Hey its Ken Cannon here, and I've been wanting to start a series of blog posts teaching certain anime series' "specific vocabulary words". Words that, if you are learning Japanese, you just can't do without if you're watching that show. And of course, they're not your typical textbook material.


So starting off with one of the biggest series out there, Bleach.

Ichigo

This word is the most obvious, and as a result, most of you may already know of it. It's made up of the kanji  死 (shi) or death and the kanji for god 神 (kami).


This is a somewhat recently popular mystical character and you can find other verisions in the series Death Note, Full Moon Wo Sagashite, and Soul Eater.

Yes, souls are shiny

Souls are to Bleach as toilet paper is to a toilet, you can't have one without the other.

Exploding "Reiatsu"

Not really a real word in Japan, but since its used so much in Bleach I had to include it. Think of Chakra in Naruto.

Sharp Ken

Another sharp "ken"

Yes my name also means sword, which is why I’m so sharp (oh, oh, see what I did there?)


Anyways, "zanpakutou" (斬魄刀) is what most people in bleach call their sword, literally - "soul-cutter sword", but they will use the word for sword as well so you should know it.. or maybe I just wanted to show off my mildly, really, actually, not all that cool, name...

Captain of the 13th Squad

Probably the most spoken Bleach specific word. Everybody loves to talk to about their "Taichou."

9th Division Lieutenant

Probably the 2nd most spoken Bleach specific word, everybody also loves to talk about their "Fuku-Taichou"... but not as not much as their "taichou"... but still quite a lot... ok yeah that's enough..

Ichigo's Hollow Mask

You’ll hear this word a lot in the Visored episodes, since people tend to have a lot of masks there.

The 13 Divisions

So For example...


1st division = Ichi ban tai


Ichi = 1
Ban=  “#” sign
Tai = Division


So you simply replace the ____ with the number of the division you're in.


Ichi- 1
Ni- 2
San- 3
Yon - 4
Go - 5
Roku - 6
Shichi - 7
Hachi - 8
Kyuu - 9
Jyuu - 10
Juu ichi - 11
Juu ni - 12
Juu san - 13


So that's it for now, for more Bleach related content come over to my newsletter.

Ken Cannon