Bukkake udon gets a new name in the U.S.A. from Marugame Udon

Traditional Japanese noodle dish now has a codeword-style moniker.

When Japanese noodle chain Marugame Udon first expanded to the U.S., they made a linguistic adaptation in hopes of better blending in. “Marugame” is a four-syllable word, pronounced “Ma-ru-ga-me,” but the company was worried that English speakers, used to seeing the word “game” (as in “let’s play a game”), would turn the restaurant’s name into the three-syllable “Ma-ru-game.”

So for its first branch in Honolulu, Hawaii, the restaurant called itself Marukame Udon instead. However, by the time the chain was ready to hit the west coast of the continental United States, management had changed its mind again, and so its U.S. restaurants outside of Hawaii now use the original Marugame Udon name.

However, that’s not to say Marugame America has a blanket commitment to original source-language fidelity. Take a look at its menus, for example, and you’ll see something called B.K. udon.

Walk into any Marugame branch in Japan and ask for “B.K. udon,” and the staff won’t know what you’re talking about. However, you can definitely get B.K. udon in Japan, and not just at Marugame, but plenty of other udon chains too. That’s because what Marugame America calls “B.K. udon” goes by another name in Japan: bukkake udon.

“So why the rename?” you, in your innocent purity, of coure, ask? Well, bukkake is a Japanese word that means “splash,” and in the context of udon it’s used to describe a style where a comparatively small amount of broth is splashed over the noodles after they’re placed in the bowl. However, bukkake has also evolved into a slang term for a man ejaculating onto a woman’s face or body, a recurring fetish in Japanese adult videos.

▼ Maybe this guys is looking at noodle joint menus, and maybe he’s looking at something else.

Since the Japanese language needed a word for “splash” long before it needed one for “bust a nut on a chick’s cheek,” the innocent meaning is the primary one, and when most Japanese people hear “bukkake udon” their reaction is one of culinary hunger, not carnal desire (most of the time, anyway). However, many non-Japanese speakers overseas were exposed to “bukkake” as a genre of porn long before they knew it was a kind of noodle dish, which is probably why Marugame America has decided to go with “B.K.”

▼ Linguists will be happy to know that Marugame America’s menu does retain several Japanese-language terms, like “nikutama” (literally “meat and egg”), which the chain serves with “B.K. sauce.”

アメリカの丸亀製麺のメニューを確認していて気付いたのだが、「Bukkake」は日本以上にアメリカでアレな単語のためB.K.という隠語めいた名前に置き換えられていた。https://t.co/xwidVqODmJ pic.twitter.com/30654oUqL3

— inuro (@inuro) June 2, 2021

The change was pointed out by Twitter user @inuro, with one commenter recalling that the bukkake udon name was still in use at Marugame’s Sawtelle (Los Angeles) branch up to at least a year ago. Maybe one day they’ll change it back again, but for now only those in the know will understand what B.K. stands for, and why a stand-in is being used.

Related: Marugame America
Source: Marugame Udon via Twitter/@inuro via Otakomu
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Insert images: Marugame Udon, Pakutaso
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