Kumi Koda’s Tearful Appology
In this video, Kumi Koda, sans garish nails and other “fashionable” accessories, apologizes for the radio incident in which she was saying that older (35 year old) women’s amniotic fluid “is rotten.”
There are some shots of women about the street saying things like “That’s really unforgivable.” And a doctor saying that she is full of it.
I find it interesting that her phrases seem carefully worded to avoid actually saying things in polite-form Japanese (keigo). That could just be my imagination (very likely), because I am far from a native speaker, but I thought it was odd. If you have an opinion on her language use, please weigh in with a comment.
Here is a bit of how I would translate some of what she said, “Anyways, toward the women who were opposed to Kumi Koda’s [speaking in the third person is cute, right? Totally the time to be cute] words, anyways um, I was like, I want to apologize, anyways, from the self reflection from when I properly took on what people were saying, I was like, I really need to [apologize]…
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彼女の脳みそが腐っている。
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While her comment is pretty dumb, I think people should endeavour to keep perspective. She’s just a musician. She’s paid to sing, and sing good. She’s not the prime minister or anything, so being spectacularly uninformed doesn’t make her any worse at her job. She still sings pretty good. From the two news posts on the subject, it sounds like she’s suffered enough- for one silly little comment she’s dealt her career a crippling blow.
I’m more curious as to how she came around to this point of view. “What are they teaching kids in school these days?!”
… oh, wait, I think she’s older than I am, drat.
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Darien, if there were no obsession with what pop stars said, what would TV news shows do?
I agree with you, but I’d amend your comments. She’s not paid to sing, much less sing well. She’s paid to look good on camera (and to be a little bit flaky.)
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Ah, too true. I guess I’m just a little biased because I like the intro on RE: Cutie Honey.
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This is interesting. Mainly because she was probably made to apologize by her publicity agent so she would not get any bad press ~~~
I speak a pretty good amount of Japanese and as far as I know, she was using some amount of keigo. Using a lot more would almost be expressing sarcasm …
i.e. saying “no de” instead of desu kara, or da kara; saying sore de instead of soshite, etc, and ending things politely.
thanks for sharing it!
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Good point, no de is def a little more polite. It just seemed like maybe she was avoiding masu form for some odd reason. I know I add no de to my sentences as a trick when I forget to do things properly…
I only remember her saying one desu, but there may be more…
Her comments were polite, but not (as others have noted) overly ornately formally polite. For the most part, it seemed her comments were barely coherent sentences, frankly. It’s not just about how many ‘desu’s you throw out there (and ‘desu’ isn’t really keigo as such), but I think in this case she was aiming (was told to aim) for “sincerity”. Which means making it look from the heart, not rehearsed or calculating. And not overly intelligent, perhaps….
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I doubt she was “made” to apologise by her agent that much- the last article made it sound like she put a pretty bad hit to her career, so I’d imagine she herself desperately wants to retract what she said. Although it’s probably the case that her agent arranged just *how* she should apologise, etc. etc. Too bad her agent couldn’t have told her in the first place not to put her foot in her mouth.
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Why did I watch this? I need to remember to avoid watching interviews with pop stars.
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It’s from an interview, not a shazaikai, which explains all the unfinished sentences, corrections and lack of keigo. I wouldn’t say her apology is particularly carefully worded.
Anyways, the OL look is so much better than her usual outfits (;ﾟ∀ﾟ) No guy likes Japanese nail art!
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By the way, the lack of keigo made it sound more sincere to me – unlike the geezers we see pretty much every week, doing their routine 45 degree saikeirei bow and apologizing in perfect keigo. Then again, speaking in a semi-casual way and doing a long interview was probably a conscious choice (I’m thinking Erika Sawajiri).
Regarding to her referring to herself in the third person, I didn’t interpret that as acting cute (maybe if she’d done it by first name only). To me, it sounded like she was trying to avoid responsibility by distancing the person Kumi Koda from the artist.
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My god, she has all the mannerisms and panache of a chuugakusei being shamed by the kocho-sensei. surely she’s not THAT poor at speaking, regardless of the humiliating press she’s gotten lately.
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i would guess that she wants to make herself sound young and immature.
it’s a way of humiliating yourself?
to say well i acted this way and i shouldn’t have, and thus speaking in the third person to show how much she’s reprimanding herself.
if that made any sense.
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I think her use of Keigo was good. Because she sounded down to earth. And she isn’t a large political or medical person so the use of Keigo in something like this wouldn’t be required. To me this seemed pretty from the heart.
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Hillary Clinton would be proud.. She looks even worse without all that blasted make up on.
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What she said wasn’t that offensive.
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The longer a woman waits to have children, the greater the probability of health issues both for her and for her child. She’s not entirely wrong.
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“She’s not entirely wrong.”
That’s probably why so much fuss….
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Even though her comment about older women and their amnitioc fluid rotting wasn’t smart but I think that press shouldn’t have made it a big of a deal.What more do they want from Kumi Koda I mean she did opologize for what she said.
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Gosh, that was such a dumb comment!
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Agree with bkzk about why she might’ve referred to herself in the 3rd person. Her real name is Kumiko Koda but her stage name is Kumi Koda (with different kanji for her surname). She referred to Kumi Koda so I think she was distancing herself from the artist who is a role model with fans and influence.
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I don’t think her comment was that offensive either. More like uneducated, the way she put it.
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I think she has spoken
a wrong sayings..
but it is forgivable
because alot of people
are saying that, and
she was being honest to
everyone
she did not tri to hide
what she thinks.
and she says sorry for it
thats not the problem
anymore.
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