Kancho : Thousand Years of Pain

“Kancho” is a prank often played in Japan; it is performed in which you attack your victim from behind putting together both of your hands in a “kancho position” (see the pictures), the purpose is to hit your “rival’s” anal region with your index fingers. It’s very popular among Japanese kids and even among asian kids in general, specially in Korea. 

I find it amazing that there is a word in Japanese for “putting your index fingers in someone’s anal region”, this is the slang definition for kancho that comes from the serious original meaning kancho = 浣腸 = enema. When using the slang definition you should write it using katakana -> カンチョウ, and in kanji when used of enemas in the medical sense.

The prank is pervasive in Japan. There are anime glorifying this act (such as Naruto, where it has been called the Thousand Years of Pain -Sennengoroshi [lit.Thousand Years of Death]-). In Japan, there is even a TV gameshow where a celebrity routinely kanchōs random people.

This arcade machine was created by a Korean company and presented at Tokyo Game Show in 2000. It seems it was well received by the Japanese market, in the game you can choose the character you want to kancho, it seems the most popular are the “ex-girlfriend”, the “ex-boyfriend” and the “mother-in-law”.