I love cross-linguistic humor...

[elfs]

This picture has been cracking me up ever since I saw it yesterday. Omaha didn't get it, and when I explained it she said, "Yeah, whatever." But I love it. I think the insights necessary to think, "It looks like he's breakdancing," make it a demotivational, come up with the way out-of-date "Stop! Hammertime," and then realize that not only would it be funnier in German, but that the viewer wouldn't even have to know German to get it, all point to a brilliant flash of insight.

This is another one that had me in loud giggles for quite a long time. To get it, you have to be a manga fiend and know a bit about Japanese. As I put it when I first saw it, "I shouldn't laugh. I shouldn't even know why I shouldn't laugh. But god, that's funny."

Comments

[mikstera.livejournal.com]

Can this non-Japanese speaker get an explanation of the second picture?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

There's a manga, Comic LO, from this genre (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/business/global/10manga.html?_r=1). If you've been an American manga fan for any time, you can't help but have seen it on scanlation and torrent sites; it's alarmingly popular even in the US. It's had the same cover artist its entire ten-year run, and his amazingly sweet and light covers don't accurately portray the contents.

This illustration takes that and turns it on its head, and puns on the Japanese oreru, or "Office Lady," a generally regarded as over-the-hill woman (we're talkin' 24 or older) who works in an office because she hasn't yet found a husband. The illustration has that insight! humor that I love, and is quite deftly executed.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

The fascinating thing for me is the girl depicted may be seen as "over the hill", but she looks very cute. Admittedly, some of the options, such as the glasses, are a little bit like a granny, but she's clearly not old enough for me to fit her into that category.

Then again, I'm not from that culture.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine from Japan once said, "There's a reason fireworks are considered one of the highest forms of art. There's a reason cherry blossoms are beloved in Japan." He explained that his mother once told him that young men and women are beautiful only for a very short time in youth and the rest of existence is a slow, grinding descent into mediocrity.