#kanjurou

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Sooo... without spoiling anything, you know anyone who called the Wano traitor right?

i do! i have a friend who was liveblogging through wano a few months back who hit it right on the head

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

God the revelation that Shinobu and Kanjurou spend this whole conversation trying desperately to figure out who Tonoyasu is is SO funny

Because he addresses them (as well as the other Akazaya Nine) with the diminutive/familiar honorifics 君/kun and ちゃん/chan, which would mean he either is very well acquainted with them and/or is ranked above them, and either way it would be SUPER RUDE to admit they don’t know who he is

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Kanjurou identifies himself with それがし/soregashi, which, like Kin’emon’s 拙者/sessha, is an archaic pronoun that was mostly used by samurai. However, while sessha literally means something like ‘my humble/clumsy self,’ the alternate/literal meaning of soregashi is something like ‘an unknown person.’

I just thought that was interesting.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

A while back when you made the post about Kanjuro's name not having any meaning I was rolling cuz IF YOU ONLY KNEW. Like his name *does* reflect his personality (or the lack of it rather) like damn Oda's name game is on point as usual. Btw any thoughts on the Kanjuro reveal?

bold of you to assume i didn’t!

i also pointed out back during dressrosa that kanjurou uses a different personal pronoun than all the other akazaya- while the rest of them use 拙者/sessha, literally ‘my humble/clumsy self,’ kanjurou uses それがし/soregashi, a likewise antiquated samurai pronoun that literally means something more like ‘an unknown person’ or ‘someone/so-and-so.’ 

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

So in chapter 974 page 5 (i think). There’s a flashback where Orochi is recruiting Kanjuro. Little Kanjuro says “I’ve always been searching for the right place to bury my bones.” (I wrote it out in case the picture doesn’t load right). Is this more directly translated? Cause to my English it read a little stilted? Thank you for your hard work! - @msnewvegas

it’s actually more literal in japanese- what he says in the original is 死場所を探してた/shinibasho wo sagashiteta, literally “I’ve been searching for a/my place to die.” they just made it a bit more poetic in the english- as a native english speaker, i wouldn’t call ‘bury my bones’ stilted so much as just a little unusual. 

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Both Kin’emon and Kanjurou have their epithets based after weather phenomenon! Kanjurou’s is 夕立ち/yuudachi, which is a sudden evening shower. Kin’emon’s gets lost in translation, but ‘Fox-fire’ (狐火/kitsunebi) is the Japanese term for ball lightning/Saint Elmo’s fire. It makes me kind of curious about the other Red Scabbards and if any of them continue the theme.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

You've talked about the meaning behind some of the samurais'/Wano names - does Kanjuro have any particular meaning (or pun)?

not that i’m aware of- and i kind of find that interesting in and of itself?

all of the other akazaya nine, and really nigh-on every wano native we’ve met so far, has got some kind of meaning in their names. kin’emon, toki, and tama’s reference their powers, momonosuke and oden follow a food name theme (and momonosuke is probably also a momotarou reference), and even those that are less direct in their relevance do have a meaning (kiku- chrysanthemum, tsuru- crane, raizou- lightning, etc). 

but kanjurou just kinda... doesn’t? that i can tell? his name is written as カン十郎/kanjuurou, with the kan written in katakana, which have no inherent meaning (and kan is a very common sound in japanese that could mean any number of things), and the juurou just being a rather generic name ending. it doesn’t really mean anything. 

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

I noticed that the characters have their names written in katakana. Have you ever seen Oda use kanji for naming his characters?

Yep! It’s come up a few times on this blog. Usually kanji are only used in the names of the characters from Wano, usually in combination with katakana and/or hiragana: 錦えもん/kin’emon, カン十郎/kanjuurou, モモの助/momonosuke.

Also, Sentomaru also has his name in kanji, for no reason that I can discern.