Discussion Main / YamatoNadeshiko

You Could Always Edit It Yourself

That doesn't sound like the trope to be honest.

Here's where the caption was chosen. It's a rough translation of the haiku in the image. I'd be opposed to changing it, but you're welcome to start a thread about it to get more opinions.

As it happens, there's a little discussion of this in the novel I'm reading , The Makioka Sisters, in the contrast between the two sisters Sachiko and Yukiko. Both are well-bred and ladylike (the third sister, Taeko, is not quite so proper), but whereas Sachiko is somewhat Westernized in style, and "bright and lively" in manner, Yukiko wears only Japanese clothes and "Her face impressed one as somehow sad, lonely". She "had a long, thin face and a very slender figure" unlike plump Taeko. (One of her suitors provides his definition of what he's looking for in a woman: "He insisted further that he would have only a pure Japanese beauty — gentle, quiet, graceful, able to wear Japanese clothes. It did not matter how she looked in foreign clothes. He wanted a pretty face too, of course, but more than anything he wanted pretty hands and feet. Miss Yukiko seemed the perfect answer.") Yukiko is extremely reserved and gives ambiguous answers when asked to say whether her prospective husbands suit her; people take this for a sign of refinement. She is very concerned with her family's status (declining lately: "To Yukiko, drawn as she was to the past, there was something very unsatisfactory about this brother-in-law [Tatsuo, son of a banker], and she was sure that from his grave her father too was reproaching Tatsuo.") Sachiko, on the other hand, introduces suitors to Yukiko with all the proper formalities but is willing to compromise on their lineage. In short, Yukiko is more of a yamato nadeshiko than her sisters are, and it is several times stated that she is "purely Japanese" unlike the others who are westernized in various ways, even though they are of impeccably high status. (And Yukiko both fits and subverts the trope description in that, although she is definitely "silk hiding steel", she uses her secret strength not in the approved fashion to further a husband's interests, but rather to avoid marrying at all.) So, to sum up, the "yamato nadeshiko" ideal is a particular collection of refined traits that are (or were) thought of as peculiarly Japanese.

And this collection of "peculiarly Japanese refined traits" would be a generally submissive personality with a subtle Silk Hiding Steel aspect, loyalty to family, and adherence/observance of Japanese societal traditions?

I presume it's an existing term in the language, and no English equivalent is provided so I think it's best that it be in Japanese, though I don't speak it. English redirects can be set up, though, like Classic Japanese Beauty, which make it an easier trope to search for.

@Aradials: "Pretty easy to translate", how? If you're going to say "classic Japanese beauty/lady", I'll point out that that's less of an actual translation and more of a summarizing definition of the term.

@Telcontar: You are correct in persuming that it's a pre-existing term in Japanese language and culture.

Oh goodness. That show has a lot of problems with shoehorning, since it's so popular. Pulling because they aren't Japanese:

• Fluttershy from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has a lot of elements of a yamato nadeshiko. In addition to being very soft spoken, she is easily the most maternal of the main characters and possesses all of the domestic skills traditionally admired by men. However, despite being very reserved, she does have moments of true bravery and assertiveness when her friends are depending on her. She shouted a dragon into submission (Not like that, though), as well as a Cockatrice in a separate incident (her Death Glare was able to overpower its petrifying gaze).
  • Unsurprisingly, Fluttershy is popular among Japanese viewers and a meme calls her 'honorary japanese'.
  • Rarity also counts. As Ponyville's resident fashonista, she places great value on elegance and personal appearance, and had managed to escape the Diamond Dogs through sheer cunning, when her friends arrived to rescue her. However, when push comes to shove, she's not afraid to get her hooves dirty to help her friends.

Sure, Why Not??

If he has all the traits listed in the description 'being female' than...yeah.

To be fair, the Protestant reformation had very little to do with England becoming Protestant. However, the Hundred Years' War ended around the time of Henry V (or perhaps a bit later), whereas England only became Protestant under Henry VIII, a good 80 years later.

The fact remains that saying Catholic France and Protestant England were fighting is very inaccurate.

EDIT: Ah, and it was Henry VI, but he didn't do much except be lorded over by regents and then his wife, Margaret of Anjou.