Top 60 Japanese buzzwords of 2009

Website Pink Tentacle has translated Jiyu Kokuminsha's list of 2009's 60 most popular Japanese buzzwords, phrases and expressions. This annual exercise in charting the Japanese language always provides a good summary of the contemporary Zeitgeist.

Judging by the entries, little happened in 2009 other than the big hard news stories: political change and the recession. We count a whopping 14 entries related to PM Yukio Hatoyama, the DPJ revolution and U.S. President Barack Obama. (As further evidence of the non-existence, the word "obamu" didn't make the list.) Meanwhile, there are eight phrases related to growing poverty and the decline of spending levels. With baseball getting four Japanese buzzwords, Japan almost seems to be reverting back to its 1955 self: sports, political turmoil and a slightly rickety economic state.

To Jiyu Kokuminsha's credit, people were too worried about their pocketbooks to care about frivolous entertainment stories. And entertainers did themselves no good by getting themselves arrested. The life-sized Gundam was a standout joyous event in Japanese pop culture, but Jiyu Kokuminsha was only allowed to have one phrase dedicated to it.

The compilers, however, forgot to mention anything related to Tokyo's Olympic failure. Shintaro Ishihara's complaint that Brazil won the vote due to "mienai rikigaku" (「見えない力学」) -- "unseen dynamics" -- was just the kind of clever wording that gets you in the language history books.

Hopefully in 2010 the economy will recover and politics will stabilize enough to get back to what is really important: reminiscing over TV comedians' painful one-note gags. Oh, where would 2008 have been without Harumi Edo's "Guu!."