「お前、あの祠を壊したのか！？」
New meme hot off the press. Those tuned into Japanese Twitter/X will notice an awful lot of memetic mutations like 「あの祠を壊したんか！」, 「お前、あの祠を壊したのか！？」, 「お前あの祠壊したんか!!」, and other hokora-destruction-related phrases.
Destroying a hokora (small/miniature Shinto shrine) equals a death flag, bad luck, and all-around ominous future prospects. Outside of being something you obviously shouldn't do in real life, it's a literary device and borderline meme in Japanese media, recently receiving some renewed attention since last week.
The hokora meme or 「祠ネタ」 (pixiv Encyclopedia link) originates from a tweet on October 9th, 2024, from user @machi_trpg . They share the amusing observation that while the stereotypical scenario involves a typical village elder exclaiming something to the effect of "You destroyed that hokora?! It's all over for you!" in a panicked rage, the idea of some unshaven, long-haired, chain-smoking man in his 30s instead nonchalantly dropping something like "Ahh, so you broke that hokora, huh? That's that, then. You, you're probably gonna die." is in some ways all the more terrifying.
The mental image of the latter man has sparked the imaginations of some, and some fans of the hokora oji-san 「祠おじさん」(pixiv Encyclopedia link) have henceforth cropped up, illustrating their takes on what he might look like.
The hokora meme is multi-faceted. Some focus on the hokora oji-san or add other character archetypes into the mix, while others hone in on humorous variations of the hokora-destroying scenario itself. Others latch onto the very phrasing, and use it the start for countless memetic offshoots that generally boil down to someone yelling at someone else for destroying something. It's all just meme-y fun, the kind of thing we love around here.
At the time of writing, the meme is still relatively fresh, and we're seeing new takes like mockups of an anime titlecard. Yahoo! JAPAN News even recently featured ねとらぼ's brief piece on the meme's origins, including a note on popular seiyuu Suwabe Junichi's own submission to the fun.
How much longevity will this meme have? Who knows? But it better avoid toppling over any hokora or its days are certainly numbered.