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Answerman - Why Does Rock-Paper-Scissors Come Up In Anime So Much?

Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:

Are you sure you don't mean Gon in Hunter X Hunter?

Goku did this way earlier than Gon.

I think one of the weirdest applications I've seen was in a visual novel where in your very first conversation with one of your potential love interests, asking her to plays RPS with you was actually one of the choices. Like imagine striking up a conversation with someone, and after a bit of chatting they said, "Hey, I know we just met only 30 seconds ago, so this might sound a little forward, but...could I have a game of rock paper scissors with you?"

MajinAkuma wrote:

Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote: Are you sure you don't mean Gon in Hunter X Hunter? Goku did this way earlier than Gon.

Ah. It must've been in the original Dragonball, because I have seen very little of that.

Dammit. I thought there would be a punchline at the end. I'm still hoping there is one. But if it's all true, I bet it's a huge Chinese conspiracy so they can take over the world.

EricJ2 wrote:

We use flipping coins, but coins in ancient Japan weren't as distinctly two-sided to say "heads or tails".

The other thing is that the coin we keep seeing in Japanese media are those big oval gold pieces with the horizontal lines through them. I don't know if they're the most commonly seen and most familiar kind of coins in old times in Japan, but I'd imagine those must have been really heavy and somewhat rare and thus not that well suited for flipping. There must've been monetary units of smaller denominations, used for buying less expensive things like food and tools and such, but you don't see them quite as much as those shiny gold ovals with the horizontal lines through them.

Greed1914 wrote:

I know I was pretty surprised when Goku used it as an attack in Dragon Ball. Prior to that, I had no idea it was a multinational thing.

I remembered the scene in Dragon Ball Z where the Ginyu Squad were playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who would fight whom first, and they kept getting draws.

It was during then that we had various websites up documenting what was altered or edited out, and thse sites were becoming popular, so it stood out to me that this scene had remained unchanged because they didn't need to change anything.

Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:

Are you sure you don't mean Gon in Hunter X Hunter?

No, I definitely remember young Goku playing rock-paper-scissors, though I don't remember the context. The game comes up all the time in Japanese media.

Thanks for writing this article.
It made me aware of the history of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Quote:

The Paper Scissors Stone Club was formed in London in 1842

I'll admit: just a little disappointed that it wasn't called the Quartz-Parchment-Shears Club.

Peebs wrote:

Dammit. I thought there would be a punchline at the end. I'm still hoping there is one. But if it's all true, I bet it's a huge Chinese conspiracy so they can take over the world.

Me too. The question is kinda out of nowhere I'm hoping for something funny at the end of the answer. Still an interesting article.

EricJ2 wrote:

Me, I could never understand how three or four girls in anime could use Jun-Ken to decide how one person would do something--Wouldn't the results basically be circular?

I don't know about Japan but here in Indonesia, for more than 3 person, we use hompimpa (or hompimpa alaium gambreng for the full name), its like janken but you only have two choices, palm up or palm down. Hompimpa is effective for a "preliminary" because you can quickly divide players into two groups, then each groups do hompimpa and so on until 3 person left.
We also have our own RPS called sut/suit/pingsut/pingsuit/suten with thumb represents elephant, forefinger for human, pinky for ant. Elephant kill human, human kill ant, ant kill elephant (by entering its ear or nose).

EricJ2 wrote:

Amidakuji is usually the other big decision-maker for voting one-person's choice out of a group, but that one looks more final, and rock-paper-scissors has so many "do-overs", it's hard to stop.

Ah, so that thing is called Amidakuji, I never understand how it works and having not knowing its name makes it harder to google. Thanks for pointing out.

They have world tourneys for this ancient game? That sounds like it must be 1 of the most boring world tourneys.

Kadmos1 wrote:

They have world tourneys for this ancient game? That sounds like it must be 1 of the most boring world tourneys.

Maybe, but I can still think of actual sports that I think are less interesting to watch.

Neohybrid_kai wrote:

We also have our own RPS called sut/suit/pingsut/pingsuit/suten with thumb represents elephant, forefinger for human, pinky for ant. Elephant kill human, human kill ant, ant kill elephant (by entering its ear or nose).

Although it's a little more challenging if you're playing Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSLeBKT7-sM

Kadmos1 wrote:

They have world tourneys for this ancient game? That sounds like it must be 1 of the most boring world tourneys.

It's only boring if you don't understand how these people can be so good at it. (Or if you're not into mind games kind of competitions.)

EricJ2 wrote:

We use flipping coins, but coins in ancient Japan weren't as distinctly two-sided to say "heads or tails".

Actually, there were many coins in ancient Japan which were 'as distinctly two-sided to say "heads or tails".'
For example, see the Fuhon-sen coins, made in Japan in circa A.D.683.
Scholars think that the Fuhon-sen coin is one of the oldest coins that were made in Japan.

I have read Zenigata Heiji Torimono-hikae by Nomura Kodō in the original.
Zenigata Heiji is a fictional detective of the Edo period, and Zenigata Heiji brings down a criminal by tossing coins at him.
In the credit-title sequence for the TV adaptation of Zenigata Heiji starring Ōkawa Hashizō, you can see the coin in question.
Inspector Zenigata in Lupin III is a descendant of Zenigata Heiji.

I have also read Kunitori Monogatari by Shiba Ryōtarō in the original.
In the Saitō Dōsan arc of Kunitori Monogatari, there is a scene where Dōsan uses the Eiraku Tsūhō coins as a device to promote his oil.
Eiraku Tsūhō were imported into Japan from China.
Oda Nobunaga, whose wife was the daughter of Dōsan, used the Eiraku Tsūhō coins as his flag mark. A theory about the reason why Nobunaga used the Eiraku Tsūhō coins as his flag mark is that he knew economy very well in comparison to more 'mediaeval' daimyō.

leafy sea dragon wrote:

The other thing is that the coin we keep seeing in Japanese media are those big oval gold pieces with the horizontal lines through them. I don't know if they're the most commonly seen and most familiar kind of coins in old times in Japan, but I'd imagine those must have been really heavy and somewhat rare and thus not that well suited for flipping. There must've been monetary units of smaller denominations, used for buying less expensive things like food and tools and such, but you don't see them quite as much as those shiny gold ovals with the horizontal lines through them.

As I said above, in old times in Japan, of course, there were also smaller round coins of which values were lower.
If you read/watch Japanese works set in Japan in old times more, you may be able to see those smaller round coins with a square hole.

leafy sea dragon wrote:

The other thing is that the coin we keep seeing in Japanese media are those big oval gold pieces with the horizontal lines through them. I don't know if they're the most commonly seen and most familiar kind of coins in old times in Japan, but I'd imagine those must have been really heavy and somewhat rare and thus not that well suited for flipping. There must've been monetary units of smaller denominations, used for buying less expensive things like food and tools and such, but you don't see them quite as much as those shiny gold ovals with the horizontal lines through them.

Japanese money under the shogunate is apparently completely crazy-complex, but as far as I understand it:
+ the bakufu kept their accounts in rice, koku, which meant the domains had to too for tax-assessment purposes ["kept their accounts in" -> the valuing process meant that things-of-value were equated to an equivalent value in rice.]
+ in edo, the circulating medium-of-exchange was the gold ryou, which floated around parity to the rice koku. One ryou -- a gold "koban" coin, although there were larger denominations -- was a seriously large sum of money; a koku was enough rice to feed a man for a year, and food was more expensive back then. [at meiji, the money system was revised with the yen replacing the ryou at parity... there's been some inflation since then].
+ in osaka, where the trades were smaller, the circulating medium was lump silver by weight, which floated relative to both the koku and the ryou.
+ as is usually the case in these sorts of societies, the small-change situation was terrible beyond measure, largely made up of aged and worn chinese cash-style bronze coins imported long ago and small numbers of local copies. In theory these floated too, but in reality they probably passed as token/nominal-value money.

+ in reality japan had a reasonably-functional banking system and most large transactions were in paper. I don't think that the japanese had a system equivalent to the english quarter-days [where transactions were denominated in money but logged, and only netted up and settled four times a year], so I don't know how stable rural societies dealt with petty transactions given that the small-change situation was even worse than england.

I'm european and i've never heard of "Roshambo". xD