じわる［乙～スラ（３３）］

Fuga · August 6, 2025, 4:34am

Hey everyone

For those of you that are on summer break, I hope you are enjoying a distraction free time where you can study Japanese all day long!

なんか最近暑すぎて体がバグってきたかも。36度以上の日が続いた後に風がある32度の日が来るとなんか、涼C〜って感じるのは俺だけかな？

今日のトピックはじわる！

じわるとは?

This is a relatively new verb, but what does this mean?

じわる is an abbreviation of じわじわくる.

What does じわじわ mean?

じわじわ is an onomatopoeia that describes that something is moving towards something very slowly. And as most of you already know 来る means ‘to come’.

When these words are put together, it has the nuance of ‘creeping’ or ‘slowly approaching’

As with most internet slang, じわじわくる was WAY TOO LONG of a word, so it got abbreviated to じわる.

Origin

Unlike many of the slang I have introduced, this slang originated around 2014 on social media websites such as Facebook and twitter, and surprisingly this did not start on 2ch. Younger people on the internet started using this on posts and videos that got funnier over time or got funnier the more they re-watched it.

In 2015, じわる won the grand prize of 2015’s 「今年の新語」.

When is it used?

It is usually used when something is funny, but the funny part is not immediate or obvious. What this means is that, as time passes or the more you watch something, the ‘funny’ starts to ‘creep’ up.

Example 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIkoXhgtI58

This is not meant to be comedy, and this is not supposed to be a funny scene, but the more you watch it the ‘funny’ creeps up on you.

Example 2:

While this one is meant to be funny, images like this can be considered as a content that would make people じわる since depending on the person, it could get funnier as time passes.

As you can see from these examples, what makes someone じわる is very subjective, so people may じわる for things you don’t find interesting at all.

死語?

Although this slang is ‘old’ (in terms of internet slang), it is still used by people on the internet. The reason that people don’t consider this as a 死語 is because it can be used in so many situations.

As mentioned above, it is usually used in context of humor, but because it is just a abbreviation of じわじわ来る, it could be used in any situation where any sort of emotion creeps up on you.

For example, a horror movie without jump scares that only rely on tension could be described as じわるホラー映画. Or if you see a wholesome or a sad video online and happiness or sadness creeps up on you, it could be considered as a じわる動画.

Since this is a word that is still widely used both on the internet and in real life, try using it next time you are talking to your Japanese friends! They might じわる at the fact that you know this word!

Fuga

If you missed the previous posts, you can check them out here!

Previous posts

PS: If you are interested, I have made a deck that has most of the slang that I have covered so far, and more will be added as this series continues!