Untan

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About

Untan (Japanese: うんたん) is the Japanese onomatopoeia of the noise made when playing castanets, and the iconic phrase in the Japanese anime/manga series K-On!. This catchy phrase and a cute dancing filled with Moe are popular subject of fan arts and a well-used visual resource for MAD videos in Nico Nico Douga (NND).

Origin

"Untan" appeared in the 1st episode of K-On! 1st season which was first aired in Japan in April 3rd, 2009. The adorable girl playing castanets in this scene is Yui Hirasawa who is the protagonist of this series.

According to Nico Nico Pedia^[1], an internet encyclopedia for NND, Aki Toyosaki^[2] who was the voice actor of Yui answered to an interview by a TV show that Untan was an ad lib by her.

Spread

Soon after this TV animation series began to air, huge amount of fan arts, parodies and MADs for K-ON! was exploding through the web and Doujin fandom, and this first impressive scene in this series was being frequently included to those creations. Especially in MAD videos, "Untan" has been frequently used because it's quite easy to fit with any other music resource.

More than 400 videos for this phrase had been posted to NND during the anime's airing period, and its amount is still increasing gradually.^[3] Additionally, many of them are reprinted to YouTube.^[4]

Notable Examples

Left: Miku Miku Dance Edition | Right: Colonel Muska from Castle in the Sky

Left: Yayoi Takatsuki from THE iDOLM@STER | Right: Cirno from Touhou Project