A friend says something. The character next to them fires back at full volume. And yet in the next scene, the two of them are walking along together as if nothing happened.
If you watch Japanese anime, you may have wondered: Are they actually angry? Do these two even like each other?
Here's the short answer: the anger is deliberately exaggerated. When it swells to a size no real argument would reach, it works as a signal to the audience: this isn't a real fight, it's a place to laugh. And the two of them walk on side by side afterwards because that back-and-forth is just how they always play around.
In Japanese, the person who fires back has a name: the tsukkomi.
A tsukkomi doesn't have to shout, either. A flat, expressionless line can get a laugh. So can a thought the other person never even hears. Let's see how it works, through actual anime scenes.
This post mentions early episodes and a few comedy scenes from the anime it covers.
Boke and tsukkomi are roles in a conversation
A tsukkomi always has a partner: the boke.
The boke creates something absurd, through a misunderstanding or a remark that's completely off the mark. The tsukkomi points out what's wrong, and in doing so makes it clear where the laugh is. Manzai, the Japanese stand-up double act, is built around this exchange.
In anime, the boke isn't necessarily trying to be funny. The character may be completely serious, and only look ridiculous to everyone around them. That seriousness is what makes them the boke.
So boke doesn't mean "the dumb one", and tsukkomi doesn't mean "the smart one". It's only a question of who is playing which role in that particular scene.
Hitting is part of the tsukkomi too
One thing that surprises overseas viewers is the hitting: a smack on the head, or a whack with a harisen, a big fan made of folded paper.
Like the shouting, this is a signal that says laugh here. It makes a loud noise, but hurting someone isn't the point. In manzai, a light slap on the partner's head is a standard move, and the audience takes the sound as a cue for the laugh.
The classic harisen example is Full Metal Panic! Sōsuke grew up on the battlefield, and he keeps acting like a soldier at school, causing chaos. Every time, Kaname whacks him over the head with a harisen.
And in Ranma ½ season 3, airing this season, Akane sending Ranma flying into the sky is as familiar a sight as ever.
In both shows, the one who got hit is fine in the very next shot. Not treating it as real violence is what lets this kind of scene work as comedy.
Nichijou: order yakisoba, get grilled mackerel
For the loud kind of tsukkomi, Mio and Yukko in Nichijou are hard to beat.
In episode 14 of the TV series, Mio asks Yukko to go and buy lunch. She asks for yakisoba. Yukko comes back with yaki-saba.
- Yakisoba: stir-fried noodles in a sweet, savoury sauce
- Yaki-saba: grilled mackerel, a fish
One sound apart, but a world apart as lunch.
Mio: It's yakisobaaaaa! Yukko: Oopsie, did I hear you wrong? Mengo, mengo. Mio: This isn't some cute little problem! This is a grave problem!!
The joke in this scene isn't really the mix-up. It's the scale of Mio's anger.
At one point Mio almost lets it go. Then she realises the mackerel doesn't even come with rice, and she explodes all over again. In the end, she screams:
Mio: Yakisoba!! Yaki!! Soba!!! That's what I said!!!!!
Her fury grows far beyond anything a wrong lunch order deserves. The volume, the speed of her comebacks and the way she spits the word out syllable by syllable all pile up, until a simple correction becomes the highlight of the episode.
It's the answer from the top of this post, turned into a scene. Precisely because the anger is so oversized, the audience feels safe laughing at it.
Saiki K.: a tsukkomi still works if no one hears it
At the opposite extreme, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. gets its laughs without raising its voice at all.
In "Kokomi Teruhashi, Beauty and Brains" (Psyshoku Kenbi! Teruhashi Kokomi), one of the shorts collected in the first episode of season 1, the beautiful Teruhashi arrives. Boys only have to look at her to let out an involuntary "oh-ffu". Teruhashi takes this for granted.
But Saiki is the one person who never says "oh-ffu", however much she talks to him. So Teruhashi becomes determined to make him say it, one way or another.
Saiki is a psychic who can read minds. Behind her perfect smile, he can hear every calculation and every bit of self-confidence. And without changing his expression in the slightest, he answers with cool, dry comments inside his head.
This is an **inner *tsukkomi***. It never reaches Teruhashi. But as long as it tells the audience this situation is ridiculous, it does the job.
The harder Teruhashi tries, the better Saiki's unimpressed inner voice lands. It's the exact opposite of Nichijou's explosions, and it's just as funny.
Nozaki-kun: you can want to tsukkomi the person you love
A tsukkomi can even sit alongside a crush.
In episode 1 of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, Chiyo Sakura tries to confess to Umetarō Nozaki, the boy she likes. But in her nerves, what comes out is "I'm a fan of yours." In response, Nozaki signs an autograph and hands it to her.
She wanted to confess. She got an autograph.
When she tries again, she gets invited to his home. She goes, full of hope, and finds that what he wants from her is help filling in black areas on manga pages. Nozaki, it turns out, is a professional shōjo manga artist.
All the while, Chiyo's head is one long stream of that's not what I meant! Every time her feelings fail to get through, she fires another tsukkomi in her mind.
For Chiyo it's a romantic moment. For Nozaki it's work. Her tsukkomi is what brings that gap to the surface.
Here, liking someone and being exasperated with them happen at the same time. She hopes because she likes him, and she reacts so strongly because her hopes keep missing. All her tsukkomi doesn't make her like him one bit less.
Gintama: when even the usual tsukkomi loses it
In Gintama, Shinpachi Shimura is famous as the show's tsukkomi. Whenever Gintoki, the hero, or Kagura, the superhumanly strong girl, run wild, it's his job to fire back and set things straight.
But in episode 25, "A Pot Is a Microcosm of Life", Shinpachi stops being the one who holds things back. The three of them sit around a sukiyaki pot and start scheming against each other to get even one more piece of meat.
Once Shinpachi joins the battle for the beef, there's no tsukkomi left in the room. And so the one thinking what on earth are you all doing becomes the viewer.
The person who normally keeps order joins in the chaos, and that gap is the joke. The better you know everyone's usual role, the funnier it is that today, nobody's stopping them.
Watch the timing, not just the subtitles
When you're enjoying a tsukkomi, pay attention not only to what was said, but when and how it was said.
A comeback that's instant makes for a sharp exchange. A short silence first can show exasperation or confusion. A reply made only with a facial expression makes the very lack of words funny. In the subtitles it might just say "That's wrong", but the voice and the pause can change the whole effect.
And harsh words don't mean the characters dislike each other. Mio and Yukko are together again the next day, and Chiyo goes on liking Nozaki. Strong words become comedy because we know the relationship can take them.
So the next time an anime character fires back, look at the moment just before it. Who misunderstood what, and who noticed? Once you can see that, the shouting, the sighs and the deadpan one-liners all become ways into the relationship between the characters.
More on everyday Japanese through anime: youth slang like maji and oshi, why first names make characters blush, kokuhaku and confession culture.
Bonus: what does "mengo, mengo" mean?
In that Nichijou scene, Yukko apologises with "mengo, mengo".
It's gomen ("sorry") with its two halves swapped.
- Gomen (go-men): a casual way of saying "I'm sorry"
- Mengo (men-go): the same word with go and men flipped
Swapping the parts of a word around was once fashionable slang in the Japanese entertainment and TV industry. Calling sushi "shīsū" or Ginza "zagin" works the same way. Today it sounds a bit dated, and people use it on purpose to be silly.
In other words, "mengo, mengo" is an apology that isn't the least bit sorry.
That's exactly why Mio's "This isn't some cute little problem!" hits so hard. The more lightly Yukko tries to brush it off, the bigger Mio's tsukkomi gets. Even that one little word is doing its job as a boke.
Sources and notes
- Nichijou episode 14 ("yaki-saba" episode): Netflix Japan Anime official X
- The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. season 1 episode list: Wikipedia (Japanese), Teruhashi's first appearance: official anime X
- Gintama episode 25 synopsis: Bandai Namco Pictures official site
Dialogue is translated from the Japanese audio. Names are written given name first, as they usually appear in English releases.