Two lines that I wish would stop appearing so much
Posted: June 2, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized 19 Comments »
Okay, so I’ve been watching a LOT of anime recently, and there’s two (technically five) general phrases that pop up in every anime in which characters…
- Eat food
- Live in a house with other people
If an anime fulfills these two conditions, then I swear that it will have these two/five phrases scatted throughout every single damn episode. In this post, I will use K-ON! as a model for the overused phrases.
Note that this is not a post that points out “UGUU“s, “HAUU“s, and “NIPAA“s, though those certainly get annoying (with the exception of Uguu. Yuuichi and Uguu girl go hand in hand for comedy’s sake).
Sorry, I couldn't find a screenshot with the actual line "Delicious!"
“Oishii!”
translates into…
- Delicious!
- It tastes good!
- Good!
- Yum!
- Ugga!
- I DON’T KNOW HOW ELSE TO SAY SOMETHING TASTES GOOD
This is probably the most annoying line I have ever heard in anime. It’s in every single anime. Whenever and wherever there’s food in an anime, expect to hear two lines:
- ITADAKIMASU
- OISHII
The first can be excused on the grounds that it’s a custom to do that, jus tlike how Christians have to chant something before they eat (I was forced to do that when I went to a private Christian elementary school and I have hated it ever since). I’m an atheist (at most agnostic), by the way.
But don’t people have anything better to say than oishii!!1111oneoene!? It really gets on my nerves whenever I hear an anime character squeal “OISHII!!! KAWAIII MOE MOEMEO M TOYOTA SONY” or whatever. I’m not sure if this simplistic deal (as in “Japanese people have one phrase to describe all levels of tastiness”) is simply the nature of the Japanese language, but it sure is beyond-irritating to the ears of an American like me.
Don'tcha mean "Ittekimasu?"
“Ittekimasu” / “Ittekuru”
“Itterasshai”
“Tadaima”
“Okaeri” / “Okaerinasai”
Basically anything that relates to coming and going (doing the action and watching it be done).
There appears to be some strange, near-symbolic importance of these four (pretty much four) phrases in anime that confuses me. Whenever somebody leaves the house, they say ittekimasu, and the other people (if there are any present – sometimes people say ittekimasu when they’re alone because all cool people do that) say itterasshai. The same goes for tadaima and okaeri[nasai] when somebody returns home.
Now that’s all fine and dandy, and could just be thrown into the scapegoat Japanese custom bin with itadakimasu, but these four phrases are always used for dramatic situations, comedic situations, etc. When a hero returns home after over nine thousand years of awesomeness, the first thing he says is “TADAIMA.” There ain’t no “I SURE AM GLAD TO SEE MY FAMILY AGAIN!” or “BY GOLLY, I’M ALIVE!” or just a “I love you, family!” No, it has to be “I’m home” aka “TADAIMA,” because there is some weird significance to the phrase that nobody really cares about because by now, everybody’s heard it a few hundred times and it sounds like thunder on a lightningboard.
This is why we need an Azusa around. Light music clubs are srsbsns, not some THIS KAWAII KAY-KOO IS SO OISHIII fest with a bunch of itterasshais and stuffs. Bah.
>_>
Eh, while I agree on the “Oishi” thing, I disagree about everything else (besides itadakimasu that is), and I kinda hate Ayu and Kanon, too 😛 Just accept that you cannot really comprehend or tolerate certain Japanese customs and get over it 😛
And that’s KE~KI, not KAY-KOO.
I despise Oishiiiiiiiiiiii.
I don’t really mind the other phrases, but oishi is just……ugh.
Have you two watched true tears?
Best romance ever, but it’s chock-full of the phrases in the second half of this post. I swear, there ain’t one episode without at least five of those lines stuffed in. D:
After watching that, I have developed a sixth sense for sensing these phrases. And that sure is annoying, I tell ‘ya.
But Oishii is just nasty.
Also, @npal: I actually do know that it’s pronounced kay-key, but I actually put in “KAY-KOO” for comedic effect (namely – it’s lame humor).
True Tears? Nah, I heard a series of stuff about it and decided it wasn’t my thing. Having just finished School Days didn’t help either 😛 I wanted something nice and fluffy after that thing. I doubt I’ll ever watch in the end, some anime’s time just passes and they stop being relevant to me. I’ve already got many piled up that I want to watch.
“Umai” is more or less equivalent with “oishii”, but the former doesn’t quite inspire the same jailbait factor as the latter, especially when said moeblobs say the word like they don’t have tongues. OIHEEE!
You know what annoys the hell out of me? Terrible Japanese drivers. All they do in anime is run over pedestrians on the side walk or students walking in the street. It’s like they don’t install brakes on their vehicles. Seriously, it’s always used random assedly to manufacture drama in the story. A contrived scene whose cop-out effect is similar to dues ex machina, except reverse.
Yeah, “umai” doesn’t have the same moe factor as “oishii” unfortunately, so we’re pretty much stuck with the latter. 🙁
Also, “umai” is commonly used in other situations besides describing food…
Everything else is customary unless you make the characters homeless. 😉
Are you alright?
2X
and only 1 ~Uguu. I’m shocked.
what about “Senpaiiii~~~~”.. I heard it a lot of times…
you need to find other screenshots, i claim K-ON! gender bias
I notice the “Oishi” every so often, but for everything else I just read the subtitles and block out the sounds lol.
@npal: Well, I saw that Omni (of RandomC) had true tears listed as #1 for romance/drama of 2008, so I picked it up. :p
@kadian, keiri: Eh, it’s all the same shit. Though about the moe factor thing… I keep hearing guys exclaim “Oishii!!!” Is that supposed to endear the audience to them or something?! D:
@Roy: I’ve had enough Uguu~s to last a lifetime. x_x
@phossil: Well, that’s more of a situational thing. Plus food appears more often than senpais!
Though I can’t deny the annoyance of that line. It really gets on my nerves when there’s a bunch of squealing girls screaming “senpai” all at once. High school heroes aren’t THAT popular!
@jersey: Well, I had my K-ON! image folder open, so it’s not like I HATE THIS SHITTY ANIME or something like that. Nope.
@TJ: Scandalous! No matter how much of my eardrums get torn apart by oishiis, I always keep the sound on!
How does one compliment food then? NOT YAKKITAKEJAPAN.
Or do you leave your house without saying anything? Or when someone comes in do you say nothing? It’s respect, really :/
I’m shocked you didn’t use any Minami-ke screenshots. I’m pretty sure those words consisted of half of Kana’s vocab. But it’s so ~uguu~ when Marina Inoue is saying those words. 😛
i hope you know this means war.
@yes, bob: Well, there are a lot of different ways to say it in English:
This tastes… great, good, awesome, delicious, tasty (lolrepetition), etc.
And as for the second point, I’m more annoyed at the fact that those phrases are used WHENEVER somebody enters/leaves, regardless of how many people are within hearing range.
@RP: Yeah, well, I tried to stick with one anime in order to show the prevalence of these phrases in anime. But then again, Minami-ke certainly did have more OKAERIs than needed (should’ve stopped at S1!).
@jersey: War, shmwar (?). As long as there ain’t no K-ON!
Shana is trash
/troll
Anyways, In english there may be, but japanese is quite the primitive language :/
i tell you, people in Japan are always saying “oishii” and “kawaii”, on TV and in real life. Now I live in Thailand, and the two equivalent words “aroi” and “naa-rak” are used as much as in Japan…
Ugh. I can just imagine how annoying that’d be.
At least I don’t really understand Japanese. I wouldn’t be able to bear hearing “DELICIOUUUUUUUUUZSSSZ” every day. D:
EDIT: And the 1000th comment goes to… me! 😀