The Rise of Rock Paper Scissors in Anime - & Where it Came From

Many anime characters enjoy playing janken, or rock paper scissors, and some even do it amid mortal combat. This is for a very excellent cause.

Experienced anime viewers will no likely pick up on many themes, running gags, and bizarre clichés as they consume this medium, ranging from powerful nosebleeds from pervy characters to talking animals and much more. Then there's the old standby, rock, paper, scissors.

Rock paper scissors is a simple and pleasant game for kids that is frequently played to determine something swiftly and fairly, as Western anime fans are used to. This game, however, is much older than anime fans may know, and it can be traced back to both Japanese brothels and mainland China. This game was only afterwards adapted into anime.

The Japanese devised a modern version of the original Chinese game in the 1600s, renaming the three movements rock, paper, and scissors, which is being played today in real life and animation. For a few more decades, the game was virtually exclusively played in Asian regions until it finally made its way to the West in the early twentieth century, thanks in part to Japan's greater contact with international powers such as the United States and European nations. Rock paper scissors, in particular, became popular in the United States in the 1930s as a children's game and a technique to make rapid, unbiased decisions. It was also known as the "Japanese game" in France at the time. This game will be played again in the future.

In the long-running series Hunter x Hunter, protagonist Gon Freecss has been known to play janken with his best buddy and adversary Killua Zoldyck — a famous example of kids using this enjoyable and fair game to make decisions. Most importantly, Gon has incorporated janken into his Nen combat style, and he has won multiple fights by throwing rock, paper, or scissors against his opponent. Gon, like in the original game, uses mind tricks and meta-knowledge to confuse his opponent and reduce the role of chance in these encounters. True janken is a mental game, not a physical one.

The troublemaker Oyanagi Ken, who wields a Stand named Boy II Man, has a full character dedicated to janken in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. If the opponent loses a best-of-five janken match against Ken, his game-based Stand can steal people's souls piece by piece. Ken challenged the brilliant manga artist Kishibe Rohan to this game, and Rohan fared well at initially until Ken devised a smart strategy to outmanoeuvre Rohan and put him on the defensive, capturing two-thirds of Rohan's soul. Rohan turned the tables on Ken at the final moment, winning the fifth janken game and reclaiming his soul. The stakes have never been higher in this game.

QUESTIONS ANSWERS FOR ROCK PAPAER SCISSOR

Where did rock paper scissor shoot come from?

Origins. The game was originally mentioned in the book Wuzazu by Chinese Ming-era writer Xie Zhaozhi (fl. c. 1600), who claimed that it originated during the Chinese Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE).

What anime is Rock Paper Scissors from?

In Japan, Kaiji is a popular series, with over 21.5 million tankbon copies in circulation as of January 2019.

When did Rock Paper Scissors get invented?

206 BC

Rock, Paper, Scissors is thought to be the world's oldest hand game. The game may be traced all the way back to China's Han Dynasty. This period lasted from 206 BC to 220 AD. This game has also been mentioned in Japanese history.

What is the meaning behind Rock Paper Scissors?

RPS is an example of a zero-sum game.

This basically indicates that one player's loss is the gain of another. A fist indicates rock, a flat palm represents paper, and a fist with a "V" formed by the index and middle fingers represents scissors. The game can start with an infinite number of participants.