マリオカート – Mario Kart Items and how to say them in Japanese
Ever since the original Mario Kart came out in 1992 on the Super Nintendo people have been shooting players with shells, slipping on banana peels, and racing to the finish line. Well, have you ever wondered what people in Japan call these items? You are in the right place, let’s take a look at the name of Mario Kart items in Japanese.
INDEX
ダッシュキノコ – Dash Mushroom
The Mushroom in the Mario series is the most iconic item. In the Mario Kart games this allows you get a temporary speed bump. In English they are called Dash Mushroom. Actually they are called the same thing in Japanese.
ダッシュキノコ is the Japanese word and can be broken down as following:
- ダッシュ – Dash
- キノコ – Mushroom
If you would like to know more about the mushroom and other items in the Mario series, I have a post below which goes into a little more detail.
ファイアフラワー – Fire Flower
The ファイアフラワー is what we call the Fire Flower in Japanese. This is basically the same two words in both languages. Believe it or not I have a lot more to say about this if you check out the post above if you are interested.
スーパースター – Super Star
Just like the Flower, the Super Star is the same word in both English and Japanese, スーパースター.
バナナの皮 – Banana Peel
Nothing is more annoying than to slip on someone’s banana peel right when you are at the finish line just to see five other karts fly by. Well, the banana peel is just as annoying in any language. So, in Japanese you would call it バナナの皮. Let’s break this down word-by-word.
- バナナ – Banana
- の – Relational Particle
- 皮 – Skin
So basically a more translation of バナナの皮 would be the Banana Skin. If you want more detail about how the の particle works I have more detail on that below.
イナズマ – Lightning Bolt
The Lightning Bolt, which shrinks the drivers temporarily has been called a few different things through out the Mario Kart series. First, it can be called イナズマ which means lightning. It is usually written as 稲妻 in Kanji.
However, the lightning bolt can also be referred to as サンダー which is Thunder written in Japanese Katakana.
ミドリこうら – Green Shell
Now we come to the first shell, the Green Shell. This is a projectile which shoots in a straight line and then bounces around the course hitting whatever it can. In Japanese you refer to this as ミドリこうら.
- ミドリ(緑) – Green
- こうら（甲羅） – Shell (of animals like turtles and crabs)
Here, we need to explain the meaning of 甲羅. Here, this word only refers to turtle shells, crab shells or other animals that may have shells. It does not refer to shells of clams, oysters and so on. It also does not refer to shells of nuts or other foods. Japanese has separate words for that.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/アカこうら – Red Shell
Now that we known that ミドリこうら refers to the green shells, the Red Shells are easy to learn. アカこうら means Red Shell in Japanese. アカ is the Japanese word for Red which is usually written in Kanji as 赤.
トゲゾーこうら – Spiny Shell
The Spiny Shell is a special shell whose whole purpose is to hit the person in the lead. In Japanese you call it トゲゾーこうら.
トゲゾー is the word for the Mario enemy with spikes on it’s shell called Spiny. The word トゲゾー is based of the Japanese word for Spikes which is 棘.
テレサ – Boo
Boo is a ghost that allows the driver to become invisible. In the Mario series this ghost will hide it’s face until you are not looking and then come after you. The Japanese name of boo is also a hint to this behavior.
テレサ is the Japanese name for Boo. According to Nintendo’s website, テレサ comes from the Japanese word, 照れ屋さん or 照れ屋 which means someone who is shy.
ボムへい – Bomb-omb
ボムへい is the Japanese name for the Bomb-omb. Let’s break this word down.
- ボム – Bomb
- へい（兵）– Soldier, Troop
ボム is how you would pronounce and write the English word for Bomb in Japanese. It is not the common word used in Japanese though for bomb, that would be 爆弾.
兵 is a word or symbol for soldiers or troops. So ボムへい would translate to Bomb Soldier.
キラー – Bull’s Eye Bill
The next weapon is the Bull’s Eye Bill. This bullet, bomb, cannon or whatever it is exactly is called キラー in Japanese. キラー is how you would write the English word killer in Japanese.
パックンフラワー – Piranha Flower
パックンフラワー is what the Piranha Flower is called in Japanese.
フラワー is how you would say the English word flower in Japanese. パックン requires a bit more explanation. In Japanese there are lots of onomatopoeia words for sounds, actions and so on. パックン is one of these words and represents biting or stuffing something into the mouth and holding it.
にせアイテムボックス – Fake Item Box
The Fake Item Box is pretty much the same also in Japanese. にせアイテムボックス is the Japanese word.
- にせ（偽） – Fake
- アイテム – Item
- ボックス – Box
アイテム and ボックス are both directly from the English words for Item and Box. 偽 though is a word that can be used as a prefix that is added to other words in Japanese to show that they are fake.
スーパークラクション – Super Horn
A racing game would not be complete without some way to honk. Or, in this case blow things away with the sound.
The Super Horn in Japanese is called スーパークラクション. Of course the スーパー means Super and the クラクション is the Japanese word for a car horn. クラクション comes from a name the word Klaxon which was originally a trademark name for a vehicle horn, or something along those lines.
ゲッソー – Blooper
Finally we have Blooper. These squids get in your way, spray ink in your eyes so you can’t see. In Japanese they are called ゲッソー.
This word has an interesting origin. In Japanese squid legs in restaurants are known as 下足. The name ゲッソー comes from げそ.
