Rendaku is notoriously irregular, but it never occurs in reduplicated words that are uncontroversially mimetic. On the other hand, rendaku is the norm in most other kinds of reduplicated words involving native Japanese bases, even though many such words are semantically and grammatically very similar to reduplicated mimetic words. Interestingly, we see a conspicuous resistance to rendaku in recently coined quasi-mimetic reduplicated words. Nishimura (2013) suggests that there are two kinds of reduplication: intensive/plural reduplication, which allows rendaku, and mimetic reduplication, which prevents rendaku. However, the semantic distinction between the two types is not as clear-cut as one would hope.