Henohenomoheji
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henohenomoheji (へのへのもへじ) or hehenonomoheji (へへののもへじ) is a face drawn by Japanese schoolchildren using hiragana characters.
The word breaks down into the seven hiragana characters he（へ）, no（の）, he（へ）, no（の）, mo（も）, he（へ）, ji（じ）. The first two "he" are the eyebrows, the two "no" are the eyes, the "mo" is a nose, and the last "he" is the mouth. The outline of the face is made by the character "ji", with the dakuten forming the ear. Children use henohenomoheji as the faces of kakashi (scarecrows). It has been likened culturally to North America's popular graffiti doodle of "Kilroy" (or in Britain "Chad", in Canada "Clem," and in Australia "Mr. Foo") in that it often appears in comic books, movies and other media.
[edit] Variations
Other versions may have been current in other epochs and places. Japanese-Brazilians who learned hiragana in the 1950s, in the State of São Paulo, report that they were not taught to draw the "ji", and thus left the face unframed, as in the henohenomohe shown at right.
Other people from the same epoch but from a town report that they learned to draw a big "no" around the face, instead of the "ji" (not shown).
Others have drawn it with an "i" (い) at the end, which is drawn under the "ji" to form a neck.
[edit] Trivia
- In the popular anime Naruto, the character Kakashi Hatake's face is the subject of an entire episode (no. 101), in which his students try to remove his mask. Against one of them he uses a decoy (scarecrow) of himself, with the Henohenomoheji drawn on the face; which is appropriate enough, given that his name (Kakashi) means "scarecrow" in Japanese. Also, Kakashi is able to summon a small pack of eight dogs, all of which have the Henohenomoheji on them somewhere.
- In the NES game Crusader of Centy, a puppet controlled by a boss has this for a face.
- In the popular anime Digimon, the Digimon Nohemon, a scarecrow Digimon, has Henohenomoheji on its face.
- In the PlayStation 2 video game Ōkami, characters are represented with a Henohenomoheji icon floating above their heads whenever they are too far to be seen.
