Why do Japanese do the “peace sign” when photographed? After asking many people like for example Dannychoo(Who talks today about the same thing), and reading many stuff; these are the “peace sign” reasons/origins from my point of view:
- After the Second World War they copied the sign from the USA soldiers maybe because they thought it was cool. The soldiers were using it as a “V”ictory sign, but the Japanese were using it as a “peace sign”.
- During the seventies it started being used when photographed because an American figure skater fell during the Sapporo Olympic games and was photographed/featured on different Japanese media where she was always doing the V sign. Japanese liked it and started imitating her.
- During the last decade music groups like Morning Musume and other similar ones used the V sign a lot and started changing/morphing it in different ways, and people copied that too. Nowadays there are many V style signs, you can do it vertical, horizontal, near your eyes, near you mouth… Usually the same person makes his own V sign style and uses it always when he has to pose for a picture.
- “Making your own V sign” is a trend that is extending to China and Korea
This is the Mourning Musume group, notice how each girl has her own V sign style. Some of them are not even V.
