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 food! Everyone loves food, and there’s plenty of food in Weekly Shonen Jump. So here’s a food-related lesson for everyone to consume!

GOHAN (ごはん)

GOHAN means “rice,” but it can also refer to different meals like ASA GOHAN (breakfast) and HIRU GOHAN (lunch). One of Soma’s first big meals in Food Wars! was actually a rice dish! Gohan is also the name of Goku’s son in Dragon Ball. In fact, a lot of Dragon Ball characters are named after food, like Vegeta (vegetables) and Kakarrot (carrot). There are plenty of characters in Naruto who are named after food too, including the title character, Naruto, whose name means fishcake.

NIKU (にく)

NIKU means “meat.” Meat is the favorite food of plenty of WSJ characters. Most notably, Luffy from One Piece! From volume 1, we know that Luffy loves meat. He can often be seen screaming, “Meat! Meat!” and holding a piece of meat in many of the color spreads and covers that Oda Sensei draws. There are plenty of fabulous meat dishes in both Toriko and Food Wars!, and even Chitoge in Nisekoi likes meat!

SAKANA (さかな)

SAKANA means “fish.” In Toriko, Komatsu and the gang are after the Fish Treasure, Another! Meanwhile, the rest of the gang are in their fish camping monsters going after other dishes in the Full-Course Meal. I’m excited to see what Another looks like and what kind of transformation the characters will undergo when they finally eat it!

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