Dodoitsu (都々逸) is a form of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

developed towards the end of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. Often concerning love or work, and usually comical, Dodoitsu poems consist of four lines with the moraic structure 7-7-7-5 and no

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually the exact same phonemes) in the final Stress (linguistics), stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of rhyming (''perfect rhyming'') is consciou ...

for a total of 26

mora Mora may refer to: People * José Maria Mora (1847–1926), Cuban-American photographer, often credited as "Mora" * Mora (singer) (born 1996), a Puerto Rican singer * Mora (surname), a Spanish name (includes a list of people with the name) Plac ...

e, making it one of the longer Japanese forms. The form, tone and structure of Dodoitsu derive from Japanese folk song traditions.

In popular media

Dodoitsu poetry is referenced in the

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

and

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

series

Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Haruko Kumota. It was serialized in Kodansha's ' magazine from 2010 to 2016 and collected in ten volumes. The manga was released in North America by Kodansha USA. The manga was adapted ...

in reference to its historical recitation by dancers in Japanese red-light districts. "Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū", Episode 2. There is an 2017 English Translation of the manga (Translator: Matt Alt) as Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju. Volume 2, Kodansha Comics. In Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, Chapter: Yakumo & Sukeroku 1, one character challenges the other to sing a dodoitsu, which he does. The endnotes for the English translation of Descending Stories, Volume 2, state that dodoitsu are "A Japanese songlike poetry, usually humorous in nature, about love, work, and life. It is constructed in an unrhyming 7-7-7-5 structure and has its roots in Japanese folk song."

References

Poetic forms Japanese poetry {{Poetry-stub