#Bullet proof

[godisarepublican]

[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").

Intertextuality for Touko: Fukawa's name, talent, and braids are references to Tooko Amano, the protagonist of the Book Girl series.

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 don't 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".

[donavanmonarch]

February and March are usually the quiet months

[gijoe-forever]

[transport-methodology-101]

⬇️ Trasco 1000 SEL 5.0 Limousine, a stretched version of the Mercedes-Benz W126 S-Class. ⬆️ production from 1979 to 1991. S-Class produced between 1979 and 1992, making it the longest series in Mercedes history.

Trasco Bremen, a German company known for building stretched limousine variants of S-Class and E-Class Mercedes-Benz models. 5.0-liter engine, which replaced the 4.5-liter grey cast iron engine,

Available as a 36-inch or 42-inch stretch, extending the classic Mercedes-Benz design for enhanced comfort and luxury. https://www.motortrend.com/features/features-collections-every-mercedes-benz-s-class-driven Mercedes-Benz S-Class: Best and Worst Generations ⬇️⬇️

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/the-last-classic-benz-mercedes-benzs-w126-s-class-celebrates-40-years/ The Last Classic Benz: Mercedes-Benz's "W126" S-Class celebrates 40 years | The Online Automotive Marketplace | Hemmings, The World's Largest Collector Car Marketplace

[itsbenedict]

Here's all the redraws I did of the cast of Bullet Proof, which I've officially put to bed with a big spoiler post. These were pretty fun to do!

[growup-thatbeautiful]

jealous! bullet proof! tan! oh my!

bullet proof masterlist

tw: blood, jealousy, unwanted touching, guns, kissing

he’s one of those “i don’t like people touching what’s mine” guys, which you weren’t a fan of at first, let’s be honest.

but it grew on you when you started dating, and it just got worse from there. the mix of your mutual fear of loosing each other (both before and after the split) made it to where he couldn’t stand to see anyone that isn’t him touching you

so before you’re married, when he’s just starting to date you (before lovely little jovie comes around), you take a mission where you’re acting as a honeypot, trying to seduce information out of a dealer who made the wrong enemies. needless to say, you’re good at your job. really good at your job. dedicated, too.

you’ve got an earpiece in your ear, tan’s voice telling you positions of guards and other helpful information, and you’re tuning it out, focusing on getting the necessary names/locations.

tan doesn’t like being ignored, and he really doesn’t like being ignored for another guy. but it’s just for a mission, so he deals with it by rechecking the bullets in his gun.

buttt it all becomes a little bit too much when he leans a tad bit too close to you, his lips next to your ear, whispering something tan can’t hear. the guys hand is on your thigh, the other one cupping your face, and you have to fight to keep yourself still. you know it’s part of the job, you know you signed up for it, but you’re feeling less inclined to let the dude touch you now that he’s doing it.

lemon may be the expert at reading people, but tan’s the expert about you, and he can fucking tell the moment that you’re no longer okay with it.

you blink for a moment and there he is; tan, looking like some sort of revenge-seeking angel in an all white suit that he nicked from the serving staff, gun in his hand aimed at the guys head

he’s behind the guy, so tan goes unnoticed until the gun is pointed into the guy’s temple, tan’s arm around his chest. instinctively, you pull the gun from the holster on your thigh and aim it at the guy as well.

tan’s words are whispered harshly to the man, “you’re lucky i haven’t got the time to treat you how you fuckin’ deserve” “no one fucking treats my girl like that” and finally “love, you care to do the honors?”

once you’re out of there, body neatly disposed of, blood staining tan’s white shirt, he’ll lead you into an alleyway somewhere safe, checking in on you and telling you that everything’s going to be okay

of course, you’ll end up pinned to the brick wall, tan’s mouth leaving searing kisses and marks all along your neck and collarbone to make sure everyone sees that you’re his

taglist loves: @venusthepirate @shadows-of-nyx @syd-vixious @thefloatingpickle @sallyp-53 @fictionalcomforts @s-haa @the-bisaster @phoenixhits @wee-little-mouse @cupofstarss @eefos @slut-f0r-u @lotustv @kpopgirlbtssvt @amyg1509 @tangerinesgf @earth-elemental18 @theredvelvetbitch

[godisarepublican]

[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.

[theeccentricwritter]

This isn't over !!

First thing you see after you zoom in is how you die

How you dying 👀

[hot-hot-wheels]

Bullet Proof

[ghlagatindotcom]

Powerful juju man testing ‘bullet proof’ charm shoots himself in stomach and lands in hospital

A bizarre incident has unfolded in Kuchibuyi Village, Kubwa, involving a native doctor, Ismail Usman, who allegedly shot himself while testing a self-made “bulletproof” charm. The incident, which occurred on Friday, November 23, 2024, has drawn widespread attention and raised concerns about the dangers of experimenting with firearms and charms. According to reports, Usman used a shotgun to test…

[turquoise-cyan]

[itsbenedict]

BP Postmortem post 2 bc/image limit

Don't read this unless you've read the first one already! There's a 30-images-per-post limit and I had to split it up! Opening this readmore will immediately spoil lots of stuff and be confusing.

So, right. Nolan. Didn't that guy die? Case 1 killer?

Well, you see... that wasn't Nolan Cubbins. Not a very Brazilian name, was it? So... who's this kid?

That's Lucas Rossi, Davi's younger brother and host of "Bullet Proof", the fourth-most-popular Enoshima knockoff killing game on the air! (And the most popular one being broadcast in English!) While there's a whole production crew on the ground that edits together the footage, he's the host and director on-set.

Why's he doing this? Well... for the money, mainly.

Lucas met Junko Enoshima while she was doing a despair tour through Brazil. He'd been a student activist at the time, and student activists were sort of her favored prey, and what should have happened is that he was brainwashed like basically everyone else who ever met her. And that is what happened, until he went home to Davi and tried to spread the gospel of despair and Davi was like, what the fuck? And did some brain surgery to his little brother to erase the memory of meeting Junko.

After finding out what'd happened to him, and being deeply deeply discomfited by how malleable he turned out to be in the face of superpowered charisma, he developed a pretty intense hatred of her and the whole despair cult! He eventually connected with the Future Foundation, and found... that the Future Foundation was underfunded and needed more resources to put a stop to the apocalypse. They needed money. A lot of it.

So... Lucas got into showbiz. Despair-based entertainment was like, the only thing anyone cared about anymore, for some impossible reason, and lots of people had life savings they no longer cared about because life is pointless and only Despair matters, so... it was easy to play to the crowd. With Davi's help, he was able to put together some very convincing bloodsport and execution videos, but... the apocalypse is a tough environment for indie payment processors, so they had an audience, but not much money.

That's when the Bright Conglomerate reached out with a big budget and big plans to convert a flying Hope's Peak safehouse into a staged deathgame. They'd have top-of-the-line equipment, a whole production staff, and a major corporation working to adapt to the economic realities of the despair apocalypse and ensure cashflow. Lucas and Davi would get a cut of the revenue, and it'd be a lot of revenue- which he'd be able to divert to the Future Foundation in hopes of putting all this madness to rest.

So they flew up there and took over, thanks to Gwen and Sakura not bothering to turn on most of the ship's defenses, and Henry running interference. They initially tried to negotiate with Will Bookerton (still an adult at that point, trying to root out whoever had taken over Monokuma and started some sort of cockamamie Deception Game), and... faced opposition. Will didn't trust the tech, Henry wanted to cultivate more of a family-friendly image for the show which was insane and counter to the whole idea, and ultimately Lucas had Davi erase their memories so they couldn't interfere with production. It was all going to go perfectly!

And it went perfectly! A smash hit! Made billions! Bullet Proof was a reality TV craze that swept the, uh, anarcho-despairist perpetual riot that they had instead of a nation by that point.

Y'know, for the first couple seasons. Until season 3, when Lashauna shoved this dipshit off the top of the school building and his head got pulped on impact:

This was sort of a crisis point. Davi was forced to confront the reality that his skills couldn't undo every murder that happened on the show, and that the charade would have a cost in human lives. And a reality TV star dying in an accident during filming would be a huge scandal for a normal show!

But obviously this led to a huge jump in ratings with the show's core demo, so there was a bit of a moral dilemma there.

Lucas, in charge, ultimately decided... by the numbers, it was worth it. One fatal accident every so often, in exchange for funneling millions to stop the apocalypse where hundreds of thousands of people were dying every day? It... made sense, right? It was worth it. The show must go on.

Agnesi Wu Jessie Bai, until this point, was in the same boat as Raymond and Lilakali- a genuine Hope's Peak student who voluntarily assisted with the production of Bullet Proof. When she thought no one was really in any danger thanks to Davi's miracle resurrection tech, she was in league with Lucas to help fund the Future Foundation, and was happy to play the heel a bit to make the show more exciting. But, uh... once it became clear that people were actually dying, she wanted nothing more to do with it, and they started wiping her memory just like Henry and the rest. Still, there exists footage of her confessing to being the mastermind from earlier seasons, which was going to show up in case 5 as a misdirect.

So people kept dying off. And they needed replacements for the dead students, so there'd be enough suspects, of course. So they imported some fake Ultimates.

Martha and Vic were what they called "Murder Geniuses"- prolific killers who, after succumbing to despair, performed highly public and dramatic killings without suffering repercussions. Martha had formed an impromptu military unit that had dominated an entire city, and Vic was a prolific serial killer known as the Gumball Maniac. Bullet Proof's production crew managed to capture them, revert them to teenagers, and erase their memories of despair- adding some bigshot celebrities to the cast. I forget if I set this up in the adventure, but there was going to be another misdirect with the Hope's Peak student records, where their profiles would be missing- casting suspicion on them as mastermind candidates.

So... remember that one time I posted these, and was like "one of these is an actual evil mastermind design, hee hee hoo hoo"?

HAHA! GOTCHA! They were all actual evil mastermind designs! Kinda... bad ones, in retrospect, but whatever.

Anyway... it didn't take too long before the show caught the eye of Cyrus Bookerton, who was supposed to be headmaster of the school. He saw Billy on TV and was freaked out- deciding that it was worth opening up his safehouse and sending his daughter, ???? Bookerton, Ultimate Impostor, to rescue her older brother and put a stop to this.

"Alice", in one of her earlier guises, posed as an intern at the production studio on the ground. As she was eager to get involved, she was eventually sent up to assist Lucas, Davi, Lilakali, and Raymond as a replacement student on the show.

She pretended Lucas was her hero, in her guise as an ascended fangirl working her dream job. He spilled everything to her, explaining how everything was to divert money to the Future Foundation and save the world. They were very close!

And as a result of them being very close, she noticed something. She noticed that Lucas had given up. Compromise after compromise made to keep the show on the air and the money coming in had worn him down, and he'd stopped really caring about where the money was going. Despair was beginning to get to him, the longer those Future Foundation millions went without saving the world. Nothing seemed to be changing, but all he could do was keep doing what he'd always done. He didn't really believe in what it was all for anymore. And... he'd gotten very good at doing his job.

So she went to go do what she was sent there to do. Kill Davi Rossi, put an end to Bullet Proof, and rescue her brother.

Only she got caught and failed.

She'd set up a bomb in the lab, but was caught red-handed and forcibly sedated and mindwiped. Because she'd been a double agent for so long, Davi had to do a pretty complicated mind-wipe, making swiss cheese of her memory so she'd only remember rehearsing her various cover identities. She was left only with the memory of being Alice Bayko, SHSL Stage Magician, normal student at Hope's Peak Academy. (Or Alistair Bayko, or Charlie Range, or Diana Ingenue, depending on what the player selected at the start of the game.) Demoted from showrunner/double agent to hapless cast member- with a suite of fuzzy and awkward half-remembered memories bleeding through.

After that... well, Lucas trusted her a lot. She helped run a bunch of seasons of the show, and her betrayal really got to him. In a fit of paranoia, he decided to become a shadow mastermind, operating from behind the scenes of behind the scenes, so that Raymond and Lilakali couldn't betray him too. No more mistakes like this one! Delete him from their memories, make them think it'd just been the two of them that whole time. Keep that Nolan Cubbins kid on ice- he'd take his place, and then...

...after posing as an easily-caught culprit in case 1, he'd get harpooned during his execution, and then... reeled back into the ship, where Davi would patch him up ahead of schedule. A perfect disappearing act.

As for Alice- getting mind-wiped wasn't an outcome she failed to anticipate.

It was always possible she'd get captured and mind-wiped. And if that happened, someone needed to finish the job. The state-of-the-art custom Monokuma droid she'd been set up with as part of her cover identity: Flopsy-Turvy. She'd programmed it with instructions to kill Davi and then self-destruct, destroying his lab and making it impossible for Bullet Proof to continue.

She didn't think to program it not to catch Billy in the blast, though, who happened to be infiltrating that very same lab via the secret passage he built in the first place.

I really hadn't figured out how I was going to present this whole setup to the players deductively, to be honest, but that's the upshot of Case 5: Determining that Flopsy-Turvy was the culprit, and by extension Alice.

And then Lucas, whose mental state at the time is best-represented by this TMBG song...

...executes Alice in a fit of rage and betrayal.

That's about as far as I had planned. I knew I wanted there to be some sort of case 6, getting into the backstory with Lucas and Henry and all the other backstory details that weren't explored in case 5, but I didn't have any clear plans- maybe some kind of action scene as Lucas's control over the guns and security systems goes up against the whole class working together to evade his defenses and subdue him, shot like an execution? And then an ending where the survivors take over the airship and fly off into the sunset with a vague intent to save the world somehow? Most of the dead would still be in Davi's tanks and hypothetically recoverable, if they found some other Ultimate Doctor. I didn't really have the ending nailed down from there, except that...

...with Alice dead, I was going to have Jo take off the incongruently feminine costume and reveal the ahoge, becoming the new protagonist. It's a rule of Danganronpa that the protagonist has to be a boy with a stupid hair doinker thingy! Joe Alejo, Ultimate Hope!

I was setting up a bunch of Gender stuff with Jo leading up to this protagonist reveal- when Davi's Monokuma was going to show up to treat the wound Martha suffered from Gwen's saw trap, he was going to notice Jo was binding with Ace bandages and be like. No. Honey. Come on. Here's my old binder from before I used my necromancer powers to trans my gender. That's so unsafe.

(Which... in retrospect, wouldn't have made sense? Surely this season isn't the first one in which Jo had a gender journey, and Davi who was responsible for reanimating them a bunch of times wouldn't have failed to notice this. Hrm. Would find a way to rewrite that moment in the reboot.)

That is... I think that's everything! Aside from... a few changes I was going to make in the reboot.

Reboot changes

One was going to be that... I was going to just cut Violette and Caleb. Violette's shtick was too annoying to write consistently, and Caleb was kind of me working through some religious baggage that I'm kinda distant from at this point.

To replace Violette as case 1's victim, I was going to build up to case 3's super tragic thing with Lashauna and Mill some more. To do this, I was going to split Dominique into two different characters.

Dom had... a couple of weird things going on with him. The initial conception of his shtick was... completely cishet guy who acted all camp and flamboyant because he just liked messing with people. The kind of guy who's, like, absolutely homophobic, thinks queerness is deviant and disgusting- but thinks deviant and disgusting people are so funny to laugh at that he supports them anyway? Joins in on the bit? Like being gay is the funniest joke he can think of? A little extremely confused, and doesn't got the spirit at all, but somehow the same energy anyway?

Plus, like- Dominique was like, late twenties, absolutely not a real high-schooler, and Lashauna was... I want to say like, 18? Definitely too young for him, but also she's his boss so there was a weirdass power dynamic that definitely wasn't healthy in some direction or other- and it definitely wasn't a good look to have the camp gay guy be sort of a sexual predator.

That was always a really awkward bit to write, and I ended up not really committing to it at all. So instead he just sort of ended up... like, a normal stereotypical camp gay hairstylist guy? And then he died before there could really be any exploring any of the fucked-up parts of his character. It didn't really work.

So instead, we've now got Dominique Locke, Ultimate Stylist, and Nick Martin, Ultimate Gambler.

Dominique is just straight-up genderfluid, a shy and untalkative kid who uses their hairstyling and makeup skills to modulate their gender performance on a moment-to-moment basis. They get the hair-changes-every-portrait shtick, and get killed in case 1 only to come back alive in case 5.

Nick, meanwhile, gets most of the scummier elements. He's the homophobic one in charge of the Diamonds who colludes with Henry re:crime stuff and dies in case 2's double murder. This guy's very clearly not a teenager by any stretch of the imagination, and technically neither is Lashauna in this iteration, though I still want to have like, the too-young-but-also-his-boss fucked-up power dynamic for their weird relationship.

The idea there is to build up, like... one Hit Deck member dying in both cases before case 3, to build up to Lashauna and Mill's conflict re:whether she should cut her losses and kill him to escape or try and stick it out and save her last surviving subordinate.

-

The other thing I'd do is... foreshadow the reality TV and loops thing more. Introduce impossible footage of things that didn't happen earlier, find some way to explain the rules of memory modification ahead of time, and use the Monokumas as mouthpieces more liberally. Maybe have Davi show up in person only to disappear hastily at some point, so he doesn't come out of nowhere. There's a lot of this plot that just wasn't really sufficiently foreshadowed, I think, and with this many layers to it it would definitely be doable to start peeling them back earlier.

And, of course, rework the logic of the cases more to be, uh, better. More fair and solvable with multiple roads to noticing the relevant clues. The ones I did were very much a first attempt, and I didn't really have the knack for it yet.

And that's, uh... that's it! I think that's everything. If you've got any questions, ask box is open. Thanks to everyone who read and supported Bullet Proof while I was making it!

[godisarepublican]

The shadow government hiding behind Biden is ordering the demented old hair-sniffer to say that he's going to "Reform" the Supreme Court... which is tantamount to shredding the constitution.