'Sushi' is about the rice, not the raw fish.

The word 'sushi' is about the rice

Sushi means the rice — rice dressed with vinegar, the seasoning that gives the whole family its name. JNTO's guide is explicit that the pairing can be seafood, egg or vegetables, and that the topping may be raw or cooked; a prawn boiled pink or a slab of sweet omelette on vinegared rice is still sushi. Source: JNTO guide to sushi in Japan (opens in a new tab).

The dish also has a history of shapes: Japan's agriculture ministry traces the line from nare-zushi — fish preserved through fermented rice — through haya-zushi and the pressed oshi-zushi to the hand-formed nigiri style most menus lead with today. Ingredients and preparation vary by region and recipe, which is why any term list is a map, not a law. Source: MAFF sushi reference (opens in a new tab).

Keep two consequences in your pocket: "sushi" never meant raw fish, and nothing about the word certifies what the fish on top is or how it was handled. Both come back at the end of this guide.

Nigiri: hand-pressed with a topping

Nigiri is the form most people picture: a small hand-moulded mound of vinegared rice with a topping laid across it — JNTO describes exactly that shape, and MAFF's reference calls nigiri-zushi vinegared rice topped with ingredients such as tuna, prawns or egg. Source: JNTO guide to sushi in Japan (opens in a new tab) Source: MAFF sushi reference (opens in a new tab).

The identifying cue is the structure: an oval rice base you could pick up, a topping draped or pressed on top, usually one piece per mouthful. If the fish is sitting on rice, you are looking at nigiri — whatever the topping happens to be.

The salmon nigiri field note is the site's worked example of one piece, with the usual reminder that a photo of it cannot tell you how the fish was prepared.

Maki: rolled

Maki is the rolled form: rice and fillings wrapped together, most often in a sheet of nori seaweed, then sliced into the round pieces menus call maki rolls or norimaki. JNTO's description is the structure again — ingredients and rice rolled, usually in nori. Source: JNTO guide to sushi in Japan (opens in a new tab).

The visual cue is the seam and the cross-section: rice and filling appear as rings inside the seaweed, not on top of anything. A roll cut into six pieces with the nori on the outside is maki; the same idea rolled rice-out is the inside-out cousin menus list under its own names.

Because the rice is inside the wrap, maki photographs read differently from nigiri — and both differ again from the no-rice category below.

Sashimi: no rice at all

Sashimi is the one word on this list that is not sushi, and JNTO says so directly: it is sliced raw fish or seafood served without rice — no vinegared rice, so no sushi, whatever the plate's company. Source: JNTO guide to sushi in Japan (opens in a new tab).

The identifying cue is absence: slices presented alone, perhaps with garnish or dipping soy, but no rice mound underneath and no seaweed wrap. If you can pick up the slice and there is no rice attached to it, the word you want is sashimi.

This is also where the safety line bites hardest — sashimi is the raw-fish question in its purest form, which is exactly the one the next-but-one section hands over to the dedicated guide.

Chirashi, temaki and the rest briefly

A few more names cover the same rice in other arrangements. Chirashi-zushi scatters toppings over a bowl of vinegared rice rather than shaping it — JNTO describes it as toppings placed over rice, not rolled. Temaki is the hand roll — a cone of nori wrapped by hand around rice and fillings — and oshi-zushi, the pressed form from the western part of the country, compresses rice and toppings in a mould, which MAFF lists among sushi's historical forms. Source: JNTO guide to sushi in Japan (opens in a new tab) Source: MAFF sushi reference (opens in a new tab).

Menus grow their own local variations — both sources stress that forms and ingredients differ by region and recipe — so treat these names as the common vocabulary, not a universal menu law. A restaurant is always entitled to name its own dishes; the terms are a reading key, not a standard it must follow.

What a photo can and can't tell about the fish

A photo can genuinely help with the naming half of this guide: the structural cues — rice mound, seaweed wrap, scattered bowl, bare slices — are the visible kind, so a lookup may suggest a likely form, and it can just as well hedge or ask for more context when the plate does not separate cleanly. Treat the answer as a reading key, not a verdict.

The naming is where the photo's competence ends. It cannot confirm the species of fish, how the fish was frozen or handled, or whether it is safe to eat raw — none of that is visible, and "the menu called it sushi" is not evidence either. For that question the site keeps a separate guide: 'sushi-grade' and raw-fish safety covers what the label does and does not guarantee and who actually answers the safety question.

So the loop is: name with the photo, decide with the guide. Identifying the shape is the fun part — the fish's history is decided by the kitchen that served it. The photo guide states the full boundary once more, in general form.