I translated an article by the Nikkei newspaper (formerly known as The Nihon Keizai Shimbun [Newspaper of the Japanese Economy]) that describes Matsumoto contributing to the modern Japanese vocabulary. The article cites lines from episode 410 of Gaki, so I found the relevant section and subbed it as well. The video to that is linked below and after the article.

(In the writing below, the parantheses are from the article, while bracketed text is my explanatory notes or insertions for the reader.)

Dailymotion link to subbed video clip from episode 410.

Download link to video.

Link to article below.

Link to article below as one page.

Article page archived.

The Nikkei [The Nihon Keizai Shimbun]

Kotoba Online [Words Online]

Koujien [a Japanese dictionary] includes the word as well; “Gyakugire [Counter-anger]” earns the favor of the people. But what does the “Gyaku [Counter]” of “Gyakugire” mean?

February 21, 2012

By NAKAGAWA Junichi

The number of dictionaries that include the word “gyakugire [counter-anger]” reached double digits last year. The word has expanded beyond the realm of youth slang and seems to have earned the favor of the people. And thus a fundamental question: what does the “gyaku [counter, instead, reverse]” of “gyakugire” mean? To “counter in anger” is the quick answer that comes to mind, but what is it countering against? MATSUMOTO Hitoshi of Downtown once raised this question as well.

The meaning of “gyaku” that Macchan is particular about

[Macchan is a diminutive nickname of MATSUMOTO Histoshi.]

From an episode of Nippon TV’s “Downtown’s Gaki No Tsukai Ya Arahende” that aired on March 29, 1998, in the talk portion with HAMADA Masatoshi, an excerpt of Mr. Matsumoto’s contention: “Especially recently, I hear [this] a lot. People are using this a lot: gyakugire. When really you’re supposed to be the one that some else gets angry at, but instead to prevent that, instead you get angry at them: that’s gyakugire.”

Let us supplement this definition by attempting to interpret the subtlety that Mr. Matsumoto left between the lines: “When really the other person is angry (or is about to become angry) at you, but instead you become angry at them, thereby making ambiguous the other person’s position of strength, or thus becoming aggressive and overrunning the situation. Today, it’s being used for when you become angry or enraged whether or not the other person was angry first, and that doesn’t make sense.”

“If someone isn’t angry at you first, you can’t call it ‘gyaku’ [counter],” says the comedy icon, giving a tsukkomi to society. [A tsukkomi is when a straight man in comedy points out and criticizes the silliness or incorrectness of a funny man.] It seems as though this affected dictionaries as well. Meikyou Japanese Dictionary was the first to include the word, in 2002, and their definition is, “When someone has become angry, the person who is the object of that anger or a person who was being calm suddenly becomes angry instead.” By adding “the person who was being calm,” they try to explain the meaning of gyaku [counter, instead, reverse] in a normal way [in a way that incorporates the meanings of “instead” and “reverse”] (see the table below).

[Picture of Matsumoto:] Mr. Matsumoto once raised the issue of the usage of “gyakugire” on a television program.

Koujien includes the word as well. Hints of diligent work done by the dictionaries.

[“[Koujien] is widely regarded as the most authoritative dictionary of Japanese, and newspaper editorials frequently cite its definitions,” from Wikipedia’s English language article on Koujien. Link. Archived.]

Mr. Matsumoto’s point that was made some 14 years ago is accurate. Today, there is less usage to mean when the other person is angry, and the interpretation has expanded to include situations where the other person is only gently cautioning. The dictionaries that followed show clear hints of having done some diligent work. Koujien’s “When a person who up to that point was being scolded or cautioned suddenly becomes angry,” is the most orthodox interpretation, but just the fact that it was included by Koujien means we can infer its significance. “When a person calming someone or being the object of anger of someone” (Digital Daijisen), “When a person being blamed, who ought to apologize” (New Japanese Dictionary with Examples), “When a person who is supposed to be cautioned” (New Edited Japanese Dictionary), “[Being] unable to stand the rebuke or teasing” (Iwanami Dictionary) and other such instances show that dictionaries are competing with their own interpretations.

Main Dictionaries that Include “Gyakugire”

Dictionary Year of Publication (Edition) Definition Meikyou Japanese Dictionary (Taishukan Publishing) 2002 (1st) (Slang) When someone has become angry, the person who is the object of that anger or a person who was being calm suddenly becomes angry instead. ▽To counter and become angry. (Expression in writing:) Often written as “gyakugire.” Daijisen (Shogakukan) 2007 (Digital) When a person calming someone else or is the object of anger of someone else suddenly flares up in anger. New Japanese Dictionary with Examples (Sanseido) 2007 (7th) When a person being blamed, who ought to apologize, instead becomes furious at the person who is doing the blaming. A recently created slang word. (Example:) Being cautioned about etiquette, he counter-angered [gyakugire-ed]. Koujien (Iwanami Shoten) 2008 (6th) (From “Becoming angry instead”) When a person who up to that point was being scolded or cautioned suddenly becomes angry. New Edited Japanese Dictionary (Shogakukan) 2011 (9th) When a person who is supposed to be cautioned becomes angry instead. Iwanami Japanese Dictionary (Iwanami Shoten) 2011 (7th) (Slang) When someone is unable to stand the rebuke or teasing and becomes angry instead. (Caused a …). Also written as “gyakugire.”

From the character “逆” [gyaku], is it associated with “逆上” [gyakujou]?

If we thoroughly pursue how such a “wavering” in the meaning of a word happened in the first place, we cannot ignore the significance of the kanji 逆 [gyaku] [kanji are Chinese written characters that were borrowed into Japanese]. While similarly constructed words such as “buchigire” [to become extremely angry] (buchi is a prefix that emphasizes the verb it is attached to, such as in “ぶちあげる” [buchiageru: to make a bold statement] and “ぶちこわす” [buchikowasu: to destroy]) tend to be written all in hiragana [syllabic Japanese written letters], when writing 逆ギレ[gyakugire], one kanji is mixed in, and thus the construction of the word is such that that one character inevitably stands out. And thus from the character 逆 [gyaku], it is possible that the word 逆ギレ[gyakugire] came from an association with “逆上” [gyakujou], which means to suddenly become agitated and cause disorder without regard to the situation that it puts others in. In the July 21st, 1997 issue of Asahi Shimbun’s weekly publication “AERA,” there was this description: “gyakugire (to gyakujou and become angry).”

One can also pick out from the meaning of 逆 [gyaku] the notions of suddenness, unexpectedness, and unpredictability. Associate professor at the National Institute of Technology, Akita College, KUWAMOTO Yuji, in his work “Young People Speech: The Secrets to the Mystery” (Akita Sakigake Shimpo, 2010), writes on the topic of the change in the usage of gyakugire, “This meaning of ‘gyakugire,’ to express someone’s unexpected emotions, deserves its own category, and is a respectable case of word formation,” giving an analysis with much implication.

Is it Really a Word that Macchan Created?

There is a need to add to the background to Mr. Matsumto’s being particular about this word. In the program mentioned above, Mr. Matsumoto asserts, “This is clearly a word that I came up with, ok?” and it can be said that his having strong feelings about the word is because he himself coined it. For an example of the word being used around this time, there is one from the April 11, 1994 issue of Kodansha’s weekly publication “Young Magazine” in the gag manga “Ping-Pong Club” [Go! Inaho Middle School Ping-Pong Club] (created by FURUYA Minoru), and so we can determine that the word was in existence, at the latest, in or before 1994.

[Picture from manga “Ping-Pong Club”:] “Ping-Pong Club” from 1994 is an example of “gyakugire” beginning to be used around that time. (©FURUYA Minoru/Kodansha)

At this point, it is impossible to prove whether Mr. Matsumoto was the first to use this word, but a number of indirect pieces of evidence can be raised. It is said that Mr. Matsumoto (Downtown) was the driving force behind popularizing comedian’s jargon such as “sabui [literally meaning cold],” which is used to describe a gag that fails to be funny, and “suberu [literally meaning to slip],” which means to attempt to say something funny and fail at it, and thus it is an undeniable truth that he possesses a keen sense of words. From 1996, “Campus Glossary (6th Edition)” (edited by TAKAYAMA Tsutomu), thought to be the very first young people’s speech dictionary that referenced gyakugire, is a collection of words in the daily usage of high school and college students in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe area. Being from the Kansai area and the fact that their initial work in entertainment was centered in the Kansai region means that the influence of Downtown here cannot be ignored. There is even the theory that “kireru [literally meaning to cut]” [kire or kireru is a colloquial term meaning to become angry, similar to “get pissed off”, and is where the “gire” of “gyakugire” comes from] is a word that senior comedians at Yoshimoto Kogyo [Downtown’s talent agency and the comedy academy that they studied at] first stared using. There is no doubt that it is a word with close connections to the comedy industry, increasing the persuasiveness of Mr. Matsumoto’s contention.

Dailymotion link to subbed video clip from episode 410.

Download link to video.

If you watched the video, as you can see, the article actually put words into Matsumoto’s mouth. Unless there was another source that the article got those words from and failed to mention, Matsumoto doesn’t say anything about the recent “misuse” of gyakugire, and thus the article’s “supplementing the subtlety between the lines” comes from nowhere. The point Matsumoto wanted to make in the video was that he came up with gyakugire. The article clearly defends and even praises Matsumoto, but tsk tsk for bending the truth in order to facilitate writing the article. But, it’s still very cool to see a somewhat serious analysis by a third party of a modern cultural phenomenon born by Mr. Soul of Matsumoto.

-typesoshee