There's certainly nothing wrong with a non-native English speaking country making spelling and grammar mistakes in English, but sometimes translating directly from Japanese to English with no real localization effort results in phrases such as "Black Man Super Bikini" and "Wash Balls", humorous mistranslations often referred to as "Engrish", but are known as wasei-eigo (Japanese English) in Japanese.

However you refer to it, it's usually on items like t-shirts or menus that have native-speakers playing a guessing game. This time, however, an official poster in Kyoto has people scratching their heads--as well as jokingly concerned about the city posing a global threat! One look at a photo snapped of the posted by @ninja_padrino will tell you why.

The phrase "Rising Again. Save The World from Kyoto JAPAN" is displayed on a poster for the Takashimaya department store in Kyoto. The poster, which features a woman wearing a mask with a koi (carp) design as the fish swim upwards behind her. As Japanese Twitter user @shintak40 translates and asks--"Save the world from Kyoto. Just what did Kyoto?!"

The lack of punctuation and phrasing has Twitter users creating memes about the mistaken implication--some sort of rise to power by the city of Kyoto that the world must band together to save themselves from.

Of course, while the mistake (a missing comma) is rather obvious, some are still a bit befuddled by the poster. Some helpful Twitter users have been helping others put two and two together, however, explaining that the message is supposed to be a motivational call (from the city of Kyoto) to respond to the pandemic and save the world together--starting in Kyoto, especially as a throwback using the same artwork and similar phrasing after the 2011 East Japan Earthquake.

The poster and its imagery are actually tied to the work of Hideki Kimura, an artist who primarily uses koi as a motif. The poster also works as a plug for a popup shop at Takashimaya featuring his works.

The koi also seem to be a reference to the phrase "koi no taki nobori" (a koi rising the rapids), which itself references a Chinese legend and proverb of a spirited carp being able to transform into a dragon by climbing the rapids of the Yellow River. Koi are regarded in Japan as a symbol of perseverance and determination through adversity, so the poster is indeed a call to band together and overcome the pandemic--from Kyoto, of course!