No Face Chasing Chihiro

Submission 10,550

Part of a series on Studio Ghibli. [View Related Entries]

About

No Face Chasing Chihiro is an object labeling series based on a photo of students cosplaying as the characters "No Face" and Chihiro from the anime film Spirited Away characters in Japan. The meme is used to show someone or something escaping from someone or something, which can be from either the perspective of No Face or Chihiro.

Origin

On July 20th, 2001, Studio Ghibli released the film Spirited Away in Japan.^[1]

On October 3rd, 2016, Twitter user @teru8936 tweeted three photographs of students dressed as No Face and Chihiro (shown below). Before the user set their account to private, the images received more than 190,000 likes and 120,000 retweets as of October 6th, 2016.^[2]

Spread

Following the post, people began making jokes and memes about the image. For example, on October 2nd, 2016, Twitter^[3] user @Himeyurrrrry tweeted fan art of the image with the caption, "ハクも追加でお願いします" (translation: "Please add a haku). The tweet received more than 14,000 likes and 4,700 retweets in less than five years (shown below).

The following year, on September 22nd, 2017, Tumblr ^[3] user zenigata shared the image and received more than 86,000 notes in less than four years.

The following year, people began meme-ing the image. One of the earliest known usages of the image as an object-labeling meme was published on March 20th, 2018 by Tumblr^[4] user KyleQueen, with a meme about the animated television series South Park. The post received more than 785 notes in less than three years (shown below, left).

Later that year, on June 12th, 2018, Redditor Megamiguel31 shared a meme in the /r/wholesomememes subreddit.^[5] The post received more than 370 points (95% upvoted) in less than three years (shown below, center).

Following the posts, others began meme-ing the image. On November 13th, an unknown Redditor posted the image in the /r/me_irl subreddit, where it received more than 11,000 points (99% upvoted) and 45 comments in less than three years (shown below, right).