We’re on some “Gyaru in Pop Culture” roll here, but we wanted to share some love for Super Baby… because, tbh, we are quite obsessed! You can buy it off Amazon here, but as far as we know it is only available in Japanese as of now.
We will be spoiling some of the storyline, so if you understand Japanese and plan on buying the manga you might want to skip on reading the first part of the article and maybe just gawk at the photos like we’re sure a lot of us do all the time either way! Be sure to read up on al the fun slang though!
🦋 Who is Super Baby?
We briefly mentioned Super Baby before, but the story follows a Yamamba from Kumamoto who moves to “Tokyo”, but ends up living in Machida and working there in Machida 109. We say “Tokyo” as while Machida is a part of Tokyo, Tamao, our main gal, gets teased a lot for living there as it is barely a part of Tokyo.
But! Tamao is living her best life in Tokyo with her best friend Sawa Chan. She has now matured into a beautiful Onee Gal and has fallen in love with a nerdy looking dude in the supermarket. It’s a cute story where Tamao stalks him for a short period and they eventually end up dating.
Definitely give the author a follow over on Twitter, and enjoy the occasional art they post of Tamao!
🦋 Super Baby: The Story
While working in Machida 109 (Machida’s equivalent to Shibuya 109), Tamao meets Yamada in the break room at work after a bird sits on her head and he magically whistles at it making it fly away. In all the confusion and embarrassment of what he has done he drops his nametag, but gains a new fan as now Tamao sees him as her new Super Hero.
She gives him back his nametag and proceeds by stalking him at work almost everyday, super not creepy of you, Tamao…!!
Poor Yamada is scared shitless of Tamao, but a lucky encounter were Tamao cuts off her claws to show him she’s not scary changes his perspective and he slowly starts realizing she’s more than just her “scary” looks.
Slowly they start dating and go on their first date where he meets Tamao’s friend, Sawa, and Yamapi catches all the things in the UFO catcher for Tamao (dream date tbh). We get lots of heartfelt and super cute scenes with them and it’s honestly just such a cute relationship!
🦋 Tamao's not so Super Past
Their relationship is super innocent and cute all over, but like any other shoujo manga there has to be a twist and here comes our trigger warning for abusive relationships (don’t worry we’re not talking about Yamapi).
Sawa-chan
really shows us how much she loves and cares for Tamao, but she sees an
e-mail at work mentioning a familiar name, Tamao’s ex-boyfriend who
used to work in the office at Machida 109. After meeting in one of the
break rooms at work Tamao and her ex start dating, however he quickly
turns out to be a bad person…. even though Tamao doesn’t quite realize
so.
He would tell her to go home early, ban her from doing specific
things and once she moved in with him he made her quit her job and in
the end banned her from going outside.
It’s all heartbreaking to read about as Sawa-chan hurriedly goes to Yamapi to explain about him as she has seen from the e-mail that he is back in Machida.
Despite all effort Tamao runs into her ex on the street and freezes so he proceeds to drag her aside for a “chat”, at this moment Yamapi and Sawa-chan find her and Yamapi comes to her rescue, the situation is handled when a police officer that worked on Tamao’s case before appears and threatens her ex.
Tamao and Sawa-Chan break into crying hugs and somehow Yamapi and Tamao decide to live together and later start searching for an apartment.
🦋 Super Baby & Gal Slang Makes us go Pien~!
Like most gals do Tamao says a lot of fun slang, you might remember our translated article from last year where we translated some popular gyaru slang! This time we want to go over some fun slang that we found in Super Baby!
💜 鬼・おに / Demon, Ogre
When you think of ogres, you most definitely think of something BIG!
鬼/Oni in front of words gives the meaning that it’s SUPER or crazy that of what you’re trying to express! For example!
鬼可愛い/Oni-kawaii
Ogre+Cute, so you can think it’s extremely cute!
鬼時間/Oni-jikan
Ogre+Time, something that takes extreme time to do.
鬼プロ/Oni-puro
Ogre+professional,
puro is slang for professional, so this person would be super good at
their “profession”. However, this can just be meant as extremely good at
cooking, talking, or even nanpa depending on the context!
💜 -たん
If you just look at the word たん(tan), it has too many meanings depending on the kanji and you’d just get all kinds of messy in your head! In this case it’s the same as the suffix you could add to your name; An-tan, Lea-tan, Lala-tan etc., so just a way to cutesy up what you’re saying!
はやたん/hayatan
早い・はやい/hayai
Cute way to say quick
つらたん/tsuratan
辛い・つらい/tsurai
Used when something is difficult
You could basically use any i-adjective and change the “i” to “tan”.
Tamao sometimes switches this up and uses たにえん(tanien)
💜 -ぴ
Same as “tan”, ぴ(pi) is a cute suffix you can add to names or other words!
Tamao likes calling Yamada by her nickname of hers which is “yamapi”, but you might know another famous actor by the name!
彼ぴ・かれぴ/karepi
Slang for 彼氏(かれし/kareshi) meaning boyfriend
うれぴ/urepi
嬉しい/ureshii means happy
しゅきぴ・マイしゅきぴ/shukipi/maishukipi
好き/suki becomes shukipi which means “to like” while maishukipi means “my loved one”
💜 可愛い・かわいい / Cute
In the world of gyaru everything is cute and Tamao loves this cute word!
超きゃわ・ちょうきゃわ/chou-kyawa
“Chou” means super and “kyawa” is a cuter version of “kawaii”; i.e. means cute!
きゃわたん/kyawatan
The cutesy -tan from above, this one must be SUPER cute!
💜 やばい / amazing, cool, crazy
やばい/yabai/crazy, cool, omg is a very frequently used word in everyday conversations.
Tamao uses a few variations of yabai that are all cuter than the one before.
やばたん/yabatan
We talked about -tan before, here it’s used with yabai!
やばたんぴ/yabatanpi
A bit of an evolution but -tan and -pi got fused together!
やばお/yabao
Another simple variation, “o” instead of “i”!
💜 ストーカ / Stalker
Changing nouns into verbs can be a very fun game (big fan myself), but here Tamao is guilty of stalking Yamapi at his work place and her friend is not amused as she tells her she is stalking him!
ストってる/sutotteru
is stalking
ストってた/sutotteta
was stalking
💜 てんさげ・てんあげ / Tension Down, Tension Up
テンサゲ/tensage
Short for テンション下がる/tensyon-sagaru
Literally means “Tension goes down”.
Used when you’re down or unhappy about something.
テンアゲ/tenage
Short for テンション上がる/Tensyon-agaru
Literally means “Tension goes up”.
Can be used when you’re super happy about something!
🦋 English Slang? Oh, there's Plenty of it in Japanese
I’m not going to over-generalize (even though I’m pretty sure I’m right) but most languages that are not English LOVE to stick in some English words to sound “cool”, or maybe even since the connotation of the English word fits better… whatever it is Tamao is a fan as well and regularly uses some English words to spice up her lingo.
ザー/za-, THE
Used for emphasis of what you’re saying, in this case “THE GOING HOME!!” Usually said in engrish; “zaa”!
ディス/dis, short for dissing or disrespect.
You could say; ディスってんの？！Meaning are you dissing me?!
💜 -まる / Circle
オケまる/okemaru
オッケー/okke- is the JP slang for “ok”, so this is a cute way to say “ok!”
おつまる/otsumaru
お疲れ様/otsukaresama
means something along the lines of “Good Job”, otsumaru is thus a slang
you can use, but only in a not so formal setting.
🦋 Other Random Slang
Here’s some other fun slang that’s not necessarily just something used by gyaru; but a combo of random slang from Super Baby as well as some more common ones!
それな！/Sorena
Simply means “That’s right”.
とりま/Torima
Slang
for とりあえず(toriaezu), super convenient word that means “for now”, “first
of all”. You can use it at a restaurant when you don’t know what to get
so you just “torima” get some beer.
リアル/Riaru
Another
loan word from English, this one means “real”, can be used in many ways
but in Super Baby Tamao gets confused when a new Yamada appears in the
Super Market so when she sees her Yamada she yells “Riaru Yamada!”.
マナーモード/Manaa-moodo
“Manner
Mode” is what “Silent Mode” on phones is called in Japanese. After
following Yamada outside one day he goes silent out of fright and she
ask if he’s on “Manner Mode”.
りょ/Ryo
Short for 了解(りょうかい/Ryoukai) which means “Understood” or “Roger”.
トモティ/Tomoty
This
one I find super good, but it’s a play on 友達(ともだち/Tomodachi(meaning
friend)) where she takes the “tomo” part and adds “ty” to it!
やばキュン死/yaba-kyun-shi
You
remember “Yabai” from above? pair that with the tightening of your
chest when you’re happy (kyun) and death and you get
crazy-tightening-of-chest-death? Well, it doesn’t make much sense but we
know it’s a good kind of crazy! On a more “serious note” Kyun-shi means
“dying of cuteness, which isn’t so bad!
🦋 Honorable Mentions
ザル/ Zaru
Literally
means a “sift”, but in the context of a person it means someone that
does not get drunk. Absolutely no matter how much they drink they will
not get drunk.
下心・したごころ/Shitagokoro
Literal
meaning would be “lower heart”, but true meaning would be “ulterior
motive”. Ever been in Shibuya or any other crowded place in Japan and a
sketchy looking dude comes up to you and “nanpa’s” (flirts) you? Well,
you can be sure his heart is in his pants and a 100% SHITagokoro (see
what I did there?)
🦋 Phew... That was Ogre-long!!!
We hope we didn’t go too hard on this post and that you found it fun!!!
In
conclusion; we might love Super Baby a bit too much, but it’s so
refreshing to get such an up-to-date gal as well as such an amazing Onee Gal representation!
There’s s lot of slang here that we can have some fun with, but which one is your favourite??
Join the conversation!