We see many different kinds of Japanese oriented foods featured in anime a lot. So this page will focus on some commonly featured foods that I noticed were eaten a lot in various anime series. ^_^
Featured a lot in Fruits Basket especially, this is a snack of Japanese rice formed into triangle or oval shapes and usually wrapped in nori or seaweed. They can also be eaten plain as Chihiro eats it in Spirited Away, in Rurouni Kenshin, or as Kyo is eating it above. But traditionally, the onigiri is filled with umeboshi or pickled ume (Japanese plum/apricot), salted salmon, or any other salty or sour ingredient. Vinegar or pickled filling is usually used for preservation of the rice. Since the onigiri is one of the most popular snacks in Japan, most convenience stores in Japan sell onigiri in many variety of flavors.
Appearing in Fruits Basket and Pretear, Mochi (Moh-chee) is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into a round shape and usually filled with sweet red bean paste. It can be a yummy sweet snack, but a bit difficult to eat at times, because of how sticky rice paste is. But despite that, it's a very tasty selection for dessert or a snack.
In Fruits Basket, they are dubbed as "jelly-buns." And as you can see, it's filled with sweet red bean filling as demonstrated by Tohru XD. And in Pretear, Hayate decides to test Himeko's "endurance" by setting a bunch of various mouth-watering sweets on the table seeing how long she can last without touching them. Evidently, she couldn't resist soon after and the first thing she reached for was the mochi, which Hayate slapped her hand away from. ^_^;
These tasty looking snacks that you might often see anime characters eating are called Kushi-Dango, which are skewered sweet Japanese dumplings made from rice flour. These can be sticky but also filling, and is often served or eaten with green tea. Usually three to four dango are served on each skewer. And there are also many different varieties of dango which are usually named after the various seasonings it has. But the most popular seems to be the ones featured in the images above, which are slightly grilled then stuck through a skewer and brushed or covered with mitarashi, which is a syrup made from soy sauce, sugar, and starch.
The first image above is from when Hanajima of Fruits Basket serves the Prince Yuki Fan Club a big plate of kushi-dango as a snack with tea when they came to visit her house. And the second is when Allen Walker from D.Gray-Man asks the chef to make him an abundance of kushi-dangos as one of his desserts after the many other things he requested for his meal, but instead he calls them 'Mitarashi Dango,' since he wants his kushi-dango covered in mitarashi.
Here we see Megumi from Fruits Basket eating some and Mahoro from Mahoromatic eating the plain kind. You may also see Anko from Naruto snacking on these or even see them a lot in Samurai Champloo.
When I saw these for the first time, I had no idea they were supposed to be sweet, but rather that they were some kind of octopus balls or something made from meat into the shape of a ball. I guess I was wrong afterall, but they still look and taste delicious. ^_^
Probably featured in almost every anime that relates to school or when students or workers are having lunch, especially in Card Captor Sakura. Bento is a packed meal that consists of a variety of foods such as rice, fish, meat, or pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. The more nutritional and well-balanced the meal is, the better. A common bento consists of rice to side dishes in a 1:1 ratio, and within the side dishes a 1:2 ratio of fish, meat and vegetables.
It's also very common for highschool girls to make a bento box for a boy they like as a sign of affection, such as Aya from Tenjou Tenge, however, her approach is more forceful, since Nagi is so stubborn and refuses to eat it from her. ^_^;
Tamagoyaki is a Japanese omelet usually served for breakfast and are often included as one of the additions in a bento box. There are many different kinds of tamagoyaki, but they are usually rolled and a little sweet and salty. The egg is usually made in a rectangular shaped pan and cooked in separate layers one by one and rolled together when each is done. It is then usually sliced into smaller pieces as shown below.
Sukiyaki is a very popular pot meal in Japan, which is great for parties and gatherings. It just requires you to cut the ingredients and then place them in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin, while it slowly cooks and simmers. You can eat while you cook it, especially when certain items are finished cooking first. Guests can also serve themselves with chopsticks as they all eat out of the same pot, so it doesn't require much work in the kitchen. The ingredients in sukiyaki usually consists of thin sliced beef, tofu, Chinese cabbage, enokitake mushrooms, boiled udon noodles, and other ingredients.
Probably the food Japan is most known for. Whenever I think about sushi featured in anime, the series that first comes to mind is The Prince of Tennis. >_> I swear they make the sushi so delicious looking, I always crave for it whenever I see the Seigaku team members eating it at Kawamura's father's sushi restaurant, or maybe I'm just really obsessed with sushi XD. Sushi has also been shown in Rurouni Kenshin during the "celebration" everyone throws in episode 23. Sadly, a plate of them has been dropped, because of Suzume (I think that's her name) being a bit careless while carrying them, but she's just a little girl, so she's not to blame. ^_^;
Sushi is vinegared rice topped or mixed with various fresh ingredients, which are usually fish or seafood. The ingredients are also often wrapped in nori, which is dried seaweed pressed into sheets. I noticed the Seigaku members don't eat them with any soy sauce, and if they do, it's extremely rare, they just eat it as it is, so I am assuming that's the way you're supposed to eat it in Japan, but maybe many people have their own way of eating sushi.
In episode 101 of Prince of Tennis, Oishi suggests Kawamura to make wasabi sushi to cheer everyone up for the tournament against Rikkaidai, as shown above. Wasabi is a really spicy Japanese horeseradish, greenish in color, that is used as a spice with an extremely strong flavor. It's usually served to protect the flavor and from evaporation, so often sushi chefs would put this between the rice and raw fish. Wasabi is normally not used in such huge amounts, because of the intensity of the spice, so it's no wonder the Seigaku members looked like they were going into shock after eating it. However, Fuji seemed like the only one who ate it calmly and really enjoyed the taste. ^_^
You might have come across these fish shaped snacks at one point in an anime. They are called Taiyaki, which are Japanese fish-shaped cakes commonly filled with red bean paste. Other common fillings are custard, chocolate, and cheese. Taiyaki is made using taiyaki or regular pancake or waffle batter. The batter is poured into a fish-shaped mold for each side and the filling is then put on one side and the mold is closed. It is then cooked on both sides until golden brown.
This treat has been frequently featured in the anime Kanon, since taiyaki is Ayu Tsukimiya's favorite food. She loves it so much there's even a figurine of her holding eating a whole bag of them as shown. ^_^
Even in Matantei Loki Ragnarok, Frey is seen with a whole bag of them and offers some to Heimdall XD, who reluctantly gives in and takes one. It's just too good to resist. ^_^
The very popular and well-known snack, especially among Japanese teenagers. A biscuit stick originally coated with chocolate, but now can be found in so many other varieties of flavors, such as strawberry, almond, banana, coconut, caramel, etc. It was named "Pocky" after the Japanese onomatopoeic word for the sound Pocky makes when bitten, which is pokkin. Not only is it very popular in Japan, but it's also frequently sold in other East Asian countries such as China and South Korea.
Several anime that I came across so far that featured Pocky was in Card Captor Sakura where Kero would sometimes snack on them; and in Gravitation where Shuichi and Hiro would sometimes be seen eating it, Onegai Teacher, Getbackers, a glimpse of it in the beginning of Spirited Away; and in episode 10 of the X CLAMP series where Yuzuriha Nekoi eats from a Pocky box labeled "Rocky", which is actually the Malaysian version name for Pocky. They can also be found in many other anime, manga and doujinshi.
