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Cute (and Maybe a Little Creepy) Legged Paper Planes Now the Trend on Japanese Internet

Kay Aug 15, 2012
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I’m sure you’ve all had the experience of folding paper planes as a child. But the paper planes we’re going to show you here don’t look at all like the typical paper plane you might imagine. In fact, we have to warn you, you may even think these paper planes look a bit creepy. Why? Because these planes have legs! Yes, that’s right, they’re two-legged paper planes! But how ever did such a trend begin?

According to the website togetter.com, a Japanese site that offers condensed information on popular topics from Twitter, the trend started with a video of how to create a two-legged paper plane that was posted on the Japanese video sharing website Nico Nico Douga by a user by the name of zuma. The paper plane has apparently been named asshi-kun (literally translated, the name means “Mr. Legs”, but in Japanese asshi-kun also refers to a man who is considered by a woman to be a convenient driver who provides free transport for her).

And ever since the video showing how to make an asshi-kun was posted on August 8th, a huge number of internet viewers have been fascinated by the slightly strange-looking paper plane with legs – so many, in fact, that within 3 days of posting, the video had been viewed over 100,000 times, and the Japanese twitterverse was soon filled with tweets by people proudly announcing that they too had made an asshi-kun!

You may be wondering if it’s difficult to create an asshi-kun. Judging from the video, it doesn’t look too complicated, especially if you’re used to the Japanese paper craft of origami. Basically, the process is like folding a regular paper plane for the upper half and an origami crane for the legs.

In any case, we have to admit that asshi-kun‘s appearance is unique, to say the least. The legs actually look a bit like frog’s legs, and honestly, they do look freaky. But then again, we guess the planes do kind of grow on you and even can seem lovable after a time.

According to asshi-kun‘s creator zuma, the two-legged plane can fly reasonably well if the shape is well-balanced, but if not, it could fly in a very creepy way, in a kind of head-stand position — as if it was a bizarrely positioned corpse out of an Edgar Allan Poe novel!

So, what do you think of asshi-kun? Yes, the planes look slightly freaky, but we think they’re cute and comical in a way at the same time. If you’re intrigued like many Japanese internet viewers have been already, do try making an asshi-kun yourself, and see how well it flies. Have a good flight!

Original Article by: Anji Tabata

Source: toggeter.com

▼The video showing how to make an asshi-kun

[ Read in Japanese ]