Comments on: Nanpa: A History

By: bathrobe

bathrobe — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:53:58 +0000

There is, however, a linguistic aspect to this. It’s a bit like “persuade, convince”, where the English implies not only an attempt to change someone’s opinion or course of action, but a SUCCESSFUL attempt. If I understand rightly, this is not the case in Japanese, where 説得 refers to an attempt, successful or otherwise. The use of “persuade” for “attempt to persuade” is a common enough mistake among learners of English.

By: bathrobe

bathrobe — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:47:52 +0000

Yes, you’re right. I guess ‘hit on’ is better because ‘pick up’ implies success :)

By: j.jones

j.jones — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:59:10 +0000

Nanpa isnt just picking someone up, its something Neets do in shibuya,　its not something your classic salaryman would admit doing (maybe he would if he was in 金融 or 人材派遣) but then most リーマン　also have little or no chance to meet women and marry the girl they sat next to in homeroom (or they goucon in properly adult fashion). While gyakunan still makes sense, i get the feeling its one of those words like 妻 or 主人 which is slowly falling out of the standard lexicon. the girls i know who do it just call it nanpa.

of course the zizekian inverse of marxy;s point about the assignment of passivity is the popularity of the S&M porn which flips the script, as it were (痴女など）

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:22:29 +0000

Right — active male is the unmarked form, active female needs to be marked with “gyaku” (meaning “reverse” or “backwards”)

By: W. David MARX

W. David MARX — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:30:24 +0000

The terms Nanpa and Gyakunan seem to assign activity and passivity to the male and female genders, respectively.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 23:27:59 +0000

Bathrobe, that is true about the location thing, although I think that using it for places other than street corners etc. is (or at least began as) a jokey metaphorical extension of the original meaning. You know: “And how did you meet Naoto?” Describe it as nanpa and enjoy big laughs all round.

Also an interesting point about the distinction between “hit on” and “pick up”. You are right; it can be used to cover the whole spectrum there. But success is not required to qualify as nanpa; try googling ナンパされたけど and note all the sentences that end with “I ignored him”, “I was busy shopping [so I ignored him]” etc.

(逆ナン might have a higher implication of success, if only because it’s much rarer for women to spend the whole day hitting on guy after guy after guy…)

By: R

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:30:46 +0000

The origins of Hard Gay???

By: bathrobe

bathrobe — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:09:53 +0000

I would translate “nanpa sareta” as “I got picked up”. :)

By: bathrobe

bathrobe — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:07:33 +0000

I always thought of nanpa as meaning “pick up” (a woman). And you can do it parties as much as on street corners. The main thing is, you hit on someone you don’t know (no mutual acquaintance, no introduction, etc.) This was probably much less common an occurrence in traditional Japan than in the West, where holding parties where anyone can come and chatting up the women you find there are a much more common and acceptable practice.

By: Rory P. Wavekrest

Rory P. Wavekrest — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:29:09 +0000

I think you meant Arena Football?