#hyougorou

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! I hope you are doing well. In chapter 921 p. 1 Kiku mentions that the capital residents hail Kaido as a wise king or a deity (different translations) Is that the same term that Hyogoru uses to describe Gear Forth Luffy? Thank you.

it is!! holy shit, good catch. i had totally forgotten about that line. 

yeah, the word she uses to describe the way kaidou is revered and celebrated as a guardian of the country, 明王/myouou, is the same as hyougorou uses in chapter 990 on seeing gear four luffy! to quote my explanation of the word from that post, “the word refers to the buddhist wisdom kings, or ‘vidyaraja.’ they generally function as protectors and guardians of buddhism, and are the wrathful manifestations of the buddhas.”

guess we know who the true protector of wano is, huh? 

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

You’ve mentioned a few times the Jinbe is often referred as ‘oyabun’ which means Boss/Chief and is commonly associated with Yakuza. Are hyougorou and the other Yakuza leaders of Wano referred to the same way?

hyogorou and kyoshirou are indeed both referred to as 親分/oyabun as a title of respect! the wano yakuza bosses are actually the only characters besides jinbe who are regularly referred to it as an honorific- ie, appended to their names. 

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! On page 13 of the ch990, Hyogoro says Gear 4 Luffy reminds him of a “guardian deity” in the official translation. I can’t find it again but I could’ve sworn he said something different in the translation I saw first. Is that an accurate wording? Thank you!

ah, so that’s how they did it! yeah, that’ll be a result of viz assuming (probably correctly, it must be said) that their american readers don’t have much background knowledge of buddhism, hahahaha. 

in japanese, the wording is more specific; the word used is actually 明王/myouou, which refers to the buddhist wisdom kings, or ‘vidyaraja.’ they generally function as protectors and guardians of buddhism, and are the wrathful manifestations of the buddhas. 

portrayals vary, but they’re almost always depicted as being wreathed in flames:

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

the kanji on the back of hyougorou’s jacket is 豹/hyou, meaning ‘panther,’ and matching the pronunciation of the first half of his name.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

You've mentioned that multiple characters refer to Jinbe as oyabun, or boss/chief. What level of respect is oyabun? For instance, you've mentioned that Arlong made fun of Jinbe for it because it made him sound like a mobster, so is it more like a gang/criminal word, or would an employee refer to their employer as such?

it is respectful, but it’s also... kind of a yakuza word. like, not inherently, technically it just means ‘boss,’ but it’s got that association, especially when used as a suffix/honorific. i’m pretty sure you wouldn’t call your actual boss at work like that unless they had a healthy sense of humor. 

like, for reference, the other characters i can think of off the top of my head who have it used appended right to their names as a sign of respect like jinbe are kyoshirou and hyougorou, aka The Actual Yakuza.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

i'm not sure if this is correct cause it's just what i've heard from watching anime, but is anta a more masucline way of saying anata? i'm not even 100% what both of those words mean but i heard hyogoro call luffy anta and it sounded like when those motherly/mature female characters say anata to people

well first of all, anta and anata are both ways of saying ‘you.’ its less that anta is more masculine and more that its just more casual? like it’s very commonly used by less-politely spoken women in one piece (for example, nami uses it as her standard, whereas the more formal robin uses anata). anata isn’t inherently feminine either, to be clear, it’s just polite, and more commonly used by women. 

politeness-wise anta is somewhere between anata and omae (which is masculine and rude/hostile, and is the standard used by a lot of men in one piece) so if a male character wants to express some respect towards a person while still not being too formal he might use anta, which is the case with hyougorou and luffy. another example of this can be seen with law, who uses omae for everyone else, but uses anta for corazon and sengoku.