SDB links (via his new anime site, Chizumatic) to a page with a series of lessons on how to speak Yakuza Japanese like a gangster.
If you've ever watched Japanese gangster movies, or had the misfortune of running into a yakuza in person, you know they speak a seemingly incomprehensible form of Japanese. As outcasts and deviants from society, gangsters have their own language with a unique and specialized vocabulary suited to their organizational culture and occupation. Yakuza Japanese runs the gamut from honorifics to epithets, with major regional variations. This webpage is designed as a primer to gangster Japanese, as used in movies, focusing on the Kansai (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto) and Tokyo varieties.
Leave a comment