Her kanji tattoo doesn’t make sense in any language, but the humour is universal.

Arianna Grande has been making headlines around the world lately, but not for her chart-topping hit “7 Rings”. Instead, it’s for the tattoo she got to celebrate the song’s success, which is meant to say “7 Rings” in Japanese, but instead it says “Japanese BBQ grill”.

After initially brushing off criticism for the tattoo fail, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter surprised everyone by “fixing” the tattoo just days later. However, she ended up making it worse by adding the kanji character for “finger” into the mix, so now it reads as “Japanese BBQ grill finger ♡”.

It didn’t take the world long to wake up to her second gaffe, with people criticising her for using Asian characters as an aesthetic, and suggesting it would’ve been better for the vegan superstar to just own her Japanese BBQ tattoo.

Grande said that fixing the tattoo was so painful she had to get lidocaine shots from her doctor, but whatever pain she went through was nothing compared to the world of pain awaiting her on Twitter, as people from around the world began sharing palm tattoos of their own.

▼ And not just in Japanese, but English as well.

While some were direct copies of her “七輪” (“shichirin”) BBQ grill tattoo, others were more creative.

https://twitter.com/lee_canty/status/1090729914695864320 https://twitter.com/cold_sherry/status/1090857347742715911

People in Japan hit back with some other tattoos written in their syllabary, showing the importance of every single character when it comes to creating a word in Japanese.

Leave one character out of the word for Japan’s mechanical arcade game “pachinko” (ぱちんこ), for example, and it becomes “chinko” (ちんこ), a slang word for penis.

https://twitter.com/yumeno__corgi/status/1090938537623441408

▼ “Ochinchin” is another slang word for penis.

And while “manekineko” is the Japanese word for a cute beckoning cat charm, make a mistake here and you can wind up with “manko“, a slang word for vagina.

Those thinking of getting a Japanese buzzword tattooed on their palm might want to understand what it means first. This one, for example, reads “Abenomics”.

https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1090853347513397248

And there are plenty of lookalike characters that can cause problems too, like this one, which reads 痔 (“ji” or “haemorrhoids”) instead of 侍 (“samurai”).

https://twitter.com/rachel_thorn_en/status/1090828286689632256

The kanji characters for “lucky” “wild” and “family” sound like they’d make a great tattoo. Only problem is, when they come together they read “Yoshinoya”, which is the name of a Japanese fast food chain.

Like Grande’s “shichirin”, the word “shichimencho” also has the kanji for “seven” at the beginning. However, when combined with two other kanji it means “turkey”.

https://twitter.com/TrumpHatJapan/status/1091158116790620160

And “gorin” might literally translate to “five rings” but it actually means “Olympics” in Japanese.

While Grande is yet to comment on her second tattoo fail, it looks like she’s slowly warming to the idea of her BBQ grill, as she posted this shot on her Insta story just the other day.

▼ Mikey from Social House, who co-produced “7 Rings”, is part of Grande’s “lil grill/7 Ring gang”.

With all the worldwide commotion surrounding Grande’s new ink, we can’t help but wonder if the singer will use it all as inspiration for new lyrics or even an upcoming single called “lil grill”.

Until then, we’ll be waiting to see what happens the next time Grande visits Japan, where she’s usually showered with love and gifts from fans, TV hosts, and interviewers. Fingers crossed she gets to receive a collection of cute little Japanese BBQ grills.

Source: Twitter/Ariana Grande Tattoos
Featured image: Twitter/@cold_sherry

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