Under a headline about 'smelly ojisan,' the most-read comment was an ojisan's laundry recipe. A thread that taught instead of judged.
Comiket — the world's largest fair for self-published comics, drawing about 260,000 people to Tokyo over two days in August — has an annual 'smell discourse.' I went in with a thesis of my own: that caring how you smell is a luxury of money, rest, and time. I grade my own answer at the end, honestly.
How the votes fell
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1 130 ∕ 52 I'm a Showa-era ojisan. I took over the family laundry and, after much experimenting, settled on the oxygen-bleach soak — dissolve oxygen bleach and detergent in hot water, soak for thirty minutes, then run the machine. The antibacterial effect is unmistakable; even hung indoors overnight, nothing smells. (Plus 395 presses of "I see.")
- 2 79 ∕ 16 What women notice is whether the will to do something about it is there. "It's summer, deal with it," "why always us men" — that attitude comes through. Sweat is physiology, but a humble readiness to mind your etiquette costs nothing.
- 3 77 ∕ 16 Washing machines are tuned for water saving — the auto-fill uses less water than ideal, and one rinse isn't enough; you need three. Skimp on water and rinsing and bacteria survive, so the smell builds in the fabric with every wear. Scrubbing your body raw is counterproductive. (Plus 143 presses of "I see.")
- 4 50 ∕ 7 Oxygen bleach is the answer — just add it to every wash; far better than masking with fabric-softener perfume. Fewer clothes per load, maximum water. And treat old T-shirts as consumables — throw them out regularly.
- 5 48 ∕ 11 The smell in clothes is ultimately the wearer's body odor soaked in. Cleaning the clothes only reduces it — without self-awareness and lifestyle changes from the person, the root problem stays.
I read all 163 parent comments. Total votes: 1,108 'I relate' against 415 'hmm' — 73 percent agreement. The third button, 'I see,' was pressed 863 times, nearly matching agreement. Eighty-two of the 163 comments — exactly half — are about laundry and clothes, carrying 738 agreement votes. Ten comments widening the frame — young people and obasan smell too; the headline is unfair — carry 135 votes, outpolling every voice that mocked the ojisan. 'Why is it always fine to bash ojisan in article form?' went 40 to 6; 'call a schoolchild smelly and it's bullying — why is it no problem against an ojisan?' went 44 to 28. The cynical reading — 'the smelly ojisan and the non-smelly ojisan are just the disliked one and the liked one' — was rejected 8 to 20. And my own thesis — that caring about smell is a luxury of money and free time — barely earned a vote: two comments touched money or busyness, and the only one with votes ('the clerk at the discount store probably can't wash his uniform every day; he's busy') carried 8. The thread's answer was not margin but knowledge and will.
Published at 5:59 this morning: a seasonal ritual of Japanese media, the Comiket smell story. Comiket — the Comic Market — is the world's largest fair for self-published comics and fan works, drawing roughly 260,000 people to Tokyo over two days in the August heat. This year a deodorant company installed a "deodorizing gate" at the venue — walk through, get misted head to toe — and attendees reportedly line up for it before meeting their favorite creators, some of whom praise them for it. The headline asks: what separates the ojisan who smells from the one who doesn't? The article's answer: less the sweat than the clothes — in other words, laundry.
A confession before we start. I opened this thread carrying a thesis of my own: caring how you smell is a luxury — something you get to do once you have money, rest, and time. A man who fights through every day from morning to night has nothing left over for the question. I grade that thesis at the end, honestly.
I read the thread just two hours after publication: 163 parent comments, 190 including replies — so young that 54 comments had no votes at all yet. My usual method, with one addition today. Under every comment sit three buttons: "I relate," which I count as agreement; "hmm...," which I count as disagreement; and "I see" — which means not so much you're right as thank you, I learned something. The totals: 1,108 in agreement, 415 against — 73 percent agreement — and the "I see" button pressed 863 times, nearly matching agreement itself. On crime threads that third button is a bit player. Today it is the star, and first place shows you why.
What the comments say, in order of support
Under a headline about smelly ojisan, this is what got read the most.
I'm a Showa-era ojisan. I ended up in charge of the family laundry, figured I'd make the most of it, tried everything, and landed on the classic: the oxygen-bleach soak. Dissolve oxygen bleach and detergent in hot water, soak the laundry for thirty minutes, then run the machine. It's gentler than chlorine bleach — chlorine wins on whitening yellowed underwear — but you can throw in any clothes, any color, together. The antibacterial effect is unmistakable: even hung to dry indoors overnight, nothing smells. A side note: ever since the oxygen soak appeared in the manga Chiikawa, the method's popularity in my household has soared.
昭和のおじさんです。一家の洗濯を担当することになり、せっかくだからとあれこれ試して辿り着いたのは、やはり「オキシ漬け」でした。
先にオキシと洗剤をお湯で溶いたものに洗濯物を三十分つけ置いてから洗濯機を廻しています。塩素系の漂白剤ほどの強さはありません（例えば白い下着の黄ばみを落とせるかで比べれば塩素系の勝ちです）が、どの服・何色でも気にせずまとめて洗えるのはメリット。殺菌効果は明らかで、夜からの部屋干しでも臭いませんよ。
余談。マンガ『ちいかわ』にオキシ漬けが出たことで、方法に対する家族からの人気も急上昇しました。130 "I relate," 52 "hmm" — and 395 presses of "I see," the biggest number anywhere on this page. Look at the opening words: "I'm a Showa-era ojisan." Under a headline that makes ojisan the punchline, the most-read voice is an ojisan himself, sharing the results of his own laundry research. The oxygen soak, incidentally, is the same technique that appeared in Chiikawa — the national-treasure manga that regular readers met in the day-labour thread — and he cheerfully says so himself.
And this is not one comment's quirk: 82 of the 163 comments — exactly half the thread — are about laundry and clothes. Not a trial of ojisan; a laundry classroom. Third place (77 votes, plus 143 "I see") is washing-machine science: auto-fill water levels run below ideal, one rinse is nowhere near enough — you want three — and skimped washes leave bacteria alive, so the smell compounds in the fabric with every wear; scrubbing your body raw under a hot shower only makes things worse. Fourth place (50 votes): oxygen bleach in every load beats perfuming over the problem with fabric softener, and old T-shirts are consumables — throw them away. A woman describing herself as an obasan whose body odor sharpened in her late thirties (24 votes, 37 "I see") shares that once a shirt has turned, no soak saves it for long, so she now buys cheap cotton shirts on rotation — "one less thing to worry about; it's easier on the mind." Everyone is bringing their own failures and experiments to the table.
So what happened between the ojisan and the women? Second place is the thread's verdict.
Misguided countermeasures are a problem too, but what women actually notice is whether the will to do something is there at all. 'It's summer, deal with it!' 'Why is it always us men?' 'I came all this way, put up with it!' 'I bathe and do laundry, so this isn't about me' — women can read that attitude right off you. Sweat is physiology, regardless of sex or age. But a humble readiness to mind your etiquette costs you nothing.
たしかに間違った対策も困りモノですが、女性が気にするのは対策する気持ちがあるかどうかではないでしょうか。
・夏だから仕方ないだろ！
・おっさんばっか不公平だろ！
・会いにきてやってんだから我慢しろ！
・風呂入ってるし洗濯してるから俺は無関係
そういう心根を汲み取れてしまうのが女性。
性別や年齢関係なく汗は生理現象ですが、エチケット対策する謙虚な気持ちは持っていて損はないかなと思います。79 votes. The dividing line is not money, not body type — whether the will to try is there. That is this thread's ruling.
Meanwhile, the objection to the headline itself collected votes of its own.
Deodorant smell — the bad kind — bothers people too, men and women alike. But honestly, every time I see an article like this I think: can nothing be done about this format where bashing ojisan is always fair game?
制汗剤とかの臭い(匂いに非ず)も気になりますよね。男女問わず。
それにしても「おじさんなら叩いても問題ない」という記事の作りは何とかならんものだろうか、とこういう記事を見るたびに思う。40 to 6. The same wind keeps blowing: "the headline is bad — young people get the damp-laundry smell too, and so do obasan" (39 to 7); "it's only men's smell that makes headlines, but plenty of women worry about theirs — it's just harder to say; my spouse and I tell each other honestly" (35 to 3). Comments widening the frame beyond ojisan number ten, carrying 135 votes — more than any voice laughing at him. Readers of the ojisan-fashion thread have seen this before: mocked on social media, defended 5.9 to 1 in the comments. A harder version also surfaced — "call a schoolchild smelly and it's bullying; why is it no problem against an ojisan? It's a plain violation of dignity" — at 44 to 28: supported, but with nearly forty percent objecting, a rare split on this page.
The sunk voices are worth a look too. The clearest rejection went to cynicism: "the difference between the smelly ojisan and the non-smelly one is just the difference between the ojisan you dislike and the one you like" — 8 in favor, 20 against. And in a small surprise, a comment praising the article sank: "grateful for such gentle, non-hurtful framing; men do almost no housework until they live alone; in the old days people laughed it off — a kinder era" went 30 to 47. The votes don't say which sentence sank it; my reading is the generalization that men don't do housework — remember who wrote first place — and the nostalgia for the "kinder era."
What I make of it
First, this thread answered a mocking headline with a classroom. Half of it is laundry; its currency is "I see" (863 presses) as much as agreement. Yesterday, a crime thread moved 95 percent in one direction and sentenced teenagers to a bill. Today's thread runs at 73 percent and points not at who is guilty but at how to fix it. Japan's comment sections can be a courtroom or a classroom — and it is the readers, not the headline, who choose which.
Second, the ojisan was defended by the comment section. Again. The headline made him the target; the votes went to "obasan and the young smell too" (135), to "why is ojisan-bashing always acceptable" (40 to 6), while the cynical reading sank 8 to 20. That's twice now, counting the ojisan-fashion thread: social media and headlines laugh at the ojisan, and the comment section answers for him. In this country, the kindness is rarely in the visible places; it lives down in the comments.
Third, my own grade. I claimed that caring about smell is a luxury of money, rest, and time. The thread barely voted for me. Comments touching money or busyness: two out of 163, and the only one with votes — "the clerk at my local discount store probably can't wash his uniform every day, he's so busy" — carried 8. The room's answer was a two-dollar box of oxygen bleach, a higher water setting, and the will to try: not margin — knowledge and will. One caveat, in my defense. The people writing laundry recipes in a comment section at 7 a.m. are, by definition, people who had time to research laundry. The man with no margin at all has no margin to comment either; those two nearly voteless comments are the only shadow he casts here. My thesis lost — but a site that counts must count its own losses, so I leave it on the record.
Fourth, for the foreign reader. A quarter of a million people queueing in August heat; a deodorizing gate at the door; creators praising fans who walked through it — all of that is Japan. And then this: "you smell" may be the one sentence no culture on earth can say to a person's face, so this country says it in an anonymous comment section — with detergent ratios and water temperatures attached. The room that bills you for being a nuisance and the room that hands you a recipe so you won't become one are the same room. Invoices for those who trouble others; recipes for those trying not to. As divisions of labor go, it is more decent than the headline deserved.
I will keep counting, and I will keep watching.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.