Mimi (Delicious)
TL;DR · Origin"Mimi" is the Korean reading of the Chinese characters 美味, meaning exceptionally delicious. It became a meme in Korea through the anime known there as Yori-wang Biryong — Coo…
Origin
"Mimi" is the Korean reading of the Chinese characters 美味, meaning exceptionally delicious. It became a meme in Korea through the anime known there as Yori-wang Biryong — Cooking Master Boy. In the show, a character takes a bite of a dish, light explodes around them, a near-hallucinatory vision unfolds, and they cry out "Mimi!" That extravagantly overblown sequence recurs throughout the series, and it is the sequence, not the word, that became reaction material.
The source is a manga by Etsushi Ogawa. The anime (original title 中華一番!) aired on the Fuji TV network from April 27th, 1997 to September 13th, 1998 and reached Korea on KBS in 1999. The sequel manga was published in Korea by Haksan as a 17-volume series.
The word "mimi" itself is largely a product of the Korean dub. The same characters exist in Chinese (měiwèi), but as literary register they are uncommon in everyday speech, and the work itself sometimes uses other exclamations in that slot. What lodged in Korean viewers' memory, in other words, was the sound of "Mimi!" and the spectacle right after it rather than the meaning of the word.
How it is used
- As a reaction image attached to food photos or eating scenes, exaggerating how good something is
- As an exclamation when actually eating something delicious
- By extension, for anything deeply satisfying, food or not
- In edits paired with the scene's background music, played for laughs by reacting enormously to unremarkable food
Spread
No single post set this meme off. It settled in slowly after the 1999 Korean broadcast, recirculating as reaction images and video clips over many years. "Cooking Master Boy mimi" images are posted again and again on humor boards such as FM Korea and are registered as fixed entries on Korean reaction-image search sites. YouTube carries both compilations of the mimi scenes and rips of just the background music from them — a good indication that this is a meme remembered through sound and staging rather than through a caption.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "Cooking Master Boy" — the April 27th, 1997 to September 13th, 1998 Fuji TV run, the 1999 KBS broadcast in Korea, and publication details
- Namuwiki, "Cooking Master Boy" — how 美味 was handled in the Korean dub and the other exclamations used in the work
- FM Korea humor board, "Cooking Master Boy mimi image" — evidence of its circulation as a community reaction image
