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yunoteru4ever · 19 days ago

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Hello once again. I thank you for your opinions regarding my previous question. It has provided valuable insight into the relationship between Rea and Yayoi and how future fans can interpret their relationship in their creative endeavors. Although, just like before, I come with a new inquiry. As I have looked back the series, I find myself wondering why certain Diary Holders do not properly reflect their mythological inspiration in certain aspects.

Of course not all of them are fallible to this shortcoming. Some of them are given traits that reflect their inspiration such as Tsubaki being an clairvoyant oracle and Kamado being a caring matron to orphans. Additionally, I do not mind if certain Diary Holders also have traits that are inverse of their inspiration such as Yukiteru being a timid and cowardly boy and Minene performing rather idiotic mistakes (I will never let her go for writing her real name and address on that beauty pageant form...). However, there are traits given that do not reflect other Diary Holders. As much as I enjoy the narrative weight of Takao being a serial killing teacher and Keigo as the cop hot on his trail, I do not understand how that correlate to their inspiration. Keigo's occupation is something I can see as an inverse of Mercury as the messenger god is also the god of thieves (an occupation Keigo came to loathe due to his father). However, Takao's occupation as a teacher is something I never understood as Vulcan was the god of the forge and fire. It's not as though smithing has become an extinct occupation in the modern era so I am confused why isn't he one.

Regardless, the crux of my inquiry is that are there any source of information regarding the reasons why Sakae Esuno chose those traits and occupations for the Diary Holders? It would be most enlightening if you could provide answers to my question. Once again, I thank you for your aid and I bid you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday.

Thanks for the ask! I think this got lost in my backlog for a bit, and I'm sorry about that.

Sakae Esuno has only ever vaguely spoken about how the Roman gods correlate to the various diary holders. Mostly just to acknowledge that the correlations are there; I seem to recall he only specifically made the Yuno = Juno connection clear. So how do all the diary holders align with the Roman gods? .... Yeah, it's not always clear, and we really only have our own interpretations.

The first OP from the anime helpfully lists out the related gods for our reference: Juno, Jupiter, Minerva, Apollo, Mars, Ceres, Mercury, Diana, Bacchus, Vulcan, Pluto, Vesta, Venus. But not in that numerical order. So, for anyone else out there trying to make these names align with their respective diary holders, here's how it breaks down:

Yukiteru Amano (1st) — Jupiter

Yuno Gasai (2nd) — Juno

Takao Hiyama (3rd) — Vulcan

Keigo Kurusu (4th) — Mercury

Reisuke Houjou (5th) — Ceres

Tsubaki Kasugano (6th) — Apollo

Marco Ikusaba and Ai Mikami (7th) — Mars and Venus

Kamado Ueshita (8th) — Vesta

Uryuu Minene (9th) — Minerva

Karyuudo Tsukishima (10th) — Diana

John Bacchus/Balks (11th) — Bacchus

Yomotsu Hirasaka (12th) — Pluto

With that out of the way, here are my best guesses at how these Roman gods align with the Future Diary characters in question.

This is just my personal interpretation, of course, based on my own research and reading about the Roman gods. Your mileage may vary.

And as you say: Some of these links will be incredibly obvious.

But some of them? Oh lord. If you make it to the part about Twelfth/Yomotsu, I might leave you more confused than you came in.

SORRY/NOT SORRY IN ADVANCE.

(This is a long post. Prepare yourself.)

Yuki/Jupiter - Jupiter is the supreme god, the king of all gods. As such, he was also associated with supposedly granting the right of kingship/becoming ruler in ancient Rome. And Yuki is both the favorite to win the survival game (per Deus) and the ultimate victor in the said game, so... that checks out. In addition, Jupiter supposedly negotiated with the second Roman emperor to establish rules around giving sacrifices to the gods. That might be seen as a connection to Yuki ultimately having to kill Yuno.

Yuno/Juno - Juno is the goddess of love and marriage, but she also was known for her jealousy regarding Jupiter and for having a war-like, violent side. So. This one is obvious.

Fiery man! Fiery guy! Of metal and stabbing!

Takao/Vulcan - Vulcan is the god of fire, volcanos, and metalworking. I can least least see the influence of "fire" in Takao's visual design given his bright red hair that flows out all over the place. But an interesting facet of Vulcan is his dual association with both the constructive and destructive aspects of fire. Because of this, Romans built temples to Vulcan only outside of cities so as to avoid inviting destructive fire into their own midst, and they often tried to encourage the god to avoid bringing them harm. The idea of a wanton destructive force that could rampage across your city aligns decently well with Hiyama's identity as a serial killer. Note how Takao's fiery red hair is tied back and controlled when he's being "constructive" as a teacher, but it's wild and unkempt when he's being "destructive" as a kiler. Furthermore, there's the "god of metalworking" aspect; Takao is solely reliant on a metal knife to kill his victims, so there might be a connection there.

Kurusu/Mercury - Mercury, the messenger, is the god of... a lot of stuff. Specifically: financial gain/commerce, eloquence/communication, travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery/tricksters, and thieves. Kurusu does win Yuki and Yuno over to his side with his words, and later on effectively negotiates multiple deals with Minene to get what he wants, so I think that covers the communication/eloquence aspect. You might even argue that the way he negotiates with his own enemies to get what he wants is a clever manipulation of "boundaries." But Keigo's ultimate betrayal of Yuki and Yuno serves as good example of "trickery," too. And... that's probably all I've got.

Reisuke/Ceres - Ceres is known for being associated with fertility. She is most immediately linked to agricultural fertility, but she also plays a role in marriages and motherly fertility, ultimately serving as an important patron to families. Reisuke's link to the idea of "family" is pretty much all over his storyline; see how he calls Yuno "big sis" and adores "playing" with her, and see how he pine for a normal family life in his chapter of Mosaic. In addition, I think poison being his favorite weapon is probably meant to link him with plants... but your mileage may vary on that. Also, there's the green. You can't deny that when you think "Reisuke," you think "green" — I think that's another example of the Roman god connection influencing the character's visual design.

Tsubaki/Apollo - Like Mercury, Apollo is the Roman god of bunches of stuff. But the most important thing is that he's the god of prophecy, truth, and light. Tsubaki is the figurehead of a cult dedicated to sight and foresight that's obsessed with eyeball imagery; not only did her followers believe Tsubaki had prophetic powers, but her diary eventually made those powers real. Apollo is also a patron of the protection of the young. Because of how Funatsu exploits Tsubaki and turns her into a perennial sexual assault victim, she kind of winds up taking her desire to protect others from a similar fate to a very unhealthy extreme by wanting to destroy the whole world, but I guess that could be seen as a corrupted version of protecting people. The fact that Apollo is the god of both healing and disease is an interesting dichotomy, too, that feels like it might have an application to Tsubaki's poor eyesightt somehow... ? Idk. But it's probably more likely that her eyesight is just a reference to various "blind prophet" mythlogical figures throughout history such as Tiresias.

Marco and Ai/Mars and Venus - You know what they (used to) say; "Men are from mars, women are from Venus" and all that. Mars is a god of war—or more specifically, "the use of war to secure peace," which I think fits Marco pretty nicely. The fact that his Apprentice Diary is combat-focused but only in a counter-attack way really reflects this. Venus is the goddess of love, beauty, sex, etc. — and obviously, Ai and Marco are devoted couple who serve as a point of comparison for Yuno and Yuki, whose own love is in pretty dire straits at that point in the larger narrative. So the "love" thing is clearly present in our dual seventh diary holders, but Ai's own Apprentice Diary also serves as a nice reflection of the Venus themes; it shows her men she's going to flirt with in the future, after all.

Kamado/Vesta - Vesta is the goddess of home and family. Kamado runs a home for orphans and is devoted to protecting the kids. Easy. NEXT.

Minene/Minerva - You can see vestiges of the name "Minerva" in the name "Minene" right off the bat, but let's go past the surface and look at Minerva. Like many Roman gods, she's all over the place, serving as a goddess of wisdom, war, law, justice, and the arts. Regarding her role as a goddess of war, Minerva is just like Mars in she has a particular niche within that field. She's specifically the goddess of "strategic thinking to secure victory." I think you can see that in Minene's diary allowing her to secure clever escapes. And although Minene isn't especially wise most of the time, she IS known to sometimes serve up nuggets of wisdom, such as when she's advising Yuki during the period when she's his "nurse."

Wisdom.

You could also see her innate distrust of/disdain for gods as being a strange sort of wisdom given the reality she lives in—I mean, Deus isn't exactly a benelovent or loving deity. Minene is a pretty ironic character, though, as evidenced by her ultimately becoming a goddess in her own right despite her hate and distrust for all gods and religion. When you consider that, her being associated with a goddess of wisdom and justice despite being a hot-headed terrorist all seems like further extensions of that irony.

Karyuudo/Diana - Diana is goddess of nature, the hunt, and wild animals. Karyuudo keeps (and excessively dotes on) trained hunting dogs. Which are animals. Not wild ones (though they do be actin' wild AF when stalking our heroes) but still: animals are inherently a part of nature. You feel? NEXT.

Balks/Bacchus - Bacchus is the god of wine and pleasure. And John (whose last name is sometimes translated as "Balks" and sometimes just literally as "Bacchus") is often seen with a glass of wine in his hand, sure. But Bacchus is also one of the least-altered Greek gods when he was translated into the Roman pantheon. In fact, many Greeks alternatively called Dionysus "Bacchus" even before that name became his official moniker under Rome, because Dionysus could supposedly induce "baccheia"—a form of ritual madness/religious ecstasy that was said to alter your state of consciousness, expanding your internal mental and spiritual awareness by inducing visions and spasms of euphoria. In that regard, I think "baccheia" sounds a lot like what John was trying to do to Sakurami City's entire population. He wanted to give them ALL future sight, after all, and thereby expand the city into a global leader. Or perhaps you could interpret the "baccheia" as the awareness John believed he already possessed. Consider that the counterpoint to the internal awareness provided by the baccheia is said to be a severe reduction in external awareness. And in the end, despite all his intelligence, John definitely failed to understand a major external threat.

Yomotsu/Pluto - OH GOD IT'S TIME TO GET NUTS. Pluto is the god of the underworld and the Roman counterpart of the Greeks' Hades. Hades was a darker, more threatening figure in comparison to Pluto, who was portrayed as a positive concept of the afterlife. Just like with Bacchus, the name is derived from an alternative name the Greeks came up with first; they started calling Hades "Plouton" around the time they began giving him a more sympathetic portrayal. Although the Greeks' underworld of Hades was seen as a desolate and despairful place, the Romans' vision of Pluto's realm was a place of abundant riches. This is probably because they gradually conflated the Greek god "Plutus" (the god of wealth) with the Greek's usage of "Plouton" for the god of the underworld, and eventually they became the same damn thing.

....all of which is to say that there isn't much linking the Twelfth and Pluto in actual Roman mythology, honestly. The only obvoius connection is the most famous story of both Hades AND Pluto: the tale in which they abduct the woman they later marry, Persephone. And, well... Yomotsu sure does abduct a woman. Minene, y'know.

But now we have to GET SUPER NERDY. Because the "Plouton"/"Plutus" confusion is actually KEY, in my opinion, to understanding the connection between Yomotsu and Roman mythology

It's not just that the Romans came to conflate Plouton and Plutus, ultimately resulting in their unique vision of Pluto. Because Dante Alighieri made a similar mistake! Modern translators of Dante's Divine Comedy seem to agree that, although Dante wrote down the name of the Roman god "Pluto" for one minor character? Based on the description given of said character, he actually meant to reference "Plutus" and just... he either borrowed the Romans' name for their underworld god and assigned it to a Greek figure, or he simply made a mistake. (Because of the latter theory, a lot of modern Divine Comedy translations just use "Plutus" for this briefly-shown character because it's probably more accurate.)

......BRUH.

All of this is leading into my theory that, despite the first OP of Mirai NIkki calling out "Pluto"? I believe Sakae Esuno was ALSO thinking about the Greek god "Plutus."

So screw Pluto; let's fucking talk about Plutus.

In Greek mythology, Plutus is the first being to introduce to humanity these concepts: (A) stealing is wrong, because people should only acquire wealth and property through their own diligence; and (B) people have a right to protect themselves and their own property, because that is justice. Plutus is pretty big on personal justice. But the B.C.-era Greek play Plutus by Aristophanes portrays Plutus as having been struck blind by Zeus. In the aftermath, he's living as a beggar, because his blindness has affected his ability to determine true justice. And instead of the good people earning more money than the evil people, as Plutus intended, wealth is now being distributed randomly, which runs counter to the justice he always wished to see in the world.

A focus on justice? Troubles with blindness??? Come ON.

That's GOT to be part of the inspiration for Yomotsu, right?

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