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Upon hearing the two characters kissed, the girl is shocked and wonders if they are going together despite being two guys, however he explains it was only because of a punishment game.

ちょっと あんた今時その感じはアレよ

What is exactly the meaning of はアレよ here?

My understanding is akin to "nowadays there are also these kind of relationships" but I'm not sure.

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  • 1
    Related: japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/600/…
    – Mindful
    Commented Sep 25, 2023 at 21:29
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    The は is ordinary particle は; the アレ is the ordinary pronoun あれ written in katakana to denote a slang meaning, and the よ is ordinary sentence-ending よ. Commented Sep 26, 2023 at 7:55

2 Answers 2

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アレ ("you know", "you-know-what") is used in place of whatever the speaker finds difficult to say directly.

It's typically a vulgar, offensive or negative word. In this context, it's used in place of something negative like "ダメ(よ)".

付き合ってたの?
You've been dating?

男どうしで?
As two guys?

ちょっとあんた、今時その感じはアレよ
Hey, these days, that way of putting it is...you know.

So she is pointing out that it's not good to see a romantic relationship between men as something special.

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Although it's difficult to pin down the exact meaning, but here アレ basically refers to political incorrectness.

The phrase is from the woman on the right to the guy in the middle, and その感じ refers to the guy's phrase (and the way he says it) '男同士で?', which suggests that the guy thinks two men kissing each other is weird.

So the phrase says 'such a thinking/saying such a thing is that'.

アレ is used like English 'that thing'. You can see examples in the question linked in the comment. It can simply mean some 'that thing' whose name does not immediately come on top of the speaker's mind, but sometimes also used to avoid explicit expressions.

Here more specifically アレ (likely) means something like 'lacking considerations for LGBTQ', but being that specific/explicit is way too serious for the situation.


Another simple usage example. When you eat something, saying これはちょっとアレだね would suggest that you don't like it. You can think アレ means まずい or the whole phrase means something like 'this needs improvement'.

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  • アレ has become a sort of motto for the Hanshin Tigers. As I understand it, whenever its manager was asked how the Tigers will make out, he was reluctant to say directly "we'll win." So, instead he would say アレ.
    – Bob41
    Commented Sep 26, 2023 at 16:53
  • @Bob41 It was referring to 優勝. I don't know why it was used, but guess it was similar to avoidng true names (cf. this ) due to its sacred nature.
    – sundowner
    Commented Sep 26, 2023 at 23:29

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