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I know that その通り can mean "Exactly" or "That's right". But I was watching an anime (Samurai 7) and heard one of the characters say "この通り" and something else right afterwards which I didn't catch.

For context, the scene was the governor of the city asking for forgiveness from some samurai who had been wronged by his predecessor. After he admitted that the samurai had been wronged. He prostrated himself and said, "この通り (and something else)". The subtitles translated to: "I beg of you. Please forgive me."

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It means "just like this", "just as you see". Probably the governor was bowing or something to show the act of begging, and wanted to show how serious he/she was. The nuance would be something like "Please look at me. I am begging seriously just like this."

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As @sawa answered earlier, it means "like this" or "in this way".

For future reference, 〜通り{どおり} can also be used in many places:

  • 教科書通り{きょうかしょどおり} → by the book
  • 憲法通り{けんぽうどおり} → by the constitution
  • 規則通り{きそくどおり} → by the rules
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    Does 教科書通り just mean literally "according to the text book", or does it also convey the same idiomatic sense of "doing things right" as "by the book" does in English?
    – Questioner
    Commented Mar 5, 2012 at 2:48
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    @DaveMG good question; it looks like this carries the same idiomatic meaning (at least according to this answer: okwave.jp/qa/q6383368.html)! (Particularly this part: 教科書通りの人間・・・正論・正解のみの世界に生きる人。臨機応変という概念がない。--bunnymen) Not sure when (or if,) this phrase was actually borrowed from another language, though.
    – summea
    Commented Mar 5, 2012 at 3:24
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    Nice. Thanks for the additional explanation!
    – Questioner
    Commented Mar 5, 2012 at 3:58
  • Btw how do you decide whether to pronounce it as "どおり" or "とおり" ?
    – Pacerier
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 3:46
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    @Pacerier Great question; that all has to do with the topic of "rendaku". More information can be found here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku. There is also a nicely-formatted (though not necessarily accurate,) article written about rendaku here, as well: tofugu.com/2011/08/23/rendaku-sequential-voicing-japanese
    – summea
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 4:43
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この通りでございます。この通りです。お許しください。許してください。 「この通り」means I beg you.

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    Even in that context, it is a little bit off to say that この通り is a word of apology. It still means “just as you see” (see sawa’s answer). When a person apologizes for something really important, he/she bows in the dogeza style and can say この通りです, meaning that “Just as you see (, I am deeply sorry).”
    – Tsuyoshi Ito
    Commented Mar 17, 2012 at 18:24

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