In Japan, there's a money hand gesture that's very similar to the "OK" hand gesture in America: it's done by making a circle with the thumb and index finger.
haa? kono yo ni okane igai nani ka aru-n-desu ka? はぁ？この世にお金以外なにかあるんですか？ Hah? In this world, is there anything besides money?
This gesture is used not only to talk about hard cash, but also when talking about profits or other economic gains, about costs, things that are expensive, and so on. It just signifies money in general.
Warning: different cultures use the same gesture to signify different things. In Japan it's money, in America it's "OK," in some countries it's something obscene, and so on. Some culture also have different gestures for money, like rubbing the index and thumb together.
In grammar, "performative verbs," suikou-doushi 遂行動詞, are verbs that perform an action simply by being uttered. They're used in the simple present in English, and in the "nonpast form," hikakokei 非過去形, in Japanese.
English examples include: I say, I declare, I command, I promise, I allow, I permit, I forbid, and so on.
Japanese examples include: onegai shimasu お願いします, tanomu 頼む, meizuru 命ずる, yurusu 許す, kyoka suru 許可する, and so on.
Basically, they work kind of like the progressive form "is ~ing" and the perfect form "has ~ed" in English. Observe:
Tarou wa hashiru 太郎は走る Tarou will run. (future perfective event.) Tarou runs. (present habitual state.)
Tarou ga hashitte-iru 太郎が走っている Tarou is running [right now]. (progressive state, stage-level predicate.)
Tarou wa kyonen kara mai-nichi hashitte-iru 太郎は去年から毎日走っている Tarou has been running every day since last year. (iterative state, episodic individual-level predicate.)
setsumei ga hon ni kaite-aru 説明が本に書いてある The explanation is written in the book. (resultative state, stage-level predicate.)
It's probably not very useful in practice to know that ~te-iru and ~te-aru are stativizers. It's more useful to just learn their functions individually. But for the sake of reference I'll be writing this article to show how these two forms relate.
Notably, Japanese statives in nonpast form lack a future tense, so either a futurate or an eventivizer will be necessary to express a state is true in the future.
musuko ga isha da 息子が医者だ [My] son is a doctor. (present tense.) *[My] son will be a doctor. (can't mean the future tense.)
musuko ga isha ni naru 息子が医者になる [My] son will be a doctor.
watashi ga musuko wo isha ni suru 私が息子を医者にする I will make [my] son be a doctor.
Note: naru and suru have other functions, but this article won't focus on them.
In semantic grammar, "stative verbs," in Japanese: joutai-doushi 状態動詞, are verbs that express states, making them similar to adjectives. They contrast with eventive verbs, which express events.
There are multiple definitions for stative verb in Japanese. See lexical aspects for details.
In Japanese, stative verbs used in nonpast form express a state in the present tense only, which is exactly how adjectives is nonpast form work. Observe the difference:
Tarou wa manga wo yomu 太郎は漫画を読む Tarou reads manga. (present habitual.) Tarou will read manga. (future perfective.)
sora wa aoi 空は青い The sky is blue. (present state.) *The sky will be blue. (can't express futurity.)
minna wa sou omou みんなはそう思う Everybody thinks so. (present state.) *Everybody will think so. (can't express futurity.
Above, the eventive yomu has both present and future tense, the i-adjective aoi only has present tense, and the stative verb omou only has present tense as well.
Among verb types, eventive verbs are verbs that express events, which occur at some point in time. They contrast with stative verbs, which express states that are true during spans of time.
In Japanese, an eventive verb in nonpast form expresses that a futurity or a habitual. Tense-wise, future and present, respectively. A futurity is a future event. A habitual is a recurring event, often habit-like, though it can also mean whether an event is possible to occur at all.
Tarou wa manga wo yomu 太郎は漫画を読む Tarou will read manga. (futurity.) Tarou reads manga. (habitual.)
Habitual potential entailment: if Tarou reads manga, then Tarou can read manga, because if he couldn't read manga, he wouldn't read manga.
In grammar, tense can mean two things(Sarkar, 1998:92–93):
A temporal reference found in a predicate—past, present, future.
The morphology of a word required to express a temporal reference—the conjugation of a verb to past, present, and future tenses.
If we go by the second definition, neither English nor Japanese have a future tense, since there's no verb form that exclusively expresses a future temporal reference.
In grammar, actionality, or aktionsart, refers to a temporal property of a predicate. The term lexical aspect is used for the actionality of words (lexemes). Words that have different lexical aspects yield different meanings when used with the same syntax. For example:
"Tarou is running" means that "Tarou already ran" for a while, even if just for one second.
"Tarou is dying" doesn't mean that "Tarou already died" for a while, not even for one second.
Tarou wa hashitte-iru 太郎は走っている Tarou is running. (translates to progressive, "is ~ing.")
Tarou wa shinde-iru 太郎は死んでいる Tarou has died. (translates to perfect, "has ~ed.")
Above, we see that the verbs "to run," hashiru 走る, and "to die," shinu 死ぬ, have different temporal meanings when conjugated to the same forms, the progressive form in English, and the ~te-iru ～ている form in Japanese.
This happens because these words have different lexical aspects.
Note: "lexical aspect," goi-teki asupekuto 語彙的アスペクト, shouldn't be confused with "grammatical aspect," bunpou-teki asupekuto 文法的アスペクト. The progressive, perfect, perfective, imperfective, and so on are grammatical aspects, not lexical aspects.
In Japanese, kuro-mesen 黒目線, "black eye-line," or just mesen 目線, "eye line," also known as me-kakushi-sen 目隠し線, "eye-hiding line," are black censor bars covering someone's eyes used to make them anonymous in order to protect their identity and privacy.
In Japanese, mesen 目線, literally "eye line," can mean various things: one's "line of sight," their "gaze," the direction toward which they're looking, their viewpoint, how they view things, and black lines covering someone's eyes.
In Japanese, a "cobra twist," katakanizedkobura tsuisuto コブラツイスト, better known in English as "abdominal stretch," is a wrestling hold in which a wrestler, from behind, locks the opponent's arm, and bends them to a side. There are variations, but essentially:
Left arm weaves in front of the opponent's right arm and behind their neck.
Right hand grabs left hand, pressing the forearms against the opponent's neck.
Left leg wraps the opponent's left leg, or is placed in front of it.
The attacker squats, or pushes the receiver down by their neck, shoulders, bending their trunk, abdomen, to a side.
Attacker: Mizuki Natsumi 水木なつみ Receiver: Yamaguchi Daisuke 山口大介 Anime: Mama wa Shougaku Yon'nensei ママは小学４年生 (1992, Episode 1)
In Japanese, manji-gatame 卍固め, meaning "swastika hold," known in English as "octopus hold," is a wrestling hold resembling a "swastika," manji 卍, due to the placement of the limbs of the wrestler, with all four knees and elbows bent. There are variants, but essentially:
Left arm locks the opponent's right arm.
Left leg wraps around the opponent's neck.
Right leg wraps around the opponent's right leg.
Right elbow held against the opponent's ribs.
Attacker: Kinoshita Yuuko 木下優子, dressed as Kinoshita Hideyoshi 木下秀吉 Receiver: Yoshii Akihisa 吉井明久 as Anime: Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni'!, !バカとテストと召喚獣 にっ！ (Season 2) (Episode 3, Stitch)
In Japanese, maji-manji マジ卍 means the same thing as maji-yabai マジやばい. It's a JK slang used when something is intense, either intensely good, cool, awesome, epic, or intensely bad, horrible, awful, terrifying, dangerous.
The manji 卍 is also used as an internet slang when you're hyped up, excited for something.
In manga and anime, sometimes characters have "four ears," yotsu-mimi 四つ耳, in the sense of having "two pairs" of ears, ni-tsui 二対, that are part of their body.
Generally, this happens when the artist adds a pair of cat ears, bunny ears, etc. on top of a human character's head that already has human ears or human-like ears.
Character: Opera オペラ
Anime: Mairimashita! Iruma-kun 魔入りました！入間くん (Episode 10)
In Japanese, usamimi うさみみ means "bunny ears" or "rabbit ears." It's a portmanteau combining the words usagi 兎, "bunny," "rabbit," and mimi 耳, "ears." In other words: it's an abbreviation of usagi-mimi 兎耳.
Like "cat ears," nekomimi 猫耳, usamimi is a specific type of kemomimi ケモミミ, and normally refers to headbands featuring bunny ears, or characters featuring bunny ears, rather than the actual ears of a bunny.
In Japanese, "bunny girl," katakanizedbanii gaaru バニーガール, refers to a girl wearing a "bunny suit," which is a well-known and very specific sort of sexy outfit featuring bunny ears.
Often, the Japanese term "bunny girl" refers to the act of cosplaying as a bunny girl, rather than referring to the girl herself.
The words banii-san バニーさん and usagi-san ウサギさん, both literally "bunny-san," are sometimes used to refer to the girl.
Character: Sakurajima Mai 桜島麻衣 Anime: Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai, 青春ブタ野郎はバニーガール先輩の夢を見ない (Episode 1)
In the English anime fandom, "know your gao's" or "know the faces" is a an NSFW meme template listing Japanese terms for four types of fetishized facial expressions: ahegao, gesugao, torogao and kusogao, plus an extra deemed the most important gao.
Unfortunately, the way the Japanese terms are labelled, or translated, in the often reposted meme is vague, inaccurate, and incorrect, so I made my own version of it, with literal translations and flowers, and I'm going to explain what the words are actually supposed to mean in Japanese.
In anime, girls with their cheeks puffed out are considered cute (moe 萌え), and such images are said often to be of girls pouting, that is, they look like this when they're angry, or annoyed, or frustrated.
There are various ways to say "to pout" in Japanese, depending on what you mean: hoppe wo fukuramaseru ほっぺを膨らませる, kuchi wo togaraseru 口を尖らせる, suneru 拗ねる.
In Japanese, akuma-mimi 悪魔耳, "demon ears," or "devil ears," are the ears of fantasy characters that are pointed and curved upwards.
Character: Henry Marker ヘンリー・マーカー Background: Carrera Marker カレラ・マーカー Anime: Karin かりん (Episode 5)
Context: a "vampire," kyuuketsuki 吸血鬼.
They're practically the same thing as "elf ears," erufu-mimi エルフ耳, except that elf ears tend to protrude outwards and can become extremely long, while demon ears protrude upwards and look short by comparison.
In anime, sometimes characters have "horns," tsuno 角, protruding out of their heads. Typically, this happens when the character is a "demon," akuma 悪魔, or part of the "demonic clan," mazoku 魔族.
Character: Jin 陣 Anime: Yū☆Yū☆Hakusho 幽☆遊☆白書 (Episode 39)
In Japanese, deppa 出っ歯 means having upper teeth that protrude forward, ending up outside the mouth.
Literally, deppa 出っ歯 means "leaving teeth." A "tooth" or "teeth, ha 歯, that "leaves," deru 出る, the mouth. The ha は becomes ppa っぱ due to handakuonka 半濁音化.
Character: Ishino Arashi 石野あらし Anime: Game Center Arashi, ゲームセンターあらし (Episode 1)
In manga and anime, a lip fang is a cute anime fang drawn as an skin-colored indentation of the upper lip rather than as an actual tooth. It's also called skin fang, flesh fang, flesh tooth, or skin tooth.
In Japanese, the term for anime fang is yaeba 八重歯, so a way to describe the lip fang in Japanese would be hada-iro no yaeba 肌色の八重歯, "skin-colored yaeba."
In Japanese, yaeba 八重歯 means "overlapped teeth," that is: it's when a person grows up and their teeth become misaligned due to lack of space (overcrowding), and then one tooth gets pushed forwards or upwards, ending up in front of another tooth, rather than staying in line side by side.
Often, yaeba means having fang-like, protruding canine teeth, due to it often being the canine teeth that end up protruding when a person's teeth become misaligned. In Japan, this sort of yaeba is considered cute, and there are countless characters with yaeba in anime and manga.
In Japanese, kiba 牙 means "fang" or "tusk," and a fang is a long sharp tooth, typically the canine teeth. In real life, humans don't have fangs—since their canine teeth are relatively short—but various carnivorous animals do, including even domestic cats.
In manga and anime, some characters have a single triangular fang-like tooth normally visibly drawn sticking out of their mouths. This "anime fang" is part of the character's design, and is considered to be cute by some people.
Character: Sakura Hibiki 紗倉ひびき Anime: Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? ダンベル何キロ持てる？ (Episode 1)
In manga and anime, sometimes characters have "jagged teeth," giza-ba ギザ歯, also called "shark teeth," same-ba サメ歯, which are teeth drawn like two rows of sharp triangles.
Typically, characters that have triangular teeth may appear comically devious and monstrous. Some of them are indeed monsters, though most are not. Triangular teeth are also used symbolically when a character is angry.
A character with a single triangular tooth normally sticking out is said to have an "anime fang" instead.
Character: Valac Clara ウァラク・クララ
Anime: Mairimashita! Iruma-kun 魔入りました！入間くん (Episode 3)
In manga and anime, sometimes when a character is angry, scowling, they're drawn with semi-circle eyes, or "triangleeyes," sankaku-me 三角目, typically as completely white eyes, regardless of what their original shape was.(tonbi.jp:三角目)
In manga and anime, sometimes a character's "eyes become money," me ga okane ni naru 目がお金になる. This happens when they've set their eyes on money, thinking about money, trying to get a huge sum of money, dreaming of becoming rich, and so on.
Sometimes this symbol is animated as eyes spinning vertically like a slot machine and stopping on a money symbol as if they hit a jackpot.
In manga and anime, sometimes a flame is drawn burning inside a character's eye, even though their eyes aren't actually on fire. This can happen for various reasons:
The character is burning with excitement or interest.
They're burning with rage, they're hot-headed.
They're about to use a skill and the fire eyes just look pretty awesome.
They have fire-based abilities. Their eyes are actually on fire.
Character: Ikeda Kana 池田華菜 Anime: Saki 咲 (Episode 19)
In manga and anime, sometimes a character's "eyes turn into X's," me ga batsu ni naru 目がバツになる. Typically, this means they're dead. Well, not dead dead, just dead in the comical sense. Knocked out. Unconscious.
kizetsu 気絶 Faint. (in the sense of becoming unconscious)
kasuka 微か Faint. (in the sense of not strong, e.g. a faint light, a faint smell.)
In anime, sometimes when a character winks a star is drawn coming out of their eye. Why does this happen? I have absolutely no idea. What does it mean? It means it's a wink strong enough to make stars come out. Most likely, it's done just because it looks cute.
winku de hoshi ga deru
ウィンクで星が出る
A star leaves due to a wink.
A star comes out with a wink.
In manga and anime, a star in a single eye is an old symbol used when a character is hurt or shocked.
It's somewhat similar to the phrase "seeing stars," which in western cartoons is depicted as stars orbiting the character's head. Similarly, in anime, when they're seeing everything spinning, their eyes are drawn as spirals.
Note that having stars in both eyes typically means the character is dreaming of or yearning for something instead.
In manga and anime, sometimes characters are drawn with "stars in eyes," me ni hoshi 目に星, or their "eyes become stars," me ga hoshi ni naru 目が星になる.
This can happen for various reasons: the character is thinking of something dreamy, yearning for something; that's just part of the design of the character; or, in rare cases, they just took damage somehow and the stars symbolize getting hurt.
In manga and anime, kotesen コテ線 are lines drawn on the cheeks of characters as part of their design. They're very similar to blushing lines, except that they don't symbolize any emotion—they're just there to give a feeling of tridimensionality to the cheeks, or make them look rosy.
Another difference is that in colored media blushing lines are always drawn red, while kote-sen is often drawn as black lines. Such black lines drawn on cheeks feel old style-wise, as they are typical of older anime and aren't used as much in modern times.
In manga and anime, sometimes two small spirits, a devil and an angel, appear on a character's shoulder, over their head, and so on, to give them advice and tell them what to do.
Anime: Hayate no Gotoku! ハヤテのごとく！ (Episode 1)
sasayaku
囁く
To whisper.
Typically, this is a comedic way to depict the conflict of good and evil inside the character when dealing with a situation.
In anime, sometimes a spiral is drawn on a character's finger tip, typically on their index finger, when they point the finger toward the camera. This doesn't mean anything. It's just a simple way to draw the "fingerprint," shimon 指紋, of the finger.
In Japanese, namida-me 涙目 means "tearful eyes," or "teary eyes." In manga and anime, eyes are sometimes drawn with tear drops on the corners, but those drops don't fall on the cheek, they simply hang in there.
In particular, although crying characters are typically actually sad and depressed, characters that just have a tear hanging from their eyes can have other emotions too, like being embarrassed, displeased, or angry.
In manga and anime, sometimes characters are drawn with "watery eyes," uru-uru-me うるうる目, in which case the eyes may be drawn simplified as large and with multiple highlight spots.
Character: Honey-senpai ハニー先輩
Anime: Ouran High School Host Club, Ouran Koukou Hosuto-Bu 桜蘭高校ホスト部 (Episode 12)
Often, characters drawn with this sort of eye will be begging for something, so they're like "puppy dog eyes."
The word uru-uru うるうる is a reduplication of urumu 潤む, which means just "to be wet." See namida-me 涙目 for eyes that have tears on them, and nakigao 泣き顔 for characters actually crying.
A term for this is guri-guri-me グリグリ目, "spinning eyes." The mimetic wordguriguri グリグリ can mean "to press against and make turning movements," for example, to press a crayon against the paper and make turn movements to draw this sort of eye.
In manga and anime, sometimes a character's eyes are drawn simplified like horizontal parallel lines when they're relaxing, enjoying something or having fun. They're also drawn as parallel vertical lines sometimes.
In manga and anime, "circle eyes," maru-me ○目, are eyes drawn as white circles with black outlines, typically used when a character is overwhelmed, shocked, startled, or scared, but sometimes just a simple way to draw eyes when they're being silly.(tonbi.jp:〇目)
In manga and anime, "dot eyes," ten-me 点目, refers to eyes drawn as mere dots, which typically mean a character is surprised. In Japanese, dot eyes is also an expression that means a person (in real life) feels surprised.
This term applies only to small black dots representing the whole eye. Eyes drawn as vertical bars are called konsento-me コンセント目. Normal eyes with irises drawn as solid circles are called beta-me ベタ目. If the irises are drawn as small dots, that is, if the character has small irises, they may have sanpakugan 三白眼. If there are no irises, and the eyes are white circles with black outlines, they're called zero-me ○目, circle eyes.
In manga, beta-me ベタ目 are eyes drawn completely black, without highlight or distinct iris and pupil, or eyes draw in a single color other than black other than black, or eyes drawn without a highlight.
Basically, in manga beta ベタ means an area filled with black ink, but eyes drawn pure black in manga are sometimes drawn with highlights in close-up panels, or in anime adaptations, so the term is kind of vague.
In manga, tsuyabeta ツヤベタ, literally "glossy beta," refers black hair with highlights, or the technique used to render highlights on hair as well as other shiny, black things.
In manga and anime, kouka-haikei 効果背景, "effect backgrounds," are backgrounds which express some sort of effect, like representing the emotion that a character is feeling.
In manga, suname 砂目, "sand grain," is a type of "halftone" pattern typically used to render darker gradients on the background or grainy textures on things.
Manga: Houshin Engi 封神演義 (Chapter 1, 封神の書)
It's also known as "noise," noizu ノイズ. Technically, it's known stochastic screening, the word "stochastic" meaning "random," or FM screening, FM meaning frequency-modulated.
The non-random, amplitude-modulated, AM screening halftone is called amiten 網点, by the way.
In manga, amiten 網点, literally "net of dots," or "web of points," means a type of "halftone," a "dot screen."
Halftone is a technique to change the tone of an area by using a pattern of dots of varying sizes and with varying spacing. For example, it allows you to print various shades of gray using only white and black.
Normally, you won't be able to actually SEE the dots—as in: tell them apart—because they'll be very small.
