Kansai-ben——Misrepresentation of Osaka

Earlier in my blog, I mentioned I’m a FAN of Hattori Heiji. 

He is a detective with his unique Osaka spirit, while his accent has always been laughed at by other characters, as well as the audience.
This is what I’m going to discuss today
——the misrepresentation of Osaka.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *       *    *    *       *

Many outsiders, 

including Japanese, tend to regard Osaka people’s accent or way of talking as funny, odd, and extremely out-of-date. 

In some Japanese comedy shows, Osaka accent is used as a trick for laughter.

  

          👓  🔎 In Detective Conan, 🔍  👓

• 🎬  💁‍♀️ Judy, an American teacher, mistook Heiji as a foreigner because of his strange accent. 

• 🎬  💁‍♂️Heiji explained to her half proudly and half angrily that Osaka accent is also one kind of Japanese, which is called Kansai-ben, while Conan kept giggling.

                                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• ✏️ 📋  In another case, Conan kept teaching Heiji to speak one sentence in a Tokyo way, while Heiji still failed after several tries. 

• 🎥 👏  In the comments, lots of the audience found it extremely funny to see how Osaka people Heiji speaks Japanese differently from Tokyo people Conan.

                             

                                        ………………    ✏️ ·  ✏️ ·  ✏️ ·  ✏️    ………………

It is worth-noting that Heiji NEVER regarded his way of talking as a disadvantage. On the contrary, he thought he is better than Conan because Conan could NOT speak Kansai-ben as well as he could.

 . . .   🍃 · 🍃 · 🍃 · 🍃 · 🍃 · 🍃 · 🍃   . . .  

Clearly, the misrepresentation of Osaka people as talking funnily, strangely, and outdatedly is challenged by Osaka people’s attitude itself.

This type of PLACE ESSENTIALISM gives outsiders a misrepresentation that the city Osaka itself is out of date and tune. With that stereotype, tourists in Osaka may see Osaka in the way they were told. They may choose to see what they made to believe, instead of believing what they see. 

PLACE ESSENTIALISM prevents them from seeing the “REAL” Osaka with their own eyes👀.

。。。。。。。。

Just keep in mind, RESPECT 

local people’s way of talking.