Japan’s 2024 word of the year has no rizz

It’s the language that gave us the world’s first novel, birthed commonplace words from tycoon to emoji and produced three winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Why, then, is the Japanese Word of the Year such a dud?

Every year, a panel of the country’s writers, commentators and celebrities picks a buzzword or phrase that has been introduced into the lexicon, frequently a comedian’s catchphrase or reference to some sporting achievement. It’s a headline-making annual tradition, organized by publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha.

In the past, it has popularized words such as instabae, describing something that looks good for your Instagram; sontaku, the practice of acting on orders yet to be given that was featured in the scandals plaguing then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; and arafō, a demure phrase describing people (mostly women) aged around 40.

The 2024 winner, futehodo, is different. My first reaction was bemusement — I’d never encountered the phrase, online or elsewhere. I quickly learned it was an abbreviation of the Japanese title ("Futekisetsu nimo hodo ga aru") of "Extremely Inappropriate!," a well-received if hardly ubiquitous show about a time-traveling teacher from an era before political correctness, that aired on broadcaster TBS and currently streams on Netflix.

As someone who frequently writes about pop culture making the headlines in Japan, I wondered if it had finally happened: Was I out of touch? I was aware of the show, which was prominent enough to be featured in the New York Times — though unlike "Tokyo Swindlers" or even "Shogun," it never came up in my daily conversations.

Fortunately, it wasn’t just me: Almost immediately, netizens and commentators were complaining that they’d never heard of the phrase. Some wondered why the award was, essentially, functioning as advertising for a TV show that is still available on streaming. Others speculated the phrase futehodo could instead be repurposed as an abbreviation of Futekisetsu hōdō, or "inappropriate reporting,” in a year full of public discontent with Japan’s legacy media. Even the star of the show expressed surprise that the phrase won, noting that people involved in the production didn’t use it.

Perhaps we can term it the "ensh*ttification" of the Word of the Year. Coined in 2023 by Canadian writer Cory Doctorow, it describes the inexorable decline of quality, particularly of online services, as operators put profit above users. Japanese is an incredibly flexible and inventive language, residing within a rich media culture that is less and less impacted by the West. Was this the best they could do? This is one word of the year that has no rizz.

It wasn’t always like this. A popular tweet about the controversy noted that the same prize a decade ago had four winning words that are mostly still common today. Indeed, 2013 was so full of good candidates that "Abenomics” only just scraped into the top 10.

This latest disappointment is part of a decline that has been going on for a while: Four of the previous five winners were references to sports, such as the lame motto ("One Team”) of Japan’s 2019 Rugby World Cup players. The notable exception was 2020’s san-mitsu, or Three Cs: the closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact situations where COVID-19 most easily spread.

One senses the committee might be steering clear of more controversial or downbeat words. Perhaps we should put it out instead to a public vote? But an alternative contest shows the dangers in that: The kanji of the year, run by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation and serving as an advertisement for its lucrative literacy tests, is another December tradition that chooses one Chinese character to represent the 12 months just gone.

The selections are usually boring, however, and 2024 was no exception: Once again 金 — pronounced kin or kane and meaning "gold” or "money” — was chosen, as it is every Olympic year. Another explanation offered was the issue of kickback payments that dominated the political news cycle.

A separate poll of companies offered up 変, meaning "change,” an uninspired though appropriate choice. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba chose a kanji meaning "humility,” which suits someone who has just overseen an electoral drubbing.

Japanese has more than 2,000 characters in common usage, and many hundreds more used in names, or familiar to the more well-read. Yet time and again the one chosen is infuriatingly superficial: 北, meaning "north,” anytime North Korea has been in the news; 税, meaning "tax,” whenever higher levies are being discussed, including last year. Perhaps this is an example of brain rot?

Forgive me if this sounds delulu. But I think the logical way to leave this piece and last year is with my own suggestions for alternatives. For my kanji of the year, I have chosen 脱, most commonly pronounced datsu, meaning escape or removal — in a year in which Japan began to escape the Lost Decades, the era of zero interest rates and low stock prices, it seemed appropriate. It is also evocative of the successful evacuation of the Japan Airlines flight that caught on fire at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at the beginning of the year.

And as for my Word of the Year, while I was tempted to go with moshitora, meaning "What if Trump?” and popularized in the first six months of the year as people were wondering what would happen if Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, I think his victory means it’s passed into obsolescence. Instead, I have chosen 横転, pronounced ōten. It’s a word that’s long been used for a vehicle rolling over, but has in recent years been adopted online in a self-deprecating manner to describe the type of shock that causes you to, say, fall out of your chair in surprise (and was chosen by editors of the Sanseido dictionary as the second-best newcomer last year.)

2024 was full of events that caused us to ōten. Let’s hope for fewer in 2025.