Places in anime or other TV shows become one of the most important places for hanging out for certain groups of people. Friends had Central Perk, How I Met Your Mother crew had MacLaren’s Pub, and Naruto and Boruto series has Ichiraku Ramen. This hole-in-a-wall restaurant became a cultural phenomenon with the Naruto series and fans wanted to know if there is a similar place residing in Japan. In this article, we will find out if there is a real-life version of Ichiraku Ramen and if there is, what is it called.
There are actually two Ichiraku Ramen’s located in Japan, more precisely, in the city of Fukuoka, a city where Masashi Kishimoto went to University. In his free time, the creator of the Naruto series would go to Kyuusandaimae Station and hang out with his friends. Near the station, a shop called the Ramen Ichiraku was located where Kishimoto would eat Naruto’s favorite food. The shop closed since then but there are two other branches located in Fukuoka with one located in the Hakata area.
Now that we’ve cleared up whether our favorite anime ramen has a real-life equivalent it’s time to analyze how much would it cost to eat like Naruto, and how many similarities are between the anime version and the real-life version of Ichirak Ramen!
How Much Does Ichiraku Ramen Cost?
During the series, Naruto would often go to Ichiraku Ramen to eat his favorite food – ramen. He would go there and eat it to the point of people telling him that he lives only on ramen and nothing else. That was the case since Naruto was an orphan and did not have that much money on him, and Teuchi, the owner of Ichiraku Ramen, would give him free bowls of ramen.
Other times, Iruka-sensei or Kakashi-sensei would pay for him, but when he could Naruto would pay for the ramen himself, from the money he earned from the missions. Ryō is the currency in the Naruto series and later is changed to yen. We do not know for sure how much Ichiraku Ramen costs in Naruto but according to SoraNews24, who actually visited real-life Ichiraku Ramen in Japan, reported that Naruto’s favorite meal Miso Chashu Pork ramen cost 850 yen, which is about $8.50.
The SoraNews crew visited Ramen Ichiraku in Japan in 2016, and since then the prices probably changed. If we had to guess, since Naruto is still popular and Boruto series still has Ichiraku Ramen in its show, we would not be surprised if the price of ramen increased. However, we won’t speculate without any proof.
Is There a Real Ichiraku Ramen and What Are the Locations of It?
As we already mentioned, Fukuoka in Japan is the location of the original Ichiraku Ramen, which inspired Masashi Kishimoto for the version of the shop in the series. Near the station Kishimoto visited, there was a ramen shop that was unfortunately closed years ago but a few branches including the Hakata area are still open.
The shop offers cool references to the series and cutlery and other equipments are having Naruto characters displayed on them. Naruto anime is popular all over the world so it is not surprising that a lot of fans of the show or entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to capitalize on the series.
There are probably dozens of different versions of Ichiraku Ramen shops opened all over the world, with countries like the U.S. and China being included in that group. There is even a whole theme park dedicated to Naruto, with a replica of Konohagakure from the series.
There is one in Shanghai, and if you research a bit, there is one Ichiraku Noodle shop located in Ohio, United States. The other one is located in El Monte, California, and Orlando, Florida. Every restaurant brings Naruto references with its signature ramen menu and we got to say, if you are into that, you will love it.
For example, the Shangai Ichiraku Ramen plays Naruto openings in the shop, and workers wear uniforms that Teuchi and his daughter Ayame wear in the anime and signature signs that say Ichiraku Ramen. It is a full-blown replica of it, while Americans were a bit more reserved.
They did keep the signs and a few Naruto characters displayed over the walls, with an open kitchen, however, workers do not have replicas of the Naruto uniforms. All in all, there are a lot of restaurants with Ichiraku Ramen signs on them all over the world but these are most loyal to the original one.
What is the Real Name of Ichiraku Ramen?
The real-life places that inspired artists while creating their projects are usually very recognizable since they do not think of the names that much. For example, on one FiveM server on Grand Theft Auto Online, the creator of the server put UKoil gas station which is a direct reference to the real-life gas station franchise called Lukoil.
Masashi Kishimoto did not think that much and took the same name of the shop that inspired him and just reversed the order of the words in the name. This means that real-life Ramen Ichiraku inspired Konoha’s ramen shop called Ichiraku Ramen. To be fair, even though Kishimoto did not bang his head on the wall for thinking about the name of the restaurants, the name became legendary and a huge part of popular culture, so kudos to Kishimoto for that.
