What Is The 'Agni Face'? The Origin Of The Face In 'LIVE' And 'Kino' Memes Explained

If you've seen redrawn illustrations of a man delivering the same, slightly pained expression, you might have come across the Agni Face. Popularised on anime and /a/ forums on the anonymous messageboard 4chan, the Agni Face meme is typically accompanied by the phrase "LIVE" or kino.

Here's how the Agni Face manga panel came to be redrawn and inserted into some of anime's and TV's most popular characters.

Where Does The 'Agni Face' Come From?

"Agni Face" is the name given to a peculiar expression made by a character named Agni from the manga series Fire Punch. Agni is the protagonist of Fire Punch, a Shonen Jump+ manga created by Japanese author Tatsuki Fujimoto. The manga follows Agni in a post-apocalyptic glacial world, as he uses his high regenerative abilities to seek revenge on the man who killed his sister.

The particular panel showing Agni making "The Face" was published on May 21st, 2017, as part of a storyline where a character named Judah gets amnesia and starts to think that she's Agni's sister.

How Did The 'Agni Face' Become A Meme?

While Fire Punch never quite cracked the mainstream popularity of other Shonen Jump anime at the time, the aforementioned panels were often reposted to 4chan's /a/ threads. One anonymous user began serializing the anime on 4chan in March 2020 in a series of "storytime" threads, resulting in the Agni Face gaining renewed popularity on the platform.

Initial posts where the Agni Face was inserted onto various different anime characters like Guts and Yotsuba played a significant role in the meme's virality.

What Are Some More 'Agni Face' Memes?

For the full history of the Agni Face meme, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.