Kotobagari ("word hunting") refers to the censorship of words considered politically incorrect in the Japanese Language. It often conveys negative connotations that sarcastically criticize the excess persistence in political correctness. Words such as...
- gaijin/外人 ("outsider")
- A ruder way of saying gaijin is to reverse the syllables, resulting in jingai (人外), which translates to "not human", and often taken to mean "barbarity/inhumanity". These days, gaijin isn't always an insult and depends on context. Jingai is. The most neutral word for "foreigner" is gaikokujin (外国人), which means "foreign country person".
- rai/癩 ("leper")
- mekura/盲 ("blind")
- tsunbo/聾 ("deaf")
- oshi/唖 ("deaf-mute")
- kichigai/気違い/気狂い ("insane")
- tosatsujou/屠殺場 ("slaughter house")
- hakuchi/白痴 ("moron/retard")
- pokopen/不コ本 ("Chinese person")
- katawa/片輪/片端 ("crippled")
...are currently not used by the majority of Japanese publishing houses; the publishers often refuse to publish writing which includes these words.
Critics of kotobagari point out that the activity often does not serve the purpose of correcting the underlying cause of discrimination. For example, a school janitor in Japan used to be called a kozukai-san/小使いさん ("chore person", translates roughly to Mr/Ms. Spendingmoney, Pocketchange, Oddjob, etc). Some felt that the word had a derogatory meaning, so it was changed to youmuin ("task person").
Now youmuin/用務員 is considered demeaning, so there is a shift towards using koumuin/公務員 ("school task member") or kanrisagyouin/管理作業員 ("maintenance member") instead. Linguist Steven Pinker
calls this shift the euphemism treadmill. This tends to give rise to Unusual Euphemisms.
Other examples of words which have become unacceptable include the replacement of the word hyakushou/百姓 for "farmer" with nouka/農家, or the replacement of the word Shina/支那 for China written in kanji with the version written in katakana (シナ) or with the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese name for China, Chuugoku/中国. Japan's lowest class during Japan's feudal era were called eta/穢多 ("heavily polluted"). Their descendants have been renamed burakumin/部落民 ("village people" — no, not those guys), which has done nothing to change systemic prejudice against them. WWII saw the use of ianfu/慰安婦 (comfort women) and jūgun-ianfu/従軍慰安婦 (military comfort women) for women working in military brothels, especially those women who were forced into prostitution as a form of sexual slavery by the Japanese military during the war.
Sometimes, kotobagari leads to confusing terminology. NHK, the Japanese Broadcasting Company, runs a Korean language study program, but the language is called "Hangul" to avoid political conflict. This is a result of both the North and South Korean governments demanding that the program be called by the name of one country. North Korea wanted the show to be called "Chosŏn language", taken from its full name, Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). South Korea wanted "Kankoku language", from the Korean name of Daehan Minguk "Republic of Korea" (the characters would be pronounced "Daikan Minkoku'' in Japanese; literally translated, "The Greater Korean Popular State"). As a compromise, "Hangul" was selected, but this is properly the name of the language's writing system, not the language itself.
In short, this is Japan's version of "Political Correctness". It's disturbingly common when the subjects of Japan's World War II atrocities and its discriminated minorities come up.
A variant, as mentioned below, generally prohibits mentioning actual illegal drugs (or legal but restricted drugs) by name and/or explicitly describing how to use them. Some common ways around this include the common appearance of the Fantastic Drug (in anime, manga, live action TV, literature, and the like), invoking And Some Other Stuff or other ways of vaguely describing the use, or other means of rules lawyering, though some references to actual drugs and their use do get through — usually if sufficient Refuge in Audacity is applied. Unfortunately, this also applies to journalistic reporting or educational material — all drugs are often referred to as "stimulant drugs", "narcotics", or similar, which leads to a lack of clarity and a fertile breeding ground for rumors, and very little publication/distribution of Harm Reduction material related to drugs in Japan.
A similar, albeit not as extreme version of this, happens in the Japanese video game industry when describing foreign versions of a game: when a Japanese video game is released in western countries and described in Japanese media, the western version is never called as such (In Japanese 西洋版 seiyou-ban), but as "the overseas/foreign version" instead (海外版, kaigai-ban). In this case, this is justified, as many Japanese companies release their games in other Asian countries besides the western ones, even if the ones geared for America and Europe are different from the Japanese and Asian ones.note For similar reasons, the western users of those games are never called "westerners" (西洋人 seiyoujin, much less the already mentioned gaijin or even the politically correct gaikokujin) but "overseas/foreign users" for the same reasons.
Examples:
- In Chargeman Ken!, characters will occasionally use the word kichigai to refer to someone or something they think is "crazy". As the anime first aired in 1974, this wasn't considered a big deal at the time, but in later decades it would be unthinkable for a children's anime to use that word.
- In the original manga of Sgt. Frog, the aliens called Earth "Pokopen", which was a derogatory word that the Japanese used for China during the Sino-Japanese Wars. (Yes, it's a deliberate Take That!.) However, Japanese broadcast authorities won't let people use the word, so the anime has the aliens refer to Earth as "Pekopon" instead. Some dubs change it back to "Pokopen". Chinese translation of the series changed it to just "blue planet".
- The Blue Hearts' first single, "Owaranai Uta" ("An Endless Song") includes the word kichigai (lunatic) in its lyrics. This caused a bit of a stir, resulting in the word being excluded from official lyric writeups and obscured by a harsh guitar riff in the actual recording.
- Generally, explicit references to drugs other than alcohol or tobacco by name or explicitly describing how to use them are prohibited. Visual Kei bands, whose lyrics often reference drugs, have come up with a variety of strategies ranging from Refuge in Audacity to being the Rules Lawyer, to use said lyrics or song titles. A couple of famous examples are BUCK-TICK's "Speed", originally named "Acid", but changed around so it could technically refer to "speed" in the sense of motion as opposed to the drug speed, with the line about popping a pill being censored in the official lyrics and only mouthed by Atsushi as he sings it, and Dir en grey's "egnirys cimredopyh" (read it backwards...).
- Legend of the Five Rings, set in a fantasy-world take on feudal Japan crossbred with warring-states China, has the lowest social class as eta.
- Vampire: The Requiem has the Burakumin bloodline — and lately, the word burakumin has been deemed offensive as well, at least according to The Other Wiki. The bloodline originated within the mortal burakumin, and their bloodline weakness is that it's much harder for them to gain respect (the Status Merit, no matter what it's status in, is twice as expensive).
- The title of Katawa Shoujo is an Intentionally Awkward Title, invented by doujin artist RAITA. He sketched out the concept of a dating sim where all the romanceable heroines have disabilities, and since it was intended as a joke, he used a demeaning title that can be translated as "Crippled Babes". When a Western team made this concept into a real game, they explained that they knew the title sounded bad in Japan, but it had become too well-known at that point to be changed. It helped that the game is Freeware and hence doesn't depend on publishers or advertising.
- The Simpsons — sort of inverted and Played for Laughs. When they go to Japan, Bart uses the neutral gaikokujin, but in the subtitles, it's translated "foreign devils"note .
