g&l (print) issn 1747–6321

g&l (online) issn 1747–633x

Article

Academy of devotion: performing status,

hierarchy, and masculinity on reality TV

Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

Abstract

In the late 1990s, Japan was experiencing an economic recession combined with
an unrelenting stagnated birth rate; Japanese people and government officials
called for men to increase their participation in domestic duties and life. Amid
this outcry, an all-male reality TV comedy programme debuted: Junjō Gakuen
Otokogumi (Academy of Devotion: Men’s Team) regaled late-night audiences
with men being stereotypically masculine and hilarious. This article focuses
specifically on two of the participants’ linguistic and physical behaviours in this
TV programme. The two men are famous Kansai-based comedians, but act as
high school teachers in the programme. The programme, I argue, provides a
counternarrative to the national movement towards a softer masculinity that
engages in domestic duties and delivers, instead, the kind of stereotypical mas-
culinity associated with hegemonic salaryman ideology.

keywords: masculinities; reality tv; indexicality; regional dialect;

kansai japan

Introduction: masculinities in Japan

A brief outline of masculine ideals (below) in Japan reminds us of what
Connell (1995) is credited with noting over three decades ago: multiple
styles and kinds of masculinities coexist. Nonetheless, as has also been
noted by Connell, acknowledging plural masculinities does not discount

Affiliation
Arizona State University Tempe, USA.
email: Cindi.SturtzSreetharan@asu.edu

g&l vol 11.2 2017  176–203 https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.21361

©2017, equinox publishing
 Academy of devotion 177

the fact that some styles of masculinities are more dominant and hege-
monic than others. In Japan this is certainly the case.
In the eighth century, the masculine ideals of bun and bu (‘cultural
attainment’ and ‘martial valour’) were introduced from China (wen and
wu in Chinese) (Low 2003:84); as numerous scholars note, these ideals
include the values of culture and emotion as necessary aspects of mas-
culinity (Morris-Suzuki 1995; Roden 2005; Low 2003). Since then, ideal
styles of masculinity in Japan have always exhibited various ratios of bun
to bu (Mikanagi 2011:33). For instance, Walthall (2011:26) discusses mas-
culinity and guns in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; she specifi-
cally notes how the gun ‘affirmed, rejected, and reconstituted’ dominant
(warlord) masculinity. She further notes that while the sword was always
the ‘soul of the samurai’, guns became crucial for men to showcase mascu-
linity to their (military) peers (Walthall 2011:27). In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, bu was holding sway over bun.
The modern period in Japan offers examples more relevant to the current
analysis. With the dawn of modernity (Meiji Restoration, 1868–1912), Jap-
anese masculine ideals were thrown into overt crisis: clothing, hair (mage
‘top-knot’ cutting) and linguistic practices were three of the most visible
and audible aspects of this change (Kinmonth 1982; M. Inoue 2006). Less
visible but just as critical according to Theodore Cook (2005:269) was
the new rule of mandatory conscription. Conscription for all men meant
adopting new masculine ideals which included wearing trousers, drink-
ing beer, smoking, and eating meat (T. Cook 2005:270). An expanding and
modernising Japan meant that masculine ideals were embodied by soldiers
(Pflugfelder 1999; T. Cook 2005).1 Acknowledging that the ratio of bun to
bu was too lopsided, Roden (2005:65) notes that people called for a resus-
citation of the ‘gentlemanly ideal’ to fulfil the role of ‘a social anchor in a
historical setting of social dislocation and political revolution’. The ‘brute
force’ of the warrior was in need of balance through ‘grace and proper eti-
quette’ (Roden 2005:66). Not only were the ideals out of balance, but they
were not distributed equally among all groups. Different status groups
leaned more towards warrior and others towards culture. The jockeying
for position among the ideals challenged the hegemonic ideals and the sub-
sequent rearrangement of dominant gender norms created the space for
new forms of masculinity to rise to the surface. Subsequent modern ideals
of masculinity were introduced as a direct challenge to previous forms of
male gender ideals and as a means of bringing order to chaos.
One of the most dominant and hegemonic models of modern Japanese
masculinity is formed in the postwar moment: the salaryman2 (Kinmonth
1982; Roberson and Suzuki 2002). The salaryman (often glossed as ‘white
178 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

collared business man’ (Kinmonth 1982) appearing post-World War II

as the ‘corporate warrior’ (kigyō senshi) was the antithesis of the soldier
warrior crafted just twenty years earlier. Where the solider warrior wore a
military uniform, the corporate warrior donned a saville row suit (Kondo
1999). Like the soldier warrior, the corporate warrior was charged with
saving the nation. In a postwar context, this was not picking up guns and
swords to fight; it was picking up tools including a business suit to save the
nation. The salaryman emerges from the rubble in the early 1950s, assist-
ing in the rebuilding of the Japanese nation state (McCreery 2002). Vogel’s
close ethnography of Tokyo based salary men formally introduces us to
this masculine ideal (Vogel 1971). He is a white-collared business man who
left his house early in the morning, commuted to his large company where
he had access to the ‘three treasures’ of lifetime employment, a seniority
system of promotion, and company unionism (Vogel 1971; Takeuchi 1997).
He returned home (late at night) to a wife who was waiting for him with a
cold beer, warm dinner, and a hot bath.
Over the years his hegemonic position softens but remains stable as
Japan experiences high economic growth and achievement. For example,
in the 1980s, during the Japanese bubble economy, subtle changes were
introduced to this salaryman ideal (Chapman 1988). Specifically, the
subtle changes encouraged men to be sensitive to women’s positions in
society and to be more open to taking on roles more traditionally viewed
as belonging to women such as domestic chores (Ito 1993). In the 1990s,
more changes took place which were aimed at men’s bodies. Men became
the object to be seen; male beauty products and male bodies were com-
mon place and highly visible (Darling-Wolf 2003, 2004; Miller 2006;
Dasgupta 2010, 2003). In this way, the salaryman ideal is literally soft-
ened and scented as men are exhorted to look and smell better (Miller
2006). In the mid-1990s, however, the Heisei (1989–) recession begins,
which in combination with other social anxieties, takes quite a toll on the
salaryman ideal. One particular toll was that the ‘three treasures’ were
no longer automatically available (Utsumi 2000; Suehiro 2001; Matanle,
McCann and Ashmore 2008).
Social anxieties in Japan had been building since the 1980s (if not before);
however, the recession pushed everything into sharp relief. Japanese people
and the Japanese government were pushing for change. Amid unrelenting
low birth rates, complaints that men did not help with domestic tasks, and
outward cries for a gender equal society (Osawa 2000), the Japanese govern-
ment was particularly interested in a new style of masculinity – one that
favoured couples marrying, men helping with child rearing and kitchen
duties, and male engagement with the family beyond the ‘nichiyōbi no papa’
 Academy of devotion 179

(Sunday papa) (Ishii-Kuntz 2002). In a variety of ways, the government

targeted Japanese men as in need of change; it attempted to place specific
pressure on old-style dominant forms of masculinity. For example, paternity
leave was encouraged; media campaigns were formed urging men to (re)
consider their role as a father and husband,3 and TV dramas placed more
women in employment and men in the kitchen (Muramatsu 2002). This
new masculine model, which has come to be called the ikumen4 (lit. the men
who take care of children), was to replace the corporate warrior salaryman
model (see Oyama 2014 for a thorough discussion of the ikumen). While
the ikumen ideal has not overtaken the salaryman or ‘corporate warrior’
ideal, it has managed to temper it (cf. Mikanagi 2011; Yasumoto and Sano
2014).5 That is to say, the corporate warrior mentality and ideal is being
encouraged to reside alongside a kinder, gentler style of masculinity that
helps with domestic chores, including child rearing.
In the late 1990s, Japanese men, gender roles, low birth rates, and
fatherhood (to list only a few) were popular topics across various sectors
of Japanese society. For example, government policymakers were tinkering
with family policies (Yasumoto and Sano 2014); televisual media were also
interrogating gender roles with a particular focus on husbands and fathers
(see Iles 2007). Likewise, the television programme discussed and analysed
below appeared just at the time these various discourses of change were
targeting men.
In this paper, I look at the linguistic practices and physical activities
engaged in by the characters/actors in the reality television programme
Junjō Gakuen Otokogumi (Academy of Devotion: Men’s Team; henceforth
JGO). Despite its eighteen-year-old broadcasting date (1998–9), JGO was
selected as a point of analysis because it is only in hindsight that we can
understand its implicit teachings. I suggest that only by analysing JGO
years after it aired can we uncover the ways in which it can be understood
as a point of resistance against the increasingly loud and persistent voices
of change with regard to masculine ideals.
Drawing on the programme’s episodes, I argue that the kinds of physical
activities engaged in and styles of linguistic interactions used combine to
present a vision/version of masculinity that does not align easily with the
gender ideals being promoted in the late 1990s. And, it does so in a comedic
forum. JGO provides a counternarrative to the style of masculinity that the
government was encouraging through various media campaigns. In light
of increasing feminist ideals and economic recession combined with no
(upward) movement in the very low birth rate, the Japanese government
set its sights on Japanese men, encouraging them to embrace a gender
equal society and offering incentives to do so (see Ito 1993; Osawa 2000;
180 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

Darling-Wolf 2004; Yasumoto and Sano 2014). Particular focus is given to

the linguistic practices of the two teacher–comedians, the demeanour and
physical activities the students are required to undertake, and the position
and (scant) roles of women in the episodes.
The kind of masculinity valorised in JGO is best thought of as a team
based form of masculinity with emphasis placed on athleticism, physi-
cal development, and competitive games (see discussions by Mikanagi
(2011:31–2) of kōha ‘hard faction’ and nanpa ‘soft faction’). This kind of
masculinity is overtly introduced in junior high school when students are
encouraged to join bukatsudo ‘club activities’ (Rohlen 1983). It is in school
clubs, in particular all-male student sports clubs, that boys learn to address
their senpai ‘seniors’ with appropriate language and physical deference; it
is also a site of working and playing hard as well as being a team member
(Chiesa 2005). I suggest that the sports club team spirit embedded with
strict social hierarchies is most certainly one of the training grounds for
being part of the ‘team’ of a company (see Kondo 1990 for further dis-
cussion). That is to say, for men, school sports are one the precursors of
company life and thus salaryman ideals.

Japanese language
The Japanese language is often discussed as having distinct male and
female styles of language (Kindaichi 1957; Ide 1982). These distinct styles
refer more to specific linguistic practices such as first- and second-person
pronouns and sentence final particles rather than to discursive practices.
Okamoto and Shibamoto Smith (2008), drawing on various scholars
including Agha (2007) and Silverstein (2003), tease apart these differences
in practice and style when they articulate a distinction between ‘first-
order norms’, or ‘stylistic norms’, which include restraint, refinement and
softness, and specific ‘second-order norms’ or ‘certain linguistic features’,
such as a high-pitched voice, honorifics or specific sentence final particles.
The first and second order norms are naturalised as encoding a feminine
speaking style (Okamoto and Shibamoto Smith 2008:88); while the lack of
these are naturalised as a masculine speaking style that is direct, aggres-
sive, and rough.
Actual speakers of Japanese do not exhibit usages that conform to these
ideals. Empirical investigations of speakers indicate that there are specific
contexts wherein women and men use language that more or less matches
the stereotypically gendered situations described above; but, these same
investigations show just as clearly that these norms of language use do not
hold true most of the time (Okamoto and Sato 1992; Okamoto and Shib-
 Academy of devotion 181

amoto Smith 2004). And, of course, male and female speakers can borrow
one another’s so-called sex-specific language to various ends. Women
have been found to use so-called ‘men’s speech norms’ for purposes that
range from directness and anger to sarcasm and joking (Shibamoto 1987;
M. Inoue 2006). In naturally occurring all-male peer-group conversations,
men have been found to use far fewer so-called ‘men’s speech norms’
than was assumed to be the case (SturtzSreetharan 2004a, 2004b, 2006a).
Additionally, in company settings, Saito found subordinate men to engage
in various linguistic strategies including hesitation and use of tag ques-
tions among other resources to show deference to seniors (Saito 2010).
In scripted speech data, however, the findings are different as discussed
below.

TV speech
Television dramas have been the focus of research for quite some time; but
a focus on the dialogue of TV dramas remains relatively unexplored (Rich-
ardson 2010).6 Audiences experience television drama dialogue as authentic
and, yet, when held up as objects of consideration are immediately recog-
nised as inauthentic given the knowledge of scripts. Reality television (RTV)
dialogue is yet another kind of TV speech which is typically unscripted but
may be heavily edited. To date, RTV has been investigated with regard to its
genres but discourse analytic perspectives are few (cf. Penzhorn and Pitout
2007; Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and Lorenzo-Dus 2013). Examining RTV
from a discourse analytic perspective is critical given the discursive nature
of identities (cf. Benwell and Stokoe 2006; Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and
Lorenzo-Dus 2013). In the analysis below, close discourse analysis is used
to highlight the ways in which the two teacher–comedians use language
to index a stereotypical tough masculine identity vis-à-vis their students/
team members.
The literature on Japanese television drama speech practices is increasing
(cf. Mizumoto 2006; Shibamoto Smith and Occhi 2009; Kinsui, Tanaka and
Okamuro 2014); investigations have found that gendered linguistic norms
are intensified. Okamoto and Shibamoto Smith find that dominant ideolo-
gies of feminine speech including notions of ‘politeness, gentleness, and
refinement’ are well represented in the media (Okamoto and Shibamoto
Smith 2008:105). Mizumoto has found that female speakers of standard
Japanese (SJ) in TV dramas exhibit very high frequencies of sex-specific
sentence final particles and first- and second-person pronouns (Mizumoto
2006, 2015).7 Likewise, Hiramoto (2013) finds that hypergendered voices
are used in anime to ascribe a feminine personae to characters. Repre-
182 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

sented or performed speech attributes more canonically ‘feminine’ forms

to women even though empirical investigations of real speakers demon-
strate otherwise.

Regional language
Most of our understandings of gendered speech – empirical or otherwise –
come from investigations of SJ. However, recently there have been exami-
nations of regional Japanese languages and gender representations in TV
asadora (morning dramas) aired by NHK (Japanese National Broadcast-
ing) to a mainly female audience (e.g. Shibamoto Smith and Occhi 2009;
Occhi, SturtzSreetharan and Shibamoto Smith 2010). These investiga-
tions have focused on the linguistic styles of romantic heroes and heroines
hailing from dialect speaking regions. They suggest that young modern
heterosexual women eschew their dialect for SJ, while their regional (and
older) counterparts embrace dialect to craft homey but traditional images.
Dialect-speaking men, on the other hand, do well in the heterosexual
marketplace as long as they speak the right dialect (Occhi, SturtzSreeth-
aran and Shibamoto Smith 2010). Kansai dialect (KD) is considered ‘the
right dialect’ at least in televisual representations. KD speaking men find
romance, aren’t viewed as stodgy, and are represented as modern (Occhi,
SturtzSreetharan and Shibamoto Smith 2010). Shibamoto Smith and Occhi
(2009) have suggested a ‘modernity gradient’ of Japanese dialects with KD
falling high on the side of modernity (at least in morning dramas). To be
clear, other dialects such as those in northeastern or southwestern Japan
fall much lower on the gradient. KD, at least as represented in television
dramas, has a positive (and often humorous) association.
KD is an interesting site of investigation given its historical position
within the archipelago’s language practices. While many dialects in Japan
were threatened during language standardisation practices of the modern
period, the language of the Kansai area remained comparatively strong
(Satō 2000; Tomosada and Jin’nouchi 2004; F. Inoue 2009). Recently KD
is documented as having national appeal (Tomosada and Jin’nouchi 2004).
Fumio Inoue traces the changing image of KD, noting that prior to the
1980s, the language was viewed (by outsiders) as garish and gaudy (dog-
itsui), scary and harsh, the language of merchants (F. Inoue 2009). In the
1980s, the dialect gained an image of fun and laughter; Inoue credits the
manzai8 comedy boom with this image shift. The image shifts again in the
late 1990s and early 2000s when a general ‘dialect boom’ throughout Japan
brings KD – or at least highly salient bits and pieces of it – into national
appeal. Tomosada and Jin’nouchi (2004) find that KD is not just heard in
 Academy of devotion 183

the Kansai region or in the media, but real speakers outside of the Kansai
region claim to use it or want to use it (see also Tomosada 1995).
In addition to a linguistic analysis, I also examine the nature of the physi-
cal activities engaged in by the Japanese men who are part of a TV reality
show. With regard to physical activities, attention is given to the kinds of
activities the men engage in during the show including the games that are
played and how rewards are attributed to winners. Further focus is given to
the physical proximity, postures, and facial expressions of the men during the
activities. With regard to the linguistic practices of the two teacher–come-
dians, I am specifically interested in the use of linguistic features which are
ideologically and readily associated with both men’s language style and KD
including first- and second-person pronouns, sentence final forms, vulgar
lexical forms, and use of honorific language, such as last name plus title.
Okamoto and Shibamoto Smith (2008) have suggested that representa-
tions of speech in media, specifically TV, can have a profound influence
on the ways that men and women perceive speech as well as link speech
practices to ideas (and ideals) about gender. That is, the ways in which TV
represents talk shapes our expectations of what counts as appropriately
gendered speech by real individuals. This paper looks specifically at how
Kansai male comedians use language and physical antics as one means of
teaching and advocating for a particular kind of masculinity – physically
tough, collaborative (team member), direct, and obedient to hierarchy.

The data
The data for this paper are drawn from episodes of JGO aired on Asahi
Broadcasting from 5 September 1998 to 26 June 1999, a period that
covered a total of forty episodes plus a finale graduation ceremony. The
programme aired nationwide. JGO was selected for analysis given its lack
of female participants or interactants. This kind of variety programme is
very popular in Japan, making JGO not necessarily unique in its genre. The
genre often consists of people engaging in seemingly impossible (and often
stupid) tasks to the delight of studio and home audiences (see Furukawa
2014). However, JGO was rather unique at the time in that it featured an
all-male cast almost exclusively; additionally, the age range of the charac-
ters (from 16 years old to 64 years old) made it particularly fascinating for
linguistic reasons.
The premise of the show was that of a stereotypical Japanese high school
homeroom classroom complete with student and teacher’s desks, a chalk-
board, and student calligraphy on the walls. As discussed above, school is
one site where young men begin to be socialised into the behaviours that
they will need to become company men and adopt the salaryman ideology.
184 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

This is particularly true in junior high and high schools where students,
particularly male students, learn very quickly to interact according to a
code of ‘senpai–kōhai’ (superior–subordinate) rules. These styles of mas-
culinity feed into salaryman ideology as they require men to be tough and
competitive, engage in physical challenges, and yet be obedient to author-
ity (cf. Rohlen 1983; Chiesa 2005; Mikanagi 2011).
Most episodes begin in the classroom with the two teachers at the front of
the room explaining what the tasks of the day (episode) are. The two hosts,
or, teachers, are two well-known Kansai area comedians who belong to the
Yoshimoto Comedian Troupe: Mr Imada Kōji and Mr Higashino Kōji.9 The
students are local boys/men who auditioned to be part of JGO; they are of
various ages. As the programme first aired, the youngest was 16 and the eldest
was 64 years old. The episodes are filmed in the greater Kansai region – typi-
cally featuring local sights which are immediately recognisable by anyone in
Japan as part of the Kansai scene (e.g. the crab of Dōtonbori, Akashi Bridge,
Awaji Island). The language spoken by all of the participants is a mixture of
SJ and KD.10 It is beyond the scope of the current endeavour to quantify the
ratio of the mixture of SJ to KD; however, based on discussions with native
KD speakers, all participants are able linguistically to shift between SJ and
KD, although sustained interactions in SJ alone is rare.
The data analysed here are drawn from six episodes (numbers 24–29),11
which were transcribed and coded for first- and second-person pronouns,
distal forms (desu/masu), copula form (SJ or KD), sentence-final forms,
KD features, and/or stereotypically masculine lexical items. Table 1 shows
the SJ and KD forms while Table 2 shows the SJ and SJ stereotypically mas-
culine lexical forms analysed in this paper. The two teacher–comedians are
the focus of the linguistic analysis. The kinds of physical activities engaged
in by the men were also given attention.
No single speaking style is used by the JGO participants; rather, they use
a mixture of SJ and KD. When speaking with a visitor, the students tended
to use SJ and polite linguistic styles and forms. Interactions such as these
with various visitors to the ‘classroom’ were not included in this analysis as
they are beyond the scope of this current endeavour (but see SturtzSreeth-
aran 2015).
Transcription conventions used in this manuscript are as follows: Kansai
dialect is marked with a wavy underline; masculine pronouns are marked
with a straight underline; stereotypically masculine lexical forms are
bolded; polite forms are placed in small capitals; long vowels that are
phonemic in Japanese are marked with a line over the vowel (e.g. gyū ‘beef’);
however, when a vowel is elongated by a speaker for non-phonemic reasons,
a colon (or more than one colon) is used (e.g. yatta:).
 Academy of devotion 185

Table 1: Standard Japanese and Kansai dialect forms (cf. Maeda 1980; Horii 1995;
Wakagi 2003).

Standard Japanese Kansai dialect

Iru ‘to exist’ Oru ‘to exist’

~ nai ‘negation’ ~ hen, hin ‘negation’

Da ‘copula’ Ya ‘copula’

Ne, yo, (sentence final forms) Nen, gana, de(e) (sentence final forms)

Dame ‘don’t’; ‘prohibited’ Akan ‘don’t’; ‘prohibited’

Hontō ‘really’ Honma ‘really’

ī, ‘good’ ē ‘good’

Dekiru ‘able to do’ Ikeru ‘can do’ (older generation, dialect)

(Anecdotal evidence suggests younger generations
have increasing usage throughout Japan)

Table 2: Stereotypically masculine lexical forms in Standard Japanese (cf. Maeda 1980;
Makimura 1984; Wakagi 2003).

Standard Japanese Standard Japanese

Neutral with regard to gender Stereotypically masculine forms

Taberu ‘to eat’ Kuu ‘to eat’ (vulgar)

Sugoi ‘amazing, wow’ Suge, sugē

Oishī ‘delicious’ Umai, ume, umē

Watashi ‘I’ Boku ‘I’; Ore ‘I’ (vulgar)

Anata ‘you’ Omae ‘you’ (vulgar)

Example 1: The sauna

From episode 26, ‘Genryō daisakusen: daietto taiketsu’ (‘Operation weight
loss: diet competition’)

In this example, the episode is a weight-loss competition. The JGO partici-

pants are split into two teams each led by one of the two teacher–comedi-
ans. One team is instructed to use a ‘standard diet’ and is sent to a sports
club to lose weight. The other team is instructed to use an ‘original diet’ (one
that they devise on their own) to lose weight. The losing team is required
186 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

to run a penalty distance that is equal in kilometres to the total weight loss
in kilograms of the winning team. (Each game in each episode is a batsu
‘penalty’ game). In the sequence below, both teams have come together at
a sports club to use the sauna in an attempt to shed a final few grams of
weight. Imada, one of the teachers, is berating his teammate (Tanaka, a
student) for exiting the sauna. Using the recurring second-person vulgar
pronoun omae, Imada tries to bully Tanaka into staying in the sauna. Imada
also employs classic dialect forms such as akan, copula ya, sentence final
form nen, and dialect verb of existence oru.

Lines 219–30
219–21 Imada: Akan? Omae haittokke.12 Haittokke, omae.
222 Tanaka: Ee?
223–6 Imada: Haittokke, omae. Akan, mō akan? Omae nanshitennen. Saigo
made oran kā.
227 Tanaka: Sunmasen
228 Imada: Omae kyō iran koto yūteta dake yanai ka, omae
229 Tanaka: Sunmasen
230 Imada: Omae saigo made otte medateya. Seitō ni medateya, omae.

219–21 Imada:
(Are you) Done? You, get (back) inside! Get (back) inside! ou!
222 Tanaka:
huh? (surprise)
223–6 Imada:
Get (back) inside, you! (You’re) done? All done? What are you
doing?! Can’t you make it to the end?!
227 Tanaka: I’m sorry.
228 Imada: You! Today you’re just totally useless aren’t you!
229 Tanaka: I’m sorry.
230 Imada: If you stay ‘til the end you’ll stand out! You should stand out
(and try to win!)

In the above example, there is exclusive use of the masculine second-person

pronoun omae and exclusive use of KD. The use of akan ‘can’t’ (translated
above as ‘done’ given the context), geminated haittokke ‘get in(side)!’ rather
than the SJ haitte ‘get in(side)’, sentence final form nen, copula ya rather
than the SJ form da, and oru ‘exist’ rather than the SJ form iru succeeds
in making the interaction a KD interaction. Interactions with guests who
appear on the show do not exhibit this KD exclusivity. Moreover, given that
this programme is aired nationally, the use of KD helps to both soften and
make funny the harshness of the masculine forms that are to be heard as
direct and aggressive under other contexts. In point of fact, it is the harsh
masculine language (typically associated with anger) rendered in KD that
creates the highly comedic effect.
 Academy of devotion 187

The tone begins more cajoling than forceful and then turns to berat-
ing as he tries to bully Tanaka into staying inside the sauna. Imada uses
direct and aggressive language to Tanaka. Tanaka is sixteen years old; he
is a thin, pale boy. One could easily imagine Imada speaking to Tanaka in
softer language – as an actual teacher might to an actual student who has
just given up a goal (see H. Cook 1998). But Imada doesn’t. He is asserting
his authority over Tanaka as well as trying to shame Tanaka into going
back inside the sauna to be the last one out. His repeated use of the aggres-
sive and degrading second-person pronoun omae combined with the use
of bare command verb forms (haittokke ‘get in!’) drives home the hierarchy
inherent in the situation (Imada as ‘teacher’ and ‘diet team leader’). Tanaka,
for his part, plays the subordinate well – uttering ‘sorry’ several times (in
KD as well). Both show themselves to be manly men in the old style: Imada
does not mince words nor show any mercy; Tanaka does not talk back nor
even try to make excuses, he just apologises. Of course, the entire interac-
tion is hilarious as a comedy sketch. It exploits the potential reality of the
situation (actual student–teacher interaction) with the juxtaposition of the
well-known teacher–comedians.
The physical activities accompanying this exchange are worth noting.
Imada effectively pushes Tanaka by moving towards Tanaka, backing him
up into the door of the sauna. Imada pushes Tanaka’s arm in a gesture
indicating that Tanaka should re-enter the sauna (even though a rule had
already been established that if someone leaves just one time, they cannot
re-enter). Imada points his finger in Tanaka’s face in a gesture of anger.
Imada’s eyes are bulging and he is totally incredulous that Tanaka is not
going back into the sauna. In spite of verbal berating, pointing fingers,
and aggressive physical actions, Tanaka does very little to defend himself
aside from the utterances of ‘I’m sorry’. He does not try to get away from
Imada nor does he attempt to re-enter the sauna. Both men are clad only
in small towels, which adds to the comedic construction of the situation.
In short, strongly stereotypically masculine language and KD, combined
with tough-guy physical behaviour while wearing only towels is a sure way
to craft comedy.

Example 2: Awaji beef: chowing down

From episode 24, ‘Awaji shima mankitsu tsuā’ (‘Enjoy Awaji island tour’)

In this example, the JGO members have travelled to Awaji Shima (an island
off the coast of Osaka/Kobe) to visit a local Awaji gyū (Awaji Beef ) res-
taurant. When they first enter the restaurant they meet the owner and
are seated; (raw) beef is brought around on a display platter. It is highly
188 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

marbled and expensive. The two teacher–comedians talk about how they
will soon get to eat Awaji beef. In the first sequence below, the two teachers
are talking about getting to eat the beef; in the second sequence, darts are
being thrown for them to determine which of the participants will actually
get to eat the beef. Two women enter the scene dressed in short skirts and
blouses; they each are wearing a ribbon across their torsos that read ‘Misu
Suisen’ – Ms Narssisus/Daffodil.13 These two women alternate throwing
darts labelled with the participants’ names, at a dartboard. A JGO member
can eat the Awaji beef if his dart finds the target.

Lines 298–301
298 Higashino: Sā, sassoku desune.
299–300 Imada: Kore, kuerun deshō, mochiron, kokoni yobutte koto wa.
301 Higashino: Mazu wa kū mae ni, sono, honmono Awajigyū, donna kanji
ka nama mon de.

298 Higashino: Aaaa, it’s gonna be soon, isn’t it.

299–300 Imada: This, we can eat this; of course, that’s why we came here.
301 Higashino: Well, before we eat it, let’s find out what the real Awaji beef, is
like when it’s raw.

Lines 464–9
464 Imada: (to the student Nanba) Omae, honma ni kuisugita rashii yanai
kai
465 Higashino: Yamero, yamero
466 Imada: Honma ni ichimai han kūtarashii yanaikai.
467–9 Higashino: Shōganai janai desuka. Maketenkara. Soreyori mo ne, sō yū
shūryoku wo suppokashite doko ni ittemannen, honma ni.

464 Imada: (to the student Nanba) You, (you) really ate too much didn’t
you?!
465 Higashino: Stop! Stop!
466 Imada: Really! (you) ate one and a half pieces didn’t you?!
467–9 Higashino: It can’t be helped, can it?! You lost. On top of that you disap-
peared and shirked your recording duties. Seriously! Where
were you?!

In the sequences above, the language is rough; the vulgar lexical form kuu
for ‘eat’ is frequently used. In the first (lines 298–301), these forms appear
alongside the use of more polite forms like the distal form of the modal-
ity marker deshō or the copula desu. Typically, these are not co-occurring
forms. Dialect features are absent in the first sequence.
 Academy of devotion 189

In the second sequence (lines 464–9), only the JGO members are
present; earlier, Imada’s dart did not hit its target and he (and another JGO
member) are forced to eat curry rice at a nearby café rather than being
able to indulge in Awaji beef. Imada is accusing Nanba (who doesn’t say
anything) of eating too much beef. Imada’s language is loud and rough:
he levels the accusation at Nanba by using second-person pronoun omae,
KD honma ni (honto ni in SJ) followed by the rough form of eat ‘kū’ with
a dialect copula (ya) and a rough and rude sentence final particle ques-
tion marker kai. Higashino defends Nanba (protectively putting his arm
in front of him); his use of the bare command form of yamero (stop!) is
equally aggressive. In defense of Nanba, Higashino replies to Imada’s rough
language and accusations by chiding him for shirking his recording duties.
None of the students use this kind of language in the episodes. It suggests
that had Higashino not jumped to Nanba’s defense, like Tanaka in the
example given above, he would have been able to merely utter ‘I’m sorry’
a few times. The hierarchy of the show is clear, the teachers are in charge
and one doesn’t talk back. However, the hierarchy and authority is indexed
through rough, direct, aggressive and stereotypically masculine forms, not
other strategies. This is what is so hilarious to viewers. It is the kind of
language that one might wish to use on a regular basis when situations
like the above occur (someone takes too much of something precious, like
famous beef ); however, rarely does someone get the chance to be this rude
especially in public.
By right, this is a teacher–student interaction; Imada’s language is direct
and aggressive. He uses rough masculine forms combined with dialect
forms to assert his anger at Nanba. The attitude is chastising of Nanba,
much like a parent might chastise an obnoxious teen for poor manners in
public contexts. Imada asserts authority over Nanba for eating too much
meat. Higashino’s response employs SJ forms as well as a polite copula
(desu) all in defence of Nanba. His use of the polite form suggests a ‘voicing’
of Nanba (the student) by Higashino. But, that politeness is short-lived.
Higashino points out that Imada also showed poor manners by not being
present for filming; as he levels this accusation at Imada, he switches from
SJ to KD forms. Higashino’s accusation of Imada is not something that
Nanba would say, but something that only Higashino could say (an accusa-
tion about work-related things) given his status as teacher/comedian (and
thus a peer to Imada, the other teacher–comedian).
Physically this scene is highly active. As Imada utters the accusation of
‘eating too much beef ’ at Nanba, he kicks him in the chest (Imada barely
hits Nanba, but the gesture is clear). Spit flies as Imada hurls the next accu-
sation of eating ‘one and a half slices of beef ’ at Nanba. Although Imada’s
190 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

leg/foot is coming at him, Nanba stands perfectly still and barely flinches.
It is worth noting that Nanba is a large young man; larger than Imada (both
in height and girth). If Nanba wanted to do so, he could easily fend off
Imada; even knock Imada down if he wanted to do so. His arms are across
his chest when the kick comes towards him, but he doesn’t move. Nanba
shows the restraint in the way that an adult might show restraint if a child
were to hit him. This only adds to the comedic effect as it puts Nanba in the
position of benevolent superior despite the verbal and physical attack by
Imada. Higashino puts an arm across Nanba’s chest as a gesture of protec-
tion, but Imada changes his strategy of attack from physical to verbal. If
one did not know this was part of a comedic episode, it would seem highly
confrontational. For Japanese men who are stereotyped as stoic, silent and
non-expressive, these interactions stand out (see Matsumoto 1996). It is
precisely this juxtaposition of stereotypes that contribute to the comedic
effect.

Example 3: Elder brother Mori

From episode 24, ‘Awaji shima mankitsu tsuā’ (‘Enjoy Awaji island tour’)

Lines 343–52
343–4 Imada: Hazurero:. Yatta:.
345–7 Higashino: Shibu::i, sugē:: kaoshiteru. Sā, tsuzukimashite wa, Mori no
onīchan.
348 Mori: Onegaishimasu.
349–50 Higashino: Mori-san, oniku daijōbu nandesuka? Taberareru?
351–2 Mori: Daijōbu, daijōbu. Ikeru, ikeru, korewa ikeru.

343–4 Imada: Miiiiissssss. Goot it!

345–7 Higashino: That’s toootallllly cooold. What a face you are making. Aaaa,
to continue, older brother Mori is next.
348 Mori: Thank you (Please allow me to [throw the dart])
349–50 Higashino: Mr Mori, are you OK eating meat? Will you be able to eat it
(honorific or potential form)?
351–2 Mori: I’m fine. I’m fine. I can, I can. This I can eat!

This final sequence is exemplary of a linguistic practice among the teachers

and one of the students, Mr Mori. At 64 years old, Mr Mori is the eldest
‘student’ in the JGO. Throughout the episodes, Mori is addressed with a
title; the other students are typically addressed and referred to with second-
person pronouns; when their last names are used, a title does not accom-
pany it. The two teachers are always addressed as ‘teacher’ or last name
(LN) plus ‘teacher’. Mr Mori is special; as the two examples above typify,
 Academy of devotion 191

across most episodes, he is usually addressed as LN + san or as onīchan

(elder brother). In the above example, the KD-preferred honorific form
(adding rareru which is isomorphic with the SJ potential form of the verb)
is used to ask Mr Mori if he eats meat. When he does use polite forms, they
are overwhelmingly formulaic14 (see line 348). He answers in a colloquial
manner ‘ikeru, ikeru’. Mr Mori is given deference in ways that none of the
other students are given. The use of title and honorifics with the eldest
member of the JGO can be understood as typical (and traditionally) appro-
priate behaviour. SturtzSreetharan (2006b) found that younger company
men always showed linguistic deference to their superiors (who were elder
to them, not just superior in rank). Imada’s linguistic styles towards Mori
are only deferent when addressing him by name (e.g. LN + title) or when
asking him this question about eating meat. In other instances, Mori, like
his student peers, is mocked and ridiculed, often in contexts where his age
is a hindrance to the team’s activities. Thus, Imada and Higashino can still
show their masculinity and position of hierarchy over Mori but also main-
tain what is visually apparent: a grandfather figure deserving of respect.15
The physical aspects of this portion of the episode are of note. The
women, each wearing the Misu Suisen sash, are taking turns throwing the
darts at the spinning dartboard (with one side of the board marked hazure
‘miss’ and the other side marked atari ‘hit’). The above interaction occurs
as the women are getting ready to throw Mori’s dart. The other men cheer
(shouting festive banzais for good luck) for Mori’s dart, waving their hands
as the dart is thrown. The female dart-throwers, on the other hand, never
speak. Their role is to be silent and throw darts; the contrast with the bois-
terous men is stark.
In each of the sequences given above, the men present themselves
simultaneously as masculine and regional. They prefer masculine forms
of language, in particular second-person pronouns like omae (you) and
masculine lexical items such as kū (eat). They also use many dialect forms,
typically those that are instantly recognisable as KD. Thus, a plausible
interpretation is that the men are being masculine – both in speech and
in action.
In addition to indexing masculinity, these masculine linguistic and
dialect forms are also indexical of a rough, vulgar, and informal style that
is humorous. Indeed, given the parodic nature of the programme – a mock
school classroom played by student–actors and teacher–comedians – the
use of language is strategic in that it pointedly uses language that one
would find in a school-setting of all male students. Moreover, the dialect
forms are readily indexing the men as hip, cool and, crucially, not from
Kanto (i.e. eastern Japan/Tokyo); as the show was broadcast nationwide,
192 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

the taken-for-granted east–west contrast is not lost on viewers. Kansai

men are funny and not stuffy; they are guys who like to have fun, make
jokes and enjoy life. In short, they aren’t salarymen nor are they ikumen.16
They have been referred to in the literature as ‘omoroi yatsu’ – or ‘funny
guys’. In this particular TV show they are the ‘teachers’, instructing their
‘students’ on how to be successful boys cum men who are fun and cool
Kansai guys; not the uptight and expressively constipated Kanto men. In
this case, ideological masculine style adds nonstandard coolness and infor-
mality to its indexical field.

Discussion
As the examples show, not only are the teacher–comedians’ physical behav-
iours masculine, their linguistic behaviours are also stereotypically mas-
culine; the strongly masculine pronouns, vulgar lexical forms, and dialect
forms all serve to craft an image of manly men doing manly things. The
two teachers use stereotypically masculine language and very recognisable
features of KD. For each category of linguistic features analysed (gender or
dialect) the most common examples are those that are highly segmentable
(Silverstein 1996) and pragmatically salient (Errington 1985). Pronouns,
sentence final forms, verb morphology, and dialectal lexicon in Japanese
are grammatical locations that allow for exploitation of status hierarchy
and speaker identity among other things. These grammatical forms in Jap-
anese can serve as resources to be selected, thrown out, and/or evaluated.
These grammatical features are perfect spaces to create parody, sarcasm,
(mock) anger, and power. They also are features that circulate widely in
media – textual and visual – making them ‘translatable’ to non-Kansai
people, and thus successful markers of identity. In short, subtlety is not
the point; the most recognisable masculine forms as well as KD forms are
used over and over again. There is high relative pragmatic saliency for these
forms (Errington 1985). They quickly do the work of indexing masculinity
and region as well as masculinity and hip/coolness (Shibamoto Smith and
Occhi 2009) rather than simply geography.
My findings resonate with what others have found. Gendered speech
among TV drama women (in their twenties to thirties) or female anime
characters is frequent and common (see Hiramoto 2013; Mizumoto 2015).
As noted earlier, Japanese women’s represented linguistic styles are steeped
in feminine language. I suggest that a similar phenomenon is occurring in
the current TV reality show. The teacher–comedians, Higashino and Imada,
have a ‘concentrated’ speaking style that reduces their speech into contextu-
ally appropriate snippets of KD and stereotypically masculine language.
 Academy of devotion 193

Across the six episodes, the two teacher–comedians use high frequen-
cies of first- and second-person pronouns. Higashino uses a total of 22
first-person pronouns (1PP) and Imada uses 23; they use a total of 32 and
35 second-person pronouns (2PP) respectively. The two most common
1PP forms are the masculine boku and ore; Higashino uses boku 7/22 (32%)
of the time and ore 6/22 (27%) of the time. Imada prefers ore using it 17/23
or 74% of the time; he uses boku only 2/23 (9%) of the time. Neither of them
use the formal watashi. The higher frequency of 2PP over 1PP is of note.
Typically, 2PP are to be avoided as they immediately position a speaker
and hearer in a hierarchy with one another17 (Niyekawa 1992). In JGO,
however, they are used for just this purpose in an over-the-top kind of way.
Indeed, the most common 2PP used by the two teacher–comedians is the
strongly masculine form omae – Higashino uses it 28/32 times (88%) while
Imada uses it almost exclusively, 34/35 times (97%).
The two teacher–comedians uses of sentence final forms are overwhelm-
ingly stereotypically masculine or dialectal (or both). Higashino uses a total
of 314 sentence final forms; of these, 117 (37%) of them are stereotypically
masculine and 124 (39%) of them are KD forms. Forty-nine (16%)of these
are both KD and masculine forms (e.g. ga na and (nen)na). Imada uses a
total of 277 final forms; of these, 141 (51%) are stereotypically masculine
and 127 (46%) of them are KD forms. Sixty-two (22%) of them are both KD
and masculine forms. Imada has high instances of zo (23/119 [19%] of all
masculine forms) an SJ sentence final form that is considered strongly ste-
reotypically masculine and which was found by SturtzSreetharan (2004a)
to occur only rarely in naturally occurring men’s conversations, typically as
a display of strong force or anger. The patterns of 1PP and 2PP person pro-
nouns reported above along with the stereotypically masculine sentence
final forms combine to create a rough and tough stance that adds to the
comedy effect as the teachers and students engage in weight loss/gain and
cooking competitions, among other activities.
Numerous examples like those highlighted above are found through-
out the episodes of JGO. In one of the episodes discussed above, the male
students competed to see which team could lose the most weight; in the
episode previous to that one, they had competed to see who could gain
the most weight. Each episode involves a competitive game among the
members of the JGO. Most typically, the game involves competitive physi-
cal activity of some sort. Physical competitions are engaged in to high-
light the men’s masculine abilities. In JGO, women are not brought in as
competitors or audience; rather, when women do show up, they are there
more as ‘eye candy’ (throwing darts while wearing short skirts), as experts
to explain difficult medical concepts to the men (how much one can eat
194 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

before becoming ill), or as technical assistants (tasked with weighing the

JGO members during their various weight loss/gain competitions). This is
to be expected in a reality TV programme whose title includes the phrase
‘Men’s Team’. The strict sex role division of men and women in the episodes
casts the men’s activities in sharper relief as masculine engagements and
endeavours.
A masculinity that pays attention to hierarchy, relegates women to the
sidelines, and emphasises the rough and tough aspects of men’s behav-
iours, both physically and linguistically, is a clear backwards glance to a
masculinity that is not gentle, domestic-chore oriented, or eager to engage
in child-rearing. Rather, it is reminiscent of previous hegemonic forms of
masculinity embedded in entertaining comedic interactions. How can we
understand this programme’s appeal in the late 1990s in Japan? From the
vantage point of time, I suggest two different ways of thinking about the
reality TV show:

•• appealing to a ‘youthful masculinity’ regardless of the viewer’s age;

and
•• as a counternarrative to the increasingly audible national narrative
calling for a new model of masculinity that embraces child rearing
and other domestic duties.

One way to interpret the linguistic and physical actions of the JGO members
is to consider the appeal of the show.18 It bears repeating that the kinds of
linguistic styles used by the two ‘teachers’ (Imada and Higashino) are vastly
different from how non-celebrity men in their age group typically speak
in naturally occurring conversations (see SturtzSreetharan 2009). Indeed,
the high frequencies of so-called ‘vulgar’ masculine pronouns, in particu-
lar second-person pronouns, and the use of rough lexical and sentence
final forms are closer to but still far greater than how young men speak
in naturally occurring conversations. As such, it is possible that the JGO
teacher–comedians are trying to index the tough masculinity that will also
remind viewers of their youth. In many ways, a youthful masculinity is the
closest to stereotypical masculinity, at least ideologically (SturtzSreetharan
2004a).
The linguistic and physical activities of the JGO programme can be
viewed as a counternarrative to national discourses in the late 1990s regard-
ing men and masculinity. During the 1990s, the Japanese government
amid worries of low birth rate combined with a growing elder population
began to increasingly talk to men about their domestic responsibilities. The
advantages of paternity leave were extolled and an overt role in child rearing
duties was encouraged (Yasumoto and Sano 2014). Images of attractive-
 Academy of devotion 195

ness were changing; men were encouraged through ad campaigns to take

care of their bodies. In many ways, men were bombarded with new ways of
being men in the form of new compulsory requirements. In addition, the
Kansai region was in physical crisis – literally and figuratively. The Kansai
region was trying to rebuild, restructure and make a comeback from the
Great Hanshin Earthquake in January of 1995; there was great tension over
rebuilding exactly what had been destroyed or treating the destruction as
an opportunity to build something new and (potentially) better than before
(Edgington 2010). The Kansai comedians also saw the opportunity in this
show: a chance to try to reclaim aspects of (male) identity that seemed to
be slipping away. Other male entertainers (non-comedians) were display-
ing softer sides (cf. Kimura Takuya), showing themselves not only to be
sexy and softer (than their fathers) but also potentially more in touch with
women’s needs and feelings (Darling-Wolf 2004).
JGO aired at 11:00 pm weeknights. Although the salaryman ideology
had been declared ‘dead’, in reality, the pressure on white collar business-
men was really just heating up in the late 1990s (see Suehiro 2001; Utsumi
2000). As Matanle et al. (2008) note, the pressure heightened in the mid-
2000s with restructuring becoming common place and suicide rates of
company men climbing. The salaryman was not dead but he was being
forced to transform –increasing his independence and decreasing his
loyalty to his company so that he would be accustomed to changing jobs.
But, this transformation was not being recognised until after 2000. In the
meantime, the Heisei recession caused a retrenching of 1970s era salary-
man style work ethic: leave home very early and return very late. TV shows
which air this late at night are directed both to students and to working
men returning home from work around this time to sit down at the dinner
table for a beer and meal (Ota 2004); highly stressed company men are a
captive audience.
JGO’s first goal was to be funny; there is no question in this. But, its
implicit messages can’t be ignored. It also functioned as a lesson with its
classroom setting; it was going to (re)teach Japanese men how to be men:
how to talk; how to act; how to express masculinity. It was not the softer
gentler kind that was brewing here and there, on government billboards
and in company paternity leave campaigns; it was the rougher and com-
petitive kind of masculinity that valued strong physical exertion and team
work.
This analysis has shown how men use language, in particular stereotypi-
cally masculine language, to create humour and gendered identities on a
reality television show. It adds to our current knowledge by focusing on
regional men who are on the national (televisual) stage. It features interac-
196 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

tions between men of various ages and ranks (teachers and students). The
high frequencies of 1PP and 2PP person pronouns combined with high fre-
quencies of stereotypically masculine sentence final forms create a linguis-
tic style that is highly entertaining. The entertaining aspect is achieved, in
part, by the physical antics in which the men engage. Overeating and weight
loss competitions are silly; but their comedic effects are highlighted by the
seriousness with which the students and teachers engage in the competi-
tions. The language of the men is aggressive, assertive, and authoritative
highlighting the physical competitions they engage in each episode. The
use of KD further adds to the entertainment given that it is heard as already
funny on the national level; that is, KD in contrast to SJ is funny. Overall,
JGO provided a concentrated style of tough masculinity; this style was
often delivered in KD creating hilarious comedic situations. The implicit
message, however, was one of traditional and tough masculinity, not one
that encouraged engagement with child-rearing or domestic tasks. In this
way, JGO can be understood as a voice (albeit a soft voice) in opposition
to the increasingly loud voices calling for changes in the nation’s gender
dynamics.

About the author

Cindi SturtzSreetharan is an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and
Social Change at Arizona State University. She has published on Japanese language and
masculinity, drawing from both naturally occurring conversations and more recently
from representations of speakers in televisual media contexts.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Kobe College Corporation/Japan Education Exchange for providing
funding which allowed me to collect this data. I have received valuable feedback from
many people regarding this manuscript including Janet Shibamoto Smith, Bill Londo,
Robin LeBlanc, Debra Occhi, Hideko Abe and Orie Endo. I am also grateful to the two
anonymous Gender and Language reviewers who gave detailed comments that ulti-
mately made this manuscript better than when it started. All remaining errors are my
own.

Notes
1 Pflugfelder (1999:53) notes the category of danshi (male) emerged in this period
within the contexts of army and education. The army in particular played an
important role by allowing the previously class-based splintered categories of
‘male’ to merge (somewhat) as the possibility of exemption from conscription
either through birth or purchase faded (T. Cook 2005:280).
2 I use the phrase ‘the salaryman’ to refer to an ideological construction that doesn’t
represent actual salary men (occupational status); rather it refers to a particu-
 Academy of devotion 197

lar kind of hegemonic masculinity that has particular characteristics and behav-
iours (see Roberson and Suzuki 2002 for several papers that cover this hegemonic
construction).
3 For example, while doing fieldwork in the Kansai region between 1998 and 2000, a
poster campaign was launched by the government featuring the dancer (celebrity)
‘Sam’ (his given name is Masaharu Maruyama). The poster showed a picture of Sam
holding an infant with a caption that read, ‘Men who don’t help raise their children
can’t be called “father”’. This government slogan appeared in other places as well
(see Yasumoto and LaRossa 2010).
4 The term ikumen is a combination of the first part of the Sino-Japanese term ikuji
‘child rearing’ and the English word men.
5 Whether the campaigns have been successful or not is not clear. Alpert (2014),
Taga (2003) and Darling-Wolf (2004) all report ways in which the rough and tough
masculinity of the salaryman ideal has been tempered since the economic reces-
sion. Whether it will have a real impact on rates of men engaging in domestic
chores (including child-rearing) remains to be seen.
6 Although see Quaglio (2009) for a comparison of the dialogue on Friends and natu-
ral speech data.
7 Just as troubling, this trend is found in Japanese language textbooks as well (see
Siegal and Okamoto 2003; Mizumoto 2015). Specifically, the speech in role-playing
dialogues of Japanese language textbooks exhibit unnaturally high frequencies of
‘women’s language’ (in the women’s dialogue role) with regard to first- and second-
person pronouns as well as sentence final forms.
8 Manzai refers to a specific kind of comedy routine involving two people – the
‘straight man’ and the ‘funny man’. They engage in a dialogue, which is mainly com-
posed of jokes based on misinterpretations/misunderstandings, word puns, and
verbal gags. It tends to be associated with the Kansai region, and thus the Kansai
dialect. While manzai is not explicitly gendered, male manzai performers out-
number female duos. See Stocker (2002) for a history of manzai and its relation-
ship to the Kansai (specifically Osaka) region.
9 Comedian pairs are typically considered konbi or a duo. However, these two are not
formally a duo; rather they function as solo comedians who find themselves per-
forming together frequently. They are often referred to as ‘W Kōji’ (daburu Kōji,
‘Kōji twins’).
10 It should be noted that, due to the poor quality of recording, pitch accent could
not be analysed. As such, lexical or morphological forms in KD are the focus here
rather than pitch accent. Anecdotally, under the author’s estimation along with
native KD speakers, the participants overwhelmingly use KD pitch accent, even
when uttering so-called SJ forms.
11 These six episodes were chosen based on video recording quality. Unfortunately,
attempts to secure copies of this programme after it aired were not fruitful. The
six episodes were as follows: episode 24, ‘Awaji shima mankitsu tsuā’ (‘Enjoy Awaji
island tour’); episode 25, ‘Mafuyu no karē taiketsu’ (‘Midwinter curry competi-
tion’); episode 26, ‘Genryō daisakusen: diet taiketsu’ (‘Operation weight loss: diet
competition’); episode 27, ‘Ōgui sōryō sakusen’ (‘Operation stuffing yourself’);
episode 28, ‘W-kōji supai dai sakusen’ (‘Operation double Kōji spy’); episode 29,
‘Namida no sotsugyō bōringu’ (‘Tearful graduation bowling’).
12 The production of this word was geminated although prescriptively it is not. Hyper-
gemination and trilling of /r/ sounds are features used by male Kansai speakers,
198 Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan

especially when performing anger (see SturtzSreetharan 2009). More work needs
to be done on the use of gemination and stereotypical gender in Japanese.
13 Awaji Island is famous for daffodils, and boasts of being one of the three biggest
habitats for daffodils in Japan.
14 As mentioned earlier, the recording quality of the data is not adequate to ascertain
reliable pitch accent; however, Mori is overwhelmingly a KD speaker rather than
SJ. Indeed, although beyond the scope of this paper, he speaks in a particular style
of KD typically referred to as ‘senba’ style which refers to the historical heart of
Osaka rather than the larger region.
15 I thank Robin LeBlanc for the suggestion that this exchange could also be inter-
preted as the two teachers making fun of Mori; the interrogative of ‘taberareru’
(can you eat (it)?) serves as a taunt not an actual question. I also thank an anony-
mous reviewer for also suggesting that a potential interpretation of this particular
question (‘Can you eat meat?’) is an attempt by a younger person (Higashino) to
show concern to an older person (Mori) with regard to meat consumption, specifi-
cally. Given that the potential form (Are you able to eat (it)?) serves as an honorific
in KD, it is grammatically possible that the first interpretation (ability to eat) could
be made. It should also be noted that honorifics are often used to be sarcastic and
ironic; this is also a grammatical possibility. I suggest that each of these interpreta-
tions (including the one given in the main text) is plausible. The actual semantico-
referential intent of Higashino’s utterance of ‘taberareru’ is unknown. The multiple
possibilities may be the best interpretation; the pattern of Mori being address with
a title throughout the episodes, combined with other instances of linguistic defer-
ence, remains intact.
16 See Oyama (2014) for a discussion of ikumen.
17 Second-person pronouns are typically avoided by speakers due to the immedi-
acy with which they index the social status and power relationships between the
speaker and interlocutor (see Niyekawa 1992); in this TV programme, the use of
second-person pronouns outnumbers that of first-person pronouns. It has been
anecdotally suggested that this is due to the TV effect – a second-person pronoun
must be uttered in order to understand who is being ‘pointed’ to among several
possible interlocutors. While this may contribute to the high frequency of the
forms, when viewing the episodes, typically camera angle alone allows for the view-
ers to understand who is being addressed; indeed, if clarity were an issue, member
last name would be preferred over second-person pronouns.
18 Unfortunately, formal ratings/rankings of the broadcast during its run are no
longer available.

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