Yes, please explain Japanese humour to me!

I think humour varies, with family and close friends then the more bawdy material is acceptable, with bosses and stranger then its completely no go. So you are unlikely to see comedians making bawdy / taboo jokes in a show or on TV because its considered a different social situation where different standards are required.

Also consider many jokes are steeped in cultural awareness so without having lived in a japanese culture there will be japanese jokes you just won’t get, they could be making jokes and you just don’t get them e.g. lots of stuff you watched as a kid had more meaning in it than you understood, watching it as an adult you understand more you see jokes or maybe adult innuendo you didn’t realise was there.

Ok hows this one, in cowboy bebop, one of the episodes they are after a data dog which has had a bunch of important stuff downloaded into its head, and it gets stolen. Look up dog in japanese, いぬ, It has three meanings, dog, snoop/spy, and useless.
In cowboy bebop, the dog is a useless spy dog. Did you get the play on words and meaning in this when you watched cowboy bebop? Also ironically that is not the case at all. So they can do irony as well. Its subtle though.

Another thing in Cowboy bebop is the Special Beef and Bell Peppers. “theres no beef in this!”, “Thats why its special” bingo we have sarcasm.

Its also hard to make generalisations because different areas of japan vary, along with different social statuses on what they find funny.

If you think dirty jokes /vulgarity doesn’t exist then try doing some research on kancho. I also heard that they love their fart scrolls too.

That said from a foreigners perspective it may as well not exist because you’d have to know someone really well before you start busting out your dirty jokes. As its hard enough avoiding social faux pas in Japanese for your typical foreigner, trying to be bawdy is like juggling Molotov Cocktails.

So i’d say Japanese humor is marked by subtlety and puns, but its still universal humor.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 9 months ago by  vlgi. Reason: Oh did I add like twice as much text in an edit?

1. Sarcasm is soooo not “lost on them”. Japanese do Sarcasm amazingly well
2. Dirty/Vulgar jokes are usually taboo anywhere. But it’s acceptable during the right situation.
3. Digs on nationalities/religion etc aren’t taboo, but just like anywhere, it’s not entirely easy to make a funny racist joke.