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An unusual hair-styling trend known as “haato gata” (heart shape) or “haata appu mori” (heart up-set) has become the talk of the interwebs here in Japan recently.

The curious coiffure, which first sprouted in South Korea, is just what it sounds like: girls carefully style their fringe (or bangs to the rest of you) into the shape of a heart, strike a cute pose and then take a picture.

Sadly, to many of us, that’s not what the finished result it looks like…

Let’s start by taking a quick look at how this quirky little hair style is achieved, shall we?

Clearly it’s not as easy as it looks! These girls know their way around a can of hair spray, we’ll give them that.

Catching wind of the trend, girls in Japan have been tweeting photos of themselves trying out the style for themselves as well as sharing images of the best haato gata examples from neighbouring South Korea.

Here’s just a brief sample of the tweets floating around online:

▼”Is it true that this heart-shape hair style is popular in Korea right now?”

▼ “Haato mori appu!”

https://twitter.com/mnjj33/status/536113173514813440

▼”I managed to create a haato-mori!”

▼”Currently trending in Korea. I want to give this a try!”

https://twitter.com/baka_www_122/status/628134794778443776

▼ “This is cute. But then again, whatever cute people do looks cute…”

https://twitter.com/xoxoexotsunnaru/status/557857990171455490

As cute as these photos are, the more we saw of them the more we began to worry that we had the minds of a room full of sugar-addled elementary schoolers. That is, until we spotted this lone tweet posted last month by someone called Yukiri:

▼ “Try as I might, I just can’t get my head around this heart-shape hair trend. I’m holding my stomach laughing.”

https://twitter.com/yukiri1126/status/622697374528372737

Quite honestly, Yukiri, we know what you mean, and we’re glad you spoke up. We know it’s only meant to be a bit of fun, but no matter how hard we try to see an upside-down heart on the front of these young ladies’ foreheads, all we see are strands of hair curled into the shape of a tiny bottom.

A tiny, beautifully shaped underpants gnome bottom right in the middle of their forehead…

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Source: Naver Matome, Fumikomyu, Favo Toto h/t Kotaku US
Featured image: YouTube/COCO ch.
Top/insert image: jinju.no