It Came From The Youtubes!: The Caramelldansen

This is nothing new to the fandom. In fact its been around about four years. However, I feel a lot of fans have encountered the their favorite characters online doing the Caramelldansen (or "Uma Uma Dance,") and never really got an explanation as to what this was. The Caramelldansen or "Caramell Dance" refers to both the song heard in the background as well as the dance.In the dance you often see two or more characters with their legs together pivoting their hips left and right while holding their hands over their heads and flapping them forward, as if mimicking cat or rabbit ears. The song heard the background is "The Caramelldansen (Speedycake Remix), by the Swedish band Caramell, from the album Supergott. Now if your wondering why the hell a Swedish song became such a major anime meme, the song and dance were used in the intro to the Popotan PC visual Novel. A GIF of the characters Mai-chan and Mii-chan doing the dance was released online and the rest was history. Soon every other character was seen doing the dance to the poppy song and people were breaking into the dance at conventions.

Caramelldansen Original (Choppy Quality)

This is the original. The quality sucks but I can't find a not crappy version of the video anywhere. For a great quality English version of the video go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A67ZkAd1wmI


Caramell Dansen Random Series

Here is a good example of how many different series have been tapped for characters to do the dance. Don't be fooled however, these are just a fraction of how many of our favorite characters who are "doing the dansen".


Caramelldansen Strikes Otakon

There are lots of videos of people doing the Caramelldansen at cons but I was actually in this crowd when it spontaneously happened. Ah, memories...