Theory: The "Vandenreich" is...

[NLee]

First of all, I'd like to thank both CasualMisfit and VinceD (Welcome to NB ) for shedding some light on this matter.
With their understanding of the German language they were able to break down the word "Vandenreich" which allowed me to put this rudimentary theory together


CasualMisfit's explanation:

I only know that "reich" in this context means kingdom, empire or domain. As for vanden... I have no idea!

"It can appear by itself or in combination with another prefix, such as van de, van der and van den (current and archaic forms of the article de, meaning "the") and less commonly van het or van 't (the neutral article het). The German "von" is a cognate of Dutch "van", though unlike the German "von", the Dutch "van" is not an indication of nobility or royalty. These prepositions usually refer to a geographic place."

It's possible to assume Vandenreich means "The Kingdom/The Empire" which now makes me think of the Soul King.

VinceD's explanation:

I registered just to give you an explanation

My native language is Dutch, I also speak some German.
Reich (German) is indeed the word for Empire, Kingdom, ...
vanden (Dutch) literally means of the.
It's actually van den, but I guess Kubo decided to mash it all together.
If you look at Japan's history, and the main countries that influenced them early on, it is indeed Germany and Holland that had the biggest ties with Japan. If you remember Rurouni Kenshin they also did something with both the Germans and the Dutch.

So, the word "Vandenreich" translates loosely into "...of the Empire/Kingdom". Here is where my (somewhat obvious) theory comes in.

This Quincy group informs Yamamoto that "In 5 days, Soul Society will be annihilated by the Vandenreich"

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Last week they declared war on Soul Society:

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According to Kubo's recent interview magazines a while back, the next arc's battlefield will be taking place in "a palace of ice". Perhaps this is the new palace where the Quincy are gathering as a base of some sort to amass their forces similar to Arrancars in Hueco Mundo (Las Noches to be exact)?


So, could we reinterpret their words...
From:
"In 5 days, Soul Society will be annihilated by The Vandenreich"
To:
"In 5 days, Soul Society will be annihilated by The Quincy Empire"?

Basically, they were saying they're declaring war on Soul Society and that the Vandenreich is just a reference to their forces/army


I mean, of course this is only a theory but at this point it's only a simple 1+1 type logic. What do you all think?

 

[Indifference]

Pretty cool. I hope that's what it is.

 

[C WET]

makes you wonder what will happen between ichigo and ishida...

 

[Caliburn]

I'm Dutch too, it indeed means Of the Empire and is a combination of German and Dutch. Combining that with the 1000 year war reference, the link with Hitler's third Reich that was supposed to last a 1000 years is easily made.

However Vanden or Van den is both correct as it's a lastname, not a grammatical part of a sentence and I wouldn't overestimate that "Dutch" influence in Japan as it's true that before the Meji era the Dutch were the only foreign European people allowed in Japan, however that was severely limited to the ports for trade and I don't know anything of German influence. yes during the Meji Era, but that was for a lot of European countries as after all it was Matthew Perry, an American, who opened Japan to Europe forcefully.

In the end it's still just a name, it's not the first time he used Germanic languages, in fact he used them before for Quincy's for instance.

...just wanted bring in some kudo's from my part xd

 

[home]

cool

 

[Tobinator]

I Like it, It makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing. Plus Rep.

 

[VinceD]

Glad to be able to help around

Also, Caliburn's explanation pretty much sums up the history between Holland and Japan. Good to know there are people here who actually inform themselves too ^^

As far as your theory goes NLee, interesting as it is, I don't think that the entire Vandenreich 'group' are Quincy. We've only seen Ivan use the Quincy bow/powers, not these guys who think they have a shot at Yamamoto
Page 17 of chapter 483 illustrates this (can't post URL's because of low post count)

The spear or arrow if you will, doesn't really fully resemble a Quincy projectile or weapon (to me at least), but because of the cross I can understand why some would think it is.

It seems that the Vandenreich appear to be a well organised, powerful and smart group that pose a real threat to Soul Society, regardless of their motivations.
Though, I still doubt that they're all Quincy who fled, regrouped and plotted for hundreds (or thousands??) of years to strike back at Soul Society. If such a large group of Quincy really did flee, don't you think that someone in Soul Society would have found out where they were hiding? Sort of like a SS group that hunts Quincy..

 

[XD96]

correct me if i am wrong but the quincy are living human beings right?
anyway maybe they regrouped in hueco mundo they would be able to avoid detection.

 

[NLee]

Glad to be able to help around

Also, Caliburn's explanation pretty much sums up the history between Holland and Japan. Good to know there are people here who actually inform themselves too ^^

As far as your theory goes NLee, interesting as it is, I don't think that the entire Vandenreich 'group' are Quincy. We've only seen Ivan use the Quincy bow/powers, not these guys who think they have a shot at Yamamoto
Page 17 of chapter 483 illustrates this (can't post URL's because of low post count)

The spear or arrow if you will, doesn't really fully resemble a Quincy projectile or weapon (to me at least), but because of the cross I can understand why some would think it is.

It seems that the Vandenreich appear to be a well organised, powerful and smart group that pose a real threat to Soul Society, regardless of their motivations.
Though, I still doubt that they're all Quincy who fled, regrouped and plotted for hundreds (or thousands??) of years to strike back at Soul Society. If such a large group of Quincy really did flee, don't you think that someone in Soul Society would have found out where they were hiding? Sort of like a SS group that hunts Quincy..

I disagree about the projectile that (possibly) killed Sasakibe. It was indeed an arrow by the looks of it. What else could it be? When Ishida first introduced his Seele Schneider we thought it was a sword:

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Yet, Ishida himself clarifies before killing Cirucci:

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"A Quincy doesn't use anything but Bows and Arrows..."

As for the sheer size of the arrow that impaled Sasakibe:

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Just look at Ivan's giant bow. It's 3-4 times his own body size:

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If Ivan wields such a large bow then it's reasonable that these other Quincy could have large bows as well, which explains the giant size of the arrow. It makes perfect sense in my opinion


The Shinigami didn't go out and hunt all the Quincy. If they went out and actively tracked and hunted them down, then how does that explain Ishida and his father? They shouldn't even be alive if Soul Society wanted to hunt down all the Quincy. In addition, if it's Soul Society we're talking about, then it's not like they tried and couldn't find them. This is an organization that has the resources to do nearly anything.
-They have over a dozen Captain-level Shinigami who are reiatsu monster
-They have an entire Stealth Force Mobile Unit led by the likes of Soi Fong
-They have a Kido Corps which houses likely the best Kido-users in all of Seireitei considering people like Tessai and Hachi were their Kido Captain and Vice-Captain at one point

Anyways, my point is, if they wanted to hunt down all surviving Quincy, then with all the resources Soul Society has, they could have done so




If Ishida, his father Ryuken, and his grandfather Souken were able to survive from the Quincy war, then who's to say there couldn't have been other survivors and descendants elsewhere?

I believe that the very existence of Ishida and his father are living proof that the Quincy could/are still around. Possibly in fairly great numbers depending on how rigorously the surviving Quincy trained their descendants

 

[|KirA|]

Van+den+Reich ist like bad German and means "From the Empire"
The same goes with Seeleschneider. Good German would be: SeeleNschneider.

its like kubo took the english words and put them into google: soul cutter soul = seele, cutter = schneider -> seeleschneider

 

[mlickko]

I just read from other site a little different translation to Vandenreich as :"Belonging to the royalty,realm or kingdom".

This can point even to Royal Guard. On second thought i don't think that the masked group are somebody from Royal Realm, i still think that they are Quincy (or Quincy hybrids), but I'm thinking that pointing to Royal Guard may indicate that their real purpose of coming is simply erasing SS so they can concentrate on their real target: Royal Guard and Royal Realm.
What do you think?

 

[NLee]

But like I said, their words were "Soul Society will be annihilated by the Vandenreich"

I don't see how they would be referring to the Royal Guard/Realm. Just by the wording of what they said it sounds like they were referring to themselves with "the Vandenreich". Doesn't it?

 

[mlickko]

I guess...well, just one sleep and hopefully things will be cleared at least a little bit.

 

[palmer]

I wl jus wait 2 c wu dy are

 

[Mugetsu]

maybe fullbring + hollow idk seems kinda weird that ginjo mentions that he has hollow powers and dies without revealing his full abilities. maybe he knew about vandenreich

 

[yeahhh]

Couldn't they be the Rpyal Guard for the Soul King? I mean Aizen had nothing but contempt for them and his comments made it seem as if the soul king was not "good", I will have to go and reread to make sure..

 

[NLee]

Why would the Royal Guard want to destroy Soul Society? That makes no sense

 

[MitchSlap]

I'm beginning to question the whole bow and arrow only thing now. Seeing how some Vandereich members clearly don't have Bow-and-Arrows. Some have weapons that vary, and I'm even questioning if all of them are even Quincies now.

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and some Vandereich have been shown only using their fists.

Another thing thats irritating me is the "Hollow" masked Vandereich. Why do Vandereichs have these?

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So now I'm beginning to question if Vandereichs are all Quincies...

 

[Shame]

Couldn't they be the Rpyal Guard for the Soul King? I mean Aizen had nothing but contempt for them and his comments made it seem as if the soul king was not "good", I will have to go and reread to make sure..

It was stated that captains of the gotei 13 who are promoted rank up to the royal guard. Such as Kirio hikifune. Former captain of squad 12 hiyori's old captain before kisuke uraharra.

 

[TheHokage]

Yeah makes sense plus rep