Japanese Rock, Paper, Scissors? (Samurai Champloo)?

Question

In episode 15 of season 1 of the Anime called Samurai Champloo there is a scene where Mugen and Jin choose a companion from the brothel. When a particularly good looking one introduces herself Mugen and Jin do something to decide who gets to pick her. It looks like a strange version of rock, paper, scissors. It may just be for the sake of comedy (like most of the episode) and really mean nothing but if it actually is a Japanese custom I'd like to learn more about it. Could you please tell me exactly what they did to decide and give as much background detail on this strange custom\tradition as possible.

Answer 1

Skeptic has it right: "Jon - kem - po" : Japanese rock/paper/scissors. :D



Additional: Sorry, I didn't see it.

Answer 2

If we don't know what the truth is, then everything we teach our children probably isn't true. The subtle lack of any perfect textbook, i.e. a textbook requiring no further revision to keep pace with the constantly changing landscape of human knowledge, proves that all of our knowledge is subject to amendment and correction. So it would seem that we have yet to really thoroughly "know" anything. Given this sad set of circumstances, we can't tell our children any truth, so we resort to bs like RPS. Apparently, that's about the best we can consciously do at this point in our evolution.

Answer 3

Jon Kem Poe? I don't know if that's how it's pronounced, but that's how it's always sounded to me when I heard it... It's just like Rock Paper Scissors... We even use the same hand gestures... Unless it was completely different in that anime??