The anime Sarazanmai さらざんまい airing this season has so many puns and cultural Japanese references that I thought it'd be a good idea to list them here for further reference. This way you'll finally be able to unders... to understan...

...

Okay you won't be able to understand the anime, but you'll be able to understand the Japanese part of the anime, and that's one step, at least, so let's content ourselves with that. Anyway.

THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS!!! The first part of the article assumes you have already watched at least the first episode. After that, there's a second spoiler warning, and sections spoiling each and every episode. So scroll with caution!

• Kappa
  
  • Shirikodama
• Puns
  
  • Sara
    
    • Zanmai
    • Dish
  • Guddo Sarakku
  • Saratto
  • Sara ni
  • Sarasu
  • Kapparau
  • ア Symbol
  • Kawauso
  • Kaisou
  • Tsunagaritai
  • Recurring Phrases
• Background Music
• Episode Notes
  
  • Episode 1
  • Episode 2
  • Episode 3
  • Episode 4
  • Episode 5
  • Episode 6
  • Episode 7
  • Episode 8
  • Episode 9
  • Episode 10
  • Episode 11

On the internet, yaranaika is a meme based on a certain gay manga related to faces like this:

• Meaning

In case you're wondering what o kawaii koto お可愛いこと actually means in Japanese, it's a bit complicated. The catch phrase from the manga and anime Kaguya-sama often gets translated as "how cute." That's not what it literally means, but it's pretty much the best translation you can get.

If you're out of the loop: o kawaii koto is a phrase often said often imagined to be said by Kaguya in a condescending way. The character imagining her saying it is too proud to allow it to happen. If he did something that gave her the chance to say it, that would hurt his pride immensely, so it must be avoided at all costs.

The phrase o kawaii koto お可愛いこと can be divided into three parts:

1. o- お～ (prefix.)
2. kawaii 可愛い (adjective.)
3. koto こと (noun.)

Jump to TL;DR if you aren't really that interested in Japanese.

In Japanese, madao マダオ is an abbreviation of marude dame na ossan まるでダメなオッさん, meaning "completely useless old man." It's not a Japanese word, actually, but a running joke used in the manga and anime Gintama 銀魂, said by Kagura 神楽 about Hasegawa Taizou 長谷川 泰三.

• jaa ne
  じゃーね
  [See ya later].
• marude dame na ossan
  まるでダメなオッさん
  Completely useless old man.
• ryaku shite, madao!
  略して　マダオ！
  Abbreviate it: MADAO!

For people who know nothing about Japanese, but watch too much anime, the exchange above may be difficult to understand linguistically for a number of reasons. Fortunately, this is a blog about explaining those reasons.

• ま vs. マ
• "As if" vs. "Completely"
• Useless?
• Old man?

If you're in an anime community, you might have seen the following meme already: omae wa mou shindeiru, or omae wa mou shinderu, followed by someone saying nani?! So, in case you're wondering what the hell are these weebs memeing about, it's a line from the manga and anime Fist of the North Star, Hokuto no Ken 北斗の拳.

Here's the translation:

• omae wa mou shinderu.........
  おまえはもう死んでる･････････
  You're already dead.
• nanii~~!?
  なにィ～～！？
  Whattt!?

Note that shinderu しんでる is a contraction of shinde-iru しんでいる, the te-iru form of shinu 死ぬ, "to die," which is why some people say omae wa mou shindeiru お前はもうしんでいる instead.

Also note that there are differences between the magazine version, the complete edition, and the anime version. So it's likely the phrase has appeared as both shinderu and shindeiru sometime, making both perfectly correct.

The phrase warui slime janai yo, or rather, warui suraimu janai yo 悪いスライムじゃないよ, meaning "[I'm] not a bad slime," comes from the RPG series Dragon Quest: it's a catch-phrase used used by NPC slimes to tell the player they aren't going to fight him.

• Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken
• Origin

In Japanese, doshigatai 度し難い means "irredeemable," "beyond salvation." However, the literal meaning of the word a bit more complicated. And given that this is a catchphrase in the manga and anime Made in Abyss, I supposed it deserves a thorough explanation.

Kono Dio da! このディオだ！ is a phrase used by Dio in the manga and anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken ジョジョの奇妙な冒険, and I'm making a post about it because the translation of kono Dio da eludes many Japanese learners.


(the small tsu ッ and the prolonged sound mark ー are other symbols in the panel above.)

In Japanese, zawa.. zawa.. ざわ･･ざわ･･ is an onomatopoeia for when a crowd gathers and starts whispering around, creating a commotion, however, it's best known for its usage in the gambling series Kaiji, in which case zawa-zawa shows up in tense, cold-sweat-breaking, anxiety-filled situations, even when there is no crowd around, so there's nothing to emit a zawa-zawa sound.

In the anime adaptation of Kaiji, someone voicing the syllables zawa-zawa is used as the sound effect

In the manga and anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Dio says muda muda muda muda 無駄無駄無駄無駄 as his stand goes around punching people in the face. This translates literally to saying "it's futile" repeated many times, but in the series it's used like ora ora ora ora by Jotarō and his Star Platinum, just a thing to say while throwing punches..

• muda muda muda muda
  muda muda muda muda
  muda muda muda muda
  無駄無駄無駄無駄
  無駄無駄無駄無駄
  無駄無駄無駄無駄
  [It] is futile. (times 12)

Note that although this muda muda muda muda doesn't really mean anything besides the word muda repeated over and over, a single muda 無駄 does mean something in Japanese.

If you've ever watched JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, specially Stardust Crusaders, you've probably already heard Kujō Jotarō 空条 承太郎 and his stand, Star Platinum, screaming ora ora ora オラオラオラ at everyone they punched.

And you might have asked yourself: what does this ora ora ora mean in Japanese?

• ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ora ora!!!
  オラオラオラオラオラオラオラオラオラ！！！
  (twelve ora's.)
• dodododododo
  ドドドドドド
  *sound effect for punches*
  (onomatopoeia.)

The answer is: not much.

• Single Ora オラ
• In JoJo

In Japanese, dodododo ドドドド is normally an onomatopoeia for a thumping sound. This could mean a heart thumbing, or of motorbike cylinder engine, or anything like that.

In the manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, dodododo isn't an onomatopeia, it isn't the sound of anything, but is used instead as a mimetic word for when something sudden and unexpected happens, something mysterious, of "real form unknown," shoutai-fumei 正体不明, and so on.

• odoro おどろ is the name of the uneasiness background effect used in the first panel.

A number of comedy manga parody this usage from JoJo, so, most of the time, dododo means this even when the manga isn't JoJo. (they also often parody gogogogo ゴゴゴゴ, by the way, another sound effect JoJo uses.)

• Examples
  • Heart Thumping
  • Engine
  • Punches

If you have read JoJo, or if you spent too much time on the internet browsing anime memes, you've probably come across this bizarre word formed by four repeated symbols: gogogogo ゴゴゴゴ, and then asked yourself: what does it mean???

For reference, the Japanese name for Bowsette is Kuppa-hime クッパ姫, literally "Princess Koopa," and I'm writing this post, of course, because I think it's funny how the English name Bowsette and the Japanese name Kuppa-hime have almost nothing to do with each other.

(and of Other Princesses that got "Peachfied" too)

If you don't know who Bowsette is, she's the gender-bent / rule 63 / nyotaika 女体化 version of Bowser that turned into a meme overnight this week. (it all began in 2018-09-19.)

So, this season there's an anime called Darling in the FranXX (darifura ダリフラ), where the main characters are children product of some nefarious sci-fi utopia thingy. Such children are nameless, referred normally by codenames, which are just a few digits. Except that one of these characters, Hiro, used the numbers to come up nicknames for his nakama. The question is: how it works?

Why is 015 Ichigo, 016 Hiro, 056 Gorō, 196 Ikuno, 214 Futoshi, 326 Mitsuru, 390 Miku, 556 Kokoro, 666 Zorome, and 703 Naomi? What would be zero-two's nickname? And is there a meaning behind the names of the adult characters Nana and Hachi?

(there's a chart at the bottom if you wanna skip.)

Update: added the children of episode 13.

This season we have Juuni Taisen 十二大戦, "the great battle of twelve [warriors]," and one cool thing about this anime is that every warrior has a different way of killing, and that way of killing gets an immense tagline on screen.

Each tagline tells what a character is about, but some subtitles' translations have taken some huge liberties in translating the taglines from Japanese, so watchers end up associating phrases to characters that the original author didn't intend for people to associate.

In this post, I'll write the original Japanese taglines and some very literal translations, and explain how the Japanese works and their actual meanings in English like chewing and putting in mouth in a way easy to understand.

Rat - Ox - Tiger - Rabbit
Dragon - Snake - Horse - Sheep
Monkey - Chicken - Dog - Boar
And an image chart at the end.

If you've been watching KonoSuba このすば (if not you should) you might have noticed the character Megumin chants her "explosion" magic with a certain peculiar word: bakuretsu 爆裂. However, there's the more common bakuhatsu 爆発 which also means "explosion." So what's the difference between bakuhatsu and bakuretsu in Japanese?

One very popular game that almost everyone knows from a certain meme is Gyakuten Saiban 逆転裁判, also known as Ace Attorney, where the lawyer Naruhodo Ryuuichi 成歩堂龍一, a.k.a. Phoenix Wright goes around lawyering miraculously. Since this is really fun game with a lot of Japanese text to read and that requires actually understanding the phrases to win, I decided to compile in this post some of the vocabulary you need to play the game in Japanese.

• People and Their Titles
• Elements of a Crime
• Proofs, Testimonies and Evidences
• Interrogation
• Truth and Lie
• Court
• Murder and Death

In the manga and anime Naruto ナルト, ninjutsu 忍術, taijutsu 体術, and genjutsu 幻術 (also romanized ninjitsu, taijitsu, genjitsu) are similar-sounding terms referring to how the ninjas fight. In this article, I'll explain what they mean in Japanese.