In search of OKAGE DE

Apparently, my buffer wasn't enough to get through my cousin's visit, so sorry for small hiatus there. On to the post!

Hey! I've got great news! I get to talk about Tunnels no Minnasan Okade Desu (Deshita).

 You may know them from this:

 

For some reason, we call it Human Tetris. Supposedly, it looks like it, though I don't really think so. Human Tetris, to me, is flinging people into a pile in different shapes. In any case, this is actually called nookabe (脳カベ), or brain wall. The idea is use your wits to get through the increasingly impossible shapes.

Tunnels no Minnasan Okage Desu is actually a comedy program. Sadly, I did not watch it much because the jokes, though crass and slapstick, were still way over my head.

They have a lot of bits, and I can't really talk about them all. That being said, I'll talk aboutモジモジくん (Mojimoji-kun) because it is one of the few skits I understand.  In this bit, they try to make letters on a sort of pinboard while they make jokes about the letters. The title of the bit, itself, is a play on words. Moji means character  (like a letter or hiragana or whatever), and mojimoji is a onomatopoeia for squirming. After you watch the video, the joke should be made pretty clear:

Also, since I like getting off topic, have a video from the band featured in the Tunnels video above. Despite the fact they are constantly auto-tuned, Perfume is decent band with fun choreography: 

In any case, back to とんねれずのみんなさんのおかげでした. There are other things the show does, such as showcase other comedians, but I suppose at some point I have to address grammar rather than show you my favorite clips. After all, it is the main point of this blog, right?

OKAGE DE means "thanks to", For some reason I wrote "a grâce de"in my notes because I seemed to think that the french was a better translation. It's not, really. It is exactly the same as the English, but I guess the french just sounded more eloquent. Maybe. I don't know. I don't dare to guess at the inner workings of my mind.

Anyway, it can only be used with a noun and the no particle.

• Noun + no + okage de (desu) 

So, the fun thing about this is you can have a sentence that is sort of constructed like this.

• Thanks to the rain, the baseball game was canceled. 
• 雨のおかげで、野球の試合はキャンセルされた。
• I was able to go to Europe thanks to my job. 
• 仕事のおかげで、ヨローパへ行けた。

I'm told that it can be used as a negative, or a positive, though I think that I'd be more likely to say SEI DE for the first example. That, however, is really a blog for another time. Supposedly, this is one of the few times irony can be made use of in the Japanese language, as you can see by the first example.

OKAGE DE can also be used in a simple sentence like the following:

• It's thanks to my genius!
• 私の天才のおかげでしたね〜

For a sentence like that, you would just end with a simple DESU or a DESHITA. Obviously, it would really only be used as an answer to something. The above sentence is something I always use, because not only am I a genius, I also save the day with said genius. CONSTANTLY.

So, how do we translate Tunnels no Minnasan no Okage Deshita?

• とんねれずのみんなさんおかげでした.
• Tonerezu no minnasan no okage deshita.
• My translation: Thanks to everybody in Tunnels!
• Other translations I've seen: Thanks to the people of Tunnels!

There. Easy enough right? Did this post need to be this long? Probably not, but the PERFUME video is pretty cool though, right? Right? Right.