Blanka-chan or BlankaChan (Japanese: ブランカ-ちゃん Hepburn: Buranka-chan) is an Internet meme that became popular on Twitter in February 2018. The meme typically consist of Blanka-chan photobombing other memes or popular pictures on the Internet with or without context that relates to the character Blanka. Blanka-Chan can be seen on #BlankaChan hashtag on Twitter. ^[0]

Blanka-chan started as a Story-mode costume for the DLC character Blanka which is released on February 20th, 2018 in the game Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition made by Capcom. ^[1] In the backstory of the character Blanka, Blanka-chan is a mass-produced plushy toy that resembles him made by a mysterious business man.

*"In SFV: AE, Blanka is living peacefully with his mother, and has adapted well to being introduced back into society.

One day, a suspicious salesman approaches him and offers a way to make Blanka famous by mass producing a doll made in Blanka's likeness.

Will it work?

Find out in his character story mode."* Capcom explains on its website.

^[2]

Blanka got a big social media boost in Twitter due to this goofy and adorable plushie costume, ahead of his arrival on the SFV:AE game itself. Using the promo pictures of Blanka in his plushie costume, Twitter users immediately started Photoshopping this character into all sorts of settings. Their hilarious results grouped under the #BlankaChan hashtag on Twitter. ^{[-1] [0]} Noticing the trending hashtag, Capcom's official Street Fighter marketing team @StreetFighter later provided the .PNG file for fans to play with. ^[4]

Fans in turn start producing more high quality photobombs to serve the masses.

^[-1]

The term Blanka-chan came from Blanka, a Street Fighter character and -chan, a japanese honorific, or suffix added to the end of one's name, in this case to point out their cuteness. ^[5] The use of the term Blanka-chan can be traced back to the Street Fighter IV days when it was popularized by Street fighter IV's Game Producer, Yoshinori Ono. Ono is famous for trolling Street Fighter fans and always including Blanka figures in his Street fighter announcement or teaser tweets since Blanka is his favourite Street Fighter character. Since then most fans regard Blanka as synonymous with Ono's trollings.

The Blanka character is a love-it-or-hate-it character.

Some players love the character while some lauded Blanka because of the random nature of his attacks and his vast options of movement making him always frustrating to deal with, even to the most skilled players like Daigo Umehara. ^{[6] [7]}While some pro SFV:AE players having difficulty adjusting to the increasing number of online players donning the Blanka-chan costume, some pro players like Infiltration use this opportunity to troll with other players instead. ^{[17] [18] [19]}

The arrival of the Blanka and Blanka-chan costume in SFV:AE resulted in a more polarized opinion towards this already controversial character from casual gamers to seasoned pros alike.

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