Japanese fans coin the Nintendo Switch’s cutest new meme after store crashes

The Japanese My Nintendo storefront went live earlier today, opening up customized Nintendo Switch orders to eager local fans. It shouldn’t have shocked those same fans, however, that the website was unable to handle the outpouring of traffic — but their response to the page’s adorable error message is truly unexpected.

Nintendo via Wall Street Journal

As a plethora of eager Nintendo fans visited the My Nintendo page, it appeared the site’s servers got overloaded. Nintendo didn’t have some boring, standard error message lined up for when that happened, however. Instead, an adorable line drawing of a Godzilla-type figure wreaking havoc on a tiny Kyoto appeared, warning visitors that the site would be unable to process their requests for the time being.

The Wall Street Journal’s Japanese outpost and other domestic outlets reported that fans quickly seized on the image. Twitter users soon dubbed the little character “Nin-Zilla,” an inspired moniker based on the legendary Japanese movie monster. Once Nin-Zilla had a name, it quickly became a popular trending topic across Japan.

People weren’t just tweeting about Nin-Zilla to pass the time until the My Nintendo store could handle their Switch orders. Some went way above and beyond, creating original art work and even embroidery based on the image.

Nin-Zilla quickly made it onto Nintendo’s Miiverse platform, where players can create and share illustrations, as well.

The coolest and most inspired piece of all is a fan-made minigame starring what may very well be Nintendo’s next best character. The simple game lets players either jump over towers or shoot fireballs at them as the monster moves from right to left.

The Switch is all sold out in the My Nintendo shop now, so customers worldwide will have to look elsewhere for the system. At least we’ll always have Nin-Zilla from now on.

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