Hollow Terms and Names

[masamuneehs]

to dris
good attempt at justifying your logic.

however, i'm still rather sure that the word itself, "Grande", connotating both the terms 'grand' and 'large/immense' manages to work WHICHEVER way people decide to translate it as. i think of it as meaning 'Great Minus' for Espada members, and 'Big/Huge Minus' for lesser Gillians of larger physical size.

the mangaka's original intent is almost washed by the fact that he designed 'Menos' with small physical frames, (yet huge Reiatsu/power), but the original definition of a Menos Grande does not become any less true. Did any of the Soul Society people even know of the existance of Espade type Hollows before learning from Aizen's Arrancar? If so, it makes sense that the term 'Menos Grande' could simply be decoded to signifying 'A big/nasty Hollow', as far as SS is concerned, capturing the giant Gillians and the compact Espada.

that's why semantics is an art and not a science.

[XanBcoo]

Teh internet is serious business!

RyougaZell and you dismissed "Great Minus" because of grammar, but I'm dismissing "Big Minus" because of definition.

You're defining the term backwards. I still stand by my reasoning that "Grande" doesn't actually mean "great" even if Tite Kubo isn't a master at Spanish. Whatever though, look at it the way you want to. Overall, the meaning and intent is reasonably clear.

[Munsu]

I'm inclined to think that "Menos Grande" is only used to reffer to the Gillian type of Menos. Menos Grande seems to be used to identify a unique class among the Menos, the Gillians, in SS... else they could've simpy use Menos, no need for Kubo to add the Grande portion to identify them if the term characterizes all types of Menos.

That aside, the Kanji used for Menos Grande is 大虚 (dai kyo), which means Big Emptiness. So there you go, now we can put to rest the intended meaning.

[XanBcoo]

"Emptiness" as in... "Hollow"?

Pretty bizarre how Kubo uses the Spanish word "Hueco" (literally "Hollow") to refer to Hueco Mundo, the Hollow world, but decided to use the word "Menos" ("Minus"), the opposite of Plus (the good spirits), as a translation for Hollows, the monsters. Perhaps it's because Menoses, after all, are separate beings from your run-of-the-mill Hollow.

Or I guess "Menos Mundo" just sounded a bit too silly for his tastes...

[Munsu]

Yes, emptiness as in hollow, same kanji is used.

He doesn't use Menos as a translation for Hollows, that's simply the meaning of the kanji. Menos are a type of Hollow. You have to seperate the meaning of the names and acknowledge that they are just that, names... just like I'm Munsu and you're XanBcoo regardless of the meanings the names have.

So, Menos Grande doesn't really mean "Big Minus" or "Big Hollow" for that matter in the world of Bleach... it means just a "Big Menos" hence why I'm inclined to believe that it is only used for the Gillian-class, the biggest among the Menos-type hollows.

Basically we have a bunch of terms that share the same meaning, yet reffer to different things, but in Bleach they don't substitute each other.

[XanBcoo]

Right, I understood all that, I was just making the connection between the Spanish words he used and the Kanji used, all 3 roughly referring to the same concept. It was a half-hearted attempt at a joke .

So out of curiosity, if he uses the Kanji for "Hollow" to refer to Menoses, what's the Kanji he uses for lesser/common Hollows?

[Munsu]

Yeah I figured after I had posted, and revised my post a bit to reflect what you meant, but I had already written all that so kept most of it.

I think they use the same Kanji. I haven't found the Kanji for when "Menos" is used alone, but the Kanji used for the menos portion in "Menos Grande" is the same as the one used for "Hollow". This is all a mess.

[dsparil]

You're defining the term backwards. I still stand by my reasoning that "Grande" doesn't actually mean "great" even if Tite Kubo isn't a master at Spanish. Whatever though, look at it the way you want to. Overall, the meaning and intent is reasonably clear.

I'm defining the terms backwards for the same reason you say "red car" and not "car red". I understand that the original intent meant big, and I'm not saying that you are wrong either, but after the story developed further, there might be a new intent attached to it.

Yeah I figured after I had posted, and revised my post a bit to reflect what you meant, but I had already written all that so kept most of it.

I think they use the same Kanji. I haven't found the Kanji for when "Menos" is used alone, but the Kanji used for the menos portion in "Menos Grande" is the same as the one used for "Hollow". This is all a mess.

Do you think he will ever be interviewed to clarify these questions?

[Munsu]

No, no need. It's actually very clear and simple, you simply need to have an understanding of Japanese and it's alphabets to get the whole picture. I'm pretty sure that if you get the raw manga, you would see the terms written in Katakana with an underscript or something with the kanji of the intended meaning, or something along those lines.

If someone can hunt down a raw page from the manga were Menos Grande is mentioned, it should all become more clear.

[Mizuchi]

Espada means "Sword" in spanish.

Why does Tito or w.e use spanish and random times when referring to hollow things. Like those low class arrancar (also a spanish term) numbered themselves in spanish. I mean if this was real japanese world and the arrancar talking in japanese, and all the sudden he says a spanish number, wouldn't ichigo and friends just be like, wtf y dont u just count in japanese.

[Munsu]

Why does he do it? Because he can. This is not solely set in "real Japanese" world.

[Kraco]

It's not like this was the first anime ever to use foreign elements of an arbitrary kind. Anime series are filled with random English (or should I say Engrish) terminology, or German, so why not Spanish as well?

They sound cool. That's reason enough. I don't know how they sound like to native Spanish speakers, but I bet for the Japanese people they are exotic and nice sounding. And as a Finnish speaker I gladly agree.

[Southpaw+extra]

On Menos Grande, I believe it means "The Smallest"


I'm currently in my second semester of Spanish, and I just came across a section on superlatives. These are defined by dictionary.com as:

"2. Grammar. of, pertaining to, or noting the highest degree of the comparison of adjectives and adverbs, as smallest, best, and most carefully, the superlative forms of small, good, and carefully."

(accent marks will be left off due to technical reasons)

Examples straight out of my college text book are "Es el cafe mas rico del pais." Which is "It's the most delicious coffee in the country"

("Rico" in this context of food is "delicious" and "mas" is "the most")

"Es el menu menos caro de todos estos" or "It is the least expensive menu of all of these"

"Menos" is "the least" in this context.


If we change the adjective "caro" to something like "grande" it should look like this:
"Es el menu menos grande de todos estos" it would then become "It is the smallest menu of all of these.
---

And that is how I came to believe they are the smallest. If I remember correctly, the Menos Grande are also the weakest of their class, so it might "the weakest" at the same time at poking fun at it's size, though this is based on nothing more than my own (course unrelated) conjecture.

Any thoughts?

[RyougaZell]

Gramatically, yes.
Bleach directed? Dunno.

Like Munsu and Xanbcoo said several months ago... the intended meaning used by Kubo may be another.

Like engrish... maybe he tried saying something and ended with something else just because it sound cool.

Anyway... a term I liked in the manga, but was ignored in the anime, was a surname given to Luppi.

During one of the chapters where he fought Hitsugaya, before Grimmjow killed him, the 'cover' art referred to Luppi as 'El Violador' - the rapist -

I wonder if Luppi while human was a rapist... and then got -trepadora- as a 'hollow release' lol... tentacles... heheh.

[masamuneehs]

also, on Southpaw's argument, if "Menos" is to mean "Minus", then it once again because "Large / Big Minus"... but you do have a point there.

i think we're all overthinking this. i doubt Kubo knows Spanish so well that his terms make grammatical sense

[UChessmaster]

If we change the adjective "caro" to something like "grande" it should look like this:
"Es el menu menos grande de todos estos" it would then become "It is the smallest menu of all of these.

Except that if you want to say smallest in spanish MAS PEQUEÑO would be the most aporpiated way. Es el menu menos grande de todos estos just... doesnt sounds right

[XanBcoo]

On Menos Grande, I believe it means "The Smallest"


I'm currently in my second semester of Spanish, and I just came across a section on superlatives. These are defined by dictionary.com as:

"2. Grammar. of, pertaining to, or noting the highest degree of the comparison of adjectives and adverbs, as smallest, best, and most carefully, the superlative forms of small, good, and carefully."

(accent marks will be left off due to technical reasons)

Examples straight out of my college text book are "Es el cafe mas rico del pais." Which is "It's the most delicious coffee in the country"

("Rico" in this context of food is "delicious" and "mas" is "the most")

"Es el menu menos caro de todos estos" or "It is the least expensive menu of all of these"

"Menos" is "the least" in this context.


If we change the adjective "caro" to something like "grande" it should look like this:
"Es el menu menos grande de todos estos" it would then become "It is the smallest menu of all of these.
---

And that is how I came to believe they are the smallest. If I remember correctly, the Menos Grande are also the weakest of their class, so it might "the weakest" at the same time at poking fun at it's size, though this is based on nothing more than my own (course unrelated) conjecture.

Any thoughts?

SPANISH DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY

[The Heretic Azazel]

Hey, the guy has six whole weeks of Spanish education, who are you to doubt him?

[RyougaZell]

I love how previous posts here ignore the fact that Spanish is my first language

Recently Chad/Sado used a technique in the anime called 'El Gigante' which translates to the 'The Giant'. Once again I am marveled with the fucked up translation used by dattebayo... (which for the record I don't remember currently, but it wasn't The Giant)

[Yukimura]

I believe Chad said El Directo and DB wrote in "The Giant". It only takes a babelfish run to know that that isn't right.