omake おまけ

In Japanese, omake おまけ, also spelled omake お負け, is something given as an extra when selling a product. In manga, anime, and games, omake are bonuses generally bonuses included at the end of the an episode or tankōbon 単行本 volume.

Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi 鋼の錬金術師

• Usage in Japanese
• Omake in Anime and Manga
  
  • Examples of Omake

In Japanese

The word omake おまけ comes from makeru 負ける, which means "to lose," plus the o- お～ polite prefix.

The prefix is added to a number of words that come from verbs, like onigiri おにぎり, a "rice ball" made from grasping rice with your hands, which comes from nigiru 握る, "to grasp."

The verb makeru 負ける means literally "to lose," which is weird, since an omake is a bonus that you gain. What happens is that, in this case, it means "to lose" a bargain, from the side of seller. They're losing the bargain, so they're adding more stuff to the customer.

Normally, it would be used this way:

• issen-en wo makete moratta
  １０００円をまけてもらった
  [I] got [him] to lose 1000 yen.
  • I got him to give me 1000 yen of discount.

Some ways omake can be used include:

• omake ni おまけに
  As a bonus. As an extra.
• omake datta おまけだった
  It was a bonus. They give it to me as an extra.

A derived way omake can be used is to say something is something else besides being something. That is, not only they are this, but they are also that. This can mean they're even worse than you thought, or even better than you thought. For example:

• omake ni hanzaisha desu
  おまけに犯罪者です
  As an extra, [he's] a criminal.
  On top of that, [he's] a criminal.

Omake in Anime and Manga

When we talk about omake in anime and manga we're normally talking about content which is either at the start, middle or end of the episode, chapter, or volume and that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story.

Extra information about the world or characters is a kind of omake. Character profiles with age, blood type, favorite food, hobbies, etc. are omake. Some "comics with four panels," yonkoma 四コマ, are omake. Even illustrations that would be hard to put in the middle of the manga or anime story can be omake, like fanservice, for example.

Anime that airs on TV and then are sold as DVDs or Blu-rays can include extra content, usually shorts, like 3 minutes long. Those would be omake. Another term for such content is OVA, but not all OVA are omake.

In a number of action manga, the omake is a panel or mini-comic with jokes about the characters themselves, including, sometimes, fourth-wall breaking.

Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi 鋼の錬金術師

• omake おまけ
  (featured by the end of the first volume.)
• ni-kan kara wa shuyaku koutai de
  "Honoo no Renkinjutsushi" ga
  hajimarimasu.
  ２巻からは主役交替で
  『焔の錬金術師』が
  始まります
• From the second volume, due to switching of main characters,
  "Flame Alchemist"
  will begin.
  • The Japanese title of Fullmetal Alchemist is:
  • Hagane no Renkinjutsushi 鋼の錬金術師
    Steel Alchemist.
  • Which refers to alchemist title given to the main character, Edward Elric. Hence, if the main character changed, the title of the manga would change too.
  • This is omake is a joke implying he, the Flame Alchemist, wants to steal the show away from Edward Elric, the Steel Alchemist, and become the main character of the series.
  • What's announced, of course, doesn't actually happen. In volume 2 the Steel Alchemist remains the main character..

Examples of Omake

In Shingeki no Kyojin 進撃の巨人 (Attack on Titan), details about the 3D maneuver gear and about the walls of the story can be found at the start of certain chapters in the manga. This information is also shown. In the first and second part of some of the anime episodes. Both forms are omake.

In the anime Gintama 銀魂, though it's difficult to say given the nature of the anime, there are some scenes which appear at the start and end of some episodes that can be considered omake. For example, the ones where Gintoki calls himself Ginpachi-sensei and answers certain questions. These take a couple of minutes and usually have nothing to do with the story of the episode itself.

Even games can have omake. The series Metal Slug, for example, used to include drawings of characters and machines of the game that could be unlocked and seen as the player progressed through the game.

One last thing about omake... are omake really "extras"? Are extras really extras? If you pay for something and get it plus something else, haven't you just paid for it and the extra, too? Where does the thing really ends and the omake really starts? Who knows!