Overview The gesture is simple: Ranka Lee tilts her head, raises the \m/ sign (the same shape used for "I love you" in American Sign Language) up beside her cheek, and chirps "Kira!" (キラッ☆), the Japanese onomatopoeia for a sparkle or glint[1]. The pose shows up twice inside a single musical number, so fans picked it as the single visual shorthand for the whole Ranka character and for Interstellar Flight (Seikan Hikou) itself[3]. In covers and fan art, the pose is almost always framed the same way: face turned slightly, one hand near the face, the star-and-sparkle emoji ☆ hanging off the word Kira in the title. Dance cover thumbnails on Nico Nico almost universally freeze on this exact moment[4], and pixiv illustrators tag their drawings with キラッ☆ so searchers can find every variant in one query[6]. The joke isn't a punchline, it is a greeting card gesture that fans redeploy whenever they want to signal cute idol energy. ## How It Spread During summer 2008 the song became one of the dominant subjects on Nico Nico Douga's three big participatory tags: "I tried dancing" (踊ってみた, odotte mita), "I tried singing" (歌ってみた, utatte mita) and "I tried playing" (演奏してみた, ensou shite mita)[4]. Know Your Meme counted more than 3,000 videos under the Seikan Hikou cover tags, with the Kira pose appearing in most thumbnails or video intros[3]. On YouTube and Nico Nico, remix editors cut MAD-style music videos that paired Interstellar Flight with footage from unrelated anime and internet characters doing the \m/ gesture[3]. Illustration communities picked it up too: pixiv tag searches for キラッ☆ returned fan drawings of Ranka and crossover characters flashing the sign[6], and deviantART hosted an English-language wave of Kira Ranka Lee fan art[7]. The pose outlived the show's broadcast run and is still a stock reference whenever anime fans want to perform exaggerated idol cuteness[2]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Ranka Lee's Kira Pose? It is a hand gesture where Ranka Lee holds the \m/ sign beside her face and shouts "Kira!", meaning sparkly or shiny, during her song Interstellar Flight[3]. ### Where did Ranka Lee's Kira Pose come from? The pose comes from episode 12 of the 2008 anime Macross Frontier, where Ranka sings Interstellar Flight from a mecha in mid-battle[1]. ### What does Ranka Lee's Kira Pose mean? Kira (キラッ☆) is Japanese onomatopoeia for a sparkle, so the pose reads as a cutesy idol flourish rather than any specific message[3]. ### How do you use Ranka Lee's Kira Pose? Fans copy the \m/ hand near the face in cover-dance videos on Nico Nico Douga and in illustrations on pixiv and deviantART, usually tagged キラッ☆ or Kira Ranka Lee[6]. ### Is Ranka Lee's Kira Pose still popular? It is a classic anime reference tied to Macross Frontier fandom, with pixiv illustrations and Nico Nico covers accumulating well past the show's 2008 broadcast[2]. ## References 1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macross_frontier]() 2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megumi_Nakajima]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ranka-lees-kira-pose]() 4. [https://www.nicovideo.jp/tag/%E6%98%9F%E9%96%93%E9%A3%9B%E8%A1%8C%20%E6%AD%8C%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6%E3%81%BF%E3%81%9F]() 5. [https://www.nicovideo.jp/tag/%E6%98%9F%E9%96%93%E9%A3%9B%E8%A1%8C%20%E8%B8%8A%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6%E3%81%BF%E3%81%9F]() 6. [https://www.pixiv.net/search.php?s_mode=s_tag&word=%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E2%98%86]() 7. [https://browse.deviantart.com/?q=Kira+Ranka+Lee]() 8. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCtjVsdHo84]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/ranka-lees-kira-pose Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library