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Welcome to Japanese & Anime: タイトルを見る. This is where I will give a breakdown of Japanese in episode titles and titles from anime. Our first one will be from One Piece.




This title comes from episode 951. If you are not caught up on One Piece I won’t spoil much for you. (With a title as vague as this, it doesn’t really give much away.)

オロチ
This is someone’s name. Names are usually written in katakana in Shonen anime like One Piece. The name is Orochi. If you remember Orochimaru from Naruto (if you watched it that is), then you will probably get the idea that this name has to do with snakes and you would not be mistaken.

Orochi means big snake or serpent. There is also something called a やまたのおろち (Yamata-no-Orochi), which means eight-headed, eight tailed serpent. This is a serpent from Japanese mythology which also appears in Persona games.



の
This is a possession particle where someone or something is taking possession over another person or thing. 僕の靴 (My shoes)、私達の勝利 (Our win), ヒビキの日記 (Hibiki’s journal).

追手（おって）
This means pursuer, pursuing party, or posse.

So, to put the first sentence together we have オロチの追って！which means “Orochi’s pursuing party”. This means that Orochi has a party, a band of people, that are pursuing someone or something. Now, on to the next part.

忍者・軍団（にんじゃ・ぐんだん）

Kanji can be grouped together like this so to make it easier to follow, I have split the word up into a more comprehensible way with a dot. On the left side we have にんじゃ. Many may be familiar with this word. It says ninja.

On the right side, we have ぐんだん, which means something like an army corps, which is a group that is under someone else’s command.

VS

Now you are probably wondering “Why is he going over this, we already knows it says VS aka versus”. This only because when the title is being said by Luffy, he says たい instead of VS/Versus. But what does たい mean actually. Basically the same thing. Someone is opposing someone else or in this case someone is fighting someone else (hence the VS).

ゾロ

Katakana. Must be another name, and his name is Zoro. So let’s wrap this last part up.

Put this second sentence together and we have 忍者軍団VSゾロ which means “Ninja Army Corps (group) VS Zoro”. This means that Zoro is going to be fighting a band of ninjas.
Now the translator’s have translated this title to English making it: