Kin-iro Mosaic / Kinmoza!

Work in progress.

About

Kin-iro Mosaic (きんいろモザイク Kin'iro Mozaiku; literally Golden Mosaic), also known by its shortened title Kinmoza!, is a Japanese slice-of-life yonkoma (four-panel) manga written and illustrated by Yui Hara, later adapted into an animated series by Studio Gokumi.

Premise

The series follows the daily life occurrences of Shinobu Oomiya and her best friend from England, Alice Cartelet, who comes to stay with her and attend school in Japan following their becoming friends during Shinobu's homestay at Alice's house in England. They are joined in their exploits by Shinobu's friends Aya and Youko as well as Alice's half-Japanese friend from England, Karen.

History

The series was first published in June 2010, in the seinen (young adult men) magazine Manga Time Kiara Max.^[1]

Reception

The series is available to purchase on DVD and Blu Ray in the USA subtitled by Sentai Filmworks, but ironically is not technically licensed for release in the UK and must be imported. Alternatively viewers in some regions can watch it legally on Crunchyroll.^[2]

Online Presence

The series became known among the anime & manga subculture for its unusual combination of British and Japanese cultural jokes, as an example of celebrating both one’s own culture and the culture of others, relatively judicious use of English, and for its strong lesbian overtones (referred to as “yuri genre” by anime & manga fans). Alice represents the western Japanophile, often referred to as weeaboo in online communities, while Shinobu reverses this concept with her “Britaboo” xenophile tendencies which manifest most commonly as a “blonde hair fetish” (to which the kin-iro in the title refers).

The version of England that appears in the series has been highly researched by the manga author and series creators; Alice’s house is based on a real bed & breakfast, and her home town is strongly implied to be Castle Combe, Wiltshire, which scored highest on a 2015 list of most beautiful British towns by British newspaper The Daily Mail.^[3] One Reddit user on r/anime explained in detail the degree to which the town has been recreated.^[4]

During a Reddit discussion on the second season, in full spirit of cross-cultural communication, English-speaking users were contacted by Japanese users from r/japan_anime. It did not take long for users to begin posting their favourite GIFs from the show.^[5] r/japan_anime continues to use a Kinmoza banner to this time of writing (31/10/2015).^[6]

A TV Tropes page for the series has been created.^[7]

Fandom

The series gained a huge following online after the anime premiere. As November 1st, 2015 the japanese artist community pixiv leads to over 5,500 results under the tag "きんいろモザイク",^[9] and the artist community DeviantART leads to over 280 results under the keyword "kiniro mosaic".^[10] Fandom presence can also be found on other communities like Tumblr^[11] and 4chan.^[12]

Related Memes

I Don't Have Anything To Give You, So I'll Sing You X

"I Don't Have Anything To Give You, So I'll Sing You X" refers to refers to a series of MAD videos on the video-sharing website Nico Nico Douga, where the character Alice Cartelet sings the song "Happy Birthday" in Japanese, spawning a series of edits where the song is replaced.

Karen Kujou

Karen Kujou is a half-English, half-Japanese character who has become highly memetic in anime fandom online. She accounts for significant memetic content from the series due to her memorable outfit featuring a Union Flag jacket, her overly-energetic tendencies (a common anime character type which TV Tropes calls the “Genki Girl”^[8]), bizarre reactions, and her ironically having much worse command over the Japanese language than the fully-English Alice. It is worth noting that Karen even causes in-story memes among the other characters, such when the rest of her class start mimicking her mispronunciation of the Japanese for “good morning”. Karen is a popular character for use in reaction images and shitposting for these reasons.

Remember to Have Just 1 Waifu

Remember to Have Just 1 Waifu refers to a memorable caption edit of fan-favourite character Karen Kujo which attained popularity due to the varied reactions online to the concept of waifus. This edit appears to have first surfaced circa June 2014. The image has received several edits and snowclones featuring characters such as the notably waifu'd Gardevoir from Pokemon.

Show Me the Booty

Show Me The Booty is a caption edit from an episode of the series, in which Karen appears as a pirate during a story told largely through a song by the characters. The image appears to have surfaced roughly in April 2015 and received positive reaction, which may be because of its pun in relating to memetic expressions revolving around a hunt for "booty" similar to expressions such as Dat Ass and "Do She Got a Booty?"

Vibrating Karen

Vibrating Karen refers to a vibrating GIF of Karen Kujou which is frequently captioned in a way that snowclones or references other memes such as the Navy SEAL copypasta or [Intensifies]. [Editor's Note: These images may be uncomfortable to view for people who find rapidly-moving imagery difficult to see.]

Search Interest

Search interest for Kin-iro Mosaic shows a sharp spike following the televising of the anime's first season in 2013.

External References