Website design By BotEap.comImage boards have become a popular hobby on the web in recent years. If you’ve been to places like 4chan, 7chan, and the like, you’ve seen a unique culture that mixes illustrated and photographic art from Western and Japanese culture. After browsing these places for a while, it starts to become apparent that Japanese and English mix so much that you need a foot in each culture to understand what’s going on.

Website design By BotEap.comSo here’s a guide to the most common Japanese words you’ll find in the world of picture boards. Keep in mind that these places are mostly inhabited by fans of anime, manga and video games, so most of the terms have to do with this culture.

Website design By BotEap.comanimated – Japanese animation. All cartoons originating from Japan.

Website design By BotEap.combaka – A fool, or the art that represents foolishness. The Disney character Goofy would be considered baka.

Website design By BotEap.combench – A delinquent or rebellious child.

Website design By BotEap.combar – A homosexual man, or art that attracts or represents homosexual men.

Website design By BotEap.combishojo – A beautiful young woman, older than adolescence but younger than college age.

Website design By BotEap.combukkake – A fetish for messy sex and the art that this fetish represents.

Website design By BotEap.comburikko – An adult posing as a child. Features in the art depicting the game of the age.

Website design By BotEap.com-chan – A suffix meaning “relating to”; also a Japanese honorific.

Website design By BotEap.comchibi – A short, small person or a very small child. Also a specific anime/manga drawing style, making a character appear dwarfed or distorted. Western cartoon elves could be considered chibi.

Website design By BotEap.comcosplay – The activity of dressing up as a favorite anime/mange character. Frequently performed at comic book conventions and other fan events.

Website design By BotEap.comfrom his – A short Japanese word that joins a noun and a verb, literally translated as “is”. Image boards have taken this as a meme, often repeating “desu desu desu”, for various reasons, including to annoy newbies or stubbornly persist in a discussion.

Website design By BotEap.comdoujinshi – Self-published work. The desktop desktop publishing equivalent for manga.

Website design By BotEap.comecchi – The generic term for sexual material.

Website design By BotEap.comfutanari – Hermaphrodites, or art representing hermaphrodites. Half-male-half-female.

Website design By BotEap.comgaiden – Lateral or additional material. On image boards, gaiden would be four-panel cartoons of manga characters, representing events that don’t count in the manga itself. A parallel story or spin-off.

Website design By BotEap.comguru – Very gross pornography depicting extreme injury, mutilation or death. The manga equivalent of “snuff porn.”

Website design By BotEap.comhentai – Erotic sleeve bondage. Most erotic Japanese illustrative material falls into this category.

Website design By BotEap.comhikikomori – An otaku taken to the next level: a loner and outsider whose only interest is the anime/manga fandom. The equivalent of a Western “basement geek”, which only suggests an insane, neurotic degree of obsession and isolation.

Website design By BotEap.comitasha – The subculture of decorating a vehicle with decals of manga/anime characters.

Website design By BotEap.comJosé – An attractive manga genre for adult women. The equivalent of western soap operas.

Website design By BotEap.comkaitou – A mystery. sneaky thief. Also someone with ghost aspects. A stealthy person who lives in the shadows. The equivalent of western rogue or hobbit.

Website design By BotEap.comKatana – A Japanese sword. About 99% of the time when you see ninjas and samurai with swords, they are shown wielding katanas.

Website design By BotEap.comkawaii – Complying with the Japanese standard for “cute”.

Website design By BotEap.comkawaiiko – A cute boy.

Website design By BotEap.comkei – Originally a style of sculpture used to represent Buddha. Unlike the more familiar view (in the West) of the Buddha as a cheerful and laughing fellow, the Japanese Buddhas are lean and serious.

Website design By BotEap.comlolicon – A slang term shared between Japanese and Western culture, for the preference for childlike portrayals of women.

Website design By BotEap.comsleeve – Japanese comic books. All graphic and print media of a cartoon nature originating in Japan.

Website design By BotEap.commanga artist – A manga creator. Japanese for “cartoonist.”

Website design By BotEap.comManzai – A style of humor involving a comedic duo of a “straight man” and a “funny man”. In Western culture, Abbot and Costello would be considered manzai.

Website design By BotEap.comwick – Anime or manga involving large armored robot warriors, usually piloted by a human inside.

Website design By BotEap.commeganekko – The attraction to girls who wear glasses. Anime or manga depicting “geeky” girls.

Website design By BotEap.commiko – A female temple attendant. The equivalent of a western nun.

Website design By BotEap.commoe – A slang term for a fan of anime or manga, or an attraction to anime and manga characters.

Website design By BotEap.comNeko – A kitten or a cat, especially when it is cute. It is also applied to describe a woman disguised as a cat, or half human, half cat.

Website design By BotEap.comokaki – Scribble and scribble. Amateur art by fans.

Website design By BotEap.comeye – A high class or wealthy woman.

Website design By BotEap.comomorashi – A fetish for peeing. The equivalent of Western “water sports”.

Website design By BotEap.comoni – A demon or evil spirit.

Website design By BotEap.comoranyan – A male who is at the same time aggressive and distant, and sweet and charming.

Website design By BotEap.comotaku – A big fan of manga, anime or video games. More serious than moe, not as serious as hikikomori.

Website design By BotEap.comPokemon – Japan’s most famous anime/manga/video game franchise.

Website design By BotEap.comsakura – A cherry blossom. A very common artistic theme in Japan.

Website design By BotEap.comseine – An attractive manga genre for adult men. The male equivalent of josei.

Website design By BotEap.comsensei – A teacher or teacher.

Website design By BotEap.comfelt – Japanese superheroes. It also refers to military heroes; in the West, Hercules and GI Joe would fall under the sentai category.

Website design By BotEap.comshibari – Japanese Bondage, which involves rope bondage elevated to an intricate and specialized art form.

Website design By BotEap.comshinigami – A Japanese angel of death, in mythology. The equivalent of the Western “gloomy grim reaper”, though shinigami are an entire class of entities and not just one.

Website design By BotEap.comshojo – An attractive manga genre for young women and girls. The younger equivalent of josei.

Website design By BotEap.comshōnen – An attractive manga genre for young men and boys. They are usually action-adventure stories.

Website design By BotEap.comshotacon – The Japanese version of “boy’s love”, the representation of young people in an erotic context. The male version of lolicon.

Website design By BotEap.comsukeban – A delinquent or rebellious girl.

Website design By BotEap.comtan – A suffix that means a character used as a mascot for a product. For example, the characters used to represent different computer operating systems are “OS-tans”.

Website design By BotEap.comtsundere – A female that is alternately aggressive and aloof, and sweet and charming.

Website design By BotEap.comyakuzas – Japanese gangs and gangsters. Organized crime. The equivalent of Western Mafia.

Website design By BotEap.comyandere – A psychotic stalker. A Japanese manga/anime genre depicting shy and quiet people who fall in love to the point of obsessing over someone, eventually turning violent and abusive, perhaps even murderous.

Website design By BotEap.comyaoi – Japanese manga/anime depicting gay men but intended for women. In the West, if you made fiction especially for “queers”, it would be called yaoi.

Website design By BotEap.comyuri – A lesbian, or an art that attracts or represents homosexual women.