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I'm a bit confused by the price display in a sushi restaurant video, see https://youtu.be/V1g0yIBTDjQ?t=608

Do I misread the number or is this a joke (the video has an unusual cut there)?

It shows the price as 1500万0000円, which I would read as 15,000,000円, approximately 150,000.00$ (with exchange rate 100 yen = 1 dollar). Does 万 have another meaning differing from ten-thousand here?

phi1010
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1 Answers1

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You have read it correctly. 1485万0000円 is indeed 14,850,000 yen, which is way above the average annual income of Japanese people. 万, 億, 兆 and so on can be inserted to help readers quickly grasp the number. (See: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/18296/5010)

This restaurant is くら寿司, and you can play various mini-games using their touch panels, including something like a slot machine. See this video. I may be wrong, but this 1485万 may be from one of such games. Or it may be from something entirely different. Either way, it's not the actual charge.

naruto
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  • maybe its a jackpot payout on the machine in the video. – Jack Bosma Sep 11 '19 at 20:44
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    Why then extra 0's for the empty places though (i.e., why not just 1500万円)? – istrasci Sep 11 '19 at 22:19
  • @istrasci I think it's like a odometer of the car you can't rewind. If it shows the price, you have to pay as the price has been displayed in the 回転スシ restaurant! – kimi Tanaka Sep 11 '19 at 22:42
  • Oh, I didn't see the video until now. It's like cycling through different amounts. – istrasci Sep 11 '19 at 22:50
  • @istrasci Looks like now you know why, but it's because the number is animated. They wanted the number to have the same width regardless of whether the last four digits are 0000 or 1111. – naruto Sep 12 '19 at 05:19