Untan (うんたん)

About

Untan (Japanese: うんたん) is the Japanese onomatopoeia of the noise made when playing castanets, and the iconic phrase in the Japanese anime/manga series K-On!.^[1]

This catchy phrase and a cute dancing filled with Moe are popular subject of fan arts and the most used resource for MAD videos in Nico Nico Douga (NND).

Origin

Untan appeared in the 1st episode of K-On! 1st season, and it was first aired in Japan in April 3rd, 2009. The adorable girl playing castanets in this scene is Yui Hirasawa who is the protagonist of this series.

According to Nico Nico Pedia^[2], an internet encyclopedia for NND, Aki Toyosaki^[3] who was the voice actor of Yui answered to an interview by a TV show that Untan was an ad lib by her.

Spread

Soon after this TV animation series began to air, huge amount of fan arts, parodies and MADs for K-ON! was exploding through the web and Doujin fandom, and this first impressive scene in this series was being frequently included to those creations. Especially in MAD videos, “Untan” has been frequently used because it’s quite easy to fit with any other music resource.

More than 600 videos reusing this phrase have been posted to NND.^[4]

Notable Examples

For more videos, check out the videos section in this entry.

【けいおん！】　澪と唯 で うんたん・萌えキュン　【MikuMikuDance】 ^[5] (See also : Miku Miku Dance)

唯達でアッーウッウッイネイネ^[6] (See also : Paffendorf Dance)

Cirno 【東方】 チルノでうんたん 【けいおん】^[7] (See also : Touhou Project)

MADs

【けいおん！】　平沢唯のグルメレース^[8] (See also : Kirby’s Gourmet Race Remixes)

平沢唯のパーフェクトにーといくせい教室【けいおん！】^[9] (See also : Cirno’s Perfect Mass Class)

【けいおん！MAD】うんたうんた　で　てってってー^[10] (See also : Te-Te-Te-)

Illustrations

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.