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demonslayedher · 2 months ago

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Kamado Family Name Analysis

竈門: Kamado A rare but existing surname, the hearth (竈, kamado) is also an important gateway (門) through which disease can enter a home and make a family sick, so it therefore needed special attention in order to keep the family healthy. Likewise, it required care so as not to cause fire damage. However, it was likewise the source of sustenance for a house’s inhabitants, so the state of a hearth also reflects the state of the family. To say things are lively around a hearth is to say that a family is doing well, to say that the hearth is broken is to say that they’ve lost their fortune, and so on. You could also think of the fire itself sometimes being a cause for danger, something susceptible to evil influence, like how it might burn humans, so it took having a god of the health to protect against that too. These are reasons why the god of the hearth has been worshiped since ancient times, not only for protection from the dangers of fire, but also for prosperity.

As for the the personal names throughout the generations, follow me below...

Sengoku Period (often considered 1467–1568, though other dates are in use):

炭吉: Sumiyoshi Although you don’t typically see charcoal (炭, as sumi or tan) in a name, 吉 isn’t all that uncommon, whether as yoshi or kichi. It means “luck.” It’s worth stating right away that although making charcoal means working with fire for a few days at a time, it also means the longer-term work of forest management. A charcoal worker is nothing without plants. Notice the 山 (mountain, yama) that is also with 火 (fire, often hi or ka) in the 炭.

すやこ: Suyako Presented only in phonetic hiragana, we don’t have kanji to read into, but this is a pretty clever name. Because how -ko makes it sound like a typical girl’s name, similar to her descendants Nezuko and Hanako, the su also makes it feel similar to the rest of her family. Suya doesn’t really mean anything on its own, but suyasuya is an onomatopoeia for “sleeping soundly.”

すみれ: Sumire Another clever one presented only in phonetic hiragana. Sumi makes it sound like she inherited the charcoal family name, but sumire means “violet,” so this is a precursor to later Kamado family naming trends. (However, the flowers she gave Yoriichi were not violets, but Catharanthus roseus—as a fun tidbit, these are called nichinichisou, that is, “sun-sun-grass” (日々草).)

Meiji Period (1868–1912) & Taisho Period (1912–1926):

炭十郎: Tanjuurou (Whatever)+郎(rou) is pretty common in men’s names, since it’s basically like adding “son” to the end of boy’s name. Using numbers in men’s names (like the number 10 here, 十) used to be relatively common too.

葵枝: Kie Although 葵 (aoi or ki) is commonly translated as “hollyhock” (due to being conflated with tachiaoi), it is more accurately translated as “wild ginger,” but this is annoying because even though it has a similar scent, it is not actually related to ginger. Let’s just call this low-growing herb aoi, since it has a lot of religious connotations with ancient shrines and festivals—but this is also annoying, because there is a character named Aoi and her name is written phonetically and might be in reference to the color. So let’s use the Latin name for this genus, Asarum. 枝 (e) is “branch,” so Kie’s name is literally “a branch of Asarum.” But, if we want to go a step further, in older ways of transcribing Japanese, 葵 used to be written phonetically as a-fu-hi with a-fu meaning “to encounter (later on transcribed as au)�� and hi being a word representing a god’s power, so it’s said that the a-fu-hi/aoi plant symbolizes coming upon incredible power. How ironic that Kie married into a family known for Hinokami Kagura.

炭治郎: Tanjirou We’ve covered 炭 and 郎, so why the 治? This is a pretty common way of adding the ji sound to a guy’s name (like Hakuji), but why this one instead of, say 次 or 二? This may be because Gotouge wanted to give his name both fire (火) and water (水)! You can see the fire in the charcoal kanji, but the three dots at the left side of 治 are the water radical, which often means the kanji might have some association with water. Although 治 literally means things more like “quell” or “reign” or even “heal,” it can also mean being in control of something like a river.

禰豆子: Nezuko First off, most OS systems do not express this first kanji correctly. The left radical would look more like ネ, with 爾 on the right. Alas, 禰 (ne) is a bit of a rare kanji in the first place, meaning “ancestral shrine.” This is kind of heartwarming what with how connected Nezuko is with her family, and how the checkerboard pattern the Kamado family uses also denotes a continuity of family. As for the 豆 (zu or dzu or mame), this is “bean.” Beans are deeply tied with warding off demons. This is especially seen in the Setsubun custom of throwing beans at demons to cast them off. But, more recently I stumbled upon the knowledge that the kurobe tree (Japanese arborvitae/Thuja standishii), a coniferous evergreen with flattened branchlets, is also called nezuko (in phonetic katakana, ネズコ).

竹雄: Takeo “Bamboo man,” with 雄 (o or yuu or other readings) being a pretty common thing to stick to the end of a man’s name. It’s a kanji with a sort of heroic ring to it if you're adding the masculine -o ending anyway). Fast-growing bamboo (竹, take) can be a problem if, say, you primarily focus on making charcoal out of oak, but bamboo charcoal has a lot of uses for keeping spaces around the home free from humidity and bugs. What’s more, bamboo itself is a bit of a heroic plant—it grows straight, stays strong through the winter, and can stand a lot of pressure and still flexibly bounce back. I've also heard of it being associated with happiness because there is a bamboo radical at the top of the kanji for "smile/laugh" (笑).

花子: Hanako “Flower Child.” The plants are a bit obvious in this one.

茂: Shigeru Another common manly name, “to flourish.” Like plants would flourish.

六太: Rokuta I have tried really, really hard to look for hidden meaning this one. He’s just “six” (六, roku) with another common way of ending a boy’s name, 太 (ta or tai, for grand, broad, magnificent, or fat). Tanjuurou and Kie weren’t feeling very creative by the time they got to this one. Couldn’t you guys at least have given him a plant reference? That would have really helped my meta out, thanks. But maybe not all is lost on this name! After all, remember how we might conflate 火 (fire/hi) with 日 (sun/hi) in Hinokami Kagura? Arguably, the sun is just as important for charcoal workers who manage the forest! 日 is not the only way of writing "sun." There is also 太陽 (taiyou)!

Heisei Period (1989–2019) & Reiwa Period (2019–current):

カナタ: Kanata KAMADO FAMILY, EXPLAIN. First off, nobody else born into the family has a name in katakana, and by the era Kanata is born, this would be pretty unusual for a boy. I can only assume this choice was made in order to make an obvious connection to his great-great-grandmother’s name, カナヲ (Kanao). That being said, did they simply forget to give their eldest son the traditional charcoal name? Or did they notice a plethora of girls throughout this series named “Sumi” and decided to avoid it? In that case, too bad they forgot all about the existence of Ubuyashiki Kanata! (Her name was written in phonetic hiragana, かなた.)

炭彦: Sumihiko Oh good, the Kamado family got their act together and remembered the kanji they were supposed to pass on. As for that -hiko, I’ve heard some Japanese fans try to read into how it was also used in one of Muzan’s fake names, 月彦 (Tsukihiko, as he went by in Asakusa when married to a woman named Rei), but 彦 (hiko) is also so common at the end of men’s names that I don’t see any merit in digging for connections. What we can dig into, though, is 和語 (wago), that is, native Japanese words that existed before the influence of Chinese and the writing system that went with it. Hiko meant “a boy endowed with a divine spirit” (the equivalent for a girl was hime, which you might recognize later became a word for “princess.”) And why stop there? This still brings us back to hi, the divine power that is sometimes just a divine power, sometimes is fire, and often is the sun.

Speaking of the sun, here’s a couple honorary Kamado descendants, because they have really good homage built into their names:

燈子: Touko Remember that 火 (hi) character for fire which you can also find in charcoal 炭? It’s fitting that fiery Nezuko’s great-granddaughter has it built into her name! The 燈 (lantern/tou) has all sorts of hopeful, positive connotations about keeping a light going in the darkness.

善照: Yoshiteru Another clever one! Yoshi is another reading of the zen kanji (善, virtue) used in Zenitsu's name, and 照 (usually read teru in names )also means to “to illuminate.” It’s got a hi too! This time it’s the 日 for sun! Oh! And those four dots at the bottom of 照? Kind of looks like a fire at the bottom of a hearth, doesn’t it? That’s because this is also another radical for 火/fire, it’s just been broken into four different strokes!! He’s got fire and sun!! So much hi! But let’s not forget, hi can also just be a general way of referring to divine power, right? That is essentially what lightning was always thought of—a very, very powerful divine power. And certainly one that illuminates things, doesn’t it? There’s no lightning directly pounded into this name, but the associations are easy to make.

Okay, now really just throwing one more in for fun:

青葉: Aoba This is truly just “green leaves.” Or is it? Actually, the history of different color names across different languages and periods of time is very interesting, and it’s lead to 青 having multiple meanings. Blue and green didn’t always use to be separate ideas, so this kanji used to stand for both of them until 緑 (in Japanese, midori) came along. Nowadays in mainland Mandarin Chinese, you tend to use 绿 (lǜ) for green and 蓝 (lán) for blue, with 青 (qīng) reserved more for a blue/green shade or more generally with youth. In Japan, 緑 (midori) is used for both the color green and for the greenery of plants in general, and 青 (ao) is used for various shades of blue… typically. Sometimes it is still used for “green,” which is why traffic lights are “red, yellow, BLUE,” and sometimes, well, leaves are also called blue. Anyway, because the name is likely in homage to his great-grandmother and because he’s got the kanji to go with his, this is part of why I interpret Aoi’s phonetic katakana name (アオイ) as being in reference to the color (which is also used a lot in her character design) as opposed to the aforementioned plant. (More on Aoi, Kanao, Kanae, and Shinobu's names here.)

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demonslayedher · 2 years ago

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Came back to this AU (Canon + Takeo, who is not a Corp member because he lost an arm and eye in the Muzan attack), and wanted to sketch this scene, as well as its conclusion:

Random a/u idea, what if Takeo was left alive and Nezuko became a demon? What do you think would’ve happened? It’s no longer little sister, but big sister.

While I'm not gonna develop a full AU (my AU muse is fickle and I don't make the rules), I'm with you Anon, if I needed any more of one of the Kamado siblings, it was Takeo. I especially would had loved to see more interactions with Tanjiro.

Takeo, for how little he appeared, showed very different sides of his character, he had a complex inner world, and tried to cover up his worries with confidence. As much as he probably wanted to be seen as one of the big kids, he still looked to his older siblings when he felt insecure. In an AU in which he lived, this kid would have to face a whole lot more insecurity, as well as a whole lot more necessity to try to appear confident. It would also change the series a lot giving Tanjiro a confidante to share equal pains and concern for Nezuko.

So let's play with how this might had gone. Rather than Takeo on his own protecting Nezuko, I'm operating under the premise of Canon + Takeo. Ah, dang it, here comes the full AU bug to bite me again.

Takeo would probably want to train and fight alongside Tanjiro, but Tanjiro wouldn't accept this. I also don't see Tanjiro being able to just leave Takeo somewhere where he'd be safe, as togetherness is such a theme that Tanjiro didn't chose this for Nezuko either (the fact that she's a self-repairing demon wasn't a big factor).

So a middle route might be if Takeo was severely injured in the encouter with Muzan, like he lost a hand or an eye or something. Or both, both are pretty common in this series. Let's say he lost both. Sorry, kiddo.

So this means neither Tanjiro or Urokodaki would acknowledge him as a potential swordsman, but Urokodaki would probably teach him self-defense. So this gives Takeo some extra skills to take for the road and step in to help sometimes, but not enough to be able to, say, stop Nezuko from going berserk.

With a little brother actually still there to protect (instead of the limits of her hex), Nezuko may be more prone to aggression if anything happens to him.

So like, on that first mission, maybe Takeo leads Kazumi and Tokie in getting away, telling them to leave it to his siblings, so he gets off okay that time. Then in Asakusa it's Tanjiro who ran off and encountered Muzan, and Takeo had no idea what weird thing he was up to, that nose of his was always weird, he tells the udon vendor, whom he makes conversation with until Tanjiro gets back. Takeo would be shook up later to hear that it was their family's killer Tanjiro went running after, and he'd probably talk more about his memories in Tamayo's presence (and that would hurt Tanjiro so bad to hear). Takeo would probably openly bicker with Yushiro. But if Takeo is even slightly injured in the battle that night, Nezuko is taking Susamaru down herself.

His presence would probably stir up the events of Kyogai's arc, since obvious he'd carry Nezuko and go into the house following the scared kids, or he'd convince them to stay outside. Hmm. If indoors, Nezuko's gonna join the fight, to keep from stirring things up too much, maybe he gets thrown from a window? Or just the box does and he can't find a way out to make sure the box and Neechan are ok?? And he goes out to find the Zenitsu and Inosuke fiasco, or winds up even later to see Niichan fighting a boar guy for some reason. Yeah, let's go with that, so he never witnesses Zenitsu protect box and he maintains a long term low opinion of Zenitsu and insists he's not good enough for his sister.

Mt. Natagumo... since Takeo doesn't get flung, he winds up trying to help Inosuke, only get seriously injured and witness Inosuke almost die, and then not meet back up with his sibs until the Butterfly Mansion. But he hears the crow's instruction to capture them and is worried for them, especially Nezuko. When he gets to see them again later, he has a bit of a breakdown with how relieved he is.

Of over the course of recovery, Takeo isn't under obligation to do everything the Corp members are. He might even plainly tell Tanjiro how stupid he looks blowing on that gourd, and laugh at him when he gets pelted in medicinal tea. And more Zenitsu, ugh! Not only is this coward annoying, he's a pervert too, no way Takeo will ever see Nezuko go to someone like him! Inosuke, though. Takeo has a lot of quiet admiration for him and tries to encourage him when he's down, but he can relate at a painful level. He's just not as strong as he wishes he could be.

By Mugen Train, Takeo still hasn't been discharged by Shinobu, so he is shocked to see the change in Tanjiro's demeanor after he returns. And for fun, let's say Takeo also goes along to visit the Rengoku estate, as somebody's gotta chaperone that injured bro. In this AU, it's primarily Takeo and Senjuro who become pen pals.

Takeo continues to go along with his big sibs on missions, though he does stuff like keep civilians out of the way. On nights when Tanjiro is busy resting, Takeo escorts Nezuko out for walks through the forest and stuff. When she's not in her box and in Takeo's presence, she usually stays taller than him.

In Yoshiwara, Takeo's not a Corp member so he teases Uzui saying he can't make him do anything, he's just there to tag along. Uzui doesn't like this kid and tells him to scram, Tanjiro reminds him to behave. Takeo is there to witness how bad the disguises are and even says so plainly to Uzui. Uzui really doesn't like this kid. Takeo just kinda floats around and Tanjiro meets up with him outside during the day to give him updates, and Takeo informs him that he sucks at this. While Niichan is busy doing a terrible job as a spy, Takeo very plainly goes around to the information booths pretending to be an errand boy and gets the gossipy lowdown and figures out the demon is probably the Oiran with a rumored temper at Kyogoku-ya where the Okami just fell to her death. Sumiko is amazed, but it's too late to help Zenko. Uzui has decided he kinda likes this kid.

Anyway, Takeo totally be there in person to watch Nezuko go ballistic in Yoshiwara. It's awful, he's terrified and sad and tries to stop her... and Nezuko winds up hurting him.

And this is what leads to her coming back to her senses, breaking down in sobs as she holds her unconscious little brother. Whether this is what makes Nezuko shrink back or just makes her go even MORE ballistic until she can be put back under control enough to see he's going to be alright (like using what he can scrape of his own consciousness to assure her of this), I leave that up to choice. Either way, Takeo is in a bad state and Makio and Suma get him out of there. After Nezuko later wakes back up and saves Tanjiro, she's frantically looking for him and crying again until reunited, and Takeo has a moment of realizing how strange it is to see her to small and helpless, that's ALSO not the Neechan he always knew... in some ways he saw more of her in that ballistic state, for he always knew and worried about her spitfire side.

(And in the Taisho Secret about their mother headbutting a boar, he keeps interjecting with commentary. "Neechan, this is NOT appropriate right now. Neechan! Eh? Isn't that Inosuke? MOM DID WHAT?")

After all is said and done, Uzui has lost an arm and an eye too. Takeo tells him to join the club, he'll get used to it. Uzui decides he doesn't like this kid after all. Takeo has been injured too but doesn't fall into a deep coma like the others; he's left to wait with worry. Nezuko probably sleeps for a lot of the following two months. The Butterfly Mansion girls, Shinobu included, all try to spend extra time with him so he's not lonely (Aoi has endlessly apologized), but he tries to bravely assure them he's ok. But, he also promises Tanjiro that no matter what, he's take care of Nezuko.

Huge relief when they wake up, Takeo tags along to Swordsmith village. Takeo gets in a physical altercation with Kotetsu to let up on his deathly coaching, in that extended altercation Tanjiro has his dehydrated brush with death anyway. As Tanjiro and Kotetsu deliriously dance with delight over the discovery of the sword, Takeo is off to the side grumbling about how he doesn't like this guy. (Jealously? No, not at all, nope.)

When Tanjiro tries to give Genya his tooth, though, Takeo reacts before Genya finishes opening his mouth, yelling the same thing Genya was gonna yell. Genya, surprised, goes quiet. He winds up getting along really well with Takeo. In the battle in this arc, Takeo stats busy trying to help the villagers and stats out of the way, but when he daylight approaching, he panics and starts looking for Nezuko. He's far away enough to helplessly witness her sacrifice, but because his eyes were glued there, he's the first one to witness her master the sun. When Tanjiro is on the ground and sobbing, he notices Takeo running in his direction, and Tanjiro cries and apologizes to him, but Takeo runs right by him with a word. Tanjiro looks over his shoulder to see Takeo flying at Nezuko to give her a hug and cry with relief.

In Pillar Training, Takeo mostly hangs out with Nezuko, especially helping her learn to talk again. Nearly hurts himself laughing when Nezuko pulls the "Welcome back, Inosuke" on Zenitsu.

For the Final Arc, Takeo stays with Nezuko, but keeps up with her (mostly) when she takes off. Twists his ankle trying to follow her down the cliff, but keeps going, and... finds... uh... Toyo-san! The guy with the udon cart in Asakusa! Toyo-san gives him a rude on udon cart to look for Nezuko and hurry to get into town. At some point Toyo-san is too afraid to venture any closer, and Takeo witnesses some of the fight against Muzan, including seeing Zenitsu at his best. Ok, he decides. That guy really IS Neechan's type. But, more horrifically, he gets an eyeful of Tanjiro's arm getting blasted off and then big bro getting swallowed up in Muzan flesh. That'll be something he gets bizarre nightmares about for years.

So with his twisted ankle he's too late to stop Tanjiro from biting Nezuko, but he does throw himself into the mix. One handed, he somehow manages to keep hold of one of Tanjiro's legs, so this contributes to keeping Tanjiro in one spot for Kanao to drop in for the hit.

Takeo gets to hug both his siblings and sob once Tanjiro wakes up, while they have happy tears he's just a pure and simple wreck.

In the epilogue, Takeo winds up finding the way Inosuke clings to Nezuko super annoying and he's actually a big fan of The Legend of Zenitsu, he mistakes it for being intentionally hilarious.

The end, Takeo lives happily ever after.

#now with art added #Kamado Takeo #kny fix it au #my art

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