#shunko raijin senkei

[tuliharja]

This is my part of an art trade between myself and good mutual on DA.

Artwork: @tuliharja

Note: I’m fine with reblogging, but ask me first for my permission, if you want to repost my artwork.

About the artwork: We both pondered together what kind of artwork we would want from each other and what we would be comfortable to draw. In my case, they eventually settled to request from me Yoruichi x Kamui drawing. (More under the cut.)

As for my theme, it was "dream sequences", while they also mentioned they would like to see some surrealism and "maybe starting transformation for Yoruichi (like tails & ears pop, for example) and Kamui embracing behind her as he says about something on abilities".

After we both had agreed on each other's subjects to draw and theme, we also agreed we could use any media to complete our drawings and there wouldn't be a time limit when completing our parts. It took me quite a long time to finish my part, but even so, I'm happy with how I took my time as I got to try various brushes on this artwork. Not to mention, despite the fact the theme wasn't that hard, I still struggled a bit with what to draw and how to draw the duo.

Once I had sketched both Yoruichi and Kamui, my next biggest 'dilemma' was what color to use for Yoruichi's Shunkō: Raijū Senkei: Shunryū Kokubyō Senki. (Because I had seen two color versions of it and since anime hadn't yet gotten to that part to show her transformation, I was unsure how to color it.) In the end, I settled on a yellow-white color theme with it. When I had that figured out, afterward it was fairly easy for me to work on my artwork until I had to come up with a background. I decided to trust my gut feeling and took a page from various Midsummer's Night Dream paintings to approach the 'dream sequence' and surrealism. Hence, I named this artwork a "Dream painting".

All in all, it was very nice to work on this artwork at rather a gentle pace, as I got to try various painting techniques along with digital brushes when coloring this artwork. It was also nice to challenge myself with a theme when drawing this artwork! I hope my art trade partner will like this artwork as much as I did like to work on this~.

DeviantArt I Pixiv

[ice-cold-shihoin]

Fun Fact: Yuuno's Shunko is ice based. The concentrated kido bursting from her shoulders and arms when the move is activated takes the form of highly pressurized mist. Aside from increasing the power of her physical blows, Yuuno is able to create barriers using the pressurized mist from the technique. When Yuuno completes her version of the technique, the pressure from the mist intensifies and starts taking the shape of what can best be described as dragonic looking wings. Ice also begins to form on the ground underneath the "wings". The final stage of the technique is Shunko: Kuraokami Gekido (Flash War Cry: Ice God's Fury). The wings of mist are much more distinguished but now they have an aurora borealis-like effect within them. Yuuno's eyes turn a light blue color and look more dragonic. She also gains dragonic horns of ice that protrude from her hair and she has patches of frost partially covering her cheeks. Yuuno's fingertips are also covered in ice to resemble dragon claws. This technique gives Yuuno a massive boost to her physical attacks and allows her to whip up ice storms to attack foes or create ice barriers to defend. This technique is Yuuno's answer to Yoruichi's Shunko: Raijin Senkei. A'lot of these features borrow inspiration from the Japanese dragon god of ice, rain, snow, and winter.

[tsukuyomi-e]

This was done in 2018, but I still am not really good at drawing girls... ^^'

[bleachedglassntache]

Shunkō: Raijin Senkei -  Yoruichi Shihōin

[littleeyesofpallas]

I fell down a real rabbit hole with this one...

I realized that for all my poking around the names of shinigami and their swords, I haven't touched on many non-zanpakutou techniques or titles for the shinigami. So, initially, I JUST wanted to take a look at Yoruichi's kind of randomly revealed, involuntary final form Shunkou Raiju-Senkei Shunryuu-Kokubyou-Senki[瞬閧 雷獣戦形 瞬霳黒猫戦姫], which Viz has printed as...

"Shunko, Raiju Senkei, Thunderous Black Cat Battle Princess,"

...and you'll notice nearly half this title wasn't even translated. So, I had to go back to the first time they translated Shunkou Raijin-Senkei[瞬閧 雷神戦形] as "Shunkou God of Thunder Battle Form" (which you will note is both not quite the same name as the later form) but also that even that fell back on Shunkou as a returning term... so, I had to go back to the last time that one actually got translated as well... And this led me into a whole mess of things surrounding Shunpo in general.

SO. Starting at the very beginning of this tangled mess...

Shunpo[瞬歩], weirdly enough I can't find an official English translation from Viz? They just keep referring to it as romanized Japanese, "shunpo." I feel like the general agreed upon English in fan translations has been "Flash Step." That's pretty apt all around, only clarification is that it is, "[in a ] flash" as synonymous with "in the blink of an eye" and does not reference the actual act of flashing as with a light. It can also be translated as "[in a] moment" to the same effect, or in some contexts, "[in an] instance/instant." This will come back up later...

The broader category of shinigami footwork is apparently called, Hohou[歩法] with the same po/ho[歩] from Shunpo, plus [法] meaning "Way" or "Method." Very literally the "Way (of) Stepping" or "Walking Techniques."  For whatever reasons, Viz called this "Fast Movement."

Honestly, we don't actually see much lateral details to that system as everything we see basically just builds on the Shunpo.

Yoruichi is also referred to be the epithet, Shunshin[瞬神], with the shun[瞬] from Shunpo and [神]: "God."  Again, Viz went out of the way to fiddle with it, calling her "Flash Master" rather than "Flash God" but maybe that was a more deliberate secularization of the term. Since I had trouble finding the first use of Shunpo, I can synthesize a semi-official translation from Viz as Shunpo↝"Flash Fast" taking from their Shunshin:"Flash Master" Hohou:"Fast Movement." It of course sounds silly.

With Sui-feng we get the Shunkou[瞬閧] technique, which Viz translates as "Instant War Cry," ditching the "Flash" translation now. They seem to have gotten the [閧]:"War Cry" bit from [閧の声], which does in fact translate as "War Cry" or "Victory Shout," or more literally, "Battle Voice." Given the way Yoruichi first uses it, I think the implication is that the "Battle Cry" sound the name evokes is the sound of thunder from her lightning based Shunkou. Becuase if taken literally, Shunkou[瞬閧] means something like, "Instant Battle" or "Flash Battle" which is a little silly, and redundant.

When Yoruichi starts to ramp things up in the fight against Askin, she whips out the more refined, Raijin Senkei[雷神戦形], which Viz called "God of Thunder Battle Form," likely to mirror the chapter titles, God of Thunder. Raijin[雷神] is in fact a Japanese god of thunder and lightning, and the name means "Thunder + God." Raijin wears an iconic ring of drums which account for the sounds of rolling thunder. Yoruichi's Raijin Senkei form emulates that shape, and the phrase [戦形] is straight forward enough, meaning "War Form" or "Battle Style." But [戦] is not the same [閧]:"War/Battle" in Shunkou, though.

So when Yoruichi goes beast mode, her technique changes to Raijuu Senkei[雷獣戦形], where [戦形] is still "Battle Form" but Raijuu[雷獣] means "Thunder Beast/Animal." But that's not all!

The Raijuu[雷獣] might be a really obvious combination of two words, but it actually refers to a specific mythological creature, said to descend from the sky in a bolt of lightening, with a roar like thunder, accompany the god Raijin, and to resemble any of a long list of animals, but usually something like a 2ft long wolf, or cat, or weasel or even badger. (personally, I have a sneaking suspicion that if this was based on sightings of an unusual real world animal, then given some of the mythic behaviors and descriptions, I think it was a wolverine from the northern mainland) It's also often described as having either ashy gray or deep red to black colored fur. Also some versions describe them as almost chimerical fusions of other animals, else with totally uniquely fantastic anatomies.

So finally we get to the final epithet of this involuntary technique, what Viz called, "Thunderous Black Cat Battle Princess," Shunryuu Kokubyou Senki[瞬霳黒猫戦姫] which breaks down into...

Shun[瞬]: "Flash/Blink/Instant" as we've been using...

ryuu[霳]: ?????*

Kokubyou[黒猫]: "Black + Cat"

and Senki[戦姫] (-ki[姫], NOT -kei[形]) "War/Battle + Princess"

*And now that we've gotten all the way back to where this odyssey started... we can actually address the first and BIGGEST oddity in this whole thing...

THIS KANJI ➪ 霳, which is definitely NOT just the word "Thunderous"

But apparently it just doesn't have any kind of a translation???? What's odd is that it has a pronunciation guide so it's not like it's a Chinese only character. It appears that it IS a word used in Japanese, I just have no idea how... I also couldn't find any compound words that use it, to try and glean some kind of commonality out of them. I only had two feeble leads... the first was the composition of the kanji itself [雨] and [隆], which mean "rain" and "noble"/"prosperous," respectively. But kanji aren't always just the most straightforward combination of their etymological parts, so I don't trust that to really tell me much on its own.

My second, more obtuse lead was weblio's suggested "similar to..." words, which were as follows:

[露骨になる]: meaning "to become conspicuous"

[露骨に言えば]: "to be plain/frank with you" "to speak openly"

[露髄]: "exposure; dental pulp exposure"

Two of these share the root [露骨]: meaning "unconcealed/undisguised/blatant" or "broad/lewd/indecent," from [露], which is also a root of the 3rd, and in this context I assume means "exposed/scanty/bare/unconcealed/naked​." Oh, and [骨] means "Bone." So "to be conspicuous" is literally "to expose bone;" "to speak openly" is to "speak [like] open bone;" and the last one is literally "open marrow."

[霹靂]: "thunder/thunderclap/bolt/bolt of lightning/thunderbolt"

[霹靂神]: "loud thunder" (and you'll notice this is just adding "kami/god/spirit" to the end of the previous word for "thunder")

[霽]: which appears to mean "to clear up [after a rain]" (although some of the dictionaries i checked had conflicting entries, or lack there of)

Now, there's a common thread in some of these... They all are written with the radical [雨]: "Rain." This relates rain to storms to get [霹]: "thunder" and is where [露] means both "dew" and "clear away ((as if) by rain)," and the "washing away with rain" bit turns into a more metaphorical and general act of, "laying bare" or "exposing." And arguably a "noble or prosperous rain" could be said to describe a clearing or cleansing rain, not unlike [露].

SO! On the one hand, it could be that Kubo just reached so deep into obscure kanji trivia that a non native speaker like me just has no chance of figuring out what hyper specific context or source he pulled it from, so it means exactly what he meant for it to mean, and I just don't know what that is... But there also a chance that he actually used the wrong kanji altogether; and maybe that seems a little flippant an accusation, but he has done it a few time in serial before --Although in those cases he, or at least an editor, fixed them for tankoban print.

I get the feeling Kubo was looking at something like a very narrow margin dictionary for cool words, looked at the very similar complex kanji next to each other (霳 露) and just let his eyes waver across maybe one and ended up picking the wrong one.

(oh shit, wait... i was only saying that to paint a picture, i didn't mean it literally, but i when went back to check something, I hadn't noticed before, but the kanji Kubo used and the one I'm talking about are literally RIGHT next to one another in the unicode database...)

Anyway! Finally drawing a conclusion from all this... Given Yoruichi's repertoire of lightening themed attacks, it's tempting to think that maybe the easiest explanation is that he meant [瞬霹] to mean "Flash Thunder." But considering the adjacency of the "clearing rain" terms it could be that Kubo meant [瞬露] to mean something like "Flash Exposure" or "Instant Lewdness" as a play on both the rain, storm, and lightning theme and Yoruichi's scantily clad feral combat form. So, what I think all my fiddling around has determined is that the full final form technique name should read,

Shunkou [瞬閧]: "Flash Battle-Cry"

Raijuu [雷獣]: "Thunder Beast"

Senkei [戦形]: "Battle Form"

Shunrou [瞬露]: "Flash Exposed/Lewd"

Kokubyou[黒猫]: "Black Cat"

Senki [戦姫]: "Battle Princess"

[kdinjenzen]

Three Bleach related questions; Who's your favorite character, favorite power and have you made an OC?

Yasutora Sado and Yoruichi Shihōin.

Shunko Raijin Senkei and Brazo Izquierda del Diablo.

And no I haven’t!

[ice-cold-shihoin]

Fun Fact

When she was still moving up the ranks in the Gotei 13, Yuno lost her left eye in a Hollow attack. She has since then had a specially designed artificial eye implanted to replace the one she lost which looks very real. You can't even tell it's not her original eye. Especially since she typically styles her hair to cover it up. However this isn't any ordinary eye. It's a specially designed weapon developed by the Shihoin Clan in collaboration with the R&D Department known as the Kori Kami Ishi (Ice God Will). Yuno already has excellent ice manipulation through her Zanpaktou's abilities. But this eye gives her ice manipulation abilities that border on almost godly cryokinesis. She only uses this as a last resort when all options have failed and when she absolutely must KILL her opponent. When activated, her eye turns a light blue color and gives off a light blue glow. She also has several light blue, glowing kanji covering the left side of her face and body. She is also shielded by a blizzard that swirls around her. She has only used this ability once and that is when she battled Askin with her siblings. When using Kurokami Ishi in conjunction with her Shunko, she activates her Shunko: Kurokami Ikari (Flash War Cry: Ice God's Fury) battle form which has the potential to possibly rival even Yoruichi's Shunko: Raijin Senkei.

[ice-cold-shihoin]

Headcanon

Yuuno's Shunko is ice-based. The pressurized Kido emmited from her back and shoulders takes the form of a whirlwind of freezing, ice cold mist. The mist is so cold that simply getting near it gives off a feeling of being stabbed several times with a frozen knife. Naturally, she can use her Shunko to freeze enemies or generate ice around her fists or feet that is harder than stone to pummel the enemy. She uses Kido to also protect her limbs while the technique is active from any potential damage she may cause to herself. Using Shunko in combination with her Kuraokami Ishi eye significantly upgrades the technique to Shunko: Kuraokami Ikari (Flash War Cry: Ice God Fury) which is almost on par with Yoruichi's Shunko: Raijin Senkei.