May 03, 2014

Anime is educational!

We learn from anime; it isn't just stale entertainment.

I learned a new word from Hyperdimension Neptunia.

御釜 okama

Nihongodict translates it as "male homosexual" or "effeminate man" or "male transvestite". It's too polite to translate it accurately:

The only male character in the show, Anonydeath, is like this. We don't get to see how he looks because he spends the entire show wearing powered armor.

Oddly enough, that word also means "pot" and "volcanic crater".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Japanese at 08:30 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 80 words, total size 1 kb.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at May 03, 2014 09:09 AM (RqRa5)

2 I suppose I should have included the definitions of seme and uke while I was at it, shouldn't I? But those didn't get used in HN...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 03, 2014 10:09 AM (+rSRq)

3 Actually, it really does lean down the "transvestite" meaning; it's possible to be gay without being an okama (and while the opposite is maybe theoretically possible, I haven't seen any examples of that in anime...)

They made this joke back in Kenshin, where one of the villains turned out to be an extremely convincing okama, practically trap level (and was also armed with an extremely large scythe... "o-kama", har har). The fansub translator ended up translating the punch line as "she's not a scythe-girl... she's a Rod-man!", which was a bit more apropo in those days, when Dennis was still being his odd self in the NBA.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at May 03, 2014 01:34 PM (ZeBdf)

4

In the case of Anonydeath, "effeminate" is probably the right one. He's got a huge crush on Noire, which doesn't suggest that he's gay.

He is, nonetheless, very peculiar. The seiyuu did a great job. (It's possibly his first big part; I hope to heck he doesn't get typecast by it.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 03, 2014 01:38 PM (+rSRq)

5 Seme-uke always reminds me the excellent and groanworthy Anime News Nina strip (click to enlarge and look at her shirt sign).

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at May 03, 2014 02:29 PM (RqRa5)

6 Moyashimon had a goth-loli trap who didn't think men should date men, so would that be an okama who wasn't gay? (Any opinion on agricultural anime?)

Posted by: muon at May 04, 2014 05:07 AM (XIprt)

7 Interestingly, my big dictionary from 1974 only has おかま (no kanji) as a synonym for ç”·å¨¼ (male prostitute). It rarely includes honorific 御 as part of headwords, and the definitions of 釜 and ç«ˆ are just pot and stove, respectively. No "volcanic crater" mention at all, which makes me wonder if that's a recent usage.

The goo.ne.jp dictionary entry has them all, and adds a general "sodomy" meaning, as well as "another name for maid servant". The ALC dictionary entry is just a slightly odd list of slang terms for gay men.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at May 04, 2014 08:48 AM (1CisS)

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