General Japanese Culture Thread

SSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOO...what's the best honorific for a boy to establish contemptible familiarity or condescension with people?

The best I can find with brief research is "Chan".

edited 26th May '17 2:34:59 PM by fredhot16

There is the option of dismissing with honorifics whatsoever, AKA yobisute. It works "best" when the person you're referring to is either quite egotistical or supposed to be of higher social status than you (or at least, above "common folk"), because both cases typically expect others to refer to them in a respectful manner, and unsanctioned yobisute is a sign of excessive familiarity / blatant disrespect.

Example: From Bleach, Ichigo Kurosaki (hailing from a middle-class family in the living world) used to refer to Byakuya Kuchiki (who is a noble in a feudalistic afterlife) as either "Kuchiki-san" or by his full name when they were enemies. When the Soul Society Arc ended with them no longer actively hostile to each other (but not actually friends), Ichigo unilaterally started to refer to him by his given name without honorific; the first time that happened, it took Byakuya about a minute to register that Ichigo had been (from his perspective) overly familiar in how he referred to him. In what is perhaps a sign of unusual tolerance born of how Ichigo managed to set his mind straight over the issues that caused their former enmity, however, he doesn't seem to ever bother correcting him (AFAIR, at least).

What circumstances are we talking about for 'contemptible familiarity'?

Basically being familiar with someone you're not actually familiar with — with "familiar" being used in the sense that you're socially close to the person in question (e.g. friend or close relative that you interact with regularly). Japanese culture is quite big on this sort of thing; IIRC the standard approach is to speak to any other person in a formally polite manner unless they expressly tell you that being informal with them is fine.

In upper class families (though this might be largely limited to older times), this might get bumped up even more, such that even a son should refer to his own parents in highly formal terms.

I'm aware, I'm asking about the specific context fredhot's looking for.

Well, that will require fredhot providing more details.

There are many ways to refer to someone with 'contemptible familiarity'. You could add -chan to their name if they are a guy and such to just to annoy them.

You could be on a Full-Name Basis like Eriri is with 'Kasumigaoka Utaha' In Saekano, gotta get the anger to bleed through when saying the name though and only add 'senpai' or which ever at the end when you are trying to get something out of the other person.

edited 27th May '17 11:16:50 AM by Memers

For context, I'm going to write a Japanese Delinquent. Just thinking of what honorifcs to use to establish him as very rude and disrespectful to everyone.

As a follow-up question, what about for girls?

On another note, what are traditionally feminine colors in Japan?

edited 31st May '17 2:32:09 PM by fredhot16

A lone yankii or a banchou? They would speak differently.

For a girl is it a Gyaru Girl or a Sukeban? Their personalities would be quite different as well.

Colors umm almost all colors can be but I think mostly pastels lately.

edited 31st May '17 5:36:07 PM by Memers

For that, I guess I'd say no honorifics - pronouns like temee or anta, and last names with no honorifics, probably.

Also, nothing prohibits the character from being disrespectful in varying ways depending on who he's speaking to. Take Ranma Saotome from Ranma ½, for example:

• By default, he doesn't use honorifics unless he's deliberately being polite (e.g. he always calls Kasumi Tendou with the suffix "-san" added to her first name; makes sense, since she's practically the nicest character in the cast) or being sarcastic/insulting (e.g. Tatewaki Kunou insists on being called "Kunou-senpai" since he's an upperclassman; Ranma obliges, but as a Stealth Insult of sorts in that he makes it clear he's paying the barest amount of lip service rather than being genuinely respectful, given that he has no problem punching and kicking the guy black and blue).
• He makes a habit of inventing derogatory nicknames for some of his rivals that derive from one of their traits. For example, he frequently calls Ryouga "P-chan" or any of a variety of pig-related insults, because he transforms into a piglet when splashed by cold water and Akane unknowingly adopted him in said form as a pet and gave him the name "P-chan". Such nicknames easily add fuel to the fires of Ryouga's already existent rage in their confrontations.

edited 31st May '17 7:05:36 PM by MarqFJA

To be clear, are you writing in English or Japanese? Because English dialogue littered with random bits of questionably-translated Japanese is a goddamned curse, unless the character is specifically speaking broken English as a second language (and then, I'd recommend doing a little diving into Japanese grammar in order to figure out what sort of structural slip-ups a Japanese person with a poor grasp of English might be likely to make when constructing sentences). If you're operating on the Translation Convention, Woolseyisms are your friend. Use them.

edited 31st May '17 7:16:18 PM by Iaculus

...Haven't decided yet so tell me for the yankii or banchou .

Also, I meant for someone like that to call girls.

Thanks for the advice.

I'm writing in English. I'll use honorifics because, well, they seem like a nice bit of characterization.

edited 1st Jun '17 12:28:05 PM by fredhot16

Honorifics are fun but sound stilted. Even more fun and stilted are verbal ticks-ttebayo. And the most fun and stilted thing are laughs, dereshishishishishi!

My God, it's even cuter than in the manga. One Piece is such an amazing work. I wonder if Oda will ever be honoured as a Living National Treasure. How does that compare to a UK knighthood?

edited 1st Jun '17 2:18:09 PM by TheHandle

YMMV on the incorporation of hard-to-accurately-translate Japanese into English dialogue where the speaking character(s) are actually speaking in Japanese that's rendered as English for the reader's convenience.

You're not translating from source material, you're writing dialogue in your own language. You don't have to worry about hard-to-translate Japanese phrases when you can convey the meaning in an entirely different way by rewriting the entire paragraph.

You'll want to keep in mind your characters' cultural background with idioms and patterns of behaviour (unless you're doing a deliberately dissonant work like A Knight's Tale), seeing as it might be a little odd for a Japanese character to, say, talk about 'turkeys voting for thanksgiving', but you've got a highly expressive language with an enormous vocabulary that can articulate pretty much any concept with decent enough writing, so you might as well use it.

"There may be no exact Japanese equivalent of an f-bomb, but let it be known that one was dropped here in spirit."

What's that a quote from?

It was a hypothetical quote.

That was actually beautiful, if you're aiming for a Pratchettian or Adamsic Lemony Narrator. I would have laughed, in a good way.

So, something I've been thinking about recently. Generational conflicts are a thing to some extent in every culture, but am I wrong in thinking that Japan has it worse than most? It seems like in most Western works that touch on generational conflicts, there are some sympathetic adults that side with the younger generation, and the conflict is framed as "younger generation against old-fashioned, closed-minded adults", while in Japanese works with a generational conflict, it's much more common for it to be framed as "younger generation vs adults in general".

I can think of a handful of Japanese characters offhand (ranging from Kamille of Zeta Gundam, released almost 30 years ago, to Ryuji from Persona 5, released just last year) who rage against adults indiscriminately, while most Western works on the issue have at least one adult who's sympathetic to the kids' cause, if not outright pushing them into it (eg, Robin Williams' character is the rebellion-menor adult in Dead Poets Society).

Does that seem like an actual trend to anyone else, or am I seeing things?

edited 2nd Jun '17 9:19:39 AM by NativeJovian

Akiraaa! While teens rule, there are any number of sympathetic adult characters portrayed.So its not universal, at least.

edited 2nd Jun '17 10:34:42 AM by DeMarquis

Most shows have an even mix of useful and useless, good and bad adults.

I'd like to reiterate that I love One Piece. It's just something I feel compelled to say.

Is "Hinokami" a real given name? Especially for a girl?

I've not seen anything of heard of anyone from Japan with that name, though considering there are shows with characters that have names like 'rabbit of the moon' it's probably not too much of a stretch to say that you could get away with it if it's supposed to be symbolic.

edited 3rd Jun '17 1:02:52 PM by PhysicalStamina