What does よいではないか mean? I saw the phrase (yoi de wa nai ka) in a comic strip, and decided to look it up because its literal meaning of "isn't it good?" didn't seem to make any sense. My research indicated that it was related to something a man says while unwrapping a woman's waist cloth on her kimono (such as in this cheaply made iPhone game), which confused me even more because there was nothing remotely suggesting something that would make one say . Can anyone explain the history behind this phrase and its current usage?

literally is "Isn't it OK", and usually it means "That's OK" or "No problem".

In general, is a pompous expression and used by high-ranked people, such as kings, mainly in fiction. Usually real people use shorter expressions such as "", "", "?", "?".

So-called is also a famous recurring joke in Japan, and that's why you got many search results related to this. This is how it goes:

> Woman in kimono: _Please stop it, sir!_
> Man: _Hehe, don't worry, it's fine..._
> Woman: _Oh, nooooo!_ (kimono stripped)
> (Maybe some kind of hero jumps in)

I doubt real people in the Edo period played like this (belts in kimono are not that long!), and apparently almost no one knows who did this first. I remember a Japanese comedian (Ken Shimura) did this frequently in his comedy show in the 1980's.

If neither of these explanations still makes sense, please edit the question and provide more context.