Za Warudo/WRYYYYY

About

The Za Warudo…Wryyyyy meme comes from the finishing move of the character Dio Brando from the various Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure arcade games which came from a popular Japanese Manga of the same name.

Dio Brando’s ultimate finishing move involves shouting “Za Warudo”, then stopping time, throwing knives at his opponent, and then slamming a steamroller onto them, followed by pummelling the steamroller until it explodes. At the end of the move, the character lets out a powerful battlecry known as WRYYYYYYYYYY.

As a matter of fact, both “ZA WARUDO” and “WRYYYYYY” are notable keywords related to the meme.

That special signature move, a profusion of various destruction effects that can be seen as comical to some extends considering the simple idea of pummeling someone with a steamroller appearing out of nowhere, became quite the mere visual depiction of the owned/pwned meme.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures

The manga itself exists since 1987 according to wikipedia. Its fanbase and impact on popular culture, at least in Japan, was great enough to give birth, in addition to several video games, to anime versions and even a novel.
The following video, from 2005, shows a gathering of Japanese fans in action :

The full lines uttered by Dio Brando are as follows :

MUDA DA!
MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!!! (Muda meaning “futile” or “useless”)

ZA WARUDO!!! (meaning The World)

TOKI WO TOMARE!!! (meaning Time Stop)

KIAI!!! (here, would mean Take That)

Soshite, toki ga ugokidasu (roughly meaning let time flow again)

The WRYYY battlecry doesn’t have any precise meaning at all and, actually, pretty much all other characters from the game have the same shout. However, it’s the Dio’s character who made it popular, thanks to the meme.

Origin on the web : Mudah.swf

Because the series was a big hit in Japan, it’s on the Japanese web that many fans have done animations or videos as tributes.
One of these animations, involving stick figures, is called mudah.swf.

Here is a Youtube video from it :

The animation was made by a Japanese user called qwerqwer1234. It’s nearly impossible telling exactly when it first appeared on the Japanese web, as the user’s website is now defunct, but an archived thread from 2ch.net and dating from July 2003 links back to that site, in a thread gathering different kinds of flash animations.

It became popular enough on the Japanese web to be referenced again in 2005 on another website.
The link was also referenced on StumbleUpon that same year, as a “good flash animation”.

But it’s qwerqwer1234 himself who introduced it to the rest of the world by joining AlbinosBlackSheep in march 2006, and Newgrounds one month later, only to post his work.

Derivatives based on it

People not familiar with the series were then facing an animation involving stick figures fighting, but the last character available, the only one showing English word “The World”, would display an overly awesome way of killing an opponent, by stopping time, throwing knives and a steamroller.

Without necessarily understanding the context, many people soon saw potential behind that move. That’s also why a big part of derivatives are involving stick figures :

Other works

Other kinds of animation/video that don’t focus on stick figures exist as well :

Additional ressources

• WRYY blog