Suko, Shindoi, Babumi, Wakarimi: A Guide to Japanese Fan Slang for Talking About Your Oshi

The comments section is a row of “shindoi,” “muri” and “my emotions died,” and for a moment you can’t tell whether people are happy. Here are the meanings and origins of the slang used in oshi talk, which word fits which situation, and how to avoid misunderstandings.

A List of Oshi-Talk Slang and Meanings

Words that can be explored in depth have their own explainer articles. This article sticks to the list and how to choose among them, a map of the whole.

A Short Note on Where Each Word Comes From

• Suko — Said to have come from a typo of suki in online live-commentary culture and simply stuck. A good example of a typo promoted to beloved vocabulary
• Shindoi — Originally meant “tired” or “tough” in the Kansai region. From the real sense that a person’s charm is so much that “I can’t keep up processing my emotions, and I’m actually exhausted,” it flipped into a compliment
• Wakarimi — A word-formation pattern of young people’s slang that turns adjectives and verbs into nouns with “-mi” (tsurami and nemumi follow the same form). Turning wakaru into wakarimi makes empathy a noun you can hold in your hand
• Babumi and ogyaru — Joke slang from a baby’s “babu” and “ogya.” A twisted humor that expresses respect for warmth through deliberately infantile vocabulary

Examples

• “Just learned the oshi-talk slang and typed ‘today’s bijyu has too much information.’”
• “The lyrics of the new song were so wakarimi-fukai that I cried on my commute.”
• “This smile is shindoi. Muri. Suko. (vocabulary vanishes)”
• “Feeling babumi from the way they play the caring senior, and I’m fully ogyaru-ing.”
• “Bijyu with the bangs down, so shindoi I want everyone to see.” (social media post)

Which Word for Which Situation

Many similar compliments sit side by side, which is where oshi slang gets confusing. Sort by what you’re reacting to and you won’t get lost.

There’s an order of intensity too. “Suko” is light, and “shindoi” and “muri” declare a limit. Using them all in one post adds momentum, but what you actually want to say in your oshi talk gets thinner. The stronger the word, the better it works saved for one key moment.

Why “Strange Japanese” Keeps Being Born

Oshi slang shares a common structure.

1. The intensity of the feeling breaks the vocabulary — “Like” isn’t enough, so it shifts to “suko” and “shindoi.” The deviation from standard language is itself the expression of a “not ordinary” feeling
2. Flipping negative words — Shindoi, muri, “I’m dying.” The more painful the word, the more it is repurposed as a vessel for strong emotion
3. A password among friends — Being understood when you use slang is itself proof that you’re part of the kaiwai

Oshi slang, then, is not degraded Japanese but an expansion pack for raising the resolution of emotion. Many of the inventions follow Japanese word-building rules faithfully, like the “-mi” nominalization, so linguistically it is closer to a showcase of creativity.

A Few Cautions When Using It

• Outside the kaiwai (at work, with family), many words won’t be understood or will be misread. “Shindoi” in particular needs care about context, because people may genuinely worry about your health
• Freshness is everything with slang. It turns over in a few years, so you don’t need to chase it. Enjoying the fact that the slang that lands differs by generation is about the right distance
• Even the same word differs in intensity from one kaiwai to another. What is everyday language in one place can sound exaggerated in another, so starting as a reader helps you get the temperature
• If you want to move beyond “yabai” and “shindoi” and talk in your own words, see our review of The Technique of Putting “Love” Into Words

Common Misunderstandings

• Using slang does not mean a poor vocabulary — “Vocabulary vanished” is just a self-deprecating convention. Users switch to standard language as the occasion demands, so if anything they are bilingual
• You don’t have to learn them all — Slang is not an entrance exam. You can ask about words you don’t know, and you can do oshi-katsu without using any

Notes From The Oshi Lab: Stale Slang Is Proof You “Don’t Get It”

The lifespan and spread of slang reveal the media history of fan culture. The message-board era, the era of Niconico, the Japanese video site where comments scroll across the screen, the social media era: each time the place where words are born changed, the types of slang changed too. Companies should be careful when they borrow fan vocabulary for copy. Stale slang backfires as proof that “they don’t get it.”

The Lab’s proposal is to “read” slang rather than “use” it. Which words fans use to talk about your products and collaborations is a living indicator of heat and reception. Whether you’re being told “shindoi” or “great bijyu,” just observing the distribution of vocabulary shows quite accurately where a measure landed.

There’s also a pitfall in tallying vocabulary. Take flipped words at face value and rave reviews look like complaints. In fan territory it isn’t rare for automated sentiment analysis to file “shindoi,” “muri” and “died” as negative, dropping the hottest reactions altogether. Before you tally, add a step in which a person who knows the community identifies which words are flipped in that particular kaiwai.

Related Terms

Toutoi / Emoi / Oshi shika katan / Numa