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⊂((・x・))⊃

I see it in chat in some multiplayer games from Japanese players

Sanandrea
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  • looks like a koala. – sova Dec 11 '15 at 23:10
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is an emoji, not Japanese language. – istrasci Dec 11 '15 at 23:44
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    @istraci Isn't an emoji a non-textual character like 🚃 whereas an emoticon is the use of characters in an artistic way like :)? – Golden Cuy Dec 12 '15 at 01:37
  • @AndrewGrimm HiruneDiver's answer below explains the difference between emoji (like 🚃) and kaomoji (like :)). –  Dec 12 '15 at 03:14
  • Yes, pardon me but I didn't know even it is called a kaomoji. You can close the question, but the accepted answer is very valuable. Where can I ask this type of questions? – Sanandrea Dec 12 '15 at 11:06
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    @Sanandrea see this meta post regarding this question and Kaomoji identification requests. – Amani Kilumanga Dec 12 '15 at 11:25
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    @Sanandrea On this site, the community decides what sorts of questions are on-topic by voting. It takes 5 votes to close a question, but so far only 2 close votes have been cast, while 3 people have voted to leave it open. And in the meta discussion about whether these sorts of questions are on-topic, several users supported an answer saying they should be allowed. So although there's some disagreement, at the moment it looks like your question is considered on-topic and will remain open :-) –  Dec 12 '15 at 17:27
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this isn't about the Japanese language – sqrtbottle Dec 23 '15 at 12:47

3 Answers3

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The kaomoji ⊂((・x・))⊃ doesn't have a fixed universal meaning. It always depends on a preference of a person who uses it and the situation where the kaomoji is used.

There are at least three possibilities.

First, ⊂((・x・))⊃ may represent a rabbit. Especially, Miffy in some cases. ⊂ and ⊃ are her/his ears or arms. A simple kamoji (・x・) has been thought Miffy for years. So people who are familiar with (・x・) tend to think ⊂((・x・))⊃ a variation of the Miffy face kaomoji (・x・).

Second, ⊂((・x・))⊃ might represent a monkey face. ⊂ and ⊃ are her/his ears. But in many cases, a monkey face is expressed by using some other kaomoji like this.

⊂((・⊥・))⊃

Third, ⊂((・x・))⊃ may represent a human or a personificated animal (rabbit in most cases) who is flying. ⊂ and ⊃ are her/his arms. The onomatopoeia for this kaomoji is usually ぶーん or ブーン.

ぶーん⊂((・x・))⊃

Sometimes s/he is actually flying, and sometimes s/he is pretending to be flying with her/his arms since s/he is not a bird and can't fly actually. The kaomoji with this meaning is used when someone comes or goes to somewhere. For example,

ちょっと行ってくる⊂((・x・))⊃

indicates that the speaker is going by flying or feeling flying.

Some people use ⊂((・x・))⊃ to express that they are bored or have nothing to do. S/he is flying because s/he has nothing else to do in this case.

In any case, the point is that the kaomoji ⊂((・x・))⊃ is a face which doesn't show any obvious emotion. So, it could express any kind of emotions which a speaker has. So if you really want to understand what the speaker means using ⊂((・x・))⊃, you should understand the context correctly.

By the way, Japanese symbols, such as ⊂((・x・))⊃ etc., are called kaomoji in Japanese.

Emoji ([絵文字]{え・も・じ}) is something like these.

enter image description here

Kaomoji ([顔文字]{かお・も・じ}) is something like these.

U・x・U dog or rabbit

@(・●・)@ koala

＠ 'ェ' ＠ sheep

ϵ( 'Θ' )϶ fugu

( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ human raising her/his left hand

The default Japanese keyboards on iOS contain all of these kaomoji above, including

⊂((・x・))⊃.

So it's easy for people who have iPhone or iPad to use them these days. (Sorry, I don't know anything about android default keyboards.) You might see these kinds of kaomoji more in chat of mobile app.

HiruneDiver
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    Flying plus koala? Maybe it's a dropbear! – Golden Cuy Dec 12 '15 at 05:13
  • @AndrewGrimm haha( ´ ▽ ` ) it could be. Most native Japanese speakers don't know what a dropbear is, though. – HiruneDiver Dec 12 '15 at 06:45
  • @HiruneDiver yes, I wondered how the japanese team players wrote this kaomoji so fast. So if it already in the iOS keyboard now it explains everything. And I was wondering why it appeared on almost all messages. Thank you! – Sanandrea Dec 12 '15 at 11:11
  • なんという的確な回答((((；ﾟДﾟ)))))))！ミッフィーであってると思います！androidでもiOSでも日本語のキーボードなら簡単に顔文字が出せるんですよ！ – fa11enprince Feb 20 '17 at 11:59
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No special meanings, just a character like Miffy spreading its arms!

Hibiya Ryuto
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It's a monkey emoji. There's a few pages online that explain it, this is one: http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1084135540

Leila
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