protocol 7 » assorted musings on life, interaction, design, and beer

The Essence of Engrish

Japanese-English, or Engrish, adorns every other physical object in Japan, from clothing to billboards to candy. It’s near impossible to avoid the omnipresent poetic flourishes painted on the side of pachinko parlours and gas stations, and has even inspired several websites dedicated to documenting the phenomenon, including an online store that sells various items emblazoned with reproduced Engrish phrases.

Westan toilets and soft dinks are not limited to the realm of printed text, but also find their home in spoken communications. A ‘biking lunch’ isn’t a midday meal on a bicycle, but an all-you-can-eat buffet (spelled Viking and derived from smorgasbord, go figure). Shorts are called ’short pants’, lest you get confused with something else that is short, and ‘expat’ is apparently something you shoot at (this one I still haven’t figured out). Whether the Engrish is spoken or printed, native speakers are enchanted with the new linguistic configurations that confront them day in and day out (or at least I am).

About three weeks ago kzi presented me with the most amazing of Engrish shirts, a feast for the eyes and nourishment for the soul. Engrish distilled into its purist form and silk-screened onto a shirt. It has everything a girl could want, from marvelously glaring color combinations, empowering Engrish phrases, and the declaration of ‘Brilliant’ across the front, a word for which I have a particular fondness.

The tail end of ‘Brilliant’ and a happy future! Notice the colorful bubbles.

This is a quintessential example of Engrish; the meaning is pretty clear (on second thought maybe not) but the word choice and structure is distincly Japanese. Just imagine what kind of world we might live in if everyone did their best with a dream.

More bubbles, obscure text, and pure power!

Even if you can’t stand the orange fabric and bubbles, how could anyone resist a shirt that boasts 100% pure power? The long chunk of text depicted here is more obscure than the phrase in the first picture, and I can’t really make heads or tails of the use of brackets and a closing tag. It might be a way of denoting the additional but subtle meaning the Japanese are so fond of which is usually conveyed through vocal inflections, kind of like Victor Borga’s punctuation speak.

A close-up for your viewing pleasure.

The lower right-hand side of the shirt displays this inexplicable measuring cup.

On a shirt that is so positive and encouraging, this warning is slightly out of place. If the measuring cup size is indicative of what Japanese women eat, I now understand why they are all so tiny. I haven’t cut out the ‘calarie off’ coupon yet…

The graphic and text on the back of the shirt, directly below the collar.

This cute dear deer baby with its little pink bow adds the right amount of kawaii (cute cute cute) to the back of the shirt, which could hardly be left empty given the party that’s happening on the front. The blue fabric splattered with small flowers is the material used for the sleeves. A perfect complement to the orange of the shirt.

It’s up to your imagination to piece together the whole from the parts. The brilliance of the shirt is too overwhelming to depict in one photograph. In case you were wondering, yes, I do wear it on a regular basis.