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 look into a special event that happens to a lot of Shonen Jump manga in Japan, the character popularity poll! To celebrate My Hero Academia’s two-year anniversary, we’re also conducting our own poll, so make sure to vote for your favorite character HERE !

NINKI TOUHYOU (にんきとうひょう)

NINKI TOUHYOU means “popularity poll.” In last year’s My Hero Academia poll, Midoriya was the big winner in both the Japanese and English voting. Can he repeat his win? Or will Bakugo or Todoroki take the top spot? It’s always fun to compare the results to the previous year’s and see which characters increased their NINKI! Vote Mineta 2016!

RENSAI NISHUNEN (れんさいにしゅねん)

RENSAI means “serialization” and NISHUNEN means “two-year anniversary.” The NI part corresponds to the number of years of the anniversary. Next year will be the SANSHUNEN! Speaking of anniversaries, the long-running police comedy series Kochikame concluded in the Japanese issue of Shonen Jump on its YONJUSHUNEN. YONJU means “forty”! Yes, this series continued for forty years! Osamu Akimoto Sensei is amazing! To celebrate it, all the Shonen Jump creators included the main character Ryotsu’s famous unibrow somewhere in their series in this past week's issue!

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