Continuing with the festive spirit adopted by Japanese Internet users this month, November 28 has been designated as the “High Socks Day (Ii Niihai no Hi)“, a day in which artists and the community come together to celebrate the beloved garment “Knee High (ニーハイ)” that elegantly extend above the knees. This annual celebration has been a tradition since approximately 2013, capturing the enthusiasm of the community.
In Japan, numerous unofficial but widely recognized commemorative days are established by companies, organizations, industry groups or individuals as part of promotional or awareness campaigns. Many of these days are coined ingeniously using puns on date numbers, a practice facilitated by the nature of the Japanese language, where kanji characters that include numbers often have multiple pronunciations.
November, in particular, becomes a focal point for these punning anniversary days, as the number “11” can be read as “i(1)i(1),” meaning “good,” “pleasant.” ” or “happy.” Similarly, November 28 is designated as “Knee High Day” because the numbers can be read as “1(I) + 1(I) + 2(Nī) + 8(Ha(i)),” which means “Good High Socks.”
Meanwhile, the appearance of this anniversary day did not occur until the late 2000s, as it inherited the famous concept of “Zettai Ryouiki,” or fetish for exposed skin in the space between over-the-knee socks and a miniskirtwhich established itself in otaku culture in the first half of the 2000s. Finally, a variety of illustrations can be found through the hashtag #いいニーハイの日.
Fountain: Twitter
