What is Sasuke Choke Edits?

It is a Twitter photo-combination format in which the character Itachi Uchiha is edited out of a Naruto: Shippūden scene and replaced with a different person, animal or character appearing to choke his brother Sasuke.

Where did Sasuke Choke Edits come from?

The source frame is from Naruto episode 85 (2004) and its Shippūden flashback in episode 259 (2012). The meme format began on January 13, 2019 when Twitter user @kirikocult posted a two-image edit pairing a cat with the Sasuke shot.

What does Sasuke Choke Edits mean?

The joke uses Sasuke's tearful, pinned expression as a fixed reaction while swapping in an absurd choker, so the humor comes from the mismatch between the serious anime moment and whatever is now doing the choking.

How do you use Sasuke Choke Edits?

Users typically post two stacked images on Twitter, one of the new choker positioned like Itachi and one of Sasuke against the wall, so that combined they read as a single scene. The template is close in style to Monkey Haircut and Dog Petting edits.

Is Sasuke Choke Edits still popular?

The format had its main viral run on Twitter in mid-January 2019, when @kirikocult, @glossjeons and @shotodorkis' edits each pulled thousands of retweets. It is now treated as a classic anime Twitter edit template rather than an active trend.

Sasuke Choke Edits

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Published September 26, 2026

Sasuke Choke Edits is a photo-combination format built from a Naruto: Shippūden shot of Itachi Uchiha pinning his brother by the throat. In January 2019 Twitter users started swapping Itachi out for cats, K-pop idols and other anime characters, turning the tearful confrontation into one of that winter's most-copied edit templates.

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Overview

Sasuke Choke Edits, also called Choking Sasuke, Strangling Sasuke and Sasuke Being Choked, is a photo-combination format built around a single frame of Itachi Uchiha holding his younger brother Sasuke against a wall by the throat1. Editors crop Itachi out of the shot and paste in a new choker, often a cat, an idol or another anime character, so that Sasuke's teary, wide-eyed face reads as the reaction to whatever is now gripping him6.

The humor works because Sasuke's expression carries all of the original scene's emotional weight while the replacement choker is usually absurd, cute or wildly out of context. The two-image layout, one photo of the choker and one of Sasuke, gives the format a family resemblance to Twitter's earlier Monkey Haircut and Dog Petting jokes, where users pair unrelated pictures to imply a scene6.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Naruto: Shippūden (source image) / Twitter (viral spread)

Creator

@kirikocult

Date

2019

The source shot comes from the 85th episode of the original Naruto anime, "Hate Among the Uchihas: The Last of the Clan!", which aired in Japan on May 26, 2004 and shows Itachi pinning Sasuke to the wall while calling him weak1. The redrawn version most editors actually use is the flashback from Naruto: Shippūden episode 259, "Rift", which streamed on April 19, 20122.

The meme format itself only appeared years later. On January 13, 2019, Twitter user @kirikocult posted the earliest known edit, a two-image tweet that lines up a photo of a cat with the Sasuke frame so the cat appears to be doing the choking3. The tweet passed 9,900 retweets and 19,500 likes within three days6.

How It Spread

@kirikocult's cat edit set the template, but the format only really took off a day later. On January 14, 2019, @glossjeons posted a version in which South Korean rapper J-Hope of BTS appears to be the one choking Sasuke, and the tweet cleared 12,000 retweets within two days4. The same day, @shotodorkis swapped in fellow Naruto character Sakura Haruno as the choker, a version that picked up around 4,900 retweets in the same window5.

After those three tweets, the two-image structure became a plug-and-play template on Twitter, with users lining up idols, cartoon characters, pets and objects to fill Itachi's role6. The format's kinship with Monkey Haircut and Dog Petting, both earlier photo-pairing gags, helped it spread quickly among the same anime and K-pop Twitter circles that had already normalized the joke shape6.

Timeline

2004-05-26

Naruto episode 85 "Hate Among the Uchihas: The Last of the Clan!" airs in Japan, introducing the Itachi-choking-Sasuke scene later used for edits[1].

2012-04-19

Naruto: Shippūden episode 259 "Rift" streams with a redrawn flashback of the same scene, which becomes the frame most editors use[2].

2019-01-13

Twitter user @kirikocult posts the earliest known Sasuke Choke Edit, pairing a cat photo with the Sasuke frame[3].

2019-01-14

@glossjeons posts a J-Hope version and @shotodorkis posts a Sakura Haruno version, and the two-image format takes off on Twitter[4].

2019-01-16

Within about three days of the first post, @kirikocult's cat edit passes 9,900 retweets and 19,500 likes[6].

How to Use This Meme

The typical Sasuke Choke Edit is a two-image tweet. The first picture shows whoever or whatever is doing the choking, framed so their hand, paw or arm lines up with Sasuke's neck. The second is the Shippūden shot of Sasuke pressed against the wall with tears in his eyes. Common conventions include picking a choker whose pose already resembles Itachi's grip, and leaving the images uncaptioned so the visual gag lands on its own.