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From 推しの子:

抑えてるに決まってるでしょ！周りの役者は揃いも揃って大根役者ばっかり！！メインキャストの中でマトモに演技出来るの私だけなのよ！！こん中で私がバリバリやってみなさい！他の役者の大根ぶりが浮き彫りになっちゃってぶり大根でしょ！！

I translated the first part of the last sentence as:

The other actors' ham acting would be brought to the fore.

What is the meaning of this sentence and why is ぶり used as a prefix in ぶり大根でしょ? Does it have a kanji? What does it mean?

aguijonazo
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0149234
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    Context please. It's almost certainly 鰤, but I can't imagine why someone would say this even as an oyaji gyagu. – naruto Jul 06 '23 at 12:14
  • The two lines were said by the same character who had to appeared in a TV show with a cast full of poor actors. Upon being questioned why she acted so poorly. She responds this. The idea being that she held back purposely. The last line was translated as "It would be like a ham roast". – 0149234 Jul 06 '23 at 12:31
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    When a tricky wordplay like this is involved, the full original sentences in Japanese are mandatory. This time aguijonazo added enough context, but next time please keep this in mind. To answer your question directly, this ぶり大根 has been inserted as a meaningless phrase that adds a playful flavor. It's similar in purpose to alligator as in "See you later, alligator" or dokey as in "okey-dokey". – naruto Jul 06 '23 at 14:55
  • okey-dokey and thank you. – 0149234 Jul 06 '23 at 19:51

1 Answers1

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It is just a nonsense pun, vaguely similar to まじ卍{まんじ} (see this question).

ぶり in the first 大根ぶり is a suffix meaning the way... (#1 here). 大根 here is a shortened 大根役者, meaning bad/poor actor. (... would make it stand out how bad actors they are.)

Then ぶり大根 is a Japanese dish (recipe), kind of fish stew where the main ingredients are ぶり and 大根 the vegetable. ぶり appears as yellowtail in dictionaries, but I don't think I've ever seen one being sold in Western supermarkets. Basically it is fish similar to, but smaller than tuna and larger than mackerel.

ぶり大根でしょ is said just because it makes a pun, and there is no meaning added to the sentence.

sundowner
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  • Another vaguely similar pun https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/97567/45489 – sundowner Jul 06 '23 at 12:56
  • And similar examples on Wikipedia – naruto Jul 06 '23 at 14:42
  • I would ask why bad actors are "daikon" actors in Japanese, but then, I don't understand why they are "ham" actors in English, either. – Karl Knechtel Jul 06 '23 at 16:48
  • @KarlKnechtel Wikipedia has some etymologies. The first (Radsh is good for stomach -> あたらない -> does not hit (as an actor)) and the last (radish's whiteness and 素人{しろうと}=layman) are relatively known. So it is again a pun. – sundowner Jul 07 '23 at 08:50
  • "Radsh is good for stomach -> あたらない" - sorry, I can't at all understand the connection you're drawing here. – Karl Knechtel Jul 07 '23 at 18:39
  • @KarlKnechtel See the 6th & 10th definitions of https://jisho.org/word/%E5%BD%93%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8B – naruto Jul 08 '23 at 11:29
  • Yes, I understand that 当たる has those senses. I don't have any idea at all what that has to do with the purported medicinal properties of radishes. Perhaps the connection is obvious to you for cultural reasons, or because of something lost in translation; but I would need it spelled out in much greater detail, I think. – Karl Knechtel Jul 08 '23 at 16:31
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    @KarlKnechtel Connection is just semantic. あたる means to get sick by eating something (牡蛎にあたる means get stomachache by eating oysters). Radish being good for stomach is considered あたらない, as the opposite of あたる. Then it turns into the negation of the positive meaning of あたる for acting (当たり役 means the role for an actor/actress that makes him/her famous). – sundowner Jul 08 '23 at 22:38
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    The difficulty may be that あたらない is not really the property of radish. It is rather a consequence of eating radish (and used without objects). – sundowner Jul 08 '23 at 22:40