The Weird Origins of SMT Spells: SMT Lore

Twitter: Tony4YouYT
#mythology #smt #persona

0:00 Intro
0:50 Elemental Spell Names
5:24 Ma- -Rama and -Dyne spells
7:11 Status effects and non-element
14:26 Signature Skills
18:24 Outro

Shin Megami Tensei has had gamers scratching their heads in confusion for many years in regards to its unique spell names. An aspect of the games that has remained constant between Shin Megami Tensi Mainline, Shin Megami Tensei Spin offs, and even the old and new Persona games. While you may think phrases like Shibaboo, Marin Karin, and Mabufudyne are just gibberish, as with everything else in Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, there is much more to it that first meets the eye. Compared to a lot of the other RPGs on the market, Shin Megami Tensei is pretty unique in the names of spells. Where the average run of the mill RPG may call the fire spell, oh I don’t know, fire, or maybe flame if they are feeling crazy, SMT goes for Agi. Ice is Bufu, Lightning is Zio, and many many more. This begs the question though, why on earth are they called these weird names? Well let’s dive into the etymology of these strange moves and try to understand a little more about them. There will be a ton of moves covered and an equal amount of speculation about them, so bear that in mind and feel free to let me know your thoughts on each one as well. Let’s rapid fire out these names and learn something shall we?

[TonyYou]

Post suggestions for future videos too!

[shinyanakagawa]

Zan is force. Garu is wind. While in some games, they made Zan to look like Garu, Zan focuses more on sweeping force or cutting force. The Japanese word Zan/Kiru being its origin is actually is not too far off. In P2, Zan is an almighty magic.

To note, in the Japanese version of these games, they use Maha-xxx and the localized version simplified it to just Ma-xxx. So you are right that they are referring to the Sanskrit word Maha.

[jamesaditya]

I can only think of the word fubuki (吹雪, meaning blizzard in Japanese) when trying to figure out bufu, as the kana for 'bu' is 'fu' with a diacritic (ぶふ in hiragana, ブフ in katakana) and they simply switch them around.

[Triceratopping]

Some P5 ones:
Ayamur - signature skill of Baal, named after the club he used to fight Yam the sea god
Laevateinn - signature skill of Loki. The name of Loki's sword/wand.
Panta Rhei - ultimate wind skill. A simplified version of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus' teachings that means "everything flows."
Amrita (from Amrita Drop/Shower) - Sanskrit word for "immortality" which makes sense as a healing spell that gets rid of afflictions.

I love that the creators of SMT/Persona really did their homework for these games.

[koga]

I love Luster Candy. It was suppossed to be Ra-Su-Ta Candy since it provide the effects of those skills but it got mistranslated. A funny side effect of this is the spanish name "Caramelo rasta" or literally Rasta Candy.

[emilianojaramillorodriguez]

So early the mandala system hasnt start yet

[helpthereisaspiderundermyb]

Honestly I’ve been playing smt for so long, I’ve just accepted these words as replacements. My house didn’t burn down, it was Maragidyned

[rashrules]

Ice in Hindi is बर्फ़, or "barf" (not pronounced like the English word barf, it's a little closer to rhyming with "Murph")

If you were to write out बर्फ़ in Japanese it would approximate to バルフ -> "barufu". I'm positive this is where Bufu comes from.

To be honest, I'm a little surprised that this wasn't one of the first obvious possibilites looked into for anyone researching this, given that Agi comes from the Hindi word for fire already, and so on. Getting to brhattuhinazarkara before the actual Hindi word for ice is crazy lol

[jalipeno]

in japanese they actually do use the full "maha-" for multitarget skills

so maragidyne in japanese is actually "maharagidain"

[CaptainObliviousV]

Recently while playing Vengeance, I realized all the elemental mid-damage skills have different suffixes: Agilao, Bufula, Zanma, & Zionga. Just thought it was odd considering the higher strength levels all share the suffixes of -dyne and -barion.

[pokestar]

I really don't believe bufu comes from brhattuhinasharkar. I am 100% sure the person who suggested that went to a english to sanskrit dictionary website, typed in ice, and looked for the first result that started with a b. Another tell for this is the fact the letter z to represent the ś, something that dictionary site does but isn't a standard way to romanize sanskrit words (sanksrit has no z sound).

My personal guess is that it comes from either the Persian word barf which means snow. This word also exists in Hindi (with a slightly different pronunciation), so possibly while researching Indian words to use they could have come across it.

Another thing is that I think most of the conjugations (agi -> agilao, maragi -> maragion) were just picked because they sound cool and not for any specific reason. The notable exceptions being ma- and -dyne.

Lastly, I'm confused by when you said recarm comes from the sanskrit word meaning reincarnation. Reincarnation in sanskrit is punarjanman. Recarm sounds more like the english word than the sanskrit one lol.

[thomasalvarenga]

I thought in the earlier games Zan was moreso themed on "'cutting' and 'pushing' with supernatural forces" rather than wind, hence why in the mainline games the "wind" element is called force. So "slash" would make sense with the original intention behind the zan element. Even with the modern wind context for Zan, "slash" could still make sense since wind is often associated with sharpness and shredding.

[jasonblundelldobebussing]

*Bufu?* Excuse me, we've barely met.

[Rubberbandman]

The Ma- skill lines are actually all Maha- in japanese, confirming the reference.

[beedlegaming]

the Freischutz backstory always stuck out to me for being the origin of Freikugel, an attack primarily associated with Demi-Fiend. Demi Fiend in most of his other appearances is implied to be post-TDE; his use of the attack is completely unhindered by the rules of it's namesake because his goals align with lucifer's. having prior knowledge of the story and seeing it named in game was really cool to me back then

[lykthewarlock]

I remember asking about a video like that a long time ago. Glad to finally see the real thing. Great video Tony

[azurewitch]

I remember in persona 2 there were also Magna (for earth element) and Aqua, for water, Gry for Almighty and even Frei for nuclear element

[lrvn]

About Bufu, it sounds a lot like "Bafo" that in portuguese means: "Air expelled by the lungs, blowing or puffing".

Basically a cold icy breath (bafo gelado)

It's more likely that Bufu descends from the same word from where Bafo came from, but here in Brazil isn't uncommon to use the expression "Bafo gelado" to refer to a current of cold air.

[thAlchemist_]

Great video. Only question is now where did the suffix "-barion" used in SMTV come from?

[newtype]

Zan makes sense for wind. Cutting is often associated with wind in japanese anime and manga. The kamaitachi is a wind yokai and uses scythe.