Natalia Poklonskaya: Crimea’s ‘Gorgeous’ Attorney General Becomes Internet Sensation; Love-Struck Japanese Trigger Anime Fan Art
What does it take for the Japanese to suddenly and impulsively be interested in the Crimea Crisis?
One gorgeous Attorney General - that's it!
Natalia Poklonskaya was recently appointed as the Attorney General of Crimea. Following her appointment, the 33-year-old gave a no-nonsense talk to reporters describing the EuroMaidan revolt as an "anti-constitutional coup" and that she did not "propagate Nazism, unlike certain regime functionaries in Kiev".
Little did she know that she would become an Internet sensation overnight and people from far off places, such as Japan - who wouldn't have understood one word of what she said - would start admiring her not for what she had become, but for what she looked like.
The video of the press conference has gone viral since it hit Japan's YouTube. One tweet, which simply states "Crimea's New Attorney General oh oh oh..." included the link to the press conference and has been retweeted nearly 10,000 times.
The so called "tough talk" of her conference was neither subtitled in Japanese, nor translated in English, giving the love-struck Japanese gamers to concentrate on other things that was more attention grabbing. The video was viewed half-a-million times at the time of writing this article. There is now an explosion on Japanese art site Pixiv, where Poklonskaya anime fan art are going viral.
Most of the pictures are drawn in a Manga (Japanese comics) style, and grotesquely over-emphasize the "cute" or "kawaii" aspects of Poklonskaya's appearance, as Global Voices notes.
After first appearing on the Japanese magna artist repository Pixiv, the images quickly spread through RuNet forums and imagebords, like Pikabu.ru, inspiring a spate of variant memes of the original pictures.
A newly created Twitter account of Poklonskaya (there is a fair chance it is a fake account) has thanked people for the arts. "Thank you for the support and the art. All the drawings are wonderfulJ" a tweet from the account said.
RocketNews25 aptly describes what just happened: "Where there's love-struck Japanese men pondering the ideal forms of female beauty, anime artwork can't be far behind."
Picture such as this posted on her Facebook fan page can only make Japanese love grow fonder:
