Koichi Pose
Part of a series on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. [View Related Entries]
About
The Koichi Pose refers to a screenshot of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character Koichi Hirose striking a specific pose taken from the opening intro of Part 4 of the anime series. The image became an exploitable graphic in the JoJo's fandom in 2016, spawning numerous video edits and photoshopped parodies placing the character in different scenes or depicting others in the same pose as Koichi.
Origin
On April 8th, 2016, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable aired. Around the 00:36-second mark of the intro's theme song, the character Koichi appears and strikes a strange pose, almost as if he's in mid-walk, holding it for about three seconds (shown below).[5]
On that same day, an anonymous user of 4chan's /a/[1] board uploaded a screenshot of the "Koichi Pose" (shown below) and commented, "Koichi just stands there looking like a dork because they don't want to spoil his stand yet." Others seemed to agree that the pose was comedic, inspiring photoshops based on it.
Later that day in the same /a/[2] thread, an anonymous user posted a photoshopped image of Koichi doing the pose and riding on the back of the JoJo character Dio Brando, representing one of the earliest known photoshops featuring the "Koichi Pose" (shown below).
Spread
Koichi Pose edits soon took off on /a/ with large numbers of them being uploaded over the following days. On April 8th, 2016, a 4chan[4] tripcode user named Doc shared an Imgur[3] gallery full of Koichi Pose edits collected from the previous threads (examples shown below, left and right).
The image also inspired a video edit series, where creators would overlay the Koichi Pose image over various videos for comedic effect. For example, on August 7th, 2016, YouTuber[6] The JoJo Fanatic posted a video featuring the image, garnering over 181,000 views in roughly four years (shown below).
On August 21st, 2017, YouTuber[7] [succ ZA DUSTO] uploaded a video titled "[Great Days] but Everyone is Koichi Posing REQUIEM [ACT 3/3]," heavily featuring the image, garnering over 328,000 views in roughly three years (shown below).
The image has since become an infamous meme in the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure community, still referenced years later. For example, on July 9th, 2019, Redditor /u/Gator_Face posted a piece of fan art depicting various JoJo characters striking the pose to /r/ShitPostCrusaders,[8] garnering over 5,800 upvotes in a year (shown below, left). On July 3rd, 2020, Redditor /u/Link1ovaganon posted an image of a bug striking the pose to /r/ShitPostCrusaders,[9] garnering over 11,900 upvotes in eight months (shown below, right).
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] desuarchive – Koichi just stands there looking like a dork because they don't want to spoil his stand yet
[2] desuarchive – possible earliest edited Koichi Pose image
[3] Imgur – Koichi /a/edits
[4] desuarchive – Koichi /a/edits post
[5] YouTube – JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 4 Intro
[6] YouTube – The Koichi Pose
[7] YouTube – [Great Days] but Everyone is Koichi Posing REQUIEM [ACT 3/3]
[8] Reddit – koichi pose
[9] Reddit – Koichi Bug Pose
Top Comments
Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire
Apr 09, 2016 at 12:21PM EDT
Evilton
Apr 09, 2016 at 11:24AM EDT