Japanese Mock IS With 'Photoshop Grand Prix'

One image posted on Twitter shows the hostages and their captor as ninjas

Defiant social media users alter images of the Japanese hostages and their captor with cartoon characters and comedy captions.

Many Japanese have responded to the Islamic State's demand for a $200m ransom for two hostages with a meme mocking the Islamist group.

A hashtag, which translates as "ISIS crappy collage grand prix" or "photoshop grand prix", was created and users have been using it to post parodies of the hostage video.
The video released by the group on Tuesday shows a militant, dressed in black and brandishing a knife as he stands between Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, who are both clad in orange jumpsuits.

Twitter posts show the IS militant posed as a movie villain

This image has been photoshopped to make the British-accented jihadi a ninja and Dr Evil, while in others the two hostages appear as Japanese anime characters.
In another mocked-up image the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is seen laughing and pointing as the video plays on a screen.
The meme plays on the fact that the image of the two kneeled figures and their captor appears to have been photoshopped onto the desert background.

Social media users have been criticised for not taking the threat seriously

According to the social media analytics site, Topsy, the hashtag has been used more than 70,000 times since Tuesday as many use it to express their defiance.
djvjgrrl wrote on Twitter: "Tomorrow will be sad but it will pass and #ISIS will still be a big joke. You can't break our spirit."
But some people have criticised the posts for not taking the IS threat seriously.
JB~kun wrote: "So here I was checking this hashtag and apparently some of the Japanese tweets are making fun of the whole thing. Japan pls."