#But Tumblr actually crashed partway through me typing it up

[singular-yike]

Tell me about Ink Twink Supreme (aka Tsubakura Enraku)

Oof, that's a tough one, as the name Enraku implies, they are truly a dark and mysterious bird...

But! Nothing ventured, so here goes: The "greatest prodigy in all of history", Tsubakura Enraku, the Loafing Monochrome.

The Enraku En-igma (I love bad puns lol)

Tsubakura is one of, if not straight up, the most mysterious characters in the series so far. So before we dive into them in any specific way, let's take a look at what makes them so unknowable

From an in-universe perspective:

As a character within the world of Len'en, we know so much yet not at all about them. Unlike characters like Yabusame or Hooaka on whom we simply lack information, JynX has practically bombarded us with little juicy bits regarding Tsubakura, yet has never elaborated on them. Here are but a few of them:

Is apparently not a complete stranger to Shinto shrine work (EE Tsubakura's Extra)

They own a sword, whose shape changes depending on their mood (EMS title screen & 2021 Interview with JynX Q154)

They're able to remodel their own body, e.g. to be cold-resistant (RMI Official Profile)

They've once accidentally made a nuclear weapon (BPoHC Scoundrel vs. Shion), although apparently the responsibility doesn't really lie with them (2021 Interview with JynX Q172) (Perhaps they merely oversaw someone else do so at their lab?)

They “dislike” Yabusame, and yet are constantly found together (AWTIF False Spirit Account)

They worked as the general chief researcher at a research lab under the EN corporate group (BotC EE Yabusame 3-4), although they were often a slave to their sponsorships (EE Official Profile)

I've only really picked one from each game, but we can already see that these are already plenty curious enough, and I haven’t even gone into their extremely contradictory personality and ways of acting.

From an out-of-universe perspective:

JynX has once stated that every character is based on something (in fact I would argue that everything in Len’en period is based on something), and while most characters can be tied to a historical/mythological figure, story or even just a concept, you can’t really tie Tsubakura to anything other than the vague concept of... scienceᵀᴹ.

This, of course, by no means detracts from the character at all. In fact, there are plenty other aspects of there character that one may inspect and analyse, like their design, character titles, themes, etc. But it does further the mystery of our favourite ink creature. (And it’s not even really ink...)

So yeah, the long story short is that there’s simply too much about Tsubakura that it’s impossible to go into them all at once. Although feel free to ask about any specific aspect of them, mentioned here or otherwise~

Tsubakura’s Name

Instead, I’ll specifically go into one of what I think to be the most esoteric parts of their character design, especially if you don't know Japanese (and even then it's esoteric, I'll be honest): The name “Tsubakura Enrkau”. (Please note that, for this section, I'll be using the Japanese name order, so "Enraku Tsubakura")

Enraku (燕楽) Tsubakura (玄鳥), the four Japanese characters in this name respectively mean "swallow (as in the bird)" (燕), "joy/fun/relaxed/comfort" (楽), "black/mysterious" (玄) and "bird" (鳥). Here we see possibly the most important part of their name, that they have a "Bird's Name".

In Enraku, we are able to split the word with its pronunciation exactly into "en" (燕) and "raku" (楽). When read, it shares the same pronunciation as a word for "partying/making merry" (宴楽), an allusion to their ability "to enjoy that which is enjoyable". In addition, as a bit of a bonus point, although rare, 燕 can be used as an alternative to 宴, so one can argue that "enraku" directly means "partying" as well.

Tsubakura is less direct, you will find that there is no way for the characters 玄 and 鳥 to give the pronunciation of "tsubakura". In fact, you will find that 玄鳥 is an existing combination that is regularly read as "genchou" to mean "swallow" (again the bird). "Tsubakura" is instead one of the possible readings of 燕, which we've already discussed, refers to the "swallow". Thus we see, that JynX mapped one possible way to say swallow onto a different way to write swallow. It's a bit of a stretch of an analogy but it'd be like if I wrote "football" but pronounced it "soccer".

And now for the most obscure part of Tsubakura's name:

In this image from JynX, they demonstrate by highlighting specific components of each character (in black or white) how the four characters in Tsubakura alternate between the secret meanings of "black" and "white", a reference to their monochrome colour scheme. (Common character for black: 黒; For white: 白)

楽 and 鳥 are quite direct, you can find 白 directly in both of them (Although I will be a bit pedantic and say that 鳥 does not actually have a 白 component, it just has a similar-looking part that you can dissect out of it)

燕 is the most obscure, the highlighted components combine to give 北 (North). In the Chinese philosophy of the Five Phases (五行 wǔxíng), water is associated with the cardinal direction of the north, as well as the colour of black, hence the hidden "black" in 燕.

Finally, as previously mentioned, 玄 can simply mean "black" on its own.

And that, I think, will do for this preliminary exploration into Tsubakura Enraku. Let us continue looking forward to their many exploits in the future :)