Retroversy

The funny drunk is an omnipresent trope, especially in anime. Nevertheless, Japan has an odd relationship with drinking. On one hand, alcohol is a very public fact of life, with public drinking being allowed widely, alcoholism being widely considered to be little more than a quirk and excessive drinking being considered a social obligation, especially within the context of nominication, or after-work drinking with co-workers. On the other hand, underage drinking is such a no-go that not even anime — a medium known to turn normalizing the most socially unacceptable behaviours into an art form — will get away with it. What’s up with that?

Semi-contradictory attitudes aside, the fact remains that binge drinking isn’t exactly frowned upon in Japanese culture, as long as the right people are doing it. Considering this taboo against underage drinking and the relatively high legal drinking age in Japan, as well as a general association of alcohol consumption with office parties at an izakaya, it’s no wonder then that a character drinking in an anime is usually easy shorthand for them being an adult. More than seemingly anything else, alcohol is what separates the teens in the spring of their youth from the adults trapped in the perpetual cynicism of winter, and anime adores this contrast.

Seeing as the medium predominantly preoccupies itself with depicting idealized high school experiences, it’s no wonder it likes carting out the funny drunk as a foil. Similar to the “twentysomething teacher who can’t get a date” archetype, the funny drunk usually exists to point out the importance of a satisfying adolescence. In shows like Azumanga Daioh, K-ON!, Laid-Back Camp and Bocchi the Rock!, the presence of an irresponsible, dysfunctional drunk amongst (mostly) chipper and idealistic teens is seen as a surefire speedway to hilarity.

This couldn’t, however, be any further from the truth.

The thing is, my mother was an alcoholic. Worst of all, she was in denial about it. She lied to me and to other people she loved. She drank in secret and got abusive when you couldn’t help but point out how embarrassingly unsubtle she was about it. I once found a bottle she had stashed away in my very own apartment just so she could keep drinking whenever she was visiting me, seeing as I, for obvious reasons, don’t drink. I had to watch her unravel, time after time again. Eventually, the alcohol abuse all but sealed her fate.

As a result, I have a hard time seeing alcoholism as an entertaining quirk you can just insert into narratives otherwise so squeaky clean they border on fetishizing the very notion of innocence. Alcoholism isn’t funny, and what it turns you into is even further from it. Drunks, in my opinion, aren’t entertainingly honest, unconventionally philosophical or clownish, like Bocchi‘s Kikuri Hiroi. They are manipulative and pitiable. Watching someone you love drink to forget about their problems until they forget what you told them half a minute ago instead is like watching them try to perform invasive surgery on themselves with a pair of kitchen scissors and screaming at you that they don’t need a doctor. I just can’t bring myself to find it entertaining.

Furthermore, I can’t help but notice a bit of a double standard in the depiction of alcoholism. Male drunks in anime are usually introduced for dramatic purposes — as overly aggressive nuisances, sexual assailants or negligent parents. Women, on the other hand? Women displaying problematic drinking — be they the wine mums and party aunts who appear in sitcoms or the bohemian onee-sans who show up in anime — are mostly portrayed as laughingstocks, there to be mocked for their failure to live up to societal expectations of femininity, but never acknowledged to be dangers to themselves and others. In fiction, the people who have to put up with their drinking usually just roll their eyes. In real life, dealing with alcoholism is suffocating, both for the victim, as well as for those who love them.