日本鬼子 (ri ben gui zi) is a common disparaging term in China for Japanese people, dating back to the Sino-Japanese War(s). After the recent Diaoyu/Senkaku geo-political drama, the term has seen a resurgence in popularity in China, where the anti-Japanese movement comes back in fashion every so often.

Some creative Japanese folks noticed that 日本鬼子 can easily be parsed as a female Japanese name “Hinomoto Oniko” and the moé-fication project began.

A Japanese blog (that has since been made private) translated some responses obtained from Chinese netizens. Most of the reactions can be summarized as, “What is this I don’t even-” but one guy calmly said, “Please give her long straight black hair.”

More pics on Itai-News and this Chinese blog. More discussions on Slashdot JP. There’s also a YouTube video compilation of the images. I won’t be surprised if Oniko doujinshi start popping up in the Winter Comiket.

Anime otaku: helping to realize world peace one politically-inappropriate personification at a time. Personally, as a Nanjing-born Chinese, I think this is awesome.