Back in the 1970s and 1980s there was a group of kids who bought loud, flashy clothing in Osaka’s Amerikamura, a section of town popular with young people in Osaka. These kids usually got in fights, skipped school, and joined biker gangs. They were known as “yanki” and the sitting position “yanki zuwari”
That style of sitting enabled them to cop a squat anywhere and rest their elbows on their knees while puffing on cigarettes. Yanki talked and acted lower class, and this trademark manner of sitting fit the “though guy with no regard for authority” image.
