Manga / Anime Words That Real Japanese People Don't Actually Use

There are plenty of words and expressions that pop up in manga and anime but that Japanese people never actually use in everyday conversation.

Here, let’s look at a few of them — drawn from manga and anime that are well-known even outside Japan.

だってばよ — Dattebayo (NARUTO)

“Dattebayo” is the catchphrase of Naruto, the protagonist of NARUTO — but no Japanese person actually talks like this. Seriously, I’ve never heard anyone say it in real life. Not once.

This was almost certainly invented as a character quirk to make Naruto’s speech stand out and feel distinctive.

貴様 — Kisama (Various manga)

You’ll almost never hear “kisama” in daily conversation. It sounds extremely confrontational — like you’re picking a fight. And if someone actually used it in real life, most people would think they were, well, kind of weird.

ウスラトンカチ — Usuratonkachi (NARUTO)

This is an insult Sasuke throws around a lot in early NARUTO, but nobody uses it in real life. It roughly means “useless idiot,” but it’s so theatrical that saying it out loud would just get you strange looks.

痴れ者 — Shiremono (Jujutsu Kaisen)

This one comes from Ryomen Sukuna in Jujutsu Kaisen. Since Sukuna is a character from the Heian period (over 1,000 years ago), his speech is deliberately written in an archaic, old-fashioned style.

“Shiremono” means something like “utter fool,” but almost nobody uses it in modern Japanese conversation.

That said, the word also appears in lyrics by King Gnu — a hugely popular Japanese band that performed the opening theme for the Jujutsu Kaisen anime — so most people would at least understand what you mean if you used it.

Be careful about using these expressions in actual conversation — they’ll make you sound like you learned Japanese entirely from anime (which, to be fair, you might have).