"Ohio" in Japan / "Ohayo"

About

"Ohio" in Japan refers to the misinterpretation of the Japanese word "Ohayo" (meaning "Good morning" in English), which sounds like the U.S. state of Ohio when said aloud. Due to the notoriety of Ohio memes on TikTok and elsewhere over the years, the concept of visiting Japan and hearing "Ohio" said in public frequently became fuel for memes that typically question why the Japanese people would reference the state. These memes often touch on satirical conspiracy theory and creepypasta territory. They predominantly started in 2018 on Reddit.

Origin

The earliest known piece of internet humor about the similarity between the Japanese word "Ohayo" and the American state of Ohio was uploaded to Imgur ^[1] on February 8th, 2013. The post included multiple panels from the manga The Misadventures of Gaijin-Kun, which was about an American ex-pat living in Japan. Ch. 9^[2] of "The Misadventures of Gaijin-Kun" was a four-panel scene in which the American protagonist is continually being greeted with "Ohayo" to which he finally replies, "I'm from New York, damn it!" (shown below, click to enlarge). Over the course of nine years, the Imgur post received roughly 110,300 views. On the same day, the Imgur was linked in a Reddit post on /r/japan^[3] by Redditor anonymepelle, earning over 770 upvotes.

The first known meme to reference the similarity between "Ohayo" and Ohio was uploaded to /r/Animemes^[4] on June 17th, 2018, by Redditor mrhappybottms. The meme used stills from the anime KonoSuba, showing the character Megumin saying "Ohayo!" to Kazuma who is shaped like the state of Ohio while saying, "Yes, yes, I'm Ohio." Over the course of four years, the meme received roughly 2,700 upvotes (shown below).

Spread

Sometime in June 2018, a currently unknown meme creator (most likely in /r/Animemes) posted a meme^[5] that showed an anime girl saying "Ohayo" with the state of Ohio listed above her (shown below, left). On January 16th, 2019, Redditor juances19 posted a variation of the meme to /r/Animemes^[6] that added an extra section, gaining roughly 6,300 upvotes in four years (shown below, right).

Sometime in mid-2019, since deleted iFunnyer Jolly posted a video meme that showed multiple anime girls saying "Ohayo" in context, following the clips with a shaking, red clip of the state of Ohio (shown below). The meme received an unknown amount of smiles, however, the earliest known repost of the video was on July 13th, 2019, by iFunnyer^[7] EmperrorAnimev2, gaining over 200 smiles in three years.

On May 19th, 2021, Redditor suhailpappu posted a "low effort" meme to /r/memes^[8] that captioned a moldy image of an Ohio map with, "Japanese when they wake up:" gaining roughly 31,100 upvotes in one year (shown below, left). On September 5th, 2022, Redditor hello_human69 posted a GIF caption to /r/dankmemes^[9] that showed WWE wrestler Big Show falling to his knees with a caption reading, "Me arriving in Japan expecting a refreshing vacation when the natives greet me with 'Ohio.'" In two months, the post received roughly 32,800 upvotes (shown below, right).

Screenshots of the aforementioned GIF went viral on Instagram ^[10] and iFunny^[11] in the days that followed its upload. The concept also trended in TikToks thereafter. For instance, on October 26th, 2022, TikToker^[12] bleepblop69 posted a video with text overlay reading, "When I spend 5 grand on a trip to Japan and keep hearing people say 'Ohio,'" earning roughly 237,800 likes in 11 days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References