Akakichi no Eleven Redraws (aka “Hand on shoulder meme”) is a frame of 1970s soccer-based anime Akakichi no Eleven. The frame consists of a large-chinned man reassuring another character in the shot, smiling while placing a hand on his shoulder.
The image became extremely popular among French Twitter/X users in late 2023, especially as a reaction image. It was sourced in early 2024, which led to users redrawing the image with characters from other areas of pop culture.
Meme origins
Akakichi no Eleven Redraws first sprung up on the internet in late 2023, when a frame from Akakichi no Eleven became popular among French Twitter users as a reaction image. On November 24th, 2023, for instance, the screenshot was utilized by X user @latour0_.
On January 5th, 2024, Twitter user @FullSaphir announced that their investigation into the image’s origins yielded an answer: the soccer anime Akakichi no Eleven. The tweet, featuring a GIF of the moment, saw over 890 retweets and 6.4k likes in the next five days.
Akakichi no Eleven, which was based on a popular manga, debuted as a TV series on Nippon Television on April 13, 1970, and ran for fifty-two episodes.
Meme spread
Akakichi no Eleven entered its redraw phase after @FullSaphir’s origin tweet in January 2024, as the template provided ample chance to get creative with the format. And it happened fast, as less than two hours after @FullSaphir’s tweet on January 5th, user @fh4dr posted a redraw on Twitter with Dragon Ball characters. The post gained over 3.3k retweets and 25k likes in the new five days.
Many other redraws went quite viral on Twitter over the next few days. For example, on January 5th, Twitter user @DItekki posted a redraw featuring Attack on Titan characters. The post gained over 650 retweets and 6.7k likes over the next five days.
Two days later, on January 7th, 2024, Twitter user @fh4dr posted another redraw example, this time featuring Naruto characters. The post gained over 1.2k retweets and 15k likes in three days.
The trend was then celebrated on /r/animemes on January 7th by Redditor Le-Vagabond27, whose montage post, featuring the original clip, gained over 2.8k points over three days.
Meme examples
More anime memes:
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- Naruto Run: Origins, spread, and examples
- Feliz Jueves: A meme explainer
- The ‘Blackbeard Writing’ meme from ‘One Piece,’ explained
- Nah I’d Win: Satoru Gojo’s iconic ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ line
- The Jack-O Crouch Pose challenges you to drop it down
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