About

"KyoAni Finds A Way" is a phrase that has been photoshopped onto a picture of actor Jeff Goldblum playing his role of Dr. Ian Malcolm from the movie Jurassic Park, based on his catchphrase, "Life, uh, finds a way."

Origin

The phrase "KyoAni Finds A Way" originated on the /a/ board or the Anime & Manga section of 4chan as a parody image macro of Dr. Ian Malcolm's now famous Jurassic Park scene where he contends that "Life finds a way."^[1]

It is meant to be a way of expressing either amazement or sarcasm at the ability of anime studio Kyoto Animation (a.k.a. KyoAni for short) to always find new and inventive ways of showing off the moe genre and sometimes to rehash old versions in new ways whether successful or not^[2].

Spread

In 2011, Kyoto Animation's anime version of 4koma series Nichijou^[5] received high praise for it's epic animation quality and hilarious comedic presentation^[6][11][12]. However, despite the positive reviews, it failed to sell well^[7][16] (as compared to other successful KyoAni animations such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya^[8], Lucky Star^[9], and K-On!^[10]). In June of 2011, a thread was created on 4chan's /a/ board showing the dismal sales figures for the show.

During this thread, an anonymous user posted the now famous image macro of Dr. Ian Malcolm with the phrase "KyoAni finds a way to fail!" typed beside it^[2]. The picture itself however only had "KyoAni Finds A Way" written on it^[22]. The archive of this thread doesn't exist (unintentional early use of the phrase notwithstanding^[3]).The picture and phrase were seldom used after this until August of 2012 when the sales figures for Kyoto Animation's next series Hyōka^[13] was delivered for the first BluRay disc release.

The sales figures showed Hyōka selling extremely well.^[14] The picture of Dr. Ian Malcolm and the phrase "KyoAni Finds A Way" made a return, this time as praise for Kyoto Animation having bounced back from the bad sales of Nichijou. This time, the picture and phrase stuck. The picture and phrase received an even further boost in usage in October of that same year after Kyoto Animation's next show Chūnibyō Demo Koi ga Shitai!^[17] began to air (which sold even better than Hyōka^[14], at that).

This time the phrase and picture usage morphed into it's current, more positive form^[18] of describing how Kyoto Animation continues to reinvent the moe genre with new and cuter character designs and personalities.^[4][15] The meme continues to grow in popularity to this day and revives itself after every new series Kyoto Animation releases (such as Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club^[23], Myriad Colors Phantom World^[24], and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid^[25]).

Various Examples

In the FoolFrame archive (which contains archives up until June 2015), there are about 1,014 mentions of the phrase^[19]. In the DesuStorage archive (which contains archives from June 2015 onward), there are instead 375 results^[20]. It has also gone through several permutations through the years.

The catchphrase is even referenced in other /a/ memes like Keit-ai or whenever another animation studio manages to get the top sales for the season^[21] (as in the case of Studio Trigger and their Kill la Kill anime^[26].). It can also be used ironically or sarcastically (as in the case of Studio DEEN and its QUALITY animation^[27] for the Fate/Stay Night series).

Search Interest

External References