Female anime characters, when surprised, shocked, or threatened, will frequently throw their arms up in the air at a forty-five degree angle, just like a Kewpie doll. Moe characters are more likely to do this than others.
The trope can take one of two forms: either the character doing it will freeze into a tableau, or she'll flap her arms up into the kewpie doll pose and down again. Mere surprise more commonly elicits the first reaction; terrified or frantic characters are more likely to perform the second. The trope is largely confined to comedy series.
Compare Human Hummingbird, when a character's limbs flail so fast, you can barely see them.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- Azumanga Daioh: Tomo frequently flaps her arms up and down whenever she's excited, distressed, or otherwise emotional, tying in with her nature as a self-described "crazy-go-nuts high schooler with energy and spunk, if nothing else."
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha:
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's: Nanoha does this when Vita gets her name wrong.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: The page image is Caro Ru Lushe.
- Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch: When Hanon and Rina see Lucia's clothes in Kaito's house hung just at the window, they enter this state as they wonder what naughty/perverted things are happening there. When the scene changes again, it shows them and their Kewpie doll versions of them in their hands.
- Ranma ½:
- In the first season, Kasumi does the first type upon first seeing Akane's shorter haircut (flinging a frying pan into the air in the process, forcing Ranma to rescue it and its contents).
- Girl-type Ranma does the second when facing her mortal fear of cats.
- Wagnaria!!: Popura is prone to this.
Visual Novels
- To Heart 2: Ruuko Kireinasora does this as her greeting.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive:
- Susan does it here.
- This is used to illustrate Justin's thoughts protesting that Elliot's female form is adorable.
- Susan does it here.
