Kenshiro Hiding in a Haystack

About

Kenshiro hiding in a haystack is a memorable scene from popular anime Fist of the North Star in which the main protagonist, Kenshiro, has to hide inside a cart full of hay in order to get across a bridge. Due to its overly dramatic tone acknowledged by many as unintentionally funny, the scene would spawn a great number of parodies after a gif animation was posted online.

Origin

In season 4th episode 92, titled “Juza of the Clouds Resurrects! I Have No Fear for Raoh!!” of anime Fist of the North Star that was first broadcasted on October 30th 1986, one of the scenes involved the main protagonist, Kenshiro, hiding inside a cart of hay with the help of his friends in order to cross a bridge rigged with explosives without being seen. Before letting them pass, enemy guards sent an unnamed blond character checking the cart. Upon revealing the hero’s face inside, the character looks in surprise at Kenshiro dramatically staring back at him. A Japanese version with English subtitles of that peculiar moment, titled “Death Awaits…”, was uploaded to Youtube by Beware the girth! on November 8th 2008 (shown below).

One of the first online parodies from that scene was posted to Nico Nico Douga on May 20th 2008^[1]. Accumulating to more than 330 000 views as of March 2015 before being taken down, it was a MAD video replacing the original soundtrack from the anime with popular Idol M@ster song 春香目が逢う瞬間 (Me Ga Au ToKi which means “The Moment Our Eyes Met” in English). A Youtube version was uploaded on March 20th 2010 (shown below, left). Then, on May 22nd, 2008, another Idol M@ster parody featuring a character’s face hiding inside another character’s hair was posted to Nico Nico Douga^[2]. A Youtube version followed on December 21st 2008 (shown below, right)

Spread

While the Japanese MADs didn’t start a noticable trend on Nico Nico Douga, it’s on the western web that the scene would catch attention. An animated gif version was posted to a Blue Gartr forum thread about the Fist of The North Star video game on October 5th 2010^[3]. It then made its way to Imgur as early as feburary 2011^[4] and even Live Journal on March 18th^[5]. A YTMND parody was also created on March 17th^[6].
On December 9th, 2014, an edit featuring Javert from Les Miserables was posted to Imgur^[7]. As of March 2015, the animated gif has garnered more than 1 million views and about 12 000 upvotes on the site (shown below).