For example, 蠍 is written as サソリ. Even if they use the Kanji in text, they add furigana above it rather than letting the audience themselves decipher the meaning. It’s the same with 榊 (サカキ), 仙人掌 (サボテン), 百足 (ムカデ), 蟻 (アリ), 鰐 (ワニ), you get the picture. Why can’t they just write them in Kanji without furigana in the same frequency as encountering 本 or 日 upon encountering texts containing these types of words?
In Japanese, when distinguishing between biological organisms, it is customary to write them in katakana.
For example, the biological organism referred to as “人間 / human” is always written as “Hito / ヒト” in katakana.
However, in the case of food products, there is sometimes a convention of writing them in kanji.
For example, in the case of the character for “fish /魚 ,” the meaning of the fish is embedded in the kanji (example: 鰻 / eel), which can make it seem more appetizing.
person A: why does rule X exist?
person B: There is a rule which is X.
jk 🤣
I wonder if it’d be more likely for an uncommon animal product to have kanji or kana. Like would the packaging for alligator/crocodile be ワニ or 鰐.
I think because so many fish are commonly eaten people get used to a lot of the kanji but anecdotally there are lots that are still very common in kana on food packages like イカ、ヒラメ、ソイ etc