Skinny to gorilla buff: Japanese Twitter user’s handy chart breaks down male physiques

Arrives just in time to help people build their vocabulary in preparation for the season of shirtless days at the beach.

As a rich, colorful language, Japanese abounds in phrases to describe differing physiques. In the past, we’ve looked at descriptors for breast sizes and examined the difference between being pocchari/plump and himan/obese.

With the sultry days of summer swiftly approaching, Japan’s seashores will soon be full of shirtless men, and to help classify them, or at least their torsos, Japanese Twitter user @999Aeromarine has put together a photo collage dividing them into one of five groups.

我ながらまじでわかりやすいと思うのでどうぞ https://t.co/OR2Q6uL7yP

—
屈強な黒人男性ちゃん (@999Aeromarine) May 08, 2017

“To me, this is an extremely clear explanation,” tweeted @999Aeromarine, so let’s take a look at each category.

● garigari / ガリガリ

Starting at the top left, we’ve got the garigari, or “skinny” group. While garigari can be used as a pejorative, with an connotation similar to “scrawny,” some online commenters said that they had a special fondness for men with this slenderest of builds.

● shimatteiru / 締まる

Shimatteiru comes from shimaru, a Japanese word meaning to compact, and by extension to make firm. As such, the shimatteiru build is a toned one, in which a lack of fat causes the taught muscles underneath to stand out, even they aren’t remarkably bulging.

● hosomacho / 細マッチョ

In Japanese, “macho” refers more to an abundance of muscle mass than masculine personality traits. Combine that with a truncated version of hosoi, meaning thin or narrow, and you get hosomaccho, a muscularly slender body type.

● macho / マッチョ

Get rid of the hoso qualifier, and now you’ve just got macho, Japan’s preferred equivalent for English’s “buff” or “ripped.”

● gorimacho / ゴリマチョ

Finally, the chart tops out at gorimacho. A combination of “gorilla” and “macho,” this apex of oversized musculature is a relatively new addition to the Japanese lexicon, and so not readily understood by even all native speakers. However, if you’re looking for a Japanese version of “yoked” or “jacked,” this is a good candidate, provided your audience is up-to-date on its slang.

Conspicuously absent from @999Aeromarine’s tweet are any photographic or linguistic examples of non-muscular men with high body fat percentages. Perhaps such a discussion is coming in a future chart, but in the meantime, we think we’re going to go hit the gym.

Source: Jin
Featured image: Twitter/@@999Aeromarine

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