Senkaku Islands dispute
The character was originally conceived by users on a 2ch board as a satire of the aforementioned Chinese racial term. In China, the term Riben guizi "日本鬼子" () is a phrase used since World War II, and still used today, as a disparaging epithet against the Japanese. Japanese netizens chose to transform the normally racist and offensive phrase into a character which could be depicted as "cute" or "moe", in an expression that the negative connotations behind the slur can be reversed. The creation of the character in 2010 follows the escalation of the Senkaku Islands dispute as a result of the fishing trawler collision incident which occurred not too long before, and was intended as a "hit back" response against growing anti-Japanese sentiment amongst Chinese netizens online and within the public opinion of Chinese people in general following the island dispute incident.