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Some parts of this wiki are overly Japan-specific. If the premise of the trope can function with bandages as well as special Japanese bandages, it should not be limited, and after reading the page it's fine.

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

It should also be re-named to something that isn't Japan-specific.

Sarashi are pretty different, physically and historically, from other bandages from what I've heard.

Gonna have to disagree with the consensus on this one. This is Japan-specific because it's a Japanese-specific trope, and should be kept as such. The only way "basic bandages" should count is if they're intentionally done in a manner to evoke the trope (for example, at the climax of the film Yakuza, the hero is injured and treated. He gets bandages across his body. It doesn't fall into this trope until his shirt dramatically comes off and said bandages are clearly done to evoke this trope as he is a Japanese hoodlum).

Losing the Japanese-specific connotations turns this into people have bandages. We have Suppressed Mammaries and Bandage Babe for other uses, but "Japanese symbol of toughness and frequently tied to either Samurai or Japanese Delinquents" seems pretty fine to me.

Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

^Then all non-Japanese examples should be stripped and links from non-Japanese works should be deleted. And probably a note should be put on the trope description that it's a Japan-specific work.

That's a favorite drum for Japanophiles to beat, but tropes are universal — or rather, good tropes are written to be as universal as possible. Don't get caught in the "It's different in Japan" trap.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

^^ The work needn't be Japanese, but the trope would be.

For example, I'd imagine that Mythbusters example has to go. By, say, RWBY, which isn't Japanese nor is it set in Japan, is aware of the Japanese connotations.

In this case, the trope being Japanese cultural thing is enough of a thing that it's a plot point in a Chinese film. The Chinese Connection hinges on it, and if it's Japanese-specific enough that Bruce Lee is willing to kill a guy for having a sarashi, then it's good enough for me.

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^If the trope is used in non-Japanese media, it shouldn't have a Japanese name.

That's pretty absurd on a lot of levels.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

I'm also against the argument that we need special Japanese tropes (in general this is a sign of fan myopia more than cultural differences), but here is seems the trope deals with a phenomenon in Japanese culture. That is, the trope may not (and perhaps should not) be exclusive to Japanese media, but it may only apply to works in a Japanese setting or referring to Japanese culture - for the reason that bandaging of this kind has different connotations in other cultures, nothing else.

As for the name: is there a better English name? Or should "Sarashi" perhaps be considered a loan word in English (like "katana") so the trope name actually is English?

I think because of the cultural origins, keeping the name is OK, but if the examples are representative of the trope despite not explicitly using sarashi, then bandages can count.

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

Not at all. Giving tropes with general applicability names from Japanese anime fanspeak serves only to confuse people who are not anime fans and are not familiar with anime fanspeak. Most of the users of this wiki probably would not know what "Sarashi" means if they read it, and of course about 99.9999% of the general public wouldn't.

If it were a trope dealing only with anime and Japanese culture, that would be a different matter.

Just from looking at the page it seems like a confused definition and a confused list of examples. It's conflating the use of body binding to protect the body from injury and the use of body binding to make breasts appear smaller. The definition also calls it "a traditional symbol of masculinity" but also talks at length about how it's used by women to flatten their breasts.

A rename to something like Body Binding would be appropriate.

Definitely with you on the examples, they're a mess and especially with overlap on Suppressed Mammaries and Hidden Buxom they're really problematic.

The issue is that sarashi is a word that A: Doesn't really have an exact English counterpart ("binding" is not only incredibly vague but really confusing) and B: We've got plenty of trope titles with loanwords in them and C: It's not a Japanese-media exclusive trope, but it's exclusive to media with ties to Japan and Japanese cultural significance.

That said, I would be amenable to a rename to something like Rugged Sarashi "wears a sarashi" isn't a trope, and it would curb misuse of it.

Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Isn't this more of a thing for TRS?

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Sarashi is indeed used in English as a loan word, in the same vein as kimono or samurai. If you search for online English-language shops that sell material and accessories for kimono (as sarashi are part of the method of wearing kimono to hide a woman's curves), the bandages will always be called sarashi without any attempt to find an English language alternative. So, the word might be less well known than some other loan words, but it is being used that way.

That said, given that body binding is a thing in many cultures and done in many different ways, there's probably super-trope going on that Sarashi would fall under. Foot-binding in Chinese cultures, for example, would be another type of body binding. And my guess is that something like the coils worn around the necks of women in some Asian and African cultures to make the neck seem elongated (which deform the clavicles rather than genuinely elongating the neck) would also come under that super-trope.

Edited by Wyldchyld If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

I brought this up in ATT because I had a TLP specifically about non-sarashi bandage breast binding but it was considered redundant so I discarded it. I was going to move non-sarashi examples to Suppressed Mammaries, but glancing over that trope I wasn't sure if that'd fit either. There's a difference between making your chest look smaller because you're shy or because you wear baggy clothes and because you're in disguise or trans.

Edited by Pichu-kun

While I would approve of a "Binding" index, I don't think body binding itself is a trope. They're done in different ways because they fulfill different objectives/tropes.

When I read Sarashi, the trope I see is a form of first aid (and preventative medicine) for injuries to the torso, which are common in martial arts. Said bandaging is "evidence" of masculinity (because men are violent). Thus, anyone who is wearing that many bandages must be a man ready for deadly fighting. This means the bandages provide a socially acceptable excuse for why the abdomen/chest is bound, and since loose bandages aren't as effective, it allows for Sweet Polly Oliver.

I'd probably consider most forms of non-sarashi breast binding redundant to Sweet Polly Oliver, not Sarashi.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

^^ - That's TLP, not TRS. ... Happened to me, too.

Edited by Malady Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

Another thread that's way too long for ATT. Suggest locking and redirect to an appropriate forum.

Edited by Arivne

^^ I know, it's a typo.

Oh wow, I totally forgot Suppressed Mammaries is a trope. I suggest stripping Sarashi of any examples that pertain to women attempting to conceal their breasts, and moving all those examples to Suppressed Mammaries. At the same time, change the trope definition of Sarashi to make clear it's only about the practice of Japanese warriors binding up their torso.

It's my understanding that word 'sarashi' refers to the type of fabric used to create the 'bandages'.

The primary use of Sarashi in wasn't traditionally Suppressed Mammaries (women) or protection from injury (men): it's for body support when wearing kimono (bra and belly for women, belly for men (warrior and non-warrior)).

The fact that it does get used for those two purposes seems to be muddying the water a little bit. The first paragraph of the trope description seems problematic and misleading for that reason.

Where works use it for fashion, other tropes exist such as Bandage Babe, Suppressed Mammaries and D-Cup Distress, leaving the Sarashi trope for non-fanservice use in both men and women. It tends to be used in works as visual symbolism for tough warriors (male or female) that are potentially following old-fashioned/non-modern codes of conduct (along samurai or yakuza lines). Basically, the trope description's second paragraph with rewrite.

Edited by Wyldchyld If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Moved some example. It's worth noting that Breast Binding redirects to sarashi. That should probably be changed.

Maybe turn into disambig instead?

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576