KW06 Proverb Line
もとのもくあみ
元の木阿弥
Motonomokuami
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Meaning
back to square one
Something that had once improved slips back into its old, unremarkable state. Used when earlier effort has gone to waste.
Example
三キロ痩せたのに、年末の飲み会続きで元の木阿弥になった。
I lost three kilos, but a run of year-end drinking parties put me right back where I started.
Origin
The origin is unclear. The best-known story is said to appear in the Tenshōki: when the warlord Tsutsui Junshō died, his son Junkei was still young, so the death was kept secret and a man named Mokuami, whose voice resembled Junshō's, was laid in his bedchamber as a stand-in. When Junkei grew up, Mokuami went back to being an ordinary townsman. Other theories trace it to a monk who neglected his training and went back to his former wife, or to moto no mokuwan, a lacquered bowl whose vermilion has worn off to reveal the bare wood. Examples appear in kyōgen scripts from the late Muromachi to the early Edo period.