“Manual keigo” sounds polite on paper and odd in the mouth. Separately, a message can be packed with です・ます・お・ご and still feel rude — often because the ask, target, or humility is mismatched.
Staff-script oddness
Classic odd staff line: 「御注文の品はおそろいになりましたでしょうか」 — polite on paper, sticky in the mouth. Ask cleanly whether the ordered food is ready.
Input
Are the dishes you ordered ready?
Natural Japanese
ご注文されたお料理のご準備は整っておりますでしょうか。
A clean Business ask — no honorific stickers on every noun for their own sake.
Rewritten with Tadashii Kotoba — Business style, recipient: client (live API).
Keigo can decorate a hard demand
Input
Please submit the report by today. This is urgent.
Natural Japanese
本日中にレポートをご提出いただけますでしょうか。大変急ぎの案件でございます。
The rewrite softens ください into a request form — good. But urgency is still the content. Decoration don’t fix a demand that ignores the other side’s constraints; add reason or apology when the ask is heavy.
Rewritten with Tadashii Kotoba — Business style, recipient: client (live API).
Checklist when it “feels rude” despite polite endings: wrong person elevated, ask too blunt for the relationship, humility aimed at the wrong party. Fix the wiring — not only the vocabulary.