The Many Meanings of Toppa
In Italian, “prendere una toppa” means “to get drunk”
There’s a book entitled Toppa Mono about a Japanese yakuza
(gangster), which has this definition of Toppa:
“The word suggests 'bulldozing one’s
way through,' so a toppamono is
someone with a devil-may-care
attitude who pushes ahead
regardless… Toppa means being
single-minded and bullheaded once
you’ve decided your course of action,
and as such it has both a positive and
negative side. It’s negative if the
person is too single-minded to
recognize that his actions are having
an adverse effect. But it’s positive if
he holds his own and stays the course.
At any event, toppa describes a man
who charges forward without actually
knowing where he is going. Given family considerations and social
conventions [in Japan], it’s very hard to be toppa. But a small
number stubbornly succeed, and while their reckless behavior is
regarded with disdain, it also earns them a certain respect.”
There's a Japanese chocolate candy called Toppo that was renamed
Toppa for a few months in 2007. And there's a Kellogg's cereal
called Toppas that's available in certain European countries.
Lower Toppa and Upper Toppa are districts in Pakistan (sometimes
spelled Topa).
UrbanDictionary.com defines Toppa as “a dirty cop dipping his
hands in the drug game.”
There's a polka by Italian composer Guiseppe Silvestrini called La
Toppa
In San Donato, Italy, there's the restaurant Trattoria La Toppa
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a popular
anime (cartoon) in Japan (literally
"Heaven-Piercing Gurren Lagann"). In
addition to the Toppa Mono meaning,
Toppa can also mean “pierce” or
“breakthrough” in Japanese. The Kanji for
Toppa is 突破