青天白日

せいてん　はくじつ
seiten hakujitsu

To put kind of a cap on the theme that Brett and I accidentally developed last week, comes a yo-ji that's been languishing on our unpublished draft roster for about half a year. 純情可憐 and 清廉潔白 both deal with people of unassailable character. 青天白日 might be what happens when someone who's character is unassailable gets assailed anyway.

All the kanji in here are about the weather, but don't expect it to be used literally all the time. The feeling and the sense of a bright blue sky and broad daylight are used to express something else.

Definition:
青空に輝く太陽。転じて、心の中が明白で、少しも隠しごとや疑われることがない状態。また、うたがいや無実の罪がはれること。
Translations:
1. Being transparent, beyond even the slightest doubt or suspiscion.
2. Having doubts, or false charges against you cleared away.
3. Being acquitted of all charges.
4. Being secure in the knowledge that your own actions were just; feeling no guilt.

The Yo-ji Databank falls kind of short on this one, providing a cop out 用例: 私はいつも晴天白日だ, but I can see why they went with that. Internet searches reveal tons of results for 青天白日 but most of them are stand alone cases.

It also gets used literally to describe the flag of the Chinese Nationalist Party. This is what a 青天白日旗 looks like.

If we had been formally grouping these 四字s thematically, 正々堂々 would have made a good addition to this run.

例文：刑期が満了した彼は青天白日の身となり、司直を訴えることになりました。
Having been cleared of all charges AFTER his prison sentence had been concluded, he has decided to sue the judicial authorities.