Pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has come under fire for an Instagram post in which she held her middle nail in front of her eye. While Kyary probably intended for it to look as though the design on her nail was coming out of her eye, netizens have interpreted the pose differently.

Indeed, Kyary has faced a deluge of criticism for apparently “flipping the bird” to her fans; so much so that an article describing the incident was the most accessed on news portal site Yahoo! Japan. While many have decried her photograph as rude and insulting to her supporters, other netizens have pointed out that showing your middle finger in Japan does not have the same cultural significance as it does in the US, for example.

Does the zany pop princess deserve the backlash? Or did she just want to show off her nails?

Backlash After Kyary Posts Picture Of Her Giving The Finger

Singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu shared a photograph on her Instagram account showing her with her middle finger in front of her face, and now it’s causing a backlash among her fans.

To stick up your middle finger is a gesture that is meant to insult someone. In the problematic photograph, Kyary has her middle finger stuck up so that the nail covers her eye. A black false nail with a cross on it is fixed on top of her own nail, and by holding it over her eye, it seems as though the cross has appeared in her eye. Kyary posted alongside the photo that “Mysterious eye”, but the message in sticking up her middle finger is unknown.

The picture resulted in floods of comments from fans casting doubt on Kyary’s actions, saying things such as “Are you OK?” and “Do you want to reduce the number of your fans??”.

For the first time, Kyary’s single “Problem Girl” [Mondai gaaru] will be used as the theme tune for the drama “A Restaurant With Problems” [Mondai no aru resutoran]starring Maki Yoko, to be broadcast from January 15.

Comments from Yahoo! Japan:

ガラムの報復:

Who even cares.

ori*****

It’s not like she doesn’t know what sticking up your middle finger means,

so I guess she’s just doing it to make people talk?

him*****:

I guess she did this pose because she only has the cross painted on her middle finger, but she didn’t take enough care.

It’d be pretty bad if she actually does have the other finger nails painted to but still did this.

カレーライス:

Since she released “Ninjari bang bang” she’s had no songs people talked about and all she did was write about love.

I guess I got a bit tougher on her though.

cam*****:

I don’t think she’s the kind of person who would think about something like that.

sil*****:

Up until recently she was just a character calculated and created by the staff around her, but nowadays it seems that the staff are slacking off on checking up on her.

ガラムの報復:

This shouldn’t really be something someone writes a whole article on.

hon*****:

Who cares!

Comments from Twitter:

ボル*さくを探しています(相互愛):

Honestly I don’t think this is a big deal…has this really caught on in Japan now as being something that is seriously insulting? People are writing “She’s sticking up her middle finger purposely”, but she often has different designs on each nail, and she probably didn’t think about it all that deeply, right?

くりりん♂:

If Yaguchi Mariko or someone had done this then I wouldn’t allow it, but (^^;

石川 徹:

Zainichi. [ie, a zainichi Korean/Korean resident in Japan].

タヨリ:

I love Kyary, but I say NO to this.

にょんにょん:

This just gives me the impression that wow, this kid is dumb.

BUNYUMETAL(*ฅ́˘ฅ̀*):

This is because American gestures are now the global standard!! Haha!

kenzy:

Ignorance is scary. For someone with influence to do that…

I think that as a penalty she should have to perform a live gig without an audience.

由真スキー（23）: