Conversations with a Translator: Humor in Manga

Although the Japanese reputedly don't 'get' irony, they deliver something that is awfully close. One of my favorite scenes from The Way of the Househusband occurs when one of Tatsu's friends makes and delivers a chocolate cake to his yakuza boss on Valentine's Day. The boss's nonplussed face (I don't get it) treads the line of irony.

Of course, irony is difficult to define--hence the website: Is It Ironic?

From my perspective as a teacher of literature, the scene would be definitively ironic if the yakuza boss actually loved chocolate (upending the readers' expectations) or was allergic (upending the character's expectations).

So what is the humor here?

I asked the Translator.

Eugene: My theory is that the comedy arises out of a juxtaposition of roles and expectations, a clash of context-based social values that are valid in one setting but not another. 

 

Because roles and expectations are so determined by social context in Japan, and are seemingly obvious to the objective onlooker (the audience), it's easy to upset expectations by creating situations where the roles (and the accompanying rules) don't match or trespass from one setting into another. 

 

This exchange from Only the Ring Finger 

Knows is practically incomprehensible--til

one realizes that Wataru left off the honorific

(unfortunately, most honorifics aren't used in

the translation) with upperclassman Kazuki.

Probably the easiest form of this kind of comedy simply has a character not using the correct honorifics, like referring to a senpai by name only (yobisute). Here's a good explanation with a relevant example.  

 

In The Way of the Househusband, the neighborhood housewives treat Tatsu like one of their own, so that's the role he assumes. But the yakuza treat him like one of their own too (as do the police). So you end up with collisions of wildly different expectations when the roles don't change to fit the setting. 

 

Another illustration.