Why Do Japanese People Call Axolotls “Wooper Looper”?

This morning a student came into class, promptly placed something pink and white on the table, and loudly proclaimed:

‘and it only cost 360 yen’. 

360 yen!? What a steal! What is it?

This:

A pencil case in the shape of an axolotl. 

You know, those awesomely cute but weird creatures from Mexico with googly eyes, antennae protruding from their cheeks like whiskers, and a gleaming smile from ear to ear. 

‘Oh cool, an axolotl pencil case!’

‘Yeah and it only cost ¥360! Wait, an axo… what!?’

‘An axolotl. You know. アックサロットル? Akkusarottoru? 

I waved my hand and tried the age-old Jedi-Japanese mind-trick of Katakana English.

To no avail. 

So I just tried plain English;

‘How do you say axolotl in Japanese?’

‘Oh, you mean Oopah Roopah?

‘Oopah Roopah!?’

‘Yeah, Oopah Roopah.

‘What kind of name is that?

‘Kawaii desho! It’s Kawaii (cute), isn’t it?’

I was greeted with a smile almost as big as the axolotl on the pencil case and realised my question had fallen on deaf ears. 

But this had me wondering.

Where did the Oopah Roopah thing come from? Was this just a Japan thing?

I did the next logical thing. I checked the dictionary app on my phone, the aptly named ‘Japanese’.

And let me tell you, 

what came up surprised me:

This part I’m OK with. Axolotl had three entries:

1. メキシコサラマンダー, Mekishiko saramandā, or the Mexican salamander. 

2. アホロートル, Ahorōtoru, from Classical Nahuatl.

and,

3. ウーパールーパー, the aforementioned Oopah Roopah (technically it should be written Ūpārūpā, but that’s too hard to read). 

Well, at least they acknowledge the word Axolotl. 

As they should. 

Because that’s what it is.

But why was my student calling it an Oopah Roopah and not a Mexican Salamander or Ahorōtoru? Is it because Aho means idiot in Japanese?

Still unsure, I did the next logical thing, 

I took a deeper look under Oopah Roopah:

Oopah Roopah. 

Noun. 

axolotl (esp. an albino).

From English “wooper looper”.

From English “wooper looper”!?

This is where it got me. 

Now, I’ve seen the movie by Rian Johnson with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt before. 

I know what a Looper is.

But a wooper? What does that have to do with contract killers sent from the future by crime syndicates? 

I had no idea. 

So I did the next logical thing, 

I asked ChatGPT.

Somehow I was in the wrong for transliterating, or worse still, misinterpreting a Japanese name?

And then ChatGPT had the nerve to say:

‘The phonetic resemblance between the Japanese name and how it might sound when heard by English speakers.’

This I can get. 

Japanese doesn’t have the ‘w’ sound followed by the ‘oo’ sound. It’s why when Japanese people try to say ‘wood’ it often sounds like ‘ud’, or ‘woman’ sounds like ‘oo-man’. 

Makes sense. 

But what in Kami’s name is a Wooper Looper!? 

For that, I did the next logical thing,

I searched in Japanese.

And I’ll tell you what, I found a very satisfying article indeed:

This one. 

Although long-winded, the author, a certain 無限テディベア Unlimited Teddy Bear, got down to the bottom of the Wooper Looper conundrum.

And me tell you, it’s an interesting one.

And it all started with Minecraft.

You see, it appears axolotls were released in Minecraft in 2021. At the time, The Unlimited Teddy Bear was watching footage of Minecraft axolotls in English when they realised the English word for Axolotl was, in fact, Axolotl. 

Not Oopah Roopah

Nor Mexican Salamander. Nor Ahorōtoru, for that matter.

And, true to form, it turns out Oopah Roopah was indeed a Japanese creation. But not only that, the name was also a marketing gimmick. 

Or at least, it was used as such.

Like the eels

But unlike the eels, this was a marketing gimmick that came about in the 80s, not the 18th century (or whenever it was). 

By a food company

But not just any food company. Nissin Foods.

The company that invented instant noodles!

But don’t worry. Axolotls were not used in the instant noodles. Well, they kind of were. For advertising purposes. 

You see, in 1985, Nissin Foods began using an axolotl as a kind of mascot in an advertisement for their popular UFO range of instant noodles,

which you can watch here:

In the ad, an axolotl starts by stuttering ‘UFO’. Which, annoyingly, is pronounced as one word in Japanese, like ‘Oo-foe’. 

Then, the singing:

‘Yes, yes, yes, I am an Oopah Roopah. I came in a UFO.’

The axolotl then childishly says:

‘I am a messenger of love from UFO’. 

One axolotl gets a kiss from another and shouts “UFO!”, which the ad says stands for 

U = Umai (delicious)

F = Fushigi (strange)

O = Omoshiroi (fun).

And obviously, as you have already seen, the name Mexican Salamander or Ahorōtoru didn’t make the cut. Not only does Ahorōtoru have a bad ring to it in Japanese,

it wasn’t Kawaii enough for 1980s Japan.

Or anytime after that, apparently.

Nissin Foods needed a name that could take axolotls from the backwaters of Mexico to the households of Japan. And the word they chose was, of course:

Super Wooper.

Yes, seriously. This is what they tried to trademark. But apparently getting a common word like ‘Super’ trademarked was a real mission. So they dropped the S,

and the name stuck.

Or at the very least, this is what popularised the name, the creature as a pet, and created a huge boom in axolotls that, as can be witnessed by my student’s pencil case, continues to this day.

However,

Nissin Foods claim they didn’t come up with Oopah Roopah.

You see, The Unlimited Teddy Bear from earlier very kindly sent Nissin Foods an inquiry as to whether they came up with the name.

They denied it, writing:

確かに日清は85年に日清焼きそばUFOのCMでイメージキャラクターとしてウーパールーパーを使用し、当時のウーパールーパーブームの火付け役になった事実はあるかもしれないが、「ウーパールーパー」と命名したのは日清ではない。

‘Indeed, Nissin Foods released an advertisement in 1985 for Nissin Yakisoba UFO Noodles with an axolotl as an ‘image character’, and we very well may have created somewhat of an axolotl boom, but we did not come up with the name Oopah Roopah’(!)

Digging further, The Unlimited Teddy Bear found out about a book called Secrets of the Oopah Roopah written by ‘Jackpot’ in 1985. In Secrets of the Oopah Roopah was a picture of the very same axolotl from the advertisement with the caption:

‘I am a messenger of love’

Not only that, there was also this:

『ウーパールーパーはプロデューサー四季折々氏がメキシコ旅行中、自ら取材したメキシカンサラマンダー、アルビノ種(通称アホロートルの一種)にヒントを得て創作したキャラクターです。』

“The term ‘Oopah Roopah’ came about when during a trip to Mexico, Producer Shiki Oriori was reporting on the Mexican Salamander, and they took a hint from the Albino (a type of Axolotl) to create a new character”

A new character that did a now legendary collab with a certain instant noodle company. And soon everyone forgot (or never knew in the first place) the real word for an axolotl, and just calls them Oopah Roopah.

Well

if a 360-yen pencil case is anything to go by, at least.