Everyone in Soul Society uses Japanese for terms like kido and shunpo, but at Hueco Mundo, Spanish is the dominant language.
Bleach is an expansive shonen anime with countless characters, supernatural phenomena and settings to its name. Although Bleach falls far short of the legendary world-building of One Piece , its own relatively modest world-building has found clever ways of distinguishing its different worlds and factions. One such technique is the use of multiple languages.
For the sake of convenience, most characters in the same anime world speak the same language as each other. The same is true in Bleach , where all the Soul Reapers, Arrancars and Quincy obviously speak modern Japanese. However, when it comes to naming a place, supernatural abilities or characters, Bleach flexes its creative muscles with three different languages, one of which is modern Spanish .
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Notable Spanish names for Hollows and Arrancars in Bleach
Right from the start of Bleach , it was obvious that Hollows had different naming conventions to humans or Soul Reapers. Ordinary Hollows had fanciful or self-descriptive names such as Acidwire, Fishbone D and Shrieker. Then a much bigger and stronger Hollow appeared - a black-robed giant capable of firing explosions of energy from its mouth. Ichigo's friend Rukia Kuchiki said it was a Menos Grande, an amalgam of many Hollows fused into a single creature. "Menos Grande" is obviously not Japanese, nor English - it's Spanish, meaning "lesser". The spiritual energy attacks of these creatures are called cero blasts, "cero" meaning "zero" in Spanish. Clearly, Hollows comes from a very different world from Rukia.
In the "Arrancar" and "Hueco Mundo" story arcs, Ichigo learned first-hand how many Spanish names and words are used for Arrancars and Hollows. Even the term Arrancar itself fits this trend, "arrancar" being the Spanish word for "to tear off", referring to Hollows losing their masks. Meanwhile, Ichigo and his friends have encountered many other fighting techniques or spiritual phenomena with Spanish names, some of which are equivalent to what Soul Reapers can do. One example is sonido, or "sound" technique, when an Arrancar uses a quick movement to move from one place to another like shunpo/flash steps. In defense, an Arrancar has an armor-like skin called hierro, which means "iron" in Spanish. In the meantime.
On a larger scale, the whole world of Hueco Mundois Spanish for "hollow world", the main landmark being the enormous palace Las Noches, or "nights". The most notable inhabitants of Las Noches are the 10 Espadas, or "swords", perhaps to describe not only the zanpakuto of the limbs, but also how they are Sosuke Aizen's best weapons. Even "Menos Grande" can be divided into three classes with Spanish names, all Menos being powerful Hollows who cannibalized other Hollows to gain strength. Gillians are the lowest type, while the middle subclass is Adjuchas, Spanish for "attached". The smallest and most elitist subclass of Menos Grande is the Vasto Lorde, Spanish for "vast lord" or perhaps "great lord". True to their name, the rare Vasto Lordes are extremely powerful lords of the Hueco Mundo.
Bleach's brutal but effective world-building, including languages
It's true that Bleach's world-building lacks the complex, multi-layered depth of One Piece , and it also lacks the international political intrigue of another "big three" anime, Naruto . Instead, Bleach focuses on more intimate themes such as hope versus despair and the power of the heart, so the world-building is relatively simple and cosmetic in nature. On the positive side, this means that each of Bleach's three worlds has a strong visual impact, and combined with the use of exotic languages, this helps to establish Bleach as a partial isekai anime... Ichigo is in a really different world when people use Spanish or German to describe their abilities and their world.
Author Tite Kubo has often used his personal tastes as inspiration for Bleach's design, from the main characters wearing fashionable clothes in bonus art to the use of Spanish. Kubo once explained to him that Spanish had a "soft, haunting sound", so he used it for his mysterious and bizarre Arrancar villains. If Soul Reapers uses zanpakuto with Japanese names like Hyorinmaru and Suzumebachi, then Arrancars are truly alien with zanpakuto versions like Murcielago, Brujeria and Los Lobos. The use of Spanish, combined with Hueco Mundo's pristine white desert under a perpetual crescent moon, gives the Hollow world an exotic feel that no Bleach fan can miss.
This is similar to Wandenreich's use of German, from Wandenreich being German for "hidden empire" to names such as Blut Vene, Sankt Zwinger and Voll Stern Dich/Vollstandig. All this, in turn, contrasts clearly with the feudal Soul Society based in Japan and its Japanese names such as Seireitei, Rukongai District, Dangai and Sokyoku Hill. Languages and names are among the most intriguing and engaging ways of distinguishing two nations or cultures, and with its modest but effective world-building, Bleach takes full advantage of this with its trilingual narrative.
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