I went to a screener last night and there were some cosplayers. And then the article below came up and I didn't know where to put it. We've done some cosplay-ish threads - Fist of Furry (which focuses on a fraction of the fetish), Sword hotties (my personal fav, which focuses on another fraction), Real Life 'Superheroes' (which is about what it says it's about), and the continual stream of disregard for LARPers. We even ran an ezine article on it: The Care and Feeding of Your Inner Superhero by Lori Ann White. But there's no thread dedicated to the overall phenomena, so I'm launching this one.

Here's that article:
Japanese Schoolgirls Bring Manga Style Martial Arts To Life for Fun

What looks like a Japanese manga come to life is really a bunch of schoolgirls having fun with friends. Or is it? Dun dun dun.






These photos recently appeared on 2ch, Japan's largest bulletin board, under the heading, "Schoolgirls Nowadays lol".

While some 2ch users humorously pointed out that this was the martial art technique known as the "hakkei" (発勁) in Japanese. (In Chinese martial arts, "hakkei" is known as "fajin".)

Others 2ch users uploaded photos that had been altered, giving the images a decidedly manga feel. "Schoolgirls now are manipulating chi?" asked one 2ch user. "Schoolgirls these days sure are scary," added another, while yet another summed it up, "They're masters of air."

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This seems like a thing, at least, with a handful of students. But it's not a national craze. Yet.