Singularity on the Plane

様 (sama) is a honorific personal suffix. You attach it to the end of a name/pronoun of someone you respect very much. Here are some examples:

• God is oftenly called 神様 (kami-sama). [Fullmetal Alchemist]
• Hokage is the leader of the Konoha ninja village. People use 火影様 (hokage-sama) to address the hokage. [Naruto]
• Sapphire, a prince, calls his father (a king) お父様 (otou-sama) and his mother (a queen) お母様 (okaa-sama). [Ribbon no Kishi the Musical]
• A daughter of a yakuza (Japanese mafia) also calls her father お父様 (otou-sama). [Full Metal Panic Fumoffu]
• Midori is a daugther of a high-class family. The maid in her house calls her お嬢様 (ojou-sama). [Midori no Hibi]
• A maid refers to her mistress as 奥様 (oku-sama). [Mini Moni Brementown Musicians]
• Customer is referred as お得意様 (otokui-sama). [Chokkan 2 ~Nogashita Sakana wa Ookiizo!~]

However, I was surprised to find this:

It was from a backstage interview of Momusu’s 2nd concert in 1999 (Fukuda Asuka’s graduation concert). There you can see Nakazawa Yuko standing outside Momusu’s dressing room. The room label reads モーニング娘。　様 (Morning Musume-sama)!!! I never knew the staffs honored them THAT much…

However that was in 1999, and we know that culture changes in a blink of eye. I, for one, have never encountered “Morning Musume-sama” in a more modern setting.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 2:06 pm by Agro Rachmatullah and is filed under Japanese, Works. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.