Keigo (敬語) — with 敬 (kei) meaning "honor" and 語 (go) meaning "speech" or "language" — is a Japanese speech register containing the language's more polite forms of address. It is used in formal and ceremonial circumstances, and in certain cases, when those of lower social positions are addressing their higher-ups. For example, shop clerks generally address customers using keigo forms. (A few keigo phrases are used in daily conversation as well.) For more information, see Japanese Language; it also commonly shares overlap with Japanese Honorifics and Japanese Pronouns.
In Japanese media, keigo speech may mark a character as, among other traits, refined, old-fashioned, polite, or mild-mannered. The Ojou, Yamato Nadeshiko, Meido, and Samurai characters are all likely keigo speakers. It might also be deliberately adopted by people seeking to sound deferential, as in high-class service sector workers. People from Kansai are also prone to using keigo in situations where Kanto speakers would deem it unnecessary, especially speakers from Kyoto.note
This form of speech is sometimes rendered in various dubs as British English (usually Received Pronunciation) or European Spanish if it is the defining trait of a character. Another option might be Antiquated Linguistics (vaguely Victorian English) and Flowery Elizabethan English (vaguely Elizabethan English), which are independently used as speech patterns for old-timey Anglosphere characters, and if you want a more accurate Accent Adaptation, try a Southern Gentleman type of speaking, as American Southerners tended to be rather sophisticated in a similar manner to Kyoto people, especially back in the older days. Compare Spock Speak for other characters who speak formally. Contrast The Idiot from Osaka, where dumb comic relief characters have comparable accents to New Yorkers, Floridians or hillbillies.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ah! My Goddess: Peorth's speech pattern in the original Japanese is rather antiquated and polite, used in Real Life only by upper-class women raised before World War II, thus extremely unfitting for a girl who looks and dresses like her. Studio Proteus/Dark Horse opted to translate this by having her speak French.
- Azumanga Daioh: Child Prodigy Chiyo Mihama's speech patterns in Japanese are generally much more polite than the other characters', which highlights both her wealthy upbringing and her precocious nature. It also helps that as a Grade Skipper, her peers are several years older than her and she's expected to be respectful to them.
- Tomoyo Daidouji from Cardcaptor Sakura is the daughter of an entrepreneur of a giant toy company, who is kind and nice to everybody with good manner. Said manner includes using keigo in every conversation, even conversations with herself.
- Dragon Ball: Freeza's Japanese speech patterns are extremely formal, always using the most polite forms of verbs. This serves to contrast with his ruthless behavior, as well as contrast with the series' protagonist Son Goku, whose own speech patterns are much more informal and have some elements of a Tohoku dialect (which is stereotypically associated with people from the boonies).
- In Fairy Tail, Wendy, who is highly polite, uses keigo when speaking to most characters besides her long-time best friend and Exceed companion Carla, who is also one of the few she addresses without honorifics. Wendy's new friend Shellia once teases her about how formal she is after Wendy thanks her with "Arigato gozaimasu".
- Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: Fern speaks in very formal linguistics at all times and uses the extremely respectful -sama honorific for everyone, including her closest friends, to convey her ultra-polite nature.
- Fruits Basket:
- Main character Tohru Honda's most notable quirk is how she always speaks very politely, even to people she's close to or in situations where it's unnecessary. One brief scene even has her sigh and then add "desu" out of habit. While this reflects her humble nature, she also does this deliberately since her father Katsuya also had polite speech patterns, and since he died when she was three, it's one of the few things she remembers about him. In the dub, this is adapted as her speaking as though she was a parent or significant other. She also deliberately picked up these speech patterns as a way to keep Kyoko from leaving her, since she secretly resents Katsuya as Kyoko's grief over his death made her neglect Tohru for a time and almost commit suicide.
- Subverted with Motoko Minagawa, who speaks in an extremely polite manner that emphasizes her haughty personality. However, despite behaving like an arrogant Ojou stereotype, she's not from a wealthy or influential family and her parents run a produce store.
- Go! Princess Pretty Cure: As expected of a princess, Cure Scarlet uses formal Japanese to whomever she speaks to. However, she's also very, very formal at all times, even with her close friends/fellow Cures.
- A Love Letter For The Marching Puppy is set at a military academy in an Alternate History of Japan, in which women were admitted to the army in the early 20th Century. Cadets are told to use watakushi on themselves and end sentences with de arimasu while speaking to superiors.
- Love Live!:
- Dia Kurosawa from Love Live! Sunshine!! speaks in very formal linguistics at all times (even using the very formal pronoun watakushi for herself), highlighting her upbringing from a very traditional (and wealthy) Japanese background.
- Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club: Even when she's at her most energetic, Setsuna Yuki's Japanese speech patterns are always polite, consistently using formal verbs. This reflects that, despite her cheerful and geeky personality, she's still an Ojou from a strict household.
- Lucky Star: Miyuki Takara is a wealthy girl who always speaks very politely. In Episode 7 of the anime, when Konata becomes hooked on Marimite and starts acting and speaking like a stereotypical Ojou, Miyuki seamlessly plays along with it.
- My Dress-Up Darling: Wakana Gojo always uses very formal speech patterns, which emphasizes his polite, humble personality as well as how he lives an old-fashioned lifestyle with his grandfather.
- The protagonist of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Negi Springfield, uses keigo while speaking with anyone that isn't a close friend or family member. His love interests have a minor freak-out when they think this means there's an emotional wall between him and ask him to speak to them informally.
- Nisekoi: Marika Tachibana invokes this, as she usually speaks very formally as part of her image as a Proper Lady. However, when she becomes angry or flustered, she'll slip back into her native dialect (a Tosa dialect in the manga, but a Fukuoka dialect in the anime), showing that she's not as proper as she likes to pretend.
- The Quintessential Quintuplets: Itsuki always tends to speak using the most formal patterns, adding to her straight-laced demeanor. This seems to be an aspect of trying to act more like their mother after her death, as she speaks more casually while disguised as Rena, which, according to Yotsuba, is much more like the "old" Itsuki.
- Youko in Three Leaves, Three Colors, despite no longer being an Ojou, can't get out of her old speech patterns, down to using watakushi instead of plain watashi. Futaba is amazed to meet someone who actually talks that way too.
- Voltes V: Katherine, who hails from the Rii family, speaks in a flowery keigo manner, even to people she's close to such as Prince Heinel. Apart from the way she speaks, her Fluffy Fashion Feathers and Fairytale Wedding Dress remind you that she's a Boazanian noble. In contrast, Hiyoshi, who shares her voice actress, speaks rather informally and in a child-like manner.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS: Subverted with Specter, who is known to speak in a polite manner to highlight his utter sadistic personality.
Literature
- Black Bullet: Seitenshi in very formal linguistics (highlighting her authority as ruler of the Tokyo Area), and also uses the very formal first-person pronoun watakushi in the Japanese version when referring to herself.
- The Case Files of Jeweler Richard: Richard's Japanese with customers is extremely formal and polite to match his behavior and upper-class background, along with his ever-present suits, although the formality drops off some when he speaks to characters like Seigi more casually and even swears in English at his own cousins.
- In Haruhi Suzumiya, Itsuki Koizumi always uses keigo to convey his ultra-polite nature. Kyon reads this as Koizumi being a suck-up, and Koizumi himself admits he gets sick of being polite to his classmates all the time.
- Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: As the young lady of a noble family, Haruhime always speaks in a very formal manner, down to using watakushi instead of plain watashi.
- Maria Watches Over Us, being set at a prestigious Catholic boarding school for girls which places heavy emphasis on elegance and respectability, is heavy with this. Students are expected to speak formally, especially to their upperclassmen.
Live-Action TV
- Shuriken Sentai Ninninger: Kasumi Momochi always speaks in keigo to emphasize her Proper Lady personality. She calls her cousin by nicknames, but still talks very politely, even when excited or after becoming a Cloudcuckoolander due to a MOTW.
Video Games
- Blue Reflection: Second Light: Shiho Kasuga has a very polite way of speaking. It is implied she picked up this habit from doing her job as a barista.
- Fire Emblem:
- Fire Emblem Fates has Sakura, a princess of Hoshido and one of the most polite characters in the game, consistently uses keigo in the original Japanese script. She uses the extremely respectful sibling addresses "Onii-sama" on her brothers (Ryoma, Takumi, and a male avatar), and "Onee-sama" on her sisters (Hinoka, the female avatar, and Azura), and uses "-san" on almost everyone else, including even her closest friends. Her retainer Hana, who's close enough to Sakura to drop the "-sama" honorific in private, notes that it's a bit weird that Sakura is still so formal with her in private.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses has Hubert, Edelgard's retainer, who speaks very formally to others. Apart from Edelgard, whom he addresses with "-sama" or royal titles ("Lady Edelgard" or "Your/Her Highness/Majesty"), he uses -dono on most other people.
- Galaxy Angel: Out of the members of the Angel Wing, Mint Blancmanche and Chitose Karasuma are the ones who speak in the most polite and sophisticated manner. Fitting as the former is a high-class Ojou, and the latter is a traditional Yamato Nadeshiko.
- Genshin Impact: The Raiden Shogun speaks this way. This is justified considering she is not just Inazuma's patron deity but happens to be Long-Lived, so naturally her vocabulary would be more antiquated.
- Golden Sun: Trickier to spot in the translated versions, but Amiti's Japanese is more polite and formal than most other characters, to reflect his upbringing as nobility. This also makes his snarky Meta Guy moments more amusing.
- Kirby:
- The main antagonist of Kirby: Planet Robobot is Susie, executive assistant to the planet-looting Haltmann Works Company. Since she's acting in her capacity as a secretary, she speaks exclusively in keigo, even though she tries to "exterminate" Kirby multiple times. She drops the keigo at the end of the game, when she tries to put one over on her boss and sell the company's Mother Computer to the highest bidder.
- Kirby Star Allies has Francisca, the first of the Three Mage-Sisters. In contrast to Susie, who uses keigo because it's just business, Francisca is more of a Soft-Spoken Sadist whose formal mannerisms only make her come off more chilling when she threatens to freeze Kirby into an ice statue.
- Like a Dragon: In Yakuza 0, Goro uses keigo on the clock. He swaps seamlessly from immaculately mannered host to scowling ex-Yakuza within the space of a few seconds in several instances.
- Persona 5 In Royal, Kasumi Yoshizawa uses rather formal speech, including using honorifics on virtually everyone, in large part due to her being younger than most of the cast as a first-year in high school. She continues doing so after discarding her façade as "Kasumi" and embracing her true self as Sumire, indicating that both the Yoshizawa sisters were like this.
- Tales of Hearts: An early hint about Paraiba Marine De Rais' identity is the use of polite speech and the archaic pronoun watakushi, usually reserved for high society.
