I saw a sticker set being used on a popular social platform the other day that I found very interesting. They were pictures of food items, sweets mostly, and had words next to them that seemed to be portmanteaus mixing Japanese phrases with the names of the food. I was able to identify some:
- picture: a candied apple
caption: おかえリンゴ .
my guess: a portmanteau of おかえり and りんご - picture: a piece of 羊羹
caption: おはようかん.
my guess: a portmanteau of おはよう and ようかん - picture: a piece of lemon meringue
caption: おつかレモン
my guess: a portmanteau of おつかれ and レモン - picture: some mochi
caption: 餅ろん
my guess: a portmanteau of もち and もちろん
Pretty straightforward so far, but then there is this one:
picture: a piece of cake
caption: ケーキがいいね
After consulting a dictionary, I thought maybe it's a pun on 景気がいい, meaning, "the situation is good," or "business is good." I'm not very confident in this analysis, since I personally can't recall having come across this expression myself.
Sticking heads together with friends didn't turn up anything either, and the one Japanese person we were able to ask about this replied, "Well, cake is good." I don't think she understood our issue all that well.
What kind of pun could this be?