6

In episode 4 of High School Fleet, the girls are running out of toilet paper and decide to go buy some but they don't have enough money so they ask the crew member to donate some of their money. Some girls don't have money, one of them wants to use a check and one other even wants to donate a Zimbabwean currency. But when Mina (she's German) says she only has Euros, all the other girls start laughing. (around 5:30 mark)

Why does everyone laugh at Mina?

Aki Tanaka
  • 12,592
  • 8
  • 51
  • 107
Darjeeling
  • 19,125
  • 46
  • 122
  • 229

1 Answers1

6

It's not "Euro" that the girls were surprised about, but how Mina referred to herself.

Here's the script in Japanese:

わしはユーロしかない。
「わし」？
なんかわしの顔についてるか？
「わぁ～し」？あははは！
（皆笑っている）

Here's the literal translation:

I only have Euros.
"I"?
Is there something on my face?
"My"..? Hahaha!
(Everyone is laughing)

Here, Mina used わし (washi), which is the first-person pronoun used commonly for elderly, especially from Edo period.

Usage notes

The term is generally only used by the elderly, and its use is often considered stereotypical of them. As such, it is frequently used in TV shows and comics to emphasize the age of characters.

More commonly spelled 私, or in kana to make the reading explicit.

In anime/manga culture, if spoken by young girls, she can be considered as ロリババア (loli baba, old loli): girls who look young but act old. (But since this is a one-off joke from her, Mina is not)

Community
  • 1
Aki Tanaka
  • 12,592
  • 8
  • 51
  • 107
  • 1
    To be fair, accurately conveying the gist of Japanese pronoun usage in English is very difficult without just adding translator's notes like "[Note: Mina said _washi_, which is an unusual first-person pronoun]", so I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it an error. – senshin Apr 24 '17 at 23:04
  • 1
    @senshin I can see that, I also had a difficulty when finding the replacement for the English pronoun. Had it been second person, I could use "thou" or "thee", but there's no a good one for archaic first person. – Aki Tanaka Apr 24 '17 at 23:33