Translating Japanese Text from an Image

[Shadow Hunter]

Hey all,

I am beginning to learn Japanese, albeit a bit slowly . I came across an image I was trying to translate and was able to get through most of it, but one sign has me stuck now. As far as I can tell, its the Kanji 捨, meaning discard, throw away, abandon, followed by some Kana. The first Kana is the one giving me the most trouble, as I can't quite make out what it is. I was guessing something along the lines of て, but I am not sure. I believe the last three Kana are うどん. 捨てうどん doesn't seem to make any sense though as far as I can tell. It is quite probable I am missing something though... xD Any ideas from the more experienced out there?

Sign on the box:

Thanks,

Shadow Hunter

[gegegeno]

You were right, it's 捨てうどん. The literal meaning is something like "discarded udon".

I googled around and followed some links, and there's a character called "Reisen Udongein Inaba" (鈴仙・優曇華院・イナバ) in a computer game called Imperishable Night. I think this is an inside joke from that.

[Shadow Hunter]

Yeah, that fits! Thank you very much, I was quite confused when my interpretation left me with a phrase basically meaning 'discarding noodles'

On a side note, do you know if its a common occurrence to shorten people/character's names? I have run into this a few times now, don't know why I didn't think to look more...

[gegegeno]

Oh sorry, I didn't see your edit.

I'd say it's about as usual to shorten names and give people nicknames in Japan as it is everywhere else. The same goes for fictional characters. The way that names get shortened can be quite different from how it's done in English (not a name, but think of how different the abbreviations are in the case of Personal Computer -> PC and パーソナル・コンピューター -> パソコン), so perhaps that's why we notice them more.