C.'s and D.'s

Kiavik

I may be reading into this too much, but theres something about captain john that's really bugging me. Looking at the japanese raw, at one time during the latest chapter Buggy refers to Captain john by calling him C. John. Like this:

The furiganas on the side read "キャプテン" (Kyaputen) which is how japanese say the english word "Captain". The strange thing is: Japanese have their own word for "Captain", which is 船長 (Senchou) so its pretty clear this is some kind of nickname And/Or surname. Now lets think about it: who else had the nickname "Captain" in One Piece? Who else if not our beloved Eustass Kidd? And I checked, it was written "キャプテン" in his case too! This is already pretty strange for two characters to have the same nickname, but that "C." thing? That's even stranger.
As far as I recall, there are other characters that follow the same name pattern.
Well the first obvious is example is all the D.'s:

where the furigana on the side of the D. is ディ , which reads "Dee" and thus is just a pronunciation for the letter D. (I'll get to that tomorrow in my follow up to this post (its 5 am here))

while the other is

X. Drake, with the furigana spelling ディエス which is "Dies".

You notice the pattern repeating?

[Katakana]
[Roman Letter]・[Name]

I've never seen a naming pattern like this in any other manga so I dont think its common either… cohincidence? Who knows...
Also, Keep in mind that I've started paying attention to japanese one piece raws from around vol. 45, so its very possible somebody else in the first 44 volumes had a similar name pattern... but that's where I need the help of somebody that has read the whole manga in japanese from the beginning. (Greg?)
I know it seems I'm grasping at straws here, but I think that since we know for a fact that a D. family exists, there may be other such families in the world of One Piece, maybe formed in ancient times. For now we have 5 D.'s, 2 C.'s and a X.
There may be more! For more of my thoughts on this, I'll post a follow-up to this post tomorrow.
I hope its not too out there as a theory :happy:
And I'd like to know if there where some other characters with that name pattern that I dont know about.

Ao Kiji

This is a really interesting find!
It's defintely possible.

Bounty1Berry

Well, I think the use of the katakana is primarily because of the target audience's reading level. They don't necessarily know all the kanji– or western characters-- so they augment it with katakana where appropriate.

Kiavik

@Bounty1Berry:

Well, I think the use of the katakana is primarily because of the target audience's reading level. They don't necessarily know all the kanji– or western characters-- so they augment it with katakana where appropriate.

Hum no I see what you mean but that's not the case here. (the ones you're talking about are called furigana btw)
I can explain you why, but it's a pretty long explanation so i'll keep it for tomorrow (or I hope someone else could do it for me ^^)

CCC

Note: Kuro was often referred to in the same way: "C. Kuro," with the kyaputen furigana over the C. But then at other times he's referred to as senchyou, so it doesn't really seem to matter.

Honestly I don't think there's anything hidden here; it's just what it seems. Maybe Oda thinks using single roman letters is cool.

For Drake though… have people discussed why it's pronounced dies? Is that supposed to be the Spanish word for ten represented by the roman numeral for ten, or am I missing something more obvious?

RuNa

For Drake, I am pretty sure (actually positive) that the "X" is dies for ten.

FireFistAce 0

Don't look too much into it, Hogback had the same thing in his name (had me thinking that Hogback was a D). In the Raw, D. is Romanized as an abbreviation for Doctor. And Hogback was the furthest thing from a D possible.

Nice find, though.

juan73908

Two things

First, I think that C. is just an aberviation fot Captain, just to be cool

About the ten, in Spanish is DIEZ, no DIES, every1 says dies around here.

Ten–--> X(in romain)----> Diez(in Spanish) I think it's pretty obvious.

BTW: Diez is symilar to Diaz, witch used to be a common surname within the age of piracy, I wouldn't be surprised to find a pirate called Diaz.

EDIT: I found today that Díez is also a common surname

blackfoot

and to further elaborate on what juan said…

i'm not too sure, but i think the katakana "su" has the markings on it to make it a "zu," which, in the case of correct spanish pronunciation, would make it "diez." so, it would seem, that it does mean "ten."

at least, it would if those are, indeed, the markings.

Sir Fries ü

@Kiavik:

I've never seen a naming pattern like this in any other manga so I dont think its common either… cohincidence? Who knows...

It's most likely just a coincidence… I don't we'll get to know about the C's and the X. The D is a given and will likely be introduced in the new world

I may be reading into this too much, but theres something about captain john that's really bugging me.

Ftw!

CCC

@blackfoot:

and to further elaborate on what juan said…

i'm not too sure, but i think the katakana "su" has the markings on it to make it a "zu," which, in the case of correct spanish pronunciation, would make it "diez." so, it would seem, that it does mean "ten."

at least, it would if those are, indeed, the markings.

nope. I just went back and checked volume 51 with a magnifying glass. There's no ten-ten ("), so it's just su, not zu.

Qualms

Japan do this all the time.

Don't read it too deeply, it has no secrets.

jammit

according to OP wikia we've already seen Captain John as one of the general zombies >.> - as the source for his history is stated vol. 49 SBS

IMO his appearance at TB would've been stressed way more strongly if he was indeed from an important family

Phoenix Zoan

You're reading too much into this. C. is just a abbreviation for Captain.

Crossword

My guess is they used the C so that they could fit more characters into the speech bubble.

Sanigo

What about "Captain" Usopp? Does he have the will of C?

Qualms

Katakana eats up lots of speech bubble space, this is just easier.

In fact, it may help people to recognize the foreign words at an immediate glance; think about it, how many japanese words have native english speakers been confuddled by? It'd be nice if they just said 'Harsh' instead of 'Harawadashi'. Anyway, that's just an assumption.

Yoshu-sama

I can see the relevance of juan's argument, it makes a lot of sense. Interestingly enough D and C are also roman numerals, though I don't think there's a connection on those two.

Steven D. Teach

Yeah, it's already been said, but it's definitely not something to read too much into. Manga uses katakana a lot to this effect–matching inappropriate katakana with kanji (logia or something like that) and abbreviations as in the example of "Captain". I definitely see how it could spark interest, but given the way the Japanese language is used in popular media, and given how Oda uses it, I don't think it's anything more than the usual stylistic use of katakana.

herr_sebbe

All the announced letters are part of the Roman numeric system? If there is a pattern, then this might be a key to solving it. Though, it might just be a case of randomness.

C = 100
D = 500
X = 10

smashfanDS

@RuNa:

For Drake, I am pretty sure (actually positive) that the "X" is dies for ten.

@juan73908:

About the ten, in Spanish is DIEZ, no DIES, every1 says dies around here.

Well in French Dix (10) is pronounced as dees/dies. So yeah

im just gona throw this out and say…...........quality!
the thought of more strong families in the new world is kinda sweet, like the acchino family but not soooooooooo lame...( and yes its in the anime... get over it)

it would be good to see another strong bloodline in the manga

having only one famous bloodline limits the story a bit....only a bit, but still....

Ubiq

Seeing as how we don't have a direct instance of somebody named ____ C. ____, I'm inclined to think that it's just shorthand for Captain.

Greg

Katakana eats up lots of speech bubble space, this is just easier.

99.9% sure this is the answer. Sometimes it just makes it look cooler too ^_~ But who knows! Maybe you're on to something!

Zik

The main reason I doubt this is because there's no way imo that a manga 10 years and running would have such a glaring miscommunication due to a middle initial being lost in translation. That would technically mean everyone in Japan is aware of the characters with a C. in their name and even on the internet refuse to tell us.

Kiavik

What I was thinking is that maybe while the other lineages names are known, the D. for some reason has been deleted from history.
I mean in the actual One Piece world its no mistery that X. stands for Dies, C. stands for Captain but D.? As Saul says : nobody knows what it stands for. It's meaning has been deleted some way, maybe by the World Gvt., and all it remains is the first katakana, "Dee". Maybe its been deleted because they once were an important family? Who knows…

Anyway yeah I'm probably reading too much into this

bugiipoppu

@juan73908:

Two things

First, I think that C. is just an aberviation fot Captain, just to be cool

About the ten, in Spanish is DIEZ, no DIES, every1 says dies around here.

Ten–--> X(in romain)----> Diez(in Spanish) I think it's pretty obvious.

BTW: Diez is symilar to Diaz, witch used to be a common surname within the age of piracy, I wouldn't be surprised to find a pirate called Diaz.

EDIT: I found today that Díez is also a common surname

While this is true, the Spanish Z in this case is sharp and sounds like an S.

…As is the case in many, many spanish words. I need reference no more than "Lapiz" -> "Lapices", where "ce" or "ci" sound as "se" or "si".

Originally, there was more of a distinction, but we can't blame Spanish-speakers for that. I like simplification.

Therefore, read phoenetically, "Diesu" wouldn't be an inappropriate transliteration. Since the Japanese don't give about the spelling when telling someone how to pronounce something. They care about the pronunciation.

"Mechanism" -> "Mekanizumu/Mekanizm"
Since that's how it's pronounced. English just murders everything.

I blame the French.

@Kiavik:

What I was thinking is that maybe while the other lineages names are known, the D. for some reason has been deleted from history.
I mean in the actual One Piece world its no mistery that X. stands for Dies, C. stands for Captain but D.? As Saul says : nobody knows what it stands for. It's meaning has been deleted some way, maybe by the World Gvt., and all it remains is the first katakana, "Dee". Maybe its been deleted because they once were an important family? Who knows…

Anyway yeah I'm probably reading too much into this

Could "D" Stand for "delete"? XD

They could be a huge family the WG had to overthrow in order to rise to power. You know, their main opposition. So the government was all, "Okay, we won….NOW WE OBLITERATE THEM SO THEY DON'T GET IN OUR WAY! MWAHAHAH!"

...Something like that.

Herms

If I remember right, Zoro actually calls Luffy "キャプテン/kyaputen" right after he first agrees to be his crewmate, though I don't think he used C., just the katakana.

whaleblue

I can't help to said those C, X, D, are the blood types in One Piece world, among them D is the rarest and most famous one.

smith

This is probably over thinking but wasn't John a really vicious pirate just like Kidd who has killed people for a quite silly reason ?

Blackeye

Nah, but he was a very stingy guy who, instead of sharing his treasure with his crew, hide it… so his crew killed him, and today, no one still knows were the treasure is hidden.

Zkaiser

So maybe the Will of the C makes you murderous.

jawad100

nice find..
but i want ask what the meaning of "furiganas".
is it a character…or what...do u mean the letter beside the C...D...
thankx

Ubiq

@jawad100:

nice find..
but i want ask what the meaning of "furiganas".
is it a character…or what...do u mean the letter beside the C...D...
thankx

It's a Japanese reading aid that helps children understand what an unfamiliar kanji means by placing kana above it. Kanji, if you're not already aware, is a logographic system, which means that it uses a stylized image to represent a concept or word. Kana, on the other hand, is a phonographic system, which means that each kana represents a particular sound.

A rough English equivalent can be found in Social Studies books which tend to follow an unfamilar word with a phonetic version of it right behind it. For instance, you might see plateau (plah-toe) in an elementary school book or (plă-tō') on a more advanced grade level. Furigana does something like that, but it's providing the basic meaning of the word rather than the pronunciation.

Somebody else could probably explain it better, but that's the basic idea.

jawad100

thank u for explain Ubig…now i really understand..

Wagomu

C. is just a space saver. It takes less space to wright a single english letter than it is to right the Japanese for "Senchou". It has the transliteration since, as it's using an english letter, it's using the english word, captain. It's a simple concept, really. Do I honestly need to explain it in depth?

Kiavik

@Wagomu:

Do I honestly need to explain it in depth?

What you're saying is wrong, though. Because I dont think japanese kids would be able to know what the english word "Captain" means. So those furiganas arent there for explaining the meaning of the word. It would have been as you said if 船長 was written, and the furiganas said "キャプテン". And besides, writing Senchou takes up as much space, character wise, as writing C.

C・
船長
They're both 2 characters long, and the japanese always use fixed width fonts.

Herms

@Kiavik:

Because I dont think japanese kids would be able to know what the english word "Captain" means.

I don't see why not, the English word 'captain' is used often enough in Japanese.

koolo

awww no boobs

bink

uhm… very interesting theory...
let's forget for a moment all those technical issues and whatever already argued.
i guess the whole thing about families would make sense...
i mean, if there is D, it isn't unreasonable supposing that other letters represent other families...

as far as we know, i guess we can begin to consider those letters as hints of the blank century... in pure Oda-style

Ivotas

As other's said there probably is not too much to read into it. The difference with C and X to D is that we exactly know what the first two mean while we're still pretty clueless about the latter.

This of course doesn't eliminate the possibility of having family connections but it makes it less likely because so far it appears that they are rather meant as stilistic elements.

Zkaiser

@koolo:

awww no boobs

I lolled .

smith

@Zkaiser:

I lolled .

Haha, that avatar, 4chan right?

Zkaiser

No. Ebaum's World. Duh!

flandrian15

CD's will all be replaced by bluray
That is THE NEW ERA doflamingo keeps balbbing on about

JawDrop

Reading this thread made me remember the first time Robin read the Ancient text back in Alabasta. it would clearly show in this link

http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/203/05/

anyways… it mentioned something about the "Dima" Family being the strongest in year 269... Could this "DIMA" be the family that has survived and now live by the name of D.?

But I also recall(i think) that that Ancient Text was actually related to Pluuton and that Robin chose not to read it. So Maybe Robin said those things from what she read from the past scripts she has come across...