The — or just as most people know him — is a superhero featured in a famous parody flash movie based on the Kikkoman Japanese soy sauce brand.

The Kikkoman character was originally created in Shift-JIS by members of the large Japanese 2channel message board, but it was the flash movie created by Yogatori that made him famous worldwide. The movie has several references to Japanese food, anime and tokusatsu. To people who don't know much about these subjects and Japanese culture as a whole, the movie's tone can feel funny and unusual. It is also a good example of Engrish, as seen on its translation to English ("What a suckers!", for example). The chorus is also a pun that probably passes unnoticed to most non-Japanese speakers. "Show you" refers to "shōyu", the Japanese name for soy sauce. This is also seen in the original version of the movie (the movie became famous well before an English translation was made available by the author).

There are two versions of the flash which have different variations of scenes, for example, in the scene where a cat is eating an omelet, the cat (Giko Cat) is embarrassed by stupidity and the variation, where the cat is either hanged by Kikkoman or the cat hangs himself because omelet tastes horrible with soy sauce. Also, the scene where Kikkoman sleeps with the girl is noticeably different between the two versions. For example, in the version with Giko Cat hanging himself, the girl's upper half is not covered with a blanket, but still with Kikkoman's arm still covering it. Obviously, in the other version, the blanket is draped over both of them. In that scene (in both versions) in the low left-hand corner, it jokingly says "Do Not Try This at Home, Kids." which also appears in the scene where Kikkoman hangs on to the bottom of a fish-shaped blimp in the sky.

The flash often circulates under the name "Kikkomaso". This is an intentional error in writing the name as it is rendered in Japanese katakana -- the character for 'n' (ン) is very similar to the character for 'so' (ソ), and, much like in many American internet communities, the intentionally-mispelled version became used for ironic effect.

External links

• Official website for the Soy Sauce Warrior Kikkoman
• 2channel – The posting website where Kikkoman was born
• 2channel Mona BBS (Mona Ita or Mona Daisuki@2ch) – The 2channel Mona-BBS
• Fight! Kikkoman (戦え！キッコーマン Tatakae! Kikkoman) – The Kikkoman flash movie
• Banana and Shrimp Showtime (怪人たちの歌 Kaijintachi no Uta) – A spinoff of the original movie by the same creator
• Soysauce Case #9（醤油入れ９ Shōyu Ire 9） in 2channel Mona BBS
• "(　・∀・)さん"'s Kikkoman parody (醤油入れ　過去ログ集 Shōyu Ire Kakorogu-Shu) from the 2ch.net Thread Log

2channel | Internet memes | Japanese superheroes | 醤油戦士キッコーマン | 醬油戰士龜甲男