Welcome to the Nihongo Lesson feature. We strive to give you useful manga-based Japanese language tips and maybe even a glimpse into the translation process. This week’s lesson will focus on the most recent chapter of Toriko! This week’s chapter had amazing revelations, but it also had some hard-to-understand information. Translating is an art as well as a science and luckily we can use the Nihongo Lesson to shed light on the more difficult aspects of it!

NITORO (ニトロ)

This week’s chapter revealed the possible meaning behind the name of the Nitro. Flavor Sage Kaka revealed that the Nitro are in fact monster trolls born from gourmet cells. Kaka then hypothesized that the name “Nitro” could come from two possible origins. One is that it is an abbreviated form of “Two Trolls,” based on the fact that there are Red Nitro and Blue Nitro. But how do you get “Two Trolls” from Nitro? Well, in Japanese, “NI” (pronounced “Nee”) is two! And the word troll would be pronounced as “Torouru.” Combine them and abbreviate and you get NITORO, or NITRO. The other possibility is also based on NI meaning “two”—because they walk on two legs.

KOSUPURE (コスプレ)

Combining and abbreviating words is very common in Japanese, especially with foreign words. One of the most common is KOSUPURE, or CosPlay. It combines COSTUME and PLAY to create an original word used to describe dressing up as a character. You will come across these types of words all the time in fandom, so beware. Use NaruHina or NaruSaku around the wrong crowd and you might find yourself in an argument! Combining the beginning parts of character’s names to represent them being a couple is a cute way to support your favorite characters. It’s also a good way to sneak into Doflamingo’s castle if you’re Kin’emon in One Piece.

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