kaibutsushidousha

[kaibutsushidousha]

It’s obvious it’s Odin who’s watching Lost Einherjar like his favorite TV Show, but who’s his broadcaster? The Norns? Or is the Narrator like his birds?

The Norns make sense. I like the mental of the sisters weaving film.

[kaibutsushidousha]

thoughts on Roa?

Answered mainly here and here. The most important phrase being "Roa is balling".

Due to the timing of this ask, I have a lot of Fem's Casa and its ugly cousin Archetype Inception. The AI mankind of Archetype Inception died out with time because, in Xu Fu's words, people can't withstand immortality unless they're as full of things they want to do as Qin Shi Huang. This is reflected in the tragedy of Ziz losing his ability to see beauty in the world after the end of the Age of Gods and Van-Fem's response to it being "But beauty can be found literally anywhere you look."

Roa was the same as Van-Fem. Beauty was everywhere. Every conversation was a worthwhile experience. Anything and everything was worth learning. Arcueid changed him but she's truly eternal so our friend Mike Lore continues to be fit for immortality. Roa will remain forever balling.

[kaibutsushidousha]

On the topic of the Dark Six, do you think there is any strong link to them and the Six Sisters from Notes?

They're six, they're the oldest and most powerful species on Earth, and they're called "Saving System to Earth".

[kaibutsushidousha]

Okay so something I learned Just Now was that Tsumugi's name is spelled. So interestingly in Japanese.

つむぎ - Tsu, Mu, Gi.

It's literally spelled with Hiragana and Katakana. And from my research, the name "Tsumugi" written in other ways does have meaning--but when it is written out like this, it doesn't have any meaning to it. It's just phonetic without an inherent meaning.

There are two ways to take this, I think.

The first is that it's hollow. It's a name without meaning. Just random noise to refer to a specific person. Plain, empty, boring.

On the flip-side--it's a name with dozens of meanings. Maybe the spelled out version doesn't inherently mean anything, but when you're saying it, that changes. (Take this with a grain of salt, researching is very hard these days and I could be very wrong here, but here are examples I found)

You could be saying "摘喜" (Pick Joy (Picking Joy/To Pick Joy?) or "績" (Achievement) or "紡" (Spinning Yarn) or "紬希" (Rare Hope).

In short: Tsumugi's name has the ability to shift meaning, just as easily as she is able to shift forms. It's a shape-shifting name, for a shape-shifting character.

[kaibutsushidousha]

yeah you wouldnt know her i knew her in a past life and we're doomed to always kill each other lol its a whole thing

[kaibutsushidousha]

On the plusside for the Nagito Komaeda Anagram Challenge, you basically have free license to throw in an I-M, I-A-M, A-M, or I-S into the anagram to make it work, on account of the "da".

The floor for plausibility is only as low as "looks about as plausible as a name as Colin Devorae", you've got this.

Komaeda is the second to last character on DR2's list and I'll only start testing anagrams when I get there, but I already got handed a plan B in case anagrams don't work.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Another Danganronpa linguistics-based that has been about as long overdue as the name study post is the post about the language nuances of Fujisaki's unusual gender situation. I'm genuinely surprised I never got a direct question about this, even when the Danganronpa Translation Critique tag was still active, but one post about the subject in this site and a conversation about it elsewhere (read: a place where can easily copypaste my own explanations from) inspired me to finally put this one out. This used to be a heated topic a decade ago, so there's probably too many disclaimers to be made with this one, so assume I made every one you need to read this study in good faith. Thank you.

I guess I need to start with a general explanation of first-person pronouns. I imagine a lot of people know this part already since it's an omnipresent aspect of the language, but it never hurts to review the basics. Japanese has multiple first-person pronouns instead of the single "I" English has. A person's choice of pronoun informs things about their gender, age, social status, and relationship to the person they're speaking to. In theory, there are maybe over 40. In practice, there are only 3, maybe 6 depending on your standards for what counts as "commonly seen". In modern Japanese, most pronouns are things you only find in fiction.

The three genuinely common first-person pronouns are the traditionally masculine boku and ore, and the gender-neutral watashi. Watashi can be easily mistaken for feminine since that's what women default to in every situation due to the lack of other options, but it's a truly neutral formal pronoun that men are using all the time in professional situations. It's especially relevant here that watashi is not inherently feminine in any way.

Now to the relevant question. What pronoun Fujisaki uses for himself? The answer is boku, a markedly masculine pronoun, the same our male protagonist uses. This can be seen in Mondo's flashback with him, in the scenes contained his inner thoughts, the bonus mode/game scenes that have his secret revealed, and if that counts, how Alter-Ego talks as him.

Fujisaki's boku is a traditionally masculine pronoun, so he obviously didn't use it before the reveal. It's easy to spot this and call it a pronoun switch. These kinds of pronoun switches are a very common language trick and come in all sorts of circumstances in other stories, but Fujisaki's case becomes a lot more intriguing when you verify what it was changed from.

The expected answer is watashi. It's the perfectly gender-neutral pronoun, but it's a pronoun women use far more commonly than any feminine-specific pronouns. It's a perfect fit for the disguise and it's very easy to honestly say Fujisaki has no reason to feel any dysphoria using watashi as a man. It's something his male peers are expected to do when talking to teachers and that they'll need to do in their jobs as adults. But Fujisaki never says watashi before or after the reveals.

The actual answer is none. Fujisaki omits pronouns in every line of dialogue he has alive. Omitting pronouns is a completely normal part of dialogue in Japanese, so doing it 100% of the time is not something people normally do, but it is something you can get away with in Japanese without raising many eyebrows.

This 24/7 pronoun omission has always been a fascinating dialogue quirk to me because in my 12 years consuming stuff as a Japanese student and translator, this is something that I've never seen done before or after, and something no translation of DR1 could convey properly in English. It's a truly unique case as far as I'm aware.

Makes this gimmick work requires an extra level of attention and sometimes getting creative with phrasing, both in Kodaka writing out-of-universe and in Fujisaki speaking in-universe. Genuine work was put into making Fujisaki fiercely refusing to refer to himself with anything less than a fully masculine pronoun, no matter how much he felt "undeserving" of his gender.

Anyway, that's pretty much all on the side of Fujisaki's own self-expression. The question I'm mostly copypasting my own answer from was "which characters used which gender expressions in chapter 2" and I yapped about Fujisaki's own answer because that's the special and unique description trick that frequently occupies my mind, but I guess I'll drop the answer here as well.

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The first point to be relevant is that many characters, including our PoV Naegi, use the honorifics san for the girls and kun for the boys. Naegi is the first to address Fujisaki after the reveal and he sticks to the san he always used. This continues even after the flashbacks give the full context of Fujimaru's situation.

Next, Celes mentions Fujisaki as "Fujisaki... kun", taking a big pause to indicate intent on the pronoun switch and attention to the habits she's trying to unlearn. Kirigiri, Geno, and Ishimaru also refer to Fujisaki in unambiguously masculine terms before Oowada reveals any of Fujisaki's perspectives on the matter. The rest don't say anything gendered, which is easy to do because Japanese is a really easy language to be gender-neutral on (this says a lot about the choices of the characters who did pick gendered words, perhaps).

How Oowada and Junko (Monokuma) address gender is discussed directly in the trial so I don't think I need to cover it here. They're also the only ones with full context during the trial, so it's not comparable to the 4 above deciding Fujisaki's gender based on fragmentary information.

And the last relevant new factor is Alter-Ego, who refers to its creator as "Goshujin-tama", aside from regularly using he/him. Goshujin-sama used by servants to address the specifically male lords they work for. As maids became a staple anime trope, you probably heard this one coming from a fetishized maid character. The reason why I'm specifying this is that Alter-Ego calls Fujisaki "Goshujin-tama" instead of "Goshujin-sama". The "honorific" tan is a variation of the classic honorific san, used primarily by otaku to address their anime waifus. The -tama there is a -sama equivalent of that. The blatant implication there is that Fujisaki designed his subservient digital clone to be attracted to him, which is categorically weird. That's another character element that the localization doesn't bother trying to convey, opting for a mostly sanitized "Master" as Alter-Ego's title of choice of Chihiro.

Then the next game has AI Nanami referring both to Fujisaki as her father and Alter-Ego as her brother, and I'm closing the post here because I'd rather not to think about how that makes Alter-Ego's title of choice weirder.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Could you please talk a bit about the Sub-Bell Fairies=Dark Six thing on your DAA design chart? (or repost it if you have before)

I got this question the day after updating the DAA design chart, actually. Here it is.

This also happened between this and that.

But as a disclaimer, I don't seriously believe any Aylesbury theory produced this decade will correctly get 40% of the answer.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Yeah so, reincarnation is real, but when they started this whole operation they only made like a billion souls for all the living creatures on earth. yeah it's not a super big deal because souls are trans-temporal so they can just reincarnate backwards or forwards depending on what's needed but it does mean at any given moment in time there are 120 beetles, 98 dandelions, 43 tetra fish, 12 tree frogs, 6 spiders, 3 poison ivy plants, 2 mice, 2 house cats, an elephant shrew, a crayfish, a crow, a raccoon, a poodle, a turkey vulture, a goat, a donkeys, a binturong, 2 fig trees, a jackal, a dolphin, an alligator, a hyena, a bison, a giraffe, a turkey vulture and 8 humans who are all just overlapping incarnations of you. sorry.

[kaibutsushidousha]

[kaibutsushidousha]

Endlessly repeating Feifer Fogfeller over and over that's such a good construction. Also as someone kinda annoyed when Ace Attorney drops a name that's just a word, your consideration to making the names a little more jumbled and "touched up" is really appreciated.

It's really amusing to me that this website ask system forcibly transformed this blog from a Danganronpa blog with a few additions into mostly a Type-Moon blog, and then when I get an ask from the Fifth Magician herself, it's about Danganronpa. I don't know how to explain it but I feel a sort of poetic justice there.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Any guesses on what Egyptian god is connected to King Tut?

I think that if the god was Egyptian, Tutankhamen's 3rd Ascension wouldn't need to be locked.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Daily Danganronpa Fun Fact #319

The surname “Fukawa” (腐川) represents both Genocide Jack and Toko. The “fu” comes from the word “fujoshi”, a girl who enjoys romance between two male characters. The “kawa” comes from the name of the first Japanese person to win a Nobel Prize in Literature, Yasunari Kawabata.

Home | Previous Fact | Next Fact

[kaibutsushidousha]

so, uh, about what you said yesterday about aqua: re oshi no ko's ending...

Nothing to add there. Yesterday's answer already lays its message clearly enough.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Would you try to make Komaeda's name an anagram of Truman Green?

I completely forgot that I needed to also consider Komaeda when choosing Naegi's name. Well, yeah, that will be the main factor I’ll for Komaeda's name in the next post. No further thoughts right now. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Danganronpa has too many characters so I'll be tackling the "How'd you render their names in Ace Attorney style of name translation" question one game at a time. Here's for DR1.

Please send different ideas if you have them.

Makoto Naegi

Calqued meaning for Naegi: Sapling

Calqued meaning for Makoto: Honesty

Explicit functionality: In Ishimaru's introduction, he praises the meaning of Naegi's given name, so it must explicitly represent a virtue Ishimaru believes in.

Implicit functionality for Naegi: The meaning of Naegi contributes to giving off the image that he's Small Guy Little the Most Harmless Creature In The World. Also ties in with Makoto's and Komaru's image colors being green and brown.

Implicit functionality for Makoto: Truth-adjacent name because he's an investigative VN protagonist.

Realism level: Both names exist.

Futureproofing needs: Naegi is a surname he shares with Komaru, so it needs to be a name that also works for her. Swapping name and surname to get something more usable is often an option but not here. Whatever Naegi becomes needs to still be the surname because of Komaru.

Explicit functionality is always the priority, so Makoto needs to become something like Ernest or Truman. Truman is a name that feels like it needs to be saved for V3, but at first glance, there isn't anyone there who really fits it.

Bush is a real name that connects the small and the green, but it doesn't give off a tone of harmlessness thanks to a few Georges. Stuart Little has me under the impression that Little is also a real surname but it's missing the green aspect. Green is another real name with the opposite problem.

Out of all our options, I'd go with Truman Green for our protagonist, mainly because Green sounds convenient for Komaru's naming needs. I won't settle on a name for Komaru ahead of DRAE's turn because this sounds like a bonus challenge more difficult than any of the mandatory tasks, but at least I'm confident I won't need to come back and change this one later.

Sayaka Maizono

Calqued meaning for Maizono: Dance Garden

Calqued meaning for Sayaka: Not determinable because Sayaka doesn't have kanji but Sayaka generally means dazzling, clear, or audible and her DR2 swordsmanship scroll present spells her name with kanji meaning "Scabbard Flower".

Explicit functionality: A sword-themed present in DR2 is named after her.

Implicit functionality for Maizono: A dance garden sounds like a metaphorical name for a stage.

Implicit functionality for Sayaka: An intriguing mix of direct meanings and ironies. Dazzling alludes to the classic metaphor of idols as shining stars, clear is ironic with how she hides her feelings most of the time, and audible is both. Direct in how Japan is listening to her songs and ironic in how she became an idol because her father wouldn't give her any attention.

Realism level: Fictional but so believable that another game already used this exact name 12 years before Danganronpa did (that's what DR2's sword scroll is referencing)

This is a rare case where we can ignore the explicit functionality if we want to. Claire is a popular given name that conveniently covers all meanings of Sayaka, makes a musical reference through Claire de Lune (another case of a name that would hit differently in V3 but doesn't fit anyone in its cast), and could be used in a sword flash allusion. Dance is a real English surname but it feels too untouched, so I'd Frenchify it into Danse, matching with the French origins of Claire. Claire Danse it is.

Leon Kuwata

Calqued meaning for Kuwata: Mulberry fields

Calqued meaning for Reon/Leon: Clever Gratitude

Explicit functionality for Kuwata: He says in a Free Time Event that he wants to be like the star vocalist Kuwata Keisuke and not like the baseball star Kuwata Masumi.

Explicit functionality for Leon: Needs to be mistaken with numbers when written upside-down, preferably in a foreign alphabet.

Implicit functionalities: Honestly, none. Both names are very in-your-face about why they were chosen.

Realism level: Leon written in kanji is a name that exists nowadays but I can't find evidence that it predates Danganronpa.

The Kuwatas quote can be done with Axl Rose and Pete Rose.

A lazy solution to Leon is keeping it as Leon and helping the puzzle's difficulty level by making Claire Danse's calligraphy suck. There's no authentic way to redo that puzzle, but the closest option is having her write Greek. It's an alphabet recognizable enough to a Western audience even nowhere nearly as recognizable as the Roman alphabet is to a post-Americanization Japanese audience.

Our Greek alphabet tools are 1=I or ι =I or i, 2=ζ=z, 3=ξ=x, 3=Ε or ε=E or e, 4=η=h or e or i, 4=Π or π=P or p, 6=an ugly φ=f, 8=an ugly Θ or θ=th, 0=Ο or ο=O or o, and 0=σ=s. That gives us genuinely subtle and believable options like Fox spelled 306 or Seth spelled 038.

Seth makes for the better puzzle, but going on vibes and the believability level of a Japanese Leon, I'll go with Fox Rose.

Chihiro Fujisaki

Calqued meaning for Fujisaki: Blossom of False Binarism

Calqued meaning for Chihiro: Thousand Depths (poetic term for "1.8288 kilometers")

Explicit functionality: Gender-neutral name.

Implicit functionality for Fujisaki: The unique kanji choice for the name is probably there for the computer theme since TRUE/FALSE responses and binary codes are popular programming motifs.

Definitely accidental functionality for Fujisaki: The Japanese word for nonbinary has nothing to do with this, but it's curiously serendipitous that Fujisaki has a negative binary in his name. A strong irony since a huge part of his personal tragedy happened because his gender views were extremely binary.

Probably accidental functionality for Chihiro: Chihiro was originally a male name but became more commonly perceived as a feminine name since the release of the film Spirited Away. Assuming Danganronpa 1 is set in 2012, Fujisaki would be 8 years old when the movie came out, and that could be what inspired his idea in-universe.

Realism level: Fujisaki is a real name when written with kanji meaning "Cape of Wisterias". The "False Dualities" version is Danganronpa-original. Chihiro is a common name, however.

Futureproofing needs: Chiaki is named after him, so it's better to make the decision for Chiaki now. Chihiro means "thousand depths" as a poetic unit of distance and Chiaki means "thousand autumns" as a poetic unit of time. The space and time duality is not relevant to their characters (it's a false binarism, if you will) so it's only important here that they have subtly contrasting names.

Chihiro is hard to narrow down because any unisex name technically fits. Cody is a unisex name that covers Fujisaki's computer motifs, so that would allow the surname to be entirely dedicated to matching Nanami's but that would just shift the "can't narrow it down" problem to the surname.

Wikipedia's page for unisex names has this nifty list of names grouped by theme, so we can pick Chihiro and Chiaki as a pair of unisex names from the same group. I can't explain why, but having them both named after months, birds, or Kingdom Hearts feels right.

Month route: I'll go with August for Chihiro since that works best with Chihiro's masculine origins. Chiaki could be October to nod to the autumn meaning of her original name but that's not really relevant and October is really ugly as a person's name. May works for her because aside from being a month, it's a word associated with potential.

Bird route: Phoenix works for Chihiro because Alter-Ego is sorta like a revival. Phoenix is also a funny nod to how Chihiro is Mia Fey's name. Chiaki since the name Nanami reflects the tropicality of Jabberwock Island, she should have a tropical bird name and Starling is the only tropical bird name that doesn't suck as a human name as far as I can remember.

Kingdom Hearts route: The Nanami name kinda dictates that Chiaki becomes Kairi here, which works for me, but I'm not feeling any of the Chihiro options. I'm not calling him Marluxia.

Pheonix Pewter feels like the best option, stealing an idea for a computer-themed name from Uchikoshi, but going with the bird route locks me out of using bird names for anyone other than Fujisaki and Nanami. That's a huge resource to lose. I gotta think about the name economy to continue this project long term. On the other hand, losing access to month names for everyone else is not a considerable loss. I'll stick with August Pewter for now but I might come back to this one later.

Touko Fukawa

Calqued meaning for Fukawa: Rotten River

Calqued meaning for Touko: Winter Girl

Calqued meaning for Shou: Fly

Explicit functionality for Shou: The investigators gave a generic male name to the serial killer because they hadn't figured out she's a girl.

Explicit functionality for Fukawa: Shou makes a pun with the name Fukawa since she's fujoshi (lit. "rotten girl").

Implicitly functionalities: None that I can think of. I guess Touko is not a sunny name so it doesn't clash with her gloomy vibe.

Most likely accidental functionality for Touko: The name Touko means "Winter Girl" and the name Fuyuhiko means "Winter Boy" but they have any onscreen interactions or major parallels.

Realism level: Fukawa exists with different kanji (more commonly meaning "deep river") but the Rotten River version is made up. Derogatory words don't tend go in real surnames. Touko is a super common name for girls born in the winter.

I'll start with the obvious. Genocide Jack does everything that needs to be with Geno's name. The loc also invents "Jill" because she's a girl but I'll ignore that and keep our Jack as comfortable with her ostensibly masculine name as she is in the original. Now let’s go to what needs the bare minimum of original thought.

Touko can stay as Winter, but I'd prefer using winter in another language just to be less lazy about it. Zima is winter in most Slavic languages and is a real surname. We can work with this if we make our first swap here. Derive the family name from the name Touko and the given name from Fukawa.

So we need a given name that works with the fujoshi pun, which came to me surprisingly easy. Blair -> BL-er. The Blair Witch Project being a big and influential thing also helps putting the necessary gloomy vibes to Blair Zima's name.

Byakuya Togami

Calqued meaning for Togami: Ten Gods

Calqued meaning for Byakuya: White night (as in the astronomical term)

Explicit functionalities: None as far as I remember.

Implicit functionalities: Sounding fucking awesome.

Realism level: Both extremely rare names that technically exist.

This is honestly a little too anything goes, which makes it more difficult than having tight specifications to work with. I'll tentatively go with Artorius Decatheo. Artorius is tryhard version of Arthur, so there's the kingly image association, and shares its word root with Arctic, making a nod the place where the midnight sun (byakuya) happens. Decatheo is just Ten Gods in Greek.

Mondo Oowada

Calqued meaning for Oowada: Fields of Yamato

Calqued meaning for Mondo: Crest Earth

Calqued meaning for Daiya: Big A (as in the letter A from Roman alphabet)

Explicit functionality for Daiya and Mondo: Daiya's gang was named Crazy Diamond after Daiya (Dia) and Mondo (Mond).

Intertextuality for Daiya and Mondo: Their gang name alludes to Crazy Diamond, the Stand of Josuke Higashikata, a character who emulates Japanese delinquent aesthetics in homage to a stranger who saved his life.

Implicit functionality for Oowada: Bousouzoku were a particularly ultranationalistic subculture and having surname containing Japan's "most Japanese" name is probably supposed to reflect that.

Implicit functionality for Daiya and Mondo: A big stereotype about Japanese delinquents from the 90s and 2000s is that they later had kids with ridiculous names often formed by slapping rare kanji together to forcibly form an English word with it. Daiya and Mondo are key examples of these tacky and stupid "son of ex-delinquents" name.

Realism level: Oowada is not a too uncommon surname. Daiya and Mondo really sound made up but Kodaka says he studied with real people named that.

Ok, this one is extremely Japanese both in content and structure. There are too many factors to reasonably really on easy equivalence strategies, we have to play bold. I can exploit the delinquent trend of forcing English names into Japanese and flip it to represent another subculture, albeit a much younger and still developing one. I'm talking about punk weebs. We solve the Jojo reference issue by directly naming Daiya "Jotaro" and Mondo "Josuke".

Special thanks to the punk guy in my city with the baby named Sasuke. You help me here in a manner very fittingly similar to how the brothers Daiya and Mondo from Kodaka's school helped him.

Now for Oowada I don't have a neat solution. American biker gangs had the same origins as their Japanese counterpart (WWII veterans failing to properly reintegrate post-war) and the consequences of that to the subculture (macho patriotism) were the same. But American bikers love using hell and crime as motifs in their names and aesthetics, and somehow Hellman is a real and common surname, so I suppose Josuke Hellman fits. I'm waiting for better ideas in the comments.

The gang name can stay Crazy Diamond in theory, but I think I'd prefer renaming it to Shining Diamond as jokeful nod to Jojo's silly localization practices. I also considered renaming it to Star Platinum since Daiya is Jotaro Hellman now, but I think keeping the name Crazy Diamond-derived is a better fit with how Daiya created the gang for Mondo's sake. (And, on a meta level, with how Mondo/Josuke is the main character among the two)

Kiyotaka Ishimaru

Calqued meaning for Ishimaru: The Stone

Calqued meaning for Kiyotaka: Many Summers Purified

Explicit functionality: None unless you count the Ishida thing.

Implicit functionality for Ishimaru: The Stone carries an idea of solidity and rigidness, which is reflected in Ishimaru's personality.

Implicit functionality for Kiyotaka: Pure vibes, but I think the names Kiyotaka, Toranosuke, and to a lesser extent Takaaki, are all names you can tell come from a traditional family.

Implicit functionality for Ishida: Both Oowada and Ishimaru are decently uncommon names, but when they combine, they form the ridiculously common name Ishida and that's the kind of name joke Kodaka likes a lot.

Realism level: See above for the surname and fusion name. Kiyotaka is a name that exists with different kanji but the version meaning "Many Summers Purified" is unique to Danganronpa.

Starting from the disclaimer: I will not be using the meaning of Ishimaru's name as an excuse to call him Dwayne or Johnson. It's tempting but I promise to restrain myself.

Anyway, the parts using his real names are pretty loose, so we start from Ishida joke as the best place to narrow things down. Oowada being Hellman could have easily segued into a generic surname ending in -man, but in English, it's a lot more natural for people to introduce themselves by their given names, hence why Ishida became Kiyondo into the loc, so I'll work with their first names too.

We're obviously out of options for a notoriously generic English name ending in -suke, so we'll have to take the Jo- from Josuke (Mondo). Since I have Jojo in the brain right now thanks to Mondo, the easiest solution is merge this Jo into Kiyotaka=Nathan to form Jonathan. It works pretty neatly.

The surname doesn't matter as much so I'll take the lazy route on this one. Stone is a real English surname, so The Stone will be Stone. Nathan Stone, that's our guy.

Hifumi Yamada

Calqued meaning for Yamada: Mountain Fields

Calqued meaning for Hifumi: One Two Three

Explicit functionalities: None as far as I remember.

Implicit functionality for Yamada: Satou, Tanaka, and Yamada are the most common Japanese surnames (with I believe Yamada being at the first place at the time of DR1's release), so they're often used in fiction for jokes about names being generic, like how English does with Smith and Doe. Hifumi Yamada's case is about Kodaka liking to pair the goofiest first names with the most generic surnames.

Implicit functionality for Hifumi: His pen name as a doujin author is The Alpha and the Omega, which reflects his name being the first 3 numbers and his birthday being the last day of the year (which is also written using the numbers one, two, and three, but let's not make this harder than it needs to be).

Realism level: 100% the name here with the biggest chance of existing.

Alph Smith is the obvious perfect pick but it feels too easy and too on-your-face. I'd rather go with Uno Smith, that's a real name apparently.

Celestia Ludenberg

Calqued meaning for Yasuhiro: Cheap and Widespread

Calqued meaning for Taeko: Girl of Many Blessings

Explicit functionality for Celestia Ludenberg: Racefaking as white European so poorly that any random shmuck instantly recognizes her name as borderline parodical.

Explicit functionality for Yasuhiro: Her family name is homophonous with Hagakure's given name.

Implicit functionality for Yasuhiro: Cheap and Widespread represents the featureless normie she originally was and the total antithesis of who she wants to be.

Implicit functionality for Taeko: It alludes to how she describes her luck as the active crux of her talent, which ties into [long ramble about her parallels with Makoto].

Realism level: Celestia Ludenberg is a joke of a name even for in-universe standards. Taeko Yasuhiro is perfectly believable, if a bit uncommon.

Celestia Ludenberg is perfectly fine as it is. Grace and Hannah are names meaning something close enough to the "blessings" in Taeko. I'd favor Hannah because Kodaka went out his way to pick the rarer name Taeko over the common Megumi which would have had the same implicit functionality.

Now Yasuhiro needs to be both a surname and a male given name. Luckily, English is a language full of those. As you see below, the meanings of Hagakure's name don't matter that much, so I want prioritize "cheap and widespread" as the core idea of their shared name. This immediately brings me to the names Norman and Jean-Eric, but neither of them works as surnames or fit Hagakure's vibes. Meanwhile, Mondaine looks too French for its purpose being contrary to Celes's ideals and maybe doesn't work as a given name.

Cutting a lot of unproductive thought short, trying to look at things primarily from the "cheap and widespread" angle gave me nothing, but giving more consideration to the meaning and realism level of Hagakure's name, I found a satisfactory answer. I'll explain my logic better on Hagakure's side, but my adaptation of Taeko Yasuhiro is Hannah Arcadian. Arcadism is about romanticizing the farm life of humble peasants, so it fits well as the antithesis to her Celes identity built upon romantization of the castle life of opulent nobles.

Yasuhiro Hagakure

Calqued meaning for Hagakure: Concealed by Leaves (more notably, this is the title of a 1716 book historically considered the most influential manual on the samurai lifestyle)

Calqued meaning for Yasuhiro: Tranquility Comparable to the Lü Musical Scale (the equivalent to this in Western music notation is the Myxolidian scale)

Explicit functionality for Yasuhiro: His given name is homophonous with Taeko's family name.

Implicit functionalities: Both of his names leave a strong impression. Motifs very specific to Japanese history, delivered with distinct and powerful vibes of antiquity. Yasuhiro Hagakure is a name that suggests deep roots. I have a good post about how roots relate to Hagakure's and Celes' characters, you should check it.

Realism level: lol, lmao even. Hagakure is not a real family name. Yasuhiro is a very common given name with dozens of versions, but Hagakure's version makes a point to use the most ancient kanji it can fit, genuinely Heian poetry stuff, creating a version of Yasuhiro that doesn't exist in real life.

Well, I already told you about Arcadian. It's a name that fits in the "tranquility" meaning of Yasuhiro, and the name's overall appeal to classic literature associations to the point of unrealism. It doesn't tie too greatly with his character, but neither does the Japanese original. I'm pretty sure this name was chosen for Celes first and then just randomly slapped appropriate 10th century kanji.

That said, Yasuhiro Hagakure manages to have the most distinctively Japanese name in the series that has a guy named Korekiyo in it, so I think it would be appropriate for his Americanized counterpart to still have one (1) Japanese name. I considering picking a notable family name from the Heian period, maybe Abe or Minamoto, perhaps even Tsuchimikado in reference to Tsuchimikado Yasuhiro, but ultimately I decided to go with Arcadian Emishi to value Hagakure's identity as a hairy man of Touhoku.

Sakura Oogami

Calqued meaning for Oogami: Great God

Calqued meaning for Sakura: Not determinable because Sakura doesn't have kanji but Sakura generally means cherry tree or cherry blossom.

Explicit functionality: People familiar with her martial artist carreer are more likely to know her by the nickname Ogre, derived from the Ooga part of her real name.

Implicit functionality for Oogami: Sounding fucking awesome.

Implicit functionality for Sakura: Cherry blossoms are the flowers most commonly associated with refined femininity in Japanese flower language and that's a really important part of Sakura's identity. The use of hiragana instead of kanji also adds to the image of traditional femininity.

Realism level: Sakura is an extremely common name. Oogami is one of Japan's oldest surnames, tied to an ancient clans of priests and sorceres dedicated to worship of Ookuninushi, but the surname is rare nowadays because most of the clan changed their surname to Miwa in 648. Even then, I'd be surprised if no real person was ever named Sakura Oogami.

This was easier than I thought. Mary naturally comes an answer for Sakura's equivalent to the idea of "most common and tradiotinally feminine name ever". The Oogami/Ogre wordplay was a bit more of challenge. I really wanted to work Ogre in English too, but I still don't have any ideas. I know the Yugioh Vrains dub used the anagram Gore for its ogre-themed character, but I think this lacks the solemnty Oogami has.

Luckily, one of the ogre's closest equivalents is the orc, a creature with a name that easily strecthes into Orcus, the name of the Roman god of oaths. Orcus is also syncretized with Hades, which is a god that really fits with Sakura's sense of responsibility and characterization based on being less scary than she superficially looks, aside from being a lord of the underworld like the Ookuninushi historically tied with the Oogami name. I'm very satisfied with Mary "Orc" Orcus.

Aoi Asahina

Calqued meaning for Asahina: Morning sun? (Note: the question mark is actually part of the meaning, not an indication that I'm unsure about the translation)

Calqued meaning for Aoi: Hollyhock

Explicit functionality: None as far as I remember.

Implicit functionality for Asahina: The morning sun as a symbol of cheerfulness.

Implicit functionality for Aoi: Her name is homophonous with the color blue, associated with water, and consequently her talent as a swimmer.

Realism level: Both names are common enough that this exact combination has a higher chance of existing in the real world than not. One thing completely irrelevant to Aoi's character but cool enough for me to want to tell is that the Asahina family was originally a samurai clan founded by Asahina Yoshihide, and one the main tales about him is that he was so strong that after he died, he almost effortlessly defeated the king of hell in battle and forced him to show the way to paradise.

Ok, I kinda nothing to work with here. I guess I can just throw any combination of brightness-related or water-related names. Sunny Aguado, Aqua Solberg, Joy Fisher, Allegra Blue, Felicia Aquarius, Marina Summers, etc. There's no real element that gives any name option an edge above the rest. I really like Marisol here because it's a name that means "sea and sun" but unfortunately that leaves zero content to make a surname out of.

Aoi Asahina is an alliteration so maybe we can use that to narrow down to options like Aurora Attwater, Ariel Aelius, Mitra Marin, or Lana Luz. My final call will be Sapphire Solano, but there's really hundreds of ways this one can go. I changed the decided answer at least twice during the making of this post.

Mukuro Ikusaba

Calqued meaning for Ikusaba: War Blade

Calqued meaning for Mukuro: Not determinable because Mukuro doesn't have kanji but the word mukuro means corpse. However, if we were to assume the Mu in Mukuro must mean halberd, the most plausible configuration would be "Halberd Black".

Explicit functionality for Mukuro: Combining the Mu from Mukuro and the Jun from Junko, you form Mujun (contradiction).

Implicit functionality for Ikusaba: Tying to her soldier image while having more edge than a military-grade combat knife.

Implicit functionality for Mukuro: "Corpse" accurately describes her in her first appearance after her name is revealed.

Realism level: Zero. The Ikusaba surname is invented by Kodaka, and the name Mukuro comes up in anime sometimes but it's literally illegal to name your kid Corpse.

This is one was surprisingly interesting. Corpse Warblade is iconic and deservedly remained a meme in the fandom for years, so I wish I could keep it as is, but unfortunately it fails the most important functionality. It has to fit with Junko to form a word that can be associated with the mysteries the mystery game wants you to solve.

One of the first decisions I made for this post was to call Junko "Doxie" and look for an appropriate word beginning with Para for Mukuro. Later, when checking Doxie's realism level, I found out it's a rare name nowadays because the name became a word with sexual connotations. Incredibly lucky coincidence, to be honest. I think the meaning of Doxie actually fits Junko surprisingly well as representation of the gyaru subculture in its originating ideas.

But enough of Junko invading her sister's section. The name I chose for Mukuro is Parathion. It's the name of a poison, although not one weaponized against humans. Not great but it's the best the Paradox composition has to offer and I like Doxie too much to look for alternatives.

So, for that, Parathion's last name needs to carry Mukuro's corpse meaning, the tryhard edgelord aesthetic, the soldier imagery, and if possible also fit in the war blade meaning. That's a lot of things for just one name to do. I thought of Bloodshed as a surname that referred to war while doubling as an allusion to how Mukuro's own blood was already shed, but that felt a little obtuse. I ultimately decided to prioritize Mukuro's status as a corpse at the cost of the other aspects, and settled for the name Parathion Bloodless.

Kyouko Kirigiri

Calqued meaning for Kirigiri: Mist Cutter

Calqued meaning for Kyouko: Echo Girl, alternatively Audible Girl

Explicit functionality: None as far as I remember.

Implicit functionality for Kirigiri: Fog is a symbol of mystery so it fits for the detective family to say they sever and end it.

Implicit functionality for Kyouko that's is most likely a stretch but I need something to work with here: Kyouko is a girl who is heard. Whenever she talks, the other characters pay attention and take her words seriously. I can't remember an exception to this from the top of my head.

Silly alliteration: Every kanji in her name starts with a K sound (the g in giri is just a k vocalized with a dakuten).

Realism level: Kirigiri is made up by Kodaka and, as far as I can find, used only by Danganronpa and Genshin Impact to this day. Kyouko is a common name in many kanji configurations, including this one.

For reference, Genshin Impact localization names its Kirigiri sword as Mistsplitter Reforged. Great pick but not too relevant to us since it lacks the alliteration.

I wanted to insist in mist instead of any synonym because of its similar sounds to mystery, but the best name I could get from that was Mistmince, which is significant worse than Fogfeller both in epicness and in sounding like a name. So our alliteration will be on the F.

From this point onwards, we reach almost Asahina levels of "this can take forever and have almost 50 equally correct answers". Our options are every feminine one-syllable name that starts with an F or two-syllable names that both syllables have F. But we have to pick one. Fifer is definitely not a common name, but it has two F syllables and means "piper", which is a sound-related profession and is associated with the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which sorta tied to my stretchy idea of the name Kyouko representing the way she natural leadership, so Fifer Fogfeller it is.

Junko Enoshima

Calqued meaning for Enoshima: Inlet's Island

Calqued meaning for Junko: Shield Girl

Calqued meaning for Otonashi: Without sound (idiomatic expression meaning "lying low")

Calqued meaning for Ryouko: Breezy Girl (if we're working with archaic meanings, can alternatively be Innocent Girl)

Explicit functionality for Junko: The shield (jun) in her name is meant to be part of the word contradiction (mujun), written with the kanji for halberd and shield. Play case 5 of the first Ace Attorney game to know why.

Implicit functionality for Enoshima: Enoshima is a small tourist island in Kanagawa whose main attraction is a giant temple complex dedicated to the worship of goddess Benzaiten, popularly nicknamed Benten. Benzaiten is the goddess of pretty much everything that flows and constantly changes, most notably water, wind, music, words, poetry, knowledge, arts, and beauty.

Implicit functionality for Otonashi: Junko Enoshima sure isn't making any big moves in Danganronpa/Zero.

Implicit functionality for Ryouko: She very much has a breezy personality. No matter how many horrifying situations come her, she'll remain chill enough to drop a hearty and confident "Not my problem".

Implicit functionality for Ryouko if we were taking archaic meanings into consideration (we aren't): Otonashi hasn't done a single bad thing, it was all that weird Junko Enoshima chick she knows nothing about.

Possibly intentional functionality but I'm not sure: The most common configuration of the name Junko is with kanji meaning "Pure Girl", but this Junko's configuration rejects the purity kanji, reflecting the roots of the gyaru subculture as rebellion against Japan's purity culture.

Realism level: Enoshima exists only as the name of a location, not being a real person name. Junko is somewhat common in many kanji configurations (used to be a lot more prevalent around the 60s) but the "Shield Girl" version is unique to Danganronpa. The only non-Danganronpa-related mention of "Shield Girl" Junko I could find online is an early FGO interview where Takeuchi mentions Junko as placeholder name for Mash Kyrielight during development. Otonashi is a dying surname, perhaps much more common in fiction than in real life at this point. Ryouko is pretty normal.

I already covered Doxie in Mukuro's section. Really lucky pick. And the surname for it is just as lucky. This one should theoretically be hard because Benzaiten's domains of eloquence, fluidity, wisdom, and beauty make her a goddess very specific to what compose Junko's character. I don't think there's any Western goddess that covers all bases. The element of constant change, which might be the most important thing, is something I don't think I've seen in any other religion. But somehow Benten is a real English surname so here I miraculously get Doxie Benten as the easiest name in this post. I'm sure that in this hypothetical localization timeline, a lot of people will correctly associate the name Benten with Junko's multiple "transformation" but think the reference is Ben 10.

Now, I'm a huge sucker for dumb and obvious names playing on the word "incognito" and that's the energy I wanted to bring to Otonashi, but I need to do it without laying Zero's twist too obviously. Otonashi is known as the Super High School Level Analyst, so I think I can get away with Bree Cogito, three letters removed from incognito, as her talent can mislead the reader to think Cogito was chosen because it means "think".

[kaibutsushidousha]

Your argument that My Hero Academia’s ending is thematically appropriate but not satisfying raises an interesting question: does thematic appropriateness inherently exclude emotional satisfaction? While the story creates complex questions and resists giving easy answers, Deku’s promise to “save” Tomura feels incomplete under the current ending. Tomura remains in a liminal space—neither fully saved nor condemned—leaving the narrative without a definitive resolution to one of its central conflicts. A sacrificial ending, where Deku gives his life to fully save Tomura and overcome All For One’s influence, might risk controversy, but it could provide a more satisfying emotional payoff while still aligning with the story’s themes. The “Dark Deku” arc teaches Deku the importance of accepting help and rejecting self-destruction, but it doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility of self-sacrifice as a heroic act. In fact, by learning to trust others, Deku could make a sacrifice that is not about isolation or despair, but rather a collective act of heroism—a choice that is supported, necessary, and rooted in the connections he’s built, rather than a lone decision born of hopelessness. Such an act could inspire others to continue his work and cement his legacy as a true “Symbol of Peace.” This would mirror themes found in works like Utena and Penguindrum, where sacrifice becomes the ultimate act of salvation, emphasizing the idea that to truly “save” someone, one might need to give up everything, including their life. Deku’s death in this context could resolve the story’s central question about what it means to be a hero while leaving behind a legacy that drives meaningful change in hero society. Comparing this to Oshi no Ko’s Aqua Hoshino, it’s clear that Aqua’s narrative hinges on his survival as a reflection of his journey toward healing and moving beyond vengeance. For Deku, however, the narrative stakes are different—he has always been framed as a symbol, someone whose actions inspire others. While Aqua’s survival is essential for his arc, Deku’s death, if framed as a necessary act to save Tomura and inspire change, could be equally appropriate to his character and the story’s themes. In this sense, a sacrificial ending could provide both thematic and emotional closure, resolving the questions of what it truly means to save someone and how a hero’s legacy can endure even beyond their life. Would this approach better satisfy the narrative while remaining consistent with My Hero Academia’s core ideals? Or would it risk undermining the complex, unsatisfying ambiguity that the current ending embraces? (P.S.: I was referring to Light Yagami when mentioning a Jump protagonist who died in 2006. Although, considering Light’s, er, “unusual” status as a Jump “protagonist”…)

"does thematic appropriateness inherently exclude emotional satisfaction?” No, those two usually come together. Most authors are trying to make them come together.

I haven't watched Utena yet and Penguindrum was almost a decade ago, but wasn't Penguindrum the opposite of "sacrifice as a form of salvation"? Let's eat the fruit of fate together. There's meaning or peace to be found unless everyone is together in the dinner table sharing whatever little they have and receiving from others in return. I vaguely remember them breaking free from the idea of self-sacrifice through a Ringo speech about the family sticking together there.

Regardless, your fanfic idea has potential to be impactful while true to the challenges and nuances that the series built. Do write it in full form.