Paras Chiyo

About

Paras Chiyo is a fan-made character based on a crossover between Paras, an original first-generation creature featured in Nintedo's Pokemon universe, and Chiyo Sakura, the protagonist character from the Japanese four-pane comedy manga series Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, both of whom share similar color schemes in their appearance.

Origin

On August 17th, 2014, Twitter user @oshirukouji uploaded a side-by-side doppleganger image highlighting an apparent visual similiarity between Paras and Chiyo Sakura. The accompanying text roughly translates to “I cannot forgive an Otaku who calls Sakura Chiyo-chan a Paras."

Spread

On September 8th, 2014, Pixiv user 車 uploaded a fan art illustration of a hybrid character featuring Chiyo Sakura's disembodied head and Paras' claws and legs, with her iconic red hair bows replaced with the red mushrooms donned by the Pokemon creature.^[2]. In the illustration, the character's hair is drawn to form the legs of a Paras, in a similar style to that of Megurine Luka's tentacle hair as depicted through the fan-made Vocaloid character Tako Luka.

Beginning on August 23rd 2014, the tag ちよパラ ("Paras Chiyo") became associated with this particular strand of crossover character fan art^[3]. In addition, the volume of the tag パラス ("Paras") also saw a spike as it became linked to fan illustrations of Chiyo Sakura without an obvious connection to the Pokemon creature.

On August 20th, 2014, the English-language anime news site Seventh Style^[4] published an article stating "Otaku have discovered… Sakura Chiyo from Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, holds many resemblances to the Pokemon known as Paras."

Various Examples

External References