Nanpa: girl-hunt

Posted by: TokyoCherie on: February 19, 2009

• In: TMM Vocabulary
• 1 Comment

Nanpa is essentially an act of chatting up a women on a street hoping to get lucky.

Nanpa tends to occur on busy streets and other lively public places. Young men stand at the edge of the street and watch passing women. When a woman strikes a man’s fancy, he typically invites her to a cafe or karaoke bar. The evening may finish with a visit to a love hotel, or at least the promise for a second rendezvous. Although it is rare in practice, nanpa is socially acceptable in Japan, and tolerated as a natural youthful indiscretion.

The word “nanpa” was used in the Meiji period to refer to young men who spent too much time around women. Literally meaning “soft group” as opposed to the more self-disciplined hard group, it carried a derogatory nuance which survives today. Since then, nanpa has come to replace the loan phrase “girl hunt” to refer to skirt chasing.