Learning Japanese with Berserk: Pishacha
Added 2023-09-12 19:21:23 +0000 UTCIn Berserk, the Pishachas are Ganishka's corp of weaponized familiars, possessed animals created and controlled through his fog. The name comes from Hindu mythology, in which pishachas are evil, man-eating demons. There is no particular resemblance outside of the name and the fact they're monsters.
The name Miura uses in Japanese is 妖獣兵 with ピシャーチャ added as furigana to give us the pronunciation. It translates to something like "bewildering beast troops". The first kanji has a rather deep meaning that can't fully be conveyed in English. It's used in many words, like 妖怪 (YOUKAI, referring to traditional Japanese ghosts and monsters), 妖精 (YOUSEI, the kanji for "elf"), or 妖異 (YOUI, meaning a mysterious occurrence).
It's also part of the word Silat uses to refer to Daiba in episode 341 when they meet in Falconia: 妖術使い (YOUJUTSUDZUKAI). I covered that in a dedicated article about terms used to describe magic users in Berserk.
