Japanese teen girls with superpowers

Unlike the bagel head "trend" awhile back, this one's the real deal: Japanese high school girls (and guys) have an online trend of performing "Makankousappou" （ often tweeted as 「マカンコウサッポウ」！）. And they're just as surprised as anyone that international readers are paying attention. 

Reactions on Girls Channel, a Japanese online forum, ranged from "How on earth did they take the photo?" to "I bet they practiced a lot", "Really cool," and "The photo quality is super high!" to rather mean-spirited ones, such as "Stupid. I bet they'll be NEETS in the future (not in employment, education or training) . Must be from either Osaka or some country backwater with nothing else to do." 

The big question seems to be whether the girls actually read Dragonball/Dragonball Z, the immensely popular series in which the move is featured. Makkankousappou is the trademark move of baddie-turned-beloved ally Piccolo (based on the word "pickle", since writer/artist Akira Toriyama had a quirky sense of humour and derived many names from vegetables, such as Vegeta, Kakarotto, etc.) and the pose in the photos doesn't appear to be anything like the real Makkankousappou move from Dragonball. 

Unless it was somewhere really late in the series, it's usually suppposed to look something like this: 

Piccolo shows how Makkankousappou is done

So how did that move turn into this? It doesn't really matter, now that the trend is catching on. If the girls say that's "Makkankousappou", leave it be. At least they have Kamehameha right. It's not "Hadouken-ing" as some websites have called it. 

Kamehameha, a move that Akira Toriyama based on the famed Hawaiian leader Kamehame I.

Screenshot from Girls' Forum 

And now, it's taking place outside schools too. Kudos to the girls. 

Makkankousappou performed by a bunch of guys outside of a bar 

At a business hotel? 

More photos here...