#fantalk

[herushingu]

Good evening, Hellsing 🛡️

No matter what you think youre going through, someone always has your back. Sometimes, more than one 'someone.' 🩸

[drawnaghht]

just for the record, for Samurai Rabbit fans who do like the show, objectively, the show is pretty good. What's the objective measure here? for me it's usually just much I can enjoy it while watching, but there's always more to it than that. i was a bit bored with the show the first 2 eps, but then it surprised me with a few elements in ep 3. I slowly understood what it was actually going for with the slowness. I kept watching and found things I liked about it. Got all sorts of theories and connections and story ideas. I started re-reading Usagi Yojimbo and went looking for more crew interviews. Saw how much the cast and crew seemed to like it and I'm convinced that it was a good show to work on. Rewatched it in other dubs to get some other perspective for my theories. But that's just one way I enjoy shows.

Of course, there's no real objectivity when it comes to tastes, so I say, if you like it, like it unabashedly. You never know when a show just ends or you'll look back and might feel sad you didn't really let yourself enjoy it, just because others don't. I've watched much trashier shows before this one, (comparably, Samurai Rabbit isn't even trashy at all), and those have gotten much less hate, for being much much more annoying/bad/low quality as a whole x3 You don't have to feel bad about folks hating on the show online. They just have a different taste than you. But if you like it, that's really the only metric you need to judge it.

(this is specifically a thought bc a younger fan wrote to me that they felt sad that the show got so much hate in reviews/online posts etc)

if the show was truly as bad as some folks say, it probably would not have been made. there are just so many factors at play in making a show, i personally just try to go by my gut feeling at this point abt shows and if they're going to be fun to watch or not.

and lol i don't have the energy to put this into a longer well-articulated post but still wondering i guess why there are so many posts with "oh this show ain't so good, i hate it" etc etc

so????

sorry for sounding harsh or whatever but literally, watch more animation!!!! there are shows worse than this one and if you'd been alive when those aired you would have watched them and remembered them fondly, only to realize one day you were just watching them out of boredom bc there was nothing else animated on

even shows which we lambast as critical darlings within fandoms had their ups and downs during airing

how well a show is received always depends on how much the network loves it, but also a lot of pure luck

or you'd find a good show and see that the network abruptly ended it, not even with a solution or real ending, but just something open bc the creators were hoping the show could come back. or the show would come back, but completely changed, something so unwatchable you wish you could unwatch it

at least, that was my experience watching cartoons as a 20-something or younger, coming back to cartoon-watching because I had time after highschool

maybe the show just came out too late/early, and would have found a different audience if it came out at a different time. I think about how ROTTMNT was received and how now reviewers are coming back to it, with tails between their legs like "UmU this show was not so bad... after all!!!" shut it!!!! i guess compared to how rise was treated by old TMNT fans and critics alike, this one has gone fairly under the radar or remained almost unremarked upon. Well, old UY did complain about it, and youtube reviewers too, so it's sorta the same thing. kids' cartoons will always have adult critics because everyone thinks they know how to run a cartoon/know what a good cartoon is xD

find other things to do!!!! make your own cartoons and see how easy it is. western cartoon/tv is just how it is and it's not bad to expect more of it, but also, it feels weird to go along with hating or reviewbombing etc just because that's become something "in" now. there's worse media than an animated adaptation turned into a kids cartoon, made during the pandemic.

lowkey some of you just seem kind of spoiled with how many good series there are, and you're just putting the bar so high for even shows you like, NOTHING is good for you unless it's extremely perfect or catering to each and every of your expectations xD

yea ok, it's a children's cartoon - whatever! western children's cartoons can run such a wide gamut of quality vs enjoyability, there's so many shows now you can enjoy instead.

if it's good for you, great! if it's not, ok! don't go posting it in the tags as some universal opinion lol xD

again, there are much worse cartoons out there in the past and in other parts of the world. one little animation mistake or even several per episode aren't going to break my enjoyment of the episode or show as a whole xD

the slowness i mentioned experiencing for example, is also subjective. A reviewer on Commonsensemedia, wrote that they found the show too fast-paced, but that their young daugther liked it, and how the messaging came off as good to both them and their child. It's a matter of perspective.

like yeah, it's a bit goofy and dorky at times, I personally do not get some of the jokes (more on that in a proper review) and maybe as an animator, i'm a bit annoyed at some of the things done with the 3D animation specifically. But that's personal! and those are so few things. on the flipside, I was still able to enjoy the rest of the show, because to me it felt like a lot of care and thought was put into it as a whole. Like, many of the visdev team actually asked to be on the show. It can't be that bad if long time professionals around the western animation industry want to work on it.

A show that's truly bad, would not even bother fleshing out some sort of villain or antagonists at all, and mabye would have scrapped Kagehito as a character entirely, when hearing that it was sort of impossible to animate him as intended. But there's a lot of stuff in this show like that. Compromises from the crew, so they could still make the show and focus on aspects of production and story that were more necessary. So for example also, lobbying for more appearances of Miyamoto Usagi, even though Netflix was not on-board with that themselves, the producers and showrunners were.They were pushing for more of him and his backstory in this show.

so eah, idk, this ended up long anyway, but just, if you like it already, it's ok xD you don't have to justify yourself to other fans or people. and honestly, if you dislike it, same thing. you don't have to justify it. you can just dislike things without reason.

[caniusmcmaine]

WeeklyPic - Wochenbild 27/2024

[girllookingoutwindow]

Gulp.

[paperlovesadness]

Miles posting a clip of my very favorite Bowie song has got me feeling things

I'm not even gonna mention how he chose the piece that said: /Smiling and waving and looking so fine. Don't think you knew you were in my song/ because maybe making these connections everywhere is slightly psychotic

[aghhtdraws]

Are you still in the jade armor fandom? :0/gen

Hello! Sorry for replying to this so late!

Basically, the "fandom" as such or fanbase has been so small online, that to me I was not sure it existed even xD But yes! I am still a Jade fan :D Jade Armor is the best cartoon! It's not even that old to me, I just started watching it in the spring of 2023, when it started airing here again. So I've been a fan for just a year or so since march!

I'm curious where this question comes from!

Would be nice if there were more fans online, but honestly, I have always thought that maybe that's a monkey's paw wish - and that really, it's a bit nice exchange of fate in a way - that it seems that while the online fandom is small, perhaps the show has many offline fans, people actually watching it across multiple channels! (since it's available both on big channels like RTL, but also online in their online versions, maybe it just has many viewers from there)

and it's a fun show with a very cool style and premise, so I'm happy if it has fans at all, whether I actually see them online or not. So I haven't been very active in fandom spaces myself, mostly posting fanart online, because I just don't have time + energy as much for some fandom stuff anymore I guess xD

bc there's so few fancontent online, I really appreciate that the official jade armor insta has so much info and posts about it.

I've seen a lot of shows go under after it's been decided they're not profitable, or similarly, many fandoms sorta dwindle and become smaller after the show has been cancelled, so... it's nice to know that, if a 2nd season really has been put into production (as we've seen announced online), that the shareholders behind the show are willing to fund the studio to make another season. I'm really curious to see where they could be going with the story and characters, since the world and relationships they've shown feel really well-built, like they're real and there's history there. So I'm just happy to see if it will really be aired and that the team has put as much care and effort in as in the first season. I really like the show!

I might put up more fanart, since I've been doing sketches recently, but have been thinking of posting more fanfic too. The show should have at least one fanfic on AO3 (by me), but havent had time to finish more. I'm curious to see more but not really as sad about it since the fandom itself is still very new!

One thing I'd maybe like to personally change is like, make a small wikipedia for it? not on the current main fanwiki site, but just a small one for reference? and another thing is... the tvtropes page? TVtropes in general has so much misinfo sometimes since no one is obligated to keep refs and it's based on "fandom memory" haha... but it's so weird to me how much of the text there is ppl comparing Jade Armor to Miraculous, even tho they are such different shows after the first glance xD Seriously! you can make normal comparisons without letting ppl know how much you hate the other show xD

it's a similar situation to earlier fanbases like ppl comparing Winx vs WITCH, Jake Long vs Juniper Lee, The Book of Life vs Coco... it's as if online cartoon fans apparently just have nothing better to do than make their shows fight xD

lol sorry for the wall of text i've just been thinking abt this show a lot already and this is my way of answering your question I guess xD

Fingers crossed that the show has a build-up of fans, both offline and online!

[aaghht]

hi I've returned to one piece by catching up with some arcs and now i'm mostly caught up and one piece is firmly lodged as an old obsession in my brain again. what do

[icharchivist]

90% of the time people that complain about "belial apologists" are lucilius apologists who are just mad that people like belial no matter how they talk about him so they do not have a leg to stand on lmao

But that's even more of the irony, i'm the first person who, despite being extremely harsh on Lucilius for how he treated Belial, also goes out of my way to explain Lucilius's attitude and how i still understand him and stuff!!!

It's just so wild to me, i spent my time overexplaining myself and actively talking about why my favs are fucked up and do bad actions and just discuss also that it comes from A Place and it's interesting to see how things eventually got this way, and seeing stuff being said here out of context is. wild! esp assuming that we're saying he's a uwu goodie bc we said hey maybe he had the odds stacked against him yaknow

anyway yeah i def need to ignore that but this is just leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. I guess it's the thing with fucked up characters, the moment you say you understand where they're coming from people believe you believe they're good people, as if it would be any interesting to think that.

*rubs temples* i just am mad also i saw it before sleep because it means that against my better logic my brain is going to make me feel bad all night and i hate that. Geez.

[drawnaghht]

there is a tag for it on AO3 tho! it's "Leonardo (TMNT) x Yuichi Usagi" (I'll link it in the replies since tumblr seems to eat links sometimes).

I think your post is really clear and sounds polite so I don't see any problem with discussing the whole "ship name" topic in this way. I just wanted to write a reblog-reply bc I think it's something to think about more + talking abt it might help things along. Tho I'm sure thing'll sort themselves out eventually, as fandom tags usually go. Sorry in advance for my extremely lengthy reply! I tried to structure it so it would be easier to read. But as goes the fandom saying, "I've been rotating this in my brain" ( or: this has been on a spin-cycle in my head for a bit of time now and I have more thoughts about it)

I agree! both ships are great and it's nice that people like it and there is more fic and art of different kinds online of either now. But the mischaracterization and mis-tagging is really confusing in general.

I'll put this post under a readmore out of courtesy for everyone else reading my blog bc unfortunately I find a lot of ways to be extra wordy ^^;

The great thing about AO3 is that it has general/common tags for both characters and ships. When a tag becomes more used, it will become a "main tag", so it will be suggested in the filter sidebar if you search it there, for example. Annoying for smaller fandoms where there are <16 fics total and none of the character tags are recognized by the system, but with both TMNT in general and Rise of the TMNT, that isn't a problem. So tags like a newer relationship combo (Leo x Yuichi) become a suggested/common tag if many people use it (I don't know the rules of this exactly, but it's just something I've noticed/read about re:AO3 tags).

When just searching through the tags, I see that there's quite a few fic which tag both ships? and that's confusing because which version of the character are you going to use then? or even if there are a few which have both featured (multi-fic, AUs, multiple timelines etc), so yes, just excluding one character would probably not exclude all these fic with confusing tags (i tried for a few moments and it doesn't seem to work like that - both relationship tags remain ^^;)

So yes, a bit of a problem if people want to read fic of just one, but find that both tags have been used, they pick a fic and maybe they just don’t find that it caters to either ship. I suppose this is sort of a bigger fandom problem. My experience with fandom is mostly seeing recommendations from friends and writing fic with friends, but I’ve always mostly had rarepairs, so going into AO3 I already prepare myself for not finding anything catering to my tastes (and so I write my own fic).

So in my mind I'm looking at this from a different angle (I mostly post fanart on tumbrl and twitter, i try to treat these platforms as archives even if not meant for that). What's confusing for me is when people tag both characters in fanart when only one is present. Or lets say, they tag both, but clearly the look/design is inspired by one character in particular. Lots of earlier posts before the Samurai Rabbit show came out were simply fans’ own versions of Rise!Miyamoto, but later fanart started incorporating more elements from Yuichi (the hair, the clothes). But why did people still tag it as both? Or why do fans still do this? I’m a fan of both the comic and the Usagi show and I like it when I don’t see too many repeating arts in the tags, mainly because then it’s easier to find new posts, so the multiple tagging system becomes annoying because that's not what i'm looking for ^^;

The ship names I can kind of let pass on account of the Yuichi/Leo ship being still relatively new, and people still learning how to tag properly on tumblr. So I want to trust that people will get used to their own separate tag which they'll use more than the other now. I get it, leosagi is an older ship name, easier to say/use if you already knew smth about TMNT before Rise. But it’s still sorta annoying cuz sometimes you wanna see the 03 leosagi ship - what are you supposed to do when the tag is only full of arts about the newer one? lol tagging both just makes it confusing and makes it feel like the newer tags are obsolete by default - but the leosagi tag is still abt the Leo/Miyamoto Usagi ship, so it’s just a lot of tag clogging still. I think after ppl started posting abt the difference in the two ships more, there’s been less posts/twts abt either ship in general, it’s like fans are busy + just have other interests (which is normal) but it could also just be that ppl are thinking abt how to tag stuff now (but haven’t checked anymore bc busy myself too + tired of fandom stuff in general)

In other fandoms I've seen people put things on vote if there are too many ship tags (like YugiOh! or Pokemon fandoms) because the fandom is big and everyone used different nicknames throughout that media's history. Or there's different names for the same ship, bc there are different flavours for that ship, making each feel separate for the searcher (miraculous ladybug comes to mind and YGO as well, with multiple "versions" of the "same" character), which is a valid way to tag ships if people like being more specific. Makes things easier to find when googling and/or using a websites custom search! I ship both Leosagi and Yuichi/Leo so I very much like to separate the two so I don't have to go through 40 pages of one tag just to find one post ^^;; I did not really know in the beginning either that there were separate tags at all. So I think for a while, maybe that's been the main reason for the confusion in the fandom.

I'm not sure I'd want to vote bc the Leochi/Leoichi tags are confusing for me. Which one to use? so I'm the annoying person who made their own tag bc I think the Yuchi Usagi x Rise!Leo crossover ship is unique and feels like it needs it's own searchable keyword to make things simpler. so i made up "yuinardo" for that. But AO3 doesn't really need tags like that. this sort of tagging or "ship smoosh" sort of name is more usable on tumblr or sites like youtube/twitter which dont seem to have a very good tagging system. But the main problem still seems to be here that for fanfic, people will write Rise!Leo and make up their own Usagi based either Miyamoto Usagi (the og) or his descendant Yuichi (from the cartoon). And I honestly haven't browsed with this in mind as much myself, but I have noticed that people for example tag it as "general TMNT" without specifying if it is 2003 or 2018. Now that's confusing. There's no way to filter these sorts of fic then either and a reader wouldn't know which Usagi they're reading until they read it OR unless it's tagged properly. i can't really think of a solution for that other than - create the general atmosphere in fandom that it's better to tag correctly vs over-tag or tag in-correctly. That's all I can really think of for that because well, fandom feels like it should be inclusive as a space. but it also could do with better organization sometimes.

I also think it's interesting how many people combine versions or elements of both Miyamoto and Yuichi Usagi for their Rise fics. Tho it implies that basically fans either got inspired by the 03 ship or different parts of the comics and decided to combine them for fun, or they made a new character/story up for their own version/AU. but also this makes it feel like fic authors don't look further into either series/comics or any versions in cartoons. ^^; I call this phase "people don't do research" bc I don't see that curiosity from fans for a lot for newer shows in general. So for example, I genuinely like the Usagi Chronicles show and it's making me want to continue reading/looking up the og comic more. But I also like learning more about how the show itself was made and what concept art looked like or how the actors felt about their roles etc - this gives something like "extra value" in my mind to the show but also helps me see the characters and world a different way. I don't see it so much as "bad" for a fandom, it's just a bit sad for me as a fan bc there's always so much to find about a show that's interesting or can be used in fanworks as inspiration. Usagi Yojimbo is a really cool comicbook series and Miyamoto Usagi is a very neat and unique character. And it's a bit weird seeing ppl treat the character like he's just part of the TMNT verse Doesn't happen as much anymore but I imagine with fanfic it must be different. I suppose the 2003 show sort of imprinted its own younger version of Usagi onto the TMNT fandom in a large way and we can still feel that influence on fanworks to this day haha 😂

I think this is how I first encountered the "Rise version of Usagi" in the wild too, before finding the Samurai Rabbit series and seeing there was a new Usagi character+ og series as well. I knew about the 03 version, knew about the comic, then saw a bit of 12 and eventually saw ROTTMNT. I forgot the Usagi series was in development and thought, "huh, people are making their own versions of Usagi for Rise. Cool!"

As long as things are respectful re: other fans, I think that ignoring of original texts can also be fine for the sake of creativity within fandom, but it makes things confusing later or in the case of a more organized place like AO3, because these fans don't seem to actually know which character is which ^^; It makes things confusing to tag+find. And I guess in the case of some of the multi-tagged AO3 fic, it just makes it feel like the authors are switching out one character for the other, but not changing anything to make the character fit into their new role.

And again, OC versions can be fun and interesting too, but then those should not be tagged with either Miyamoto or Yuichi character tags as that is confusing as hell for the future reader.

Like that, it's interesting to think that so many are not sure what to tag it either and so, both leosagi and leoichi/leochi get used. As mentioned before by other fans, and mentioned in RabNerd28's video "Why do we all ship Leosagi", the most likely reason is that people remembered '02 Leosagi, then thought Leosagi was an umbrella term for all Leo/Usagi ships, (2012 show didn't really have as asimilar relationship to 03) or that it would be cute to continue the "tradition" of Leo/Usagi crossovers, since Rise missed out on it.

+ We also have the whole aspect of social media having become a bigger part of our lives over the last 15 years. It's become more commonplace for anyone trying to "reach" a larger audience to tag with "all tags" on media platforms that use tags. This was a thing on blogging site for a while too (tag clouds became a big thing for a short while). And in fandoms, it's become even more common, bc now we're sort of used to seeing it, so depending on the person and how their internet experience is, they might think more tags = more reach inside the nebulous social media algorhitm. But this becomes a bit weird for both blogging sites like tumblr or fanfic archives like AO3 because these don't have "algorhitms" like many social media platforms have become known for ^^;

Personally, I think on Tumblr, it would be simple for the Yuichi x Leo shippers to switch over to either leoichi or leochi since both are fairly popular tags and the fans using it wouldn't lose out on that "reach" - if ppl already know that it's the ship tag for Leo/Yuichi, they'll keep tracking that instead. As already hashed about it in other ppl's posts, it doesn't really make sense to use multiple tags if they don't count for those characters. Overall I think it's just up to the fandom in general to decide what people want to call a ship, and that's I usually just read what the OP of a post has tagged it and decide from there what it goes on my own blog.

I think AO3 on the other hand makes things simpler because there will always be a common ship tag using both common names for the character (so Leonardo (TMNT)/Miyamoto Usagi for example) and then people can use their own custom tags for flavour/exclulding from search (Future!Leonardo for character or Future!Rise Leosagi for specificity) and this makes things easier to filter in/out depending on interest. I also like that it has easier sorting options compared to say, FF.Net or tumblr itself (only "top" and "latest" options and you can sort thru post type). But yes, it becomes a bit hard to sort through fanart/fic when ppl tag a different ship under an older ship's tags ^^; I like both 2003 leosagi and the various versions of rise!leosagi and leochi/leoichi, but it's way too much work to use that many tags for one ship lol, especially when there's multiple "versions" or "flavors" of the same crossover ship idea. I'm not gonna find anything like that! And that's why now on my own blog I just keep the leosagi nickname for the 2003 ship, yuinardo tag for the show/show crossover ship and the rest for any variations.

Sorry if this sounds rambly, it's just been on my mind since january, rotating as a disctraction and I thought maybe trying to reply to this would help continue the conversation in a more constructive or positive way. English is not my native language either so please ask if anything sounded confusing ^^;

Annywayy, it's late and I wrote enough I think, but I'll probably mull it in my head in later posts too and have new thoughts haha :'D

I know the leoichi and leosagi problem has been talked and everything but I feel we should talk about the problem that exits in AO3 too and it's the tagging, again.

It has been stated that Yuichi and Miyamoto aren't the same character, one it's descendant of the other, so it confuses me why Yuichi is the Usagi that appears in the Leonardo/Miyamoto Usagi tag, as it sould be Miyamoto and Leonardo/Yuichi Usagi sould have it's own AO3 tag. It confuses a lot of people bc someone wants to read something with Miyamoto and Leo and has to browse through a thousand fics that have Yuichi instead.

And someone could say "Just exclude the Yuichi Usagi tag and it's done" but it isn't the point, Yuichi is a separate character so he sould have his own tag with Leo, hence avoid the mischaracterization and confusion of both characters as I have seen lately. Don't get me wrong, I love both ships, both are so cute and wholesome but they aren't the same ship.

I don't want to cause a ship war nor attack the leoichi shippers. I want to find a middle ground for both shippers as any other so we can both enjoy our ships in peace.✨💕

[Pd: English is not my first language so if there's any mistake here let me know ^^"]

[fybriankang]

DAY6 x KAKAOTALK FANTALK

[herushingu]

Almost went into the Hellsing tag while physically standing in a public place, lol

Yeah. Lets not do that. 😂

[drawnaghht]

Yuichi Usagi - what's in a name?

I read "Senso" over the end of March and the last week and reviewed a bunch of interviews again and man i dunno how to post abt it but it seems that Yuichi Usagi is actually intentional as naming? And yes, Yuichi can be a last name also, but is still mainly read as a first name.

Like specifically it seems that it’s a reference to the ending of “Usagi Yojimbo: Senso” in a similar way to how the rest of the show is also intentionally an homage to that story as it’s main source of inspiration.

“Yuichi” commonly has the meaning "heroic first (son)" (雄一) and in the japanese subtitles, Yuichi is spelled as both 雄一 and ユウイチ - Yūichi. So let's take the japanese subtitling as additional canon as that’s how the character’s introduce themselves. (I'll link this Japanese-Names website as an online source for now since I'm not fluent in it myself.) The subtitles are based on the english dub of course, but it seems the japanese dub is similar on the name introductions for the most part (not a native speaker myself so I can only guess).

Spoilers for Senso if you haven't read it. I recommend you do, if really nothing else. It’s a really nice mashup of sci fi in Usagi Yojimbo, in a very “War of the Worlds” type clash. I really loved the foreword comic and the illustrations before the story. It's a really good story. Here’s a nice spoilerless review of it.

So from interviews we know that the Samurai Rabbit crew was inspired by and drew influences from six-issue book Usagi Yojimbo: Senso - you can see it in how the Makkine were designed and episode references (S2, ep 9 "Eggs!" - the falling martian ships are called eggs in “Senso”) and mainly the story outline of aliens invading edo-period japan.

So why give Yuichi Usagi a first name as a last name?

We see this backstory in "Willow Branch" in season 2.

The sword was lost. That is a storyline they included to make an interesting story out of it but to also connect the show and og comic in a different way. A "passing of the torch" in some sense, but also literally what the comic tells us about og Usagi and his swords. In Senso: "They are my soul. Pass them down to your firstborn… then to his [...] then down the line…” And in the show we see that Willow Branch is found and recovered by Yuichi and the sword accepts him as the next in line. The firstborn son.

So from this we can make the fan-theory that perhaps in the show canon, Miyamoto Usagi’s family maybe named their next firstborn in line Yuichi, to honor their forebear Miyamoto Usagi's last wish, again if we're going by the thought that this was inspired by "Senso". (Jotaro being his last surviving member in this verse possibly, we don't know here bc it's intentionally left vague to not spoil series-only viewers + keep the mystery open for anyone who decides to read the comic after the series for the first time). It could even be a possibility that they just kept that as a surname for sentimental reasons, because the family had women as first-born children for so long (if we assume based on Usagi's auntie and missing parents), but they wanted to keep that memory going for as long as possible, since the sword was lost shortly after Miyamoto saved Edo from Kagehito’s plan a 1000 years before Yuichi’s time. But that’s already just speculation from me as a fan of the cartoon.

And before die-hard comic readers swoop in, yes, in Senso the swords are not lost, but again, it’s an alternative universe story situation for the people making the show, and I find what they did was interesting.

The comic’s ending is tied into the world of “Space Usagi” as well, without spoiling it too much, which is a storyline Stan did in a space opera setting. The connection between being inspired by Senso which is tied to this story may also be why so many interviews and articles call Usagi Chronicles as inspired by Space Usagi directly, since both are spin-offs that take place in a distant future.

Or you know, it could also just be that they wanted an easy-sounding name for their main character to call that wasn't only Usagi, since they have two in the series: their own and the original.

But all in all, whether the name comes as a reference to the original comic, or from simple use of a common name, it can’t be ignored that this is just how the show calls it’s main character.

But you can still call him Yuichi, as that is what both the crew (his creators) and Stan Sakai call him when talking of both tbe Usagis. (Or, in the case of Stan, "my Usagi" and "Their/Samurai Rabbit/the show's Usagi") It could be that out of respect for the work the crew put into his series, Stan didn’t suggest more naming conventions for the character because he already liked the work and story the crew did. It could be that they put a pin in it at first and then got used to it as pre-production continued. Could even just be that he loled it right away. But I don’t find it that useful to speculate on that as much, because the cartoon we have is already made and finished how it is and well, we don’t know the exact authorial reasonings from the show crew side much, so Yuichi Usagi it is.

Though also, the way that his names are used in the show (Auntie mainly calls him Usagi and family usually adress via 1st name, Yuichi is never used mich beyond introductions) and how it's used in the interviews when talking about Miyamoto Usagi as well, it feels like they meant to give him two first names, and couldn’t decide on a surname-sounding last name so, Yuichi Usagi was left in the final script. But that's just my guess as a fan and viewer again.

Maybe other fans have had similar or better discussions about it? It would be interesting to know if the show has more japanese fans and how they find this, for example. What they think about how the show introduces him as Surname-Given Name, but then every other character switches to just calling him Usagi right away. In japan, people usually use last name+ honorifics when they have just met. But both Usagi's new friends and Usagi himself switch to first-name basis after their first day meeting each other and going through a few fights. Is it just because the show has a mostly western audience(my assumption), and we're meant to use his given name as an audience to be more familiar with him... or is it only because he's a rabbit and some of the characters (like Lord Kogane) don't really care more? Perhaps a 1000 years into the future, they've partially lost the use of some traditions?

In any case, it doesn’t feel like the show made that big of a faux pas naming Yuichi the way they did. Ould be that my guess is wrong and it wasn't as deliberate a reference to Senso. It seems a much higher possibility that they thought of that, thought it sounded nice and then kept it because it was an easy way to call him differently from comics-Usagi during production itself, but still getting to call him Usagi in the show-proper.

This is just me basing this on official interviews and the Senso book, but this just seems more likely than them picking a random name with no meaning to it. Of course, I could also be wrong, but based on interviews along, the showrunners and creative team seem so genuine in wanting to give the comic a good show that it doesn't make sense that they wouldn't research it. Or at the very least, ask about it from Stan himself or even just get a note from him about it, since he reviewed everything else. Candie and Doug (showrunners) even mention (in Comic Book Couple's Counceling podcast interview) how they really wanted to go deeper with research this time and art director Khang Le mentioned how they took a lot of cues from modern japan as well, from their research trips there.

I know this probably won't put any future discussions/rambling about this to rest among other fans, but well, just some thoughts on this. While I think it's probably kind of silly of me to be writing long essays abt a cartoon show I like, I do think it sort of warrants more discussion abt how we talk about characters and how we refer to them. For another show i'm a fan of for example, the character has an official name and a nickname, but the show itself consistently only used the nickname to let the reader be familiar with her. While characters like teachers and enemies might refer to them with their given name, even her full name, their family and friends mainly use the easier nickname. But it seemed that the reverse happened with that show's fandom, as the more unique given name became more used than the nickname the show itself gave us. And this was sorta the same thoughtprocess I had here with Usagi Chronicles.

Anyway, this has been a post x3 I meant to make this shorter and just about Senso, but I sorta started rambling more after the auntie and generations of female Usagi descendants theory x3

edit 5.05: fixed some grammar and sentence logic mistakes! added clarifications where ref was missing (CCBC podcast)

edit 13.06: I looked up the spellings for Yuichi as a last name and while it's similar, based on how it's written in the show, this supports my previous reading still. It still seems like it's meant more as a title almost, the same way naming would have been in old norse for example "Ivan's son" would become "Ivanson" or in english-language names, "Miller's son" would become "Millerson" (patronymic). So again, maybe Yuichi is meant as "first son" as the first name, but Usagi is his namesake because the family still wanted to honor their common ancestor, Miyamoto Usagi. That's the possible in-world reasoning, but with how much this crew put into the show, I wouldn't be surprised that they thought the same thing, that it's a nice way to reference the book Senso they were insired by, but also Miyamoto Usagi the character, who they were inspired by.

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[drawnaghht]

Thank you for tagging me, I wrote a post looking into this a while ago and I have been writing a 2nd part to it this past week hehe x3

The short answer: You're absolutely right! You can tell your anon that Usagi is how the character should be called if it's friends and family. The show tells us that his name is Yuichi Usagi, [SURNAME][given name], same as how the comics follow japanese naming practice. People also are generally not given middle names there, so it does not seem like he has a secret hidden surname. Usagi is a given/personal name in the world of Usagi Yojimbo and Samurai Rabbit follows it as a way to honor their inspiration, Stan's comics. It is in a way, a namesake. Based on what I wrote in the linked post, Yuichi in this case could be a family name, but it could also be a second given name (very unusual in real-world Japan) or more like a title of sorts. The show however seems to mean it as a family name at the end of the day.

I've seen fewer written examples online of Yuichi as a surname, but I'm not japanese myself so I might just be looking in the wrong places or reading them wrong. So that made me think that maybe there's some intentionality behind it with the meaning ("brave first-born son"), perhaps even a reference to something in the comics? So based on that and interviews I looked up, I wrote that first post, "Yuichi Usagi - What's in a name?" about the connection between the cartoon and the specific Usagi Yojimbo story it was inspired by, "Senso". If you know more than conversational japanese, you might even predict the ending of the book just from the title alone haha :P The post has some spoilers for the Senso book, so I'll try to continue the rest without spoiling more of it. The ending is quite good so I don't want to spoil it.

The longer answer: if you're curious, you can read that first post I linked (with more of those comics spoilers), where I try to connect the show and comic with things I noticed about it and it might make a better case for "Yuichi for this character is not meant as given name". Here in this reply I can talk about how the show and other materials handle it. I'm curious too as a fan. And I was also confused at first when starting the series, because I knew of Yuichi as a given name, so it seemed really unusual. But after reading more of the comic, more interviews and reading up on it in general... I'm convinced that the naming was intentional, maybe the crew didn't have time to explain all of it because of the constraints given by the network - netflix in this case, a streaming service, but filling essentially the same role as networks elsewhere - they order for a batch of episodes of a cartoon that's been greenlit for development. With that time constraint in mind, it seems more likely that they had to cut any possible "Yuichi Usagi backstory" arc or mention, because the more active+present storylines took front stage. One episode of an american TV cartoon generally takes around 9-11 months to produce, from pre-production to post. Actual production on it started in 2020, so recording episode tracks, the music, animation and so on. The show came out in 2022, April 28th,(edit 23.06.23 - accidentally wrote this as march) but this means the bulk of s2 must have already been nearing completion by the time it was announced in august for a september airing. So I think instead of any random reason, for why they named him with what sounds like [given name][given name] to anyone japanese or who knows a bit more about japanese culture, they simply had more challenges to overcome which meant they couldn't focus on all aspects of production in a similar way. We don't know which staff member named him, who decided his backstory or what discussions the writer's or previs teams might have had about him, his auntie, Stan's Usagi, or any of the family history we never quite see on screen in full. What was decided at some point before the Langdales became showrunners, is that they would focus on a younger descendant, who's trying to become like his ancestor.

His surname in the japanese subtitles is written as the given name spelling, both ユウイチ and 雄一, then his personal name as うさぎ same as his ancestor, Usagi AKA "rabbit". (Sidenote: Both in the old post and this reply, I'll refer to the official subtitles as a source on the japanese spelling, since netflix shows usually hire good teams to do the subtitling and dubbing and they seem correct in other dubs/subs I've watched.) In both the og EN version and the JP dub he also introduces himself as Usagi right away to Kitsune after the Mogura tunnels fight is over - this boy is so ready to just introduce himself and become friends with new people. This is how the character wants to be known as and he's eager for people to use his personal name. But why a given name as a surname then?

Whatever the show and surrounding meta-info tells us, I've seen some explanations and questions by other fans, which also make sense. For example, fans who live in another country nearby and speak a bit of japanese or they studied japanese/lived in the country - that this naming doesn't make sense because Yuichi is such a common given name; that it sounds more like his new friends are referring to him by family name, Usagi, because that's what's done in real-world japan. And yeah, I agree with that in general because it does make sense if you live there. But, this is a fictional futuristic version of an alternate japan. Which both the show tells us and we can read interviews about it. Taking that into consideration, maybe the name thing is something that emerged from their exploration of that.

So even though it's an attempt at a fusion, as a whole, the show is also an attempt to see what a futuristic Japan could be like without more western influences. It's interesting looking at the cartoon from this perspective. There's also the addition of the Ki-stone as a eternal, clean(?) power-source. There are flying/floating cars and electricity throughout the city, there are automated refridgerators and other kitchen appliances with some sort of actual artificial intelligence in them, as well as vending machines and a whole arcade, with an interesting "Ki-cycle" version of a racing game. We can see this in character outfits as well. Everyone who has a weapon they can put away is outfitted with some larger magnetic strips(the Murakami twins), or smaller magnetic pieces (Chizu and Usagi). So the writer's room and previs artists team probably thought about the cultural effects of this as well. So I don't think they would have switched to [given][surname] just to westernize it more, if they're making a world based on Tokugawa-era Edo. Many of the traditions that most us western/european fans would think of as Japanese, are traditions set or developed during that long timeperiod. Well-known arts like the haiku poetic form, kabuki and bunraku, ukiyo-e are all from this time. People wear modernized versions of older/more traditional outfits. And in the environment we can see references to the Edo era, as well as Meiji era, but also elements we would find more commonly in our modern-day Tokyo, like motorcycles, vending machines and cameras. So it's just an interesting sci-fi blend of the traditional and modern.

But lets say that I don't really know that much about japanese history to judge that accurately, I'll refer to what Stan himself has said in interviews. In the 2021 Comic-Con panel, he interjects art director Khang Le's answer about his direction and inspirations on the show with taking both modern and traditional aspects. "This is the shot." "this concept art is what sold me on the series". So I think there was trust there because both are artists, so Stan probably felt he could let the concept art team run with their ideas.

Also, switching the name order in general wouldn't make sense because then we would have Gen introduce himself as Gennosuke Murakami, [given][Surname], when speaking to the Bat Squadron leader, Admiral Nochi, but he introduces himself as would be expected in Japan normally. Maybe it feels weird that they all refer to themselves so casually by given names already, after just 2-3 days of knowing each-other (someone called this "friendship speedrun" early on). But then, older characters are referred to by their surnames, like Lady Fuwa, Admiral Nochi (in a position of power) and Lord Kogane (out of distance). Meanwhile, characters like Tetsujin are already referred to with their singular given name, because that's how they introduce they introduce themselves to both the characters and us the viewers, so Kitsune and Chizu as well (them moreso because they are orphans + their namesakes didn't have surnames either). At the same time, other adult characters next to Tetsujin, almost never refer to the orphan crew by name at all, except Fuwa with Chizu (familiarity). In this way the show kind of skimps around the issues around names and respectability - all the othr adults and gang members almost always refer to the orphan crew (the 4 main characters) with some moniker or nickname, ("Rabbit!" "that Neko Ninja", that thief, the rhino) but not their given names. Tho I believe the Mogura gang leader Chikabuma does refer to Usagi by given name, that be because of the boy’s notoriety as a trouble-maker dealing with the yokai and other weirdness by that point and descendant of Miyamoto Usagi, the worst criminal known to present-day Neo Edo.

You might also be right that it's like how the name Ross can be both a surname/given name. I was also confused about the name Ross as a child learning english because I hadn't heard this as much in my own native Estonia names being both singular and family names, and Ross would have been one of those names I tossed around in my head as a child like, "how is this possible? which way do you know how to use it?" I think many fans in general might be confused about the rabbit part bc in english, we have well-known names like Peter Rabbit, Roger Rabbit, but also real-world surnames like Harley (hare) so "Rabbit" as a given name might seem unusual to an english-language reader, whether native or learned. There are many japanese names based on animals as well, this is fairly common through many cultures, but since in the show and og comic, the characters are majority animals, who just act human most times, it's treated more like it's normal to give your child a noun as a personal name. So there's characters like Nezumi, Inukai, but also General Oyaneko or Lord Hebi, because that is what fits them as those animals. But a purely english-language reader might not know these words, so keeping the animal/pun names is both more rewarding and more fun.

Since we can't just go and ask the crew directly (I personally would find this a bit rude/embarrasing without a lead-up), it's better to trust that the crew did some research about it. I've seen different opinions on it from other fans('it's just an american show, there's no research behind it, it's 3D so obviously it's like other shows' etc), but I've read/listened interviews myself and the only conclusion I can come to from those is that Stan and the crew liked making this show and loved it a lot, just as something they collaborated on together. As someone from a diaspora myself, it feels like something they meant to make for the Japanese-American kids who might be watching it, but also for themselves as Usagi Yojimbo fans. For example, if the showrunners (experienced as showrunners/writers already from other shows before) hadn't campaigned for it during pre-production, we wouldn't be having scenes of Miyamoto Usagi at all, flashbacks or anything. Because Netflix itself (we don't know the exact story) wasn't having the idea of a direct adaptation. So they worked around this and made it their own thing, a new character, new cast, lets not touch the original comic lore too much to avoid changing it. But the showrunners and crew worked him into the lore and worldbuilding of the show anyway. So I'm more inclined to believe that they wanted to take care to actually do research properly next to the feedback Stan gave them as producer. Because that's how both the showrunners and art director talk about the show in any interview. "We discovered a way to use x to make it better fit the story" "We were inspired by z and y from Stan's work" and so on. It's also possible though that during production they simply didn't have time to work Yuichi's backstory into it so that's why we never get any explanations for why it sounds like he has two first namesm essentially. I could make 20 theories about that off the bat. But the bottomline is still that the show/characters tell us his name is Usagi. Otherwise, following what we're used to from animation/comics in japan, other characters would also be referred to by their family names, e.g. Murakami-san for Gen. So my point with all that is to say that I don't see that he was named with a given name as surname bad intents in mind, or even plain incompetence. They even cite being able to go to Tokyo in Japan, for both material and enviroment references and other research. Edo is the former name of Tokyo so obviously this is a different kind of effort than me going online and pouring through many online pages and pdfs.

The show is also set a 1000 years after whenever Miyamoto Usagi lived at in his prime. I might write more about that in the future bc I like making timelines for things myself but that could be another reason for why a lot of formalities and japanese traditions we might know or have heard about from Edo-period onwards, have slowly disappeared. We see this in how Lord Kogane treats the city and his own personal items (the museum, the hats), but also in how people are so used to technology, they don't care about nature or taking care of things as much and are used to keeping lights on (light pollution). Then we have the episode with the war pigs, "Willow Branch". Usagi tries to remind himself how to adress these ghsots from a 100 years ago because "how did these old traditions go again?" and he calls them Busho, leaders of these two factions, but does it awkwardly. So it might be a similar case that people don't use. But interesting to think about this knowing that they also tried to think about how an alternate Japan would look like without as many western influences because of the timeline having alien tech now... and the slightly changed history with the Ki-stone and Miyamoto Usagi sacrificing his own legacy to save Edo in this version. He sends his sword away to be sent to his family. His first-born son. (If we follow the Senso connection I wrote about before) But it never gets there.

With all this in mind, we can also make similar connections to previous fan-theories. Surnames were not as common before the Meiji Restoration era (started in 1868), when surnames were required of everyone. Before that, only the nobility and samurai class had surnames. (This is also why Neo Edo doesn't have a Shōgun anymore, because the samurai don't exist anymore, so they have a Lord Kogane instead, one who's even elected to show this stark difference more.) So maybe the crew thought, with this alternate timeline, lets say that Jotaro is our older Usagi's only child still, but he never inherit the Miyamoto name because he's been raised by Mariko and Kenichi, so he gets Kenichi's surname, but we don't know what that is, because in the comic he is just Kenichi, Usagi's childhood rival. So blip, 1000 years into the future, and the family only has Yuichi as a surname. Maybe they got it from a paternal ancestor in the family after Jotaro, but maybe they renamed themselves after the effects of the Meiji Restoration changes and picked it based on the legend of the Usagi they knew and the lost sword they never got back. It's meant to be an auspicious name. And it just sticks even if the children are daughters because the family hopes to find the sword and pass it to the first child.

But lol, this is just my teorizing based on what I know of the comic right now (still reading) and what I remember/looked up of some history of that time. It's like a brain-game of cross-referncing both the show and og comic and then real-world history a bit as most fan-fic about the UY world does haha.

A simpler reason is also that following the UY comic, all characters are continually referred to by their personal names. Otherwise we would be calling original UY comics Usagi his surname, Miyamoto, because that would be respectful in Japan. But Stan isn't writing for a Japanese audience strictly. In this 2010 interview re-uploaded by the Japanese American National Museum, Stan himself says, "Usagi might be about Japanese history and culture, but it's told from a distinctly western perspective". As an author, it was also probably more convenient to use your character's first name if that is what your accustomed to.

There's also the possibility that he was initially just Usagi when the show was still about a younger Miyamoto Usagi (going by what the Langdales said about being brought on as showrunners later, and this 2019 article showing Stan with a banner which looks too much like a younger version of Miyamoto Usagi to be Yuichi) but they had to change it when the premise changed into 1000 into the future but not Space Usagi (for whatever possible production-related reasons again). The name Yuichi came to mind, but they put the Usagi back into the name to intentionally create discord in the show story - character's constantly mix him up with his ancestor Miyamoto Usagi (a traitor to everyone else in Neo Edo) and the name similarities aid that confusion more. So instead of the name Yuichi being only a reference to a comic that new viewers wouldn't know about, they might have intentionally kept it confusing because the name sounds good but feeds into their premise of showing how much history can change in a 1000 years - which was the idea that interested Stan himself too, because they did something interesting with his Usagi that hadn't been done before.

anyways. i like calling him Usagi in general because it sounds better for him specifically as a given name since it's what everyone calls him on the show. And I switch to Yuichi when talking abt him online or in longer posts where I've talked about og Usagi as well - because both names are easy to use as personal names. But as a fan, say, writing fanfic it's just good to know that his friends and family would all probably call him Usagi because that's how he introduces himself/that's how they know him, a namesake to his ancestor who he idolizes, which is sort of the whole point of the character and the show in a large way. I think people can write his name the opposite way if they want to, (given name Yuichi, surname Usagi) as if the whole family renamed themselves Usagi. And there's a distinct possibility that this is a convo that went through the writers room too (if we can imagine that they had time to discuss this more during 2019 in pre-production), but this would lose the whole point of the name and image connection with his ancestor, the original comics' Usagi and would also create more unneccessary confusion, when there was existing confusion of having two Usagis. Usually with projects like these, there is also a research stage where they show the target audience some non-finished version of some of the episodes (or even all of them), to see how the audience reacts. This test screening then gives the producers and crew feedback on how initial reception will be. Maybe with just Usagi, or just Yuichi, the kids watching didn't connect that these two rabbits are supposed to be, or like the many older fans online, couldn't tell between the two rabbits at all. But we don't know that so that is all just my own speculation. Overall, from other older shows' crew stories, (like this one about GLTAS by producer Giancarlo Volpe) test screenings and audience research can have both a positive and negative effect on what a production decides to do next. It depends on many factors. So I wonder if something like that might have happened during pre-production and changed how the network wanted the show, or even influenced how the show itself and the show's Usagi were named. Something like that can sometimes be out of the crew and the showrunner's hands. So yeah. Hope all that makes sense! It's kind of a lot of rambling, but, it's fun for me to think and speculate about what other parts of the production might have been like ^^

I could of course be 100% wrong about some of these things, but this is just what I've observed to be possible explanations out of sources I've seen of the show. But again, we don't have word-of-god on any of these, so I will personally probably continue referring to him as Usagi until we get more interviews or online posts from the crew about it. Which would be really interesting! I'm not really holding onto that but hey who knows - the series art director Khang Le did post about the show on its anniversary and shared a small tid-bit so maybe we'll get smth similar for the name lore haha ^^

tbh from a practical view as a fan, it feels like too much work for me to decide, "ah, the show crew don't know anything so I will rename him in every fanwork" But that is just my preference, so what other fans do is up to them. Like yeah, I made a few theories that make either version make sense, but without more behind it, all we fans can always do without more info is only speculate. The show already gives us the answer and if we as western fans accept that Yuichi is meant as a surname, it works in a way.

If you're interested for another view on it... wait for that 2nd post where I deep-dive into this from a different perspective again x3 Since we don't have a direct answer from the show aside from "this is how every character references them and each other, how family refers to him", I got curious and did a bit of searching about Yuichi as a surname too, but I want to go a bit shorter with that one so I'm just re-reading it. So idk when I'll finish writing the post bc of work but maybe soon when I have more time to proofread it.

In the Usagi Chronicles, is Usagi Usagi's first name and he has a different last name from his ancestors, or is his first name Yuichi and Usagi is the family name? That's literally the only area I struggle in with the names. I know Miyamoto is the surname in the comics but the TV show aaaa confusing

To answer your question, the characters in Samurai Rabbit refer to Miyamoto Usagi as Miyamoto Usagi. Yuichi Usagi introduces himself to others as Yuichi Usagi.

Here's a screenshot of the S1E1 transcript:

This means both names follow the same sequence of Surname, Given Name.

Therefore, Yuichi is Yuichi Usagi's surname.

What makes it confusing is that in the real world, the name Yuichi is both...

a surname...

....and a given name.

This is only my assumption, but it could be like the name Ross. Ross can be a surname (Bob Ross) or a given name (Ross Geller).

Anyway, @drawnaghht might be more knowledgeable with this. Thoughts?

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