麻布十番 Is there a Joke in here I'm missing...?

Before I knew it was an actually a part of Tokyo, I've seen mention of Azabu-Juban in pop culture, and when mentioning this to my "J-Mate" (cough...), she seemed to find it funny to pronounce it in a similar way that made it sound less like a Japanese town, and more like an Indian restaraunt...

...I know that this is the most insane description, but I'm hoping there is some sort of hidden subtext here that Japanese natives here might be aware of, not-unlike tounge-twisters and other jokes made with the language itself.

Japanese does seem to have a very rich means of expressing humour in complex ways; sometimes it is in an creative method of kanji use, such as,

錯乱坊

...from the manga, Urusei Yatsura, by Takahashi Rumiko, the furigana for this reading is given as "cherrii". It is the name of a character from the manga who happens to be a wandering, if somewhat slightly strange monk.

These characters would normally not be written together like this, and look as if they would be read as sakuranbou, (桜んぼう), ...or "cherry".

The joke however is that the characters used are, 錯乱 sakuran, for "aberation/derangement", and 坊 bou for "monk". So the characters together, while being a phonetic reading of the character's name, also describe him.*

Phew... Okay, now, back to the topic... Can anyone fill me in? Are there other words in the language you can think of that are used as sort of linguistic jokes? Things that need to be explained to proto-literate gaijin types like me.

Thanks, as always!

*tip o' the page to: Mangajin.

Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu, yukio_michael!

You've mentioned that your Japanese friend found the name "Azabu-Juban" funny, but I don't see any joke in it as a place name or any other word. My guess is that you pronounced it in a comical way, placing inflection, accent, etc., in the wrong place. I think I can tell you only if you "pronounce" it for us here...

Regarding Japanese humor, I believe there is much that can be said about it but will just post on what comes off my mind right away. Creative kanji use that you mention is commonplace in creating names of fictional characters. I think the same is used in English--like Luke Warmwater, Ken Heartly Reed, etc.
Play on words comes easy in Japanese because of the abundant homonyms and many other words that differ only by accentuation. They are called しゃれ .

Japanese baby boomers now middle aged and soon retiring from the work force are very often associated with ダジャレ (loony play on words), the "Azabu-Juban" joke may be something that falls in this category--this coming from me who has to listen to my husband's "dajare" every day!!

'麻布十番' would be funny,
if you would say the name
not in a japanese pronouciation
'azabu jyuuban',
but in a french way
'A za vous je vent'
(meaningless combination for itself).
Among my japanese acquaintances
there are two women,
from whose names non japanese could mistakenly
think of the other japanese words,
the one lady by the name of
'水田 真理(みずた まり)' (Mizuta Mari).
'mizutamari' means a pool or a puddle.
Another one has the name
'猪狩 益代(いかり ますよ)' (Ikari Masuyo).
that is I WILL BE ANGRY,
although she is usually gentle and friendly to people.

epigene said:

My guess is that you pronounced it in a comical way, placing inflection, accent, etc., in the wrong place. I think I can tell you only if you "pronounce" it for us here...

Click to expand...

Actually it was her own pronunciation of the words which she found humourous! : )

MorenoKatoh said:

'麻布十番' would be funny,
if you would say the name
not in a japanese pronouciation
'azabu jyuuban',
but in a french way
'A za vous je vent'
(meaningless combination for itself).

Click to expand...

Yes, It does have something to do with French, I believe! So it's this sort of a homonym joke?

Shameful but true, my first encounter with this word/phrasing was from a song from the girl-pop group HALCALI...

フランス経由で帰国 今日のステージ I say 麻布十番

Click to expand...

フランス けいゆう で きっこく きょう の ステージ I say あざぶじゅうばん
fransu keiyuu de kikkoku kyou no suteeji I say azabujuuban
Returning home from France, today on stage I say Azabujuuban

The hiragana is probably not quite right... It's my best guess, though for words like kikkoku & azabujuuban, which I don't know how to write in hiragana...

経由→けいゆ
帰国→きこく

I would have thought あさふじゅうばん, but あさぶじゅうばん certainly makes sense. I wouldn't have guessed あざぶ, but あざ is listed as a "name reading" for 麻, and the word あざぶ is listed, but not my guesses. 麻布 as あさぬの is also a word that means clothes made from hemp.

Glenn said:

麻布 as あさぬの is also a word that means clothes made from hemp.

Click to expand...

Yeah, It was initially confusing when I searched for the kanji on google.co.jp and came up with sites selling things made of hemp, that's for sure.

That pop-band must have pronounced in their song
not 'Azabujuuban'(あざぶじゅうばん)
but 'A za vous je vent'(アザヴジュヴァン),
in order to demonstrate that they had gotten back to Japan by way of France.
Perhaps '麻布十番' was quoted therefore in this song
without any connection with the context.

MorenoKatoh said:

That pop-band must have pronounced in their song not 'Azabujuuban'(あざぶじゅうばん) but 'A za vous je vent'(アザヴジュヴァン), in order to demonstrate that they had gotten back to Japan by way of France.

Perhaps '麻布十番' was quoted therefore in this song without any connection with the context.

Click to expand...

It's from the printed song lyrics in the cd jacket, but It's hard for me to tell from listening to the song if it's being pronounced as you're thinking it is, though it's also in the Japanese karaoke as 麻布十番.