Today, a lot of Japanese people were flabbergasted to hear the news that the Japanese actress Yui Aragaki (新垣結衣), a.k.a “Gakkī/Gakky”, and the Japanese singer Gen Hoshino (星野源), will tie the knot. This announcement has left a myriad of their fans speechless and “Gakkī Loss” or “Hoshino Gen Loss”.
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Meaning of ロス (“Loss”) in Japanese
Whenever a popular celebrity announces his/her marriage, a sea of people in Japan find themselves feeling ロス (“loss”) – in Japanese, if someone becomes ロス (“loss”), that means they feel heartbroken because the person they idolise is now taken by someone else and they officially “lose” him/her. Therefore, upon the release of the astonishing news today, loads of Japanese men and women started feeling “ガッキーロス (Gakkī Loss)” and “星野源ロス (Gen Hoshino Loss)”, respectively, especially given the fact that both of them often appear at the top of survey rankings like “The most attractive actresses/actors in Japan”.
The number of the “patients” caused by their marriage will probably rival or top that of those when the Japanese actor/singer 福山雅治 (Masaharu Fukuyama) announced his marriage out of the blue at the age of 46 in 2015: at that time, zillions of women suffered from “福山ロス (“Fukuyama Loss” or “Masya (his nickname) Loss”), some of whom had to take several days off work to recuperate from it. Whether coincidental or not, even the Nikkei Stock Average dropped sharply on the following day, and some people speculated that this would have been caused by the “Masya Loss”. Therefore, now lots of people are guessing tomorrow’s stock price in Japan would plummet too because of the “Gakkī Shock”.
The word “ロス” (“loss”) is also used when someone physically goes far away. For instance, if your best friend transfers to a different school from yours, you may feel a bit of “loss” about him/her. People also feel “loss” when they are faced with a loss of life, e.g. if your beloved pet suddenly passes away, you’d suffer from ペットロス (“pet loss”).
Meaning of 逃げ恥 (Nigehaji)
Today’s announcement of the marriage between Gakkī and Gen Hoshin was particularly surprising because they had previously starred as a couple in the award-winning Japanese TV drama in 2016, “逃げるは恥だが役に立つ” (“Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu”), whose English title is “We Married as a Job” or “The Full-Time Wife Escapist”, Chinese “逃避雖可恥但有用” and Taiwanese “月薪嬌妻”. This drama is actually based on the manga series of the same title, and its title originates from the Hungarian proverb: “szégyen a futás, de hasznosp”, which means “Running away is shameful but useful”. In this story, Mikuri Moriyama (played by Yui Aragaki) becomes a housekeeper of Hiramasa Tsuzaki (played by Gen Hoshino) and eventually, they begin a “contract marriage”, where Mikuru becomes his wife as a job. This drama made a great hit, and so did its theme song “恋” (koi) sung by Gen Hoshino and its dance “恋ダンス” (koi dance); see the next section for the details.
The title “逃げるは恥だが役に立つ” is often abbreviated as “逃げ恥 (nigehaji)”. Therefore, people nicknamed their marriage as 逃げ恥婚 (nigehaji kon), where 婚 comes from 結婚 (kekkon) meaning “marriage”. In fact, Japanese people love to abbreviate names of things and people (e.g. “Aragaki Yui” is shortened as “Gakky” and “Brad Pitt” as “Brapi“). If you’re interested in learning more abbreviations in Japanese, see the previous post り Means “Got it”: 30 Cryptic Japanese Abbreviated Words.
恋(こい) and 恋(こい)ダンス
逃げ恥’s theme song “恋 (Koi)” and its dance 恋ダンス (“Koi Dance”) went viral as soon as the drama started in 2016. Here is the link to the official YouTube video of 恋.
Meaning of 電撃婚 (でんげきこん)
In Japanese, a sudden marriage of a famous person is called “電撃婚 (でんげきこん)”, which literally means “electric-shock marriage” and figuratively “a marriage that is a bolt out of the blue for many people because almost no one has known the relationship”.
Learn more interesting Japanese words and idioms related to love/romance in the previous post!
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