Ed Relaxing / This Is Not the Law of Equivalent Exchange

About

Ed Relaxing also known as Nii-san and Pimping Ed, refers to a series of exploitable images based on a screencap of Edward Elric, the elder of the protagonist brothers in the Japanese anime/manga Fullmetal Alchemist. In 2019, the image, paired with the caption "This Is Not the Law of Equivalent Exchange," gained popularity as a macro.

Origin

On October 4th, 2003, first episode "Those Who Challenge the Sun" of the Japanese anime series Fullmetal Alchemist premiered.^[1] In one scene of the episode, main protagonist Edward Elric is shown slouching on a bench with his arms spread out, explaining to character Rosé Thomas the chemical makeup of a human.

Water – 35 liters; carbon – 20 kilograms; ammonia – 4 liters; lime – 1.5 kilograms; phosphoros – 800 grams; salt – 200 grams; saltpeter – 100 grams; sulphur – 80 grams; fluoirine – 7.5 grans; iron – 5 grams; silicon – 3 grams and a tracer amounts of 15 other elements.

In Fullmetal Alchemist manga, the scene can be discovered in the first chapter "The Two Alchemists", pages 15-16, although the spread-armed reclining pose itself is not pictured.

Spread

In mid-2000s, that laid-back pose of Ed became a popular subject for photo collages in nijiura boards of the Japanese anonymous imageboard Futaba Channel (2chan). Because his younger brother Alphonse calls Ed "Brother" (兄さん, Niisan) throughout the series, it's considered to be Edward's adoptive name in the franchise. Besides, because Rie Kugimiya^[2], the voice actor of Al, continued uttered this phrase in a bit strange pronunciation which sounds not "Niisan" properly but "Nīsan", lacking of the 2nd "i"'s pronounciation, this exploitable fad of Ed was called as "ニーサン" in katakana characters for representing its awkwardness. A private archive for this Futaba's fad has collected collaged photos in this series since October 2006. Around 2007, it started gaining popularity on anime forums in the English-speaking web.

This manner has also inherited to illustrators communities pixiv^[3] and Nico Nico Seiga^[4] in later. However, a few years afterward it became to refer to Junichi Kaito, an eccentric person in 2009's Kamen Rider title Kamen Rider Decade.^[5] Thus, those searches include parodies or fan arts for both of them.

This Is Not the Law of Equivalent Exchange

On October 23rd, 2018, 9GAG user maximumtrollma posted a meme featuring the image, captioned "That is not the law of equivalent exchange" (shown below). The post gained over 2,700 points in one year.^[7]

The format did not see any notable spread until on March 24th, 2019, Reddit user AntisocialSovietLoli posted another meme based on the captioned image to /r/animemes, where it gained over 17,400 upvotes in four months (shown below).^[8]

In the following months, the format received a significant spread on Reddit, with notable examples appearing in /r/dankmemes,^[9] /r/memes^[10] and other subreddits.

Notable Examples

Compilation^[6]

Template

Illustrations

Left & Right: Touhou Project

Left: Kaito from Vocaloid | Center: Mario | Right: Zidane from Final Fantasy IX

Search Interest

External References