About

Shoei Photo Collages (Japanese: 照英コラ) is a series of parody photo collages of a Japanese actor Shōei (照英)^[1] who is famous for his emotional acting in manly tears and his goofy remarks by his too natural innocence of a fool. He is never a good actor but his earnest acting and his guileless character is loved by many Japanese.

In 2011, the parody collages reusing his emotional facial expression went viral among the Japanese internet users by curiosity seekers on /news4vip/ board in 2Channel.

Origin

The earliest thread for Shōei parody collage in /news4vip/ board was found on February 1st, 2009, and its title was "It took 1h 20min to put a school swimsuit on Shōei by Photoshop" (Japanese : フォトショで照栄にスク水着せてたら1時間20分たってた)^[2]. This thread was for answering to a man who tried making Shōei collages by himself and gave up it in before.

Then, around the summer of 2009, some people following the approach of this thread in this board began to make a thread for requesting Shōei collages with eccentric theme such as these:

- "Please give me the picture of Shōei destroying a wardrobe in tears."
- "Please give me the picture of Shōei searching a remote in tears."
- "Please give me the picture of Shōei throwing himself against a fire truck in tears."

These were simple joke, and most of their requests had been ignored. However, around the beginning of 2011, the number of people who challenged to the theme began increasing gradually. Because of their works, the popularity of Shōei collages became increasing in this board.

Spread

Online Popularity

Shōei collages became one of the most popular thread in "/news4vip/" around March 2011. And because popular topics on this board are always introduced by many for-profit blogs called "Affi-blog", Shōei collages was being spread to over the Japanese internet by them.

In May 15th, 2011, the twitter bot posting the title of Shōei collages thread and its picture was launched^[3][4]. As of June 2011, over 25000 people are following this bot.

Response by Shōei

In July 2011, The Japanese magazine "TV bros." interviewed Shōei and asked him about this online phenomenon in their feature story about tears. He answered that he has already noticed about it.

I've heard about it. My manager said "That goes crazy". I asked "What happens ?" and checked the internet. There were so many pictures of "Shōei is doing X", Hahaha.

I think people had better do other thing rather than this, Hahaha.

From this interview, it seems that he receives this phenomenon favorably.

Several online news sites^[5][6] and TV show reported this topic, and it made headlines on the Japanese internet.

Screen shot from the TV show aired in July 10th, 2011.

Search Interest

Notable Examples

"Please give me the picture of Shōei running away from a fighter plane with a stove heater on his shoulder !"

"Please give me the picture of Shōei wedging Shōei into his rucksack !"

"Please give me the picture of Shōei making BIG BANG !"

"Please give me the picture of Shōei robbing a hearse in a wedding dress !"

Rule

The pictures are not made freely but are always made for answering the requests in the Shōei collage thread. Requestors usually need the images immediately. And they sometimes annex its reason to the original post. For examlpe : "I need it for my presentation in tomorrow.", "I want to show it to my friend in sick.", "My grandfather is dying" , etc…

These are unwritten rules of Shōei collages thread.

Search Interest

External References