Paris Olympics stars go viral in Japan for doing “no MTX” runs and giving off City Hunter vibes 

People on social media all around the world have been breaking internet with their outpourings of stunned admiration for medal-winners of Air Pistol events at the Paris Games 2024- namely Turkey’s Yusuf Dikec and South Korea’s Ye-ji Kim. Japanese users also can’t get over how cool they look, however Dikec in particular drew some spot-on comparisons to a specific manga series. 

Yusuf Dikec and his partner Sevval Ilayda Tarhan won a silver medal in the 10-meter air pistol mixed team event, but it is Dikec’s unusually relaxed approach that has gone viral. Most shooting competitors wear specialized gear such as tinted eye-glasses, but Dikec didn’t. Consequently, he has been nicknamed the “Free-to-play uncle” (Mukakin Ojisan) among X users in Japan, an analogy to non-paying players of free-to-play video games who don’t have any weapon upgrades or special in-game outfits. This term is currently trending on X in Japan, as of the time of writing. 

Not only that but many Japanese users felt that the photos of Dikec competing gave them City Hunter vibes. City Hunter is a classic hardboiled manga from the 1980s, which later received an anime adaptation. In 2024, interest in the franchise was reignited with a Netflix live-action movie.  

Japanese users were quick to react- Dikec already has fan videos set to TM Network’s Get Wild, the theme song of City Hunter, plus side-by-side comparisons to main character Ryo Saeba in the manga. Not to mention the latte art and fan drawings that are going viral.

South Korea’s Ye-ji Kim not only won a gold medal in the 25m air pistol competition but also broke a world record in the process. Like many Olympics watchers around the world, Japanese commenters were impressed by both her skill and style. The contrast between Ye-ji Kim’s cool and serious “badass energy” as she broke a world record, and the cuteness of her daughter’s stuffed toy elephant keychain also attracted comments. “Dignified face plus shooting skills plus elephant on her hip. Isn’t she perfect?” one user commented. Many posts opined that she looks like a cool manga character.