We think we know, in Hawaii, what a musubi is. But from a Japanese perspective, our understanding of this island favorite is pretty pathetic.

We use bad rice. We top it with odd, un-Japanese, often fattening ingredients. We rarely make them for ourselves. We buy them dry or gummy and have no idea these popular snacks needn’t be that way. We don’t even treat them with the respect of calling them by their rightful name.

All this, Manabu Asaoka, owner of Mana Bu’s Hawaii’s Musubi Headquarters, reveals in a humble, almost apologetic, yet passionate way.

Older Japanese will recall when rice balls were routinely called o-nigiri (OH-nee-gee-ree; rolling the "r" and reciting the syllables so swiftly they meld).

But since the mid-’80s, when the Spam musubi (moo-soo-bee) single-handedly revived the canned lunchmeat industry here and became one of the No. 1 go-to, no-time snacks, it’s been musubi. In Japan: o-musubi.

The "o" is an honorific, meaning honorable, respected, important.

Manabu, as he likes to be called, came to Hawaii in 2005, a burned-out insurance underwriter, with his nutritionist wife, Fumiyo. They wanted to live overseas and introduce authentic and more healthful Japanese okazu (delicatessen) favorites to another culture. They settled on the islands because of our already Japan-friendly food scene.

Speaking elemental English with a pronounced accent, they were able to negotiate the ins and outs of opening a small business. But both Manabu and Fumiyo found Japanese-style food here disappointing: "heavy, lots of deep-fried, greasy tempura, oversalted, oversugared," said Manabu.

It starts with rice.

"Over here, rice is not respected," Manabu said. "People love rice but they got junk rice."

Also vegetables: In Japan, cooked vegetables, salad mixtures and house-made pickles are common in any okazu, and most are not deep-fried. Think seasonal. Fresh. Delicate.

He reminisced. In autumn, mushrooms. In spring, new greens, often white or celadon green. In summer, refreshing cucumber. In winter, pumpkin and sweet potato.

"We wanted to do that style," he said of the business the couple opened in August 2008.

At first Mana Bu’s, a tiny storefront at 1618 S. King St., offered a full range of 12 to 14 okazu items, a few desserts, a dozen or so omusubi. Sales: 90 percent omusubi.

Now it’s down to a handful of vegetable dishes and desserts. And omusubi number 35 varieties a day, each labeled with ingredients and — key point — the variety of rice used. It’s most often Tamanishiki premium short-grain rice, but others appear when supply and expense allow.

Spam musubi? He makes a "lite" version. But, he said, there is no such thing in Japan, and if there were, it would be high-priced because imported canned goods are expensive. And anyway, Japanese feel about Spam the way most of us feel about Tokyo’s famous natto (fermented soybeans, the texture of which is an acquired taste).

Many islanders recall Mom made onigiri as family-goes-to-the-beach food: salty little triangles hiding a seeded ume plum and wrapped in a strip of nori.

Manabu recalled omusubi as an everyday school lunch but especially favored for field trips, such as a long hike he once took. The musubi was so fresh it could stand up to a 1,000-meter (about 3,200-foot) climb in a backpack, he said.

Inside: ume, a bit of salty salmon, kombu (kelp), tarako (salted fish roe) or katsuoboshi (dried, smoked shaved bonito fish) — all ingredients chosen not just for flavor, but for their salty powers of preservation.

And this was before fancy bento and the whole dressing up of food as Pokemon or Hello Kitty, which he said have nothing to do with cooking and more to do with a housewife’s creativity.

Sekihan (azuki bean and rice mixture) omusubi were for celebrations: birthdays, New Year’s, weddings, special times with elders.

Shape was, and is, important. Most common is a triangle; his mom shaped hers without a mold, as most did then. Round balls were reserved for funerals. There were no rectangular shapes, like our deck-of-cards Spam and fried-chicken musubi.

But above all, there was perfectly prepared rice.

Bad rice, bad onigiri.

Japanese buy the most expensive, regionally labeled rice they can afford. An everyday favorite is Koshihikari from Uonuma, near Niigata prefecture, famed for its rice-growing, Manabu said.

Rice for onigiri or omusubi (he speculates the names are regional, but they are interchangeable): "Texture is most important. The rice must be broken in the mouth without biting." That means tender, starchy, almost creamy and burn-the-hands-hot when the onigiri chef begins forming it.

"Each grain must be perfectly cooked," he said. That requires the right proportion of water to rice and a high-quality induction heating rice cooker, one that takes 60 to 70 minutes to ever-so-slowly steam the rice (Zojirushi and Tiger brands are favored).

The Asaokas (Manabu and Fumiyo are the sole cooks) turn on the rice cookers at 20-minute intervals so that one is always just finished as they work frantically in the wee morning hours before opening time at 6:30 a.m. weekdays (or by special order).

The rice is gently ladled into a bowl, then tenderly piled into a mold, filling nestled in the center. It’s finished delicately by hand to smooth the triangular points. An entire pot can be dressed up in nori within 20 minutes.

Manabu uses a phalanx of five residential rice cookers, making nine cups each. The full menu is on the shelf by 8 a.m. and generally picked over by noon. The shop closes at 1, shelves empty.

Though brown rice is not much used in Japan (it brings back unhappy memories of World War II deprivation), brown rice musubi and musubi made with Manabu’s signature 12-grain mix are popular with health-conscious islanders.

Manabu finds the classic calrose-variety rice in Hawaii too dry, too old. "Cargo handling is not good. Storage is not good," he said.

In Japan, premium rice is dated, held in controlled-atmosphere conditions, bagged in high-quality material, and anything over a couple of months old generally gets snubbed. Premium new-crop rice has 10 percent more water content than American rice, Manabu said.

"People (in Japan) are very sensitive about rice quality. In Hawaii (he pauses, searches for a word), not."

Why would a master of omusubi share his secrets with potential customers?

"Fumiyo and I believe that making lunch for your kids is important communication, and making musubi is simple and fun if you practice little bit. Anybody can do it."