Danbooru

Noblewoman's laugh?

Posted under General

I think of it as an "ojou-sama laugh".
I believe the more authentic Japanese term for it is fukumi warai, although I may be thinking of the wrong trope with that one.

I don't think either of those make good tags, though.

I usually see it called Noblewoman's laugh, especially where Larsa is concerned. But I have seen numerous examples of the same pose where a character is making a snide remark, and not laughing at all, so maybe we should omit "laugh".

Dogenzaka said:
I usually see it called Noblewoman's laugh, especially where Larsa is concerned. But I have seen numerous examples of the same pose where a character is making a snide remark, and not laughing at all, so maybe we should omit "laugh".

If there are "numerous examples," then surely you can provide at least one, just to see if we're even talking about the same thing.

rantuyetmai said:
I thought Western noblewomen can have that laughing pose too, so "ojousama" doesn't fit too well.

That's largely irrelevant.

Evangeline_A.K._McDowell said:
Not that I know of, but I'll go ahead and suggest ojousama_laugh.

Not all ojousamas do that laugh, and not all characters who do that laugh are ojousamas or even women in some cases. The laugh is only done by characters who feel they have superiority over others from what I've seen, so I'd like to suggest, if a tag is made for it, that it be called smug_laugh.

Hillside_Moose said:
Again, largely irrelevant.

if ojousama = noblewoman (which it does) and the topic is whether or not a potential tag should be named something concerning a behavior common of, but not exclusive to a noblewoman/ojousama, then it is largely relevant.

Hillside_Moose said:
If there are "numerous examples," then surely you can provide at least one, just to see if we're even talking about the same thing.

The examples i've seen were in animation, not in still pictures. And while it's usually accompanied by a laugh, again, there are instances where the character is just being over-eccentric while insulting someone.

I understand perfectly what you're talking about, Dogenzaka. I think we could even use the opening posts as something to argue what you're talking about. For example post #735737 you could slap on a speech bubble with the character saying something about how lowly and pathetic a trainer you are and in that context it would look appropriate, because they do also show characters speak with their hands over their mouths like that. That particular image doesn't even really suggest that she is laughing, as there isn't even any text or motion lines to show laughing of any sort.

Updated

Oh Christ...

The pose stems from the custom that high-class Japanese women don't expose their mouths when laughing. Characters that laugh like that usually think of themselves as being in a higher social standing than their peers, and they use that specific body language to show it. Whether or not they actually are is irrelevant. And if a male does it? It's usually done to show how effeminate he is.

smug_laugh is not intuitive. I want a tag that succinctly captures the pose in the examples in the OP. "Smug" would include just about anyone with an open-mouth smirk.

@NWF Renim: Does it even matter, or are we arguing semantics just because we can?

Updated

I'm actually arguing the fact that there can exist images of characters in that pose who are not in fact laughing at all, but speaking. So no, I'm not arguing just because I can. It also does matter in regards at least to things like implications, as the next seemingly logical step would be for someone to argue that the tag should implicate laughing. If there exists images that are not laughing, then it would not be appropriate for such an implication.

As for examples, that's not an easy request as I have no idea where to begin to even search through to find such an image though they do exist and they will crop up. These things don't even have a tag and characters in that pose aren't super common, so it's not like it'd be a walk in the park to find the image for an example.

Even if we assume they're all laughing, then it is surprising that it hasn't been argued that instead of a new tag that the images should just be tagged hand_over_mouth+laughing and then a hand_over_mouth laughing search performed instead.

Updated

1 2