Loituma Girl
You might remember it as Leekspin, Ievan Polkka leek
The archive has not found a surviving copy.
2006·Early YouTube
The looping animation that introduced a Finnish folk song to a global audience.
At a glanceThe facts
- Began as
- A web animation
- The song
- Ievan polkka, as sung a cappella by the Finnish group Loituma on their 1995 debut album
- Taken from
- A looped clip of the character Orihime Inoue from the anime Bleach
- First posted
- On Russian LiveJournal, in spring 2006
- Also known as
- Leekspin
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
Why it matteredWhat changed
A few seconds of a cartoon girl twirling a vegetable, looped to a Finnish folk song sung in nonsense syllables, went round the world from a Russian blog. It is the reason the voice synthesiser Hatsune Miku is always drawn holding a leek.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Eino Kettunen’s lyrics to Ievan polkka are printed. The tune is a traditional Finnish polka.1
- Made
Loituma release their a cappella version on their first album.1
- Posted
The animation is posted to Russian LiveJournal in the spring: Orihime Inoue twirling a spring onion, looped to part of the song’s fifth verse and all of its sixth.1
- Mainstream
Loituma’s recording reaches number 48 in the German singles chart.1
- Remixed
A producer called Otomania has Hatsune Miku sing the song. The small cartoon Miku in the video holds a spring onion in reference to the animation.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asLoituma wrote the song.
ActuallyThe words were printed in 1928 and the melody is older. Loituma’s is a 1990s arrangement of it.1
Commonly remembered asShe is spinning a leek.
ActuallyIn the Japanese original it is a spring onion. It is a leek only in the English dub.1
What it createdWhat came out of it
- Hatsune Miku’s association with a leek, which began with the 2007 cover.1
Why it is here: it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This began as a web animation, not as a video upload.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as a web animation, not as a video upload.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
More from 2006You were there
ConnectedFollow it further
- Referred to by Hatsune MikuPhenomenon · 2007
The leek Hatsune Miku is drawn with comes from her 2007 cover of the song, whose video copied the spring onion from this animation.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things