About
“Houtou Yeah!” (Japanese: ほうとうイエー!), not "Touhou Yeah!", is a catch phrase coined in a Japanese TV program aired in November, 2005. The scene uttering this phrase is well-known as one of the most funny TV fails on the Japanese web, and also has been a popular theme for parody illustrations of lauding something ridiculously since late 2011.
Origin
This phrase “Houtou Yeah!” was uttered by Maiko Saito (斉藤舞子)[1], a female TV announcer belonging to Fuji Television, in a weekend morning show “Haretara Iine!” (晴れたらイイねッ!, lit. It’ll be a beautiful day)[2] originally aired on November 27th, 2005.
According to the official digest archive for this episode[3], participants including her went to foot of Mt. Fuji to report Houtou (ほうとう)[4], a popular regional dish in Yamanashi prefecture. While the traveling, they visited a small stand in Heartland Asagiri guest ranch, and had soft creams where the master told them “Our soft cream is so delicious, you can’t help but shouting”. Just after eating it, she got so excited to deliciousness of the soft cream and suddenly ran out to road while shouting the remark “Houtou Yeah!” even though it wasn’t Houtou-flavour. Then, she fell down flat on a halfway and dropped her soft cream like a child.
Translation:
Man: I’ve never tasted anything like this before.
Saito: It’s Delicious! Houtou Yeah!
(Narrator: Saito broke out in a run by the too delicious soft cream! But…)
Spread
Her eccentric but cute fail had been already mentioned with screenshots in a viewer’s blog post in the same day.[5] But it finally became to get an attention when the 8-panel image made from this scene began circulating on the web circa late 2007 (shown below). Another image was posted to an image uploader on September 24th, 2007.[6] Besides, the source footage uploaded to YouTube on June 2008 (shown above) also helped its spreading.
Moreover, the popularity of the fail picture led to a series of parody illustrations started on the Japanese illustrators community pixiv in the autumn of 2011. Many pixiv users have continued creating illustrations of their favorite characters ridiculously lauding something, mainly food, like the 8-pane picture which includes time display, weather navigation and program’s descriptions in the manner of Japanese ordinary morning shows. These elements are also subjects for parody in this series.
As of September 2013, there are more than 400 illustrations related to this series on pixiv[7], and a few of them are also posted to Nico Nico Seiga.[8]
Notable Examples
Search Interest
Google trends shows the word became to have spikes after pixiv’s fad started in the autumn of 2011.
External References
[1]Wikipedia – 斉藤舞子 (Japanese)
[2]Wikipedia – 晴れたらイイねッ!Let'sコミミ隊 (Japanese)
[3]Fuji TV – 深沢隊長の世界の麺シリーズ(2) 山梨名物ほうとうを究める！ 2.ジャージー牛＆山梨産トリュフ (Internet Archive, Japanese)
[5]かめろぐ – ◆晴れたらイイねッ！ 山梨名物ほうとうを極める！ / Posted on 11-27-2005 (Japanese)
[6]pya! – ソフトクリーム 旧作品No.47788 / Posted on 09-24-2007 (Japanese)