"World at War" Japanese Officer Smoking

About

Japanese Officer Smoking refers to an image of a Japanese officer smoking a cigarette in the opening cutscene of the 2008 video game Call of Duty: World at War. Since 2020, the image has been as source material for caption memes, particularly those about smoking marijuana.

Origin

On November 11th, 2008, the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: World at War was released. In the opening cutscene^[1] of the American campaign, the protagonist, Private C. Miller, is interrogated by a Japanese officer at a prison camp. The officer takes a drag from a cigarette before speaking to the player (cutscene shown below).

On December 11th, 2020, iFunny^[2] user IronManLOHH posted the earliest found meme based on an image of the Japanese officer smoking, captioning it, "I be hitting that good kush." The post (shown below) gained over 790 smiles in four years.

Spread

Apart from reposts, the image did not see further use in memes until December 2023. On December 8th, 2023, iFunny^[3] user DankCanadian posted the image, captioning it, "Nobody believes chicken little." The post (shown below) gained over 2,500 smiles in six months.

On May 21st, 2024, X^[4] user @Fan22Club posted a still image of the officer, writing, "Asian smoking a cigarette… aesthetic asf…" The post (shown below) received over 1,500 reposts and 22,000 likes in three days.

The post was followed by more memes based on the image, including reposts of older memes, on X^[5][6] in the following days.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References