Bleach Vocabulary

By ken cannon - 7:20 PM

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 Kurosaki
Ichigo





Shinigami (死神) - Death God/Soul Reapers 


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.


soul reaper
Yes, souls are shiny





Tamashii (魄) - Soul


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


Spiritual Pressure
Exploding "Reiatsu"




Reiatsu (圧) - Spiritual Pressure 


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.


Ken Cannon
Sharp Ken
Soul Cutter
Another sharp "ken"




Ken (剣) = ME/Sword


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...


13th Division
Captain of the 13th Squad




Taichou (隊長) - Captain


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


9th Division Vice Captain
9th Division Lieutenant




Fuku Taichou (隊長) - Vice captain / 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..


A Hollow Mask
Ichigo's Hollow Mask




Kamen (仮面) - Mask


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


Captains of the different divisions
The 13 Divisions


___ ban tai (隊) - Divisions/Squads

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

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