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Tonight’s candidate writes エセ関西弁 among the words which describes what he likes and does... what sort of Kansai-ben is that? Let’s find out!

Often written in katakana, エセ in kanji is 似非 : the kanji for resemble and the one for un- . It means « false », « pseudo ».

Our friend is faking a Kansai accent! Because... https://twitter.com/unseenjapansite/status/1349404253824053252

People from Kansai are generally seen as more friendly and funnier... some also claim that Kansai-ben is scary. It just tend to be more blunt than standard language.

Pitch accent, slang...faking a Kansai accent is harder than just using ほんまに and なんでやねん! This video shows mistakes made by the ones pretending and how to spot them.

There are dozens of articles and videos explaining how to master the Kansai accent. It’s an interesting trend, thinking about all the people who « erased » their regional way of speaking when coming to Tokyo.

So again, why use エセ関西弁? It seems that faking a Kansai accent concerns mostly men. The reasons given are all related to changing the way people, and women see them: adopting this accent is a way to be seen as funnier, more honest and to be more popular.

Some articles note that some people aren’t doing it on purpose (or not entirely) and are simply influenced by television, where a huge number of comedians, being from Kansai, use Kansai dialect.

However, television tend to use the standard dialect, resulting in youngsters not being « fluent » in their local dialect and the dialects slowly dying. Could YouTube, with its popular channels coming from all over Japan revive the dialects?

The Kansai dialect is apparently the only one to have this popularity and strong image. It’s the only one being “faked” so much it became a “trend”. Long live Kansai-ben!

By the way, even some famous people fake their 関西弁... we see you https://newsee-media.com/kansai-dialect