#kanae tabinoki

[naoiikumo]

HappyBirthday Tabinoki Kanae!! in 2024

[singular-yike]

I know you've made a ton of posts about various len'en characters and concepts but what about the creator? Their drives and inspirations and such?

I know this may be a bit of a weird one since it's about a real-life person but I figured it would be fine to ask so long as the questions respected Tabinoki's privacy and were relevant to the actual creation process of the series.

This... is a very complicated question, after all this is an actual person we're talking about here, and I'm nowhere as well-versed in JynX/Kanae information as I am with Len'en lore. Even still, we do have some mentions of JynX's inspirations and creative

So, this isn't going to be anything formal and perfectly structured, but just whatever I can think of off the top of my head.

Brainstorming Ideas

Overall Story

So this is gonna be split into three bits: One about how the story and world of Len'en came about, one about the nitty gritty development of the games and stories, and finally one about JynX's inspirations.

I'll mention it right here: JynX's process of brainstorming is... difficult, to emulate. Especially cause it assumes that you've already got a robust world in your mind.

You see when it comes to creating the world of Len'en, JynX basically started out from a macro perspective and gradually zoomed into what they wanted to focus on.

What I mean is that JynX literally started with the genesis of the universe in which Len'en takes place in, picked a suitable planet for the story to take place on, picked a suitable location and zoomed further in and in. A very... grandiose way to come up with your setting, to be honest.

From there they picked out the characters he wants to be the main characters and looked for the people around them to expand a cast out of; along with a central location to the story, Mugenri.

Basically, JynX already had the entire universe of Mugenri and beyond in his head, people and everything, they just picked out Yabusame and friends to tell their story in Mugenri.

New Characters

For coming up with new characters that were not already planned, JynX takes to looking at the setting/story and seeing what needs to be there but isn't yet.

Setting-wise, one such character is Kaoru Kashiwagi, invented during BPoHC's development, in contrast to Fujiwara no Shirogane no Sanra and Ooama no Ake no Mitori, the two of which were already conceptualised before work on BPoHC even began.

JynX looked at the brand new location introduced in that half of the game: The imperial capital Devanagara. They asked themself, what organisations exist in there, and which ones are crucial to the plot this time? Crucial to letting the audience further their understanding of the place?

There they landed on the Goefu, and from there picking out the captain to be their representative character simply followed.

Story-wise, sometimes characters simply appear as a logical result of the story JynX had created. One such example would be Shion (detailed origin story here).

Plot

Here's where we get to a caveat in JynX's brainstorming process, we technically do not know how this all truly came to be in JynX's mind.

By the time JynX actually got down to developing Len'en, much of the series' setting, along with the general plots of EE to BPoHC, already existed within JynX's mind. Yes prior to even EE's development.

So we don't actually know whether JynX is really so imaginative as to be able to spontaneously come up with a living, breathing universe in their head to start fleshing out, or if these ideas have really just been in their mind for so long that their origins are, in a sense, obscured to JynX themself as well.

What we do know, is that JynX is the type to wing it along the writing and development process (actually for all things really).

Actual Development

JynX is honestly, just in general, a very secretive person. For example, only irl person in their life that knows that they work on making games is Daijin, literally no one else (at least according to JynX). So there's not a lot about their process that we know.

What I do know though, is that it's honestly kind of a mess. JynX's process seems to be:

Make a deadline

Work on the game with no particular plan, hopping around the various tasks as their fancy takes them

As the deadline closes in, rush and stumble their way to make it no matter what.

Of course, they don't always make it (one might even argue that they only make it half of the time), but that's honestly all I could've gleaned from everything that I've seen.

I won't got into the technical aspects, what programs they use, what hardware they use, etc. It's not my forte and a lot of it can be found on the wiki, either on JynX's page or in the interviews.

Inspirations

Admiration and Motivation: ZUN and Daijin

It of course goes without saying that JynX's biggest inspiration is ZUN and his Touhou Project.

They directly inspired the genre of the first four games and JynX even pays homage to the series through little references and, of course, 90% of Haiji's spell cards.

Beyond just really liking the games and their plots, JynX also seems to really admire the solo developer thing ZUN has going on (although ZUN is much more open to collaboration these days).

JynX is absolutely determined to make Len'en completely on their own, and flat out refuses all requests of collaboration in regards to the series.

However, do note that they're not opposed to collaborative game development as a whole, and in fact is rather curious about the process and would love to get the experience. BUT! Just not with Len'en, that's a solo project, and that's non-negotiable.

To get a bit more specific, JynX also really admires the way ZUN creates, designs and writes his characters. In particular, JynX actually really likes how ZUN bases his creations off of various historical and mythological characters and events, but rarely ever elaborates on them.

JynX finds the process of digging into these characters by themself and finding out how the references shaped the characters to be what they have the most fun with (outside of gameplay, I think).

And this is why Len'en is the way it is with its characters, with references so intricate that we're still discovering new bits even to this day. And why JynX so very rarely answers regarding character inspirations, they don't want to spoil the fun.

A more personal point of inspiration for JynX is Daijin, an upperclassman of theirs from university who worked on the original Len'en, Emergency Everyday.

Daijin is apparently the person who taught JynX everything they know about game production (at the time) and even after leaving game production behind is still a great source of inspiration for JynX.

Of course, we don't know much more than this. And we shouldn't pry.

Worldbuilding: History, Mythology, Culture

As for the more creative side of things, JynX bases their worldbuilding largely on history, mythology and culture, especially Japanese.

JynX is quite the big Japanese history and culture nut, it would seem. Even when studying in a science degree at university, he somehow wound up writing an essay on the Suwa Grand Shrine.

They also have several books on these topics, such as a whole book on traditional Japanese architecture (which I suspect they must've referenced heavily with Tenkai).

I won't elaborate too much on this point, since it's fairly self-explanatory. But I would like to note that JynX is very particular about this, going as far as to prefer going on-site to do his research.

Ending

And that concludes this! A bit messy and rather casual, but I still hope it has what you wanted to read!

And sorry that it took so long, it's a rather great departure from what I usually do that I ended up freezing and just leaving it for a long while. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed~! :)

[magicalmelancholy-blog1]

"The planetarium is over there. I'm going to get milk, so be quiet while I'm gone, 'kay?"

I tried my best to write the kanji for orphanage.

[okulki]

He is so silly scrunkly

[yukarinuniversaltraveler]

Happy birthday Kanae!!

[neobiohazardus]

Kanae Face

IDK why this came to my brain lol Sorry

[haijisenri]

[yabusame-houlen-official]

The original text attached to this image is in Japanese (machine translated though... its 1am and none of the translators are on, can you blame me? X) and directed at Kanae/JynX, but I will put the version I ran through a translator below for those curious:

Congratulations on your debut!! I apologize that this is late, I've been tired recently and don't know why... (I used a machine translation, so sorry if anything is wrong)

(Also, I hope you don't mind I drew some Len'en characters cheering you on)

If anyone wants to help me figure out some potential tags for Tumblr, feel free to join in!

[spacemashinko64]

throwaway len'en oc designs that i originally didn't want to post because i felt embarrassed but i decided to put on the internet so it won't be lost to time and that i might or might not use (the idea is an alternate Senri Shrine team that isn't yabutsuba or tsuruten, feel free to ignore or do whatever you want, as long as you credit me and don't do explicit or edgy/graphic stuff with them as I'm not comfortable with that. Also, please don't include them in any of your works without my consent as I'm not comfortable with that either).

Their names are as following:

To the left: Senri Hayano (older brother)

Middle: Senri Sagiri (younger sister)

To the right: Zuifeng Xianhe (best friend)

Xianhe and Sagiri are girls and Hayano is a boy but you can feel free to see them as anything you want according to series tradition.

BTW Len'en belongs to JynX aka. Kanae Tabinoki on Youtube

[toskarin]

that one mutual who doesn't play about tabinoki kanae streams

[friendshapedplant]

Kanae's streams really are amazing~ For me it's worth the effort of waking up a bit before 8am, since I have to wake up early for some of my classes anyway. I can't believe it, Len'en Project is making me wake up early.

Of course, these aren't the only types of streams Kanae does, as I'm sure you know. Kanae also does chatting streams and gaming streams on the weekends (right now they're on Saturday and Sunday respectively).

I love using Kanae's streams to attempt to improve my Japanese skills. I also like the productivity streams because I get to focus on something for an hour~ It's actually helped me complete a couple fics so far, not to mention assignment (some of which are of course Japanese, actually a lot of them now that I think about it).

Anyway whoops I was autistic in your ask box.

No worries cus now its my turn on the autism >:)

I can't wake up at 8 but I do like to put on those weekday productivity VODs whenever I get around to working on homework! Very effective for body doubling and not having to worry about getting distracted by the other person (Except for when I'm watchin the silly Len'en ball drop go and making sure my blorbo is in the lead (rip Sukune clay had a good run)). I just hope this strat lasts for me cus I seem to run through different studying strats way too fast and keep pickign them up and dropping them. This one being tied to a SpIn might help tho :D

Unfortunately I work on weekends w little to no free time, but perhaps I'll go and watch a VOD of one of the game ones sometime. I ain't know shit for Japanese other than some hiragana so I dunno how much I'd get outta his chat streams other than his fun voice and laugh and vtuber model (which are great. is that weird to say idk)

Also gotta say Love it when your SpIn shapes your life in positive ways like this, hella good shit thank u Kanae Tabinoki. <3

(If anyone else wanna rant/infodump bout things they love at any point without any prompt my inbox is open 24/7 for this shit I wanna see what people love!)

[singular-yike]

Holy Sites of the Len'en Series

This might seem very out of place for those of you who aren't the most up-to-date with the latest Len'en news, so before we go into today's topic, let's go over some background.

Kanae Tabinoki

On 14 Jan 2023, JynX made their Vtuber debut under the persona of "Kanae Tabinoki", the gamedev Vtuber.

Kanae mainly streams around 22:00 (JST) every night. On weekdays, he works on Len'en for an hour on stream, under the "surveillance" of the viewers, enabling work on Len'en to be done on weekdays as well, which he apparently hadn't been doing prior.

On Saturday and Sunday, he does approximately 2-hour long chatting and gaming streams respectively. And this is where our main point comes in.

Holy Sites of the Connecting Chains

On one such chatting streams (Summary Here), Kanae was asked if the Len'en series has any "holy sites", here referring to real-life locations highly impactful or significant to a fictional series.

Since Len'en takes so much inspiration from Japanese history and mythology, the answer was of course "yes". In fact, there are many such holy sites all across the world, not just in Japan!

However, in fear of spoiling future developments, Kanae only shared a few obvious ones with us. Nevertheless, let's take a look at some:

Taira no Fumikado — Masakado in Tokyo

The most detailed examples given were the many locations in Tokyo related to Taira no Masakado, one of Fumikado's bases and their once-target of revival.

There are many more than the one's Kanae listed on-stream, but here I'll only go over the ones he mentioned:

Masakado Mound

The "Masakado Mound" (将門塚), also simply called the "Head Mound" (首塚), is, as the name suggests, where Masakado's head is said to have been buried.

It's location is said to be where the head landed after exhausting its power while flying towards the eastern regions of Japan (long story, irrelevant today).

This place was once Shibasaki Village (芝崎村), the villagers that found the head made it a burial mound, but the village later fell under a mysterious epidemic.

A wandering Buddhist priest determined that this was a curse from Masakado's vengeful spirit. He christened Masakado with a Dharma name and erected a stone grave marker on the mound, instructing the villagers to worship him in order to pacify him.

Kanda Shrine

This next location Kanae gave was the Kanda Shrine (神田明神), which is actually related to the mound we've discussed above. In fact, the Kanda Shrine used to be found next to the mound!

The Shinto shrine (along with its previously accompanying Buddhist temple) used to be called Masakado's "body". This later got corrupted, "karada" (体 body) in Japanese got warped into "kanda", giving the shrine its modern name.

Of course, due to its close relation to the Head Mound, the Kanda Shrine also enshrines Masakado, as a god who wards off calamities. Though the shrine would later be relocated, no longer next to the mound, it would retain its enshrinement of Masakado.

Mount Narita Shinshō Temple

Finally, Kanae gave us the Mount Narita Shinshō Temple (成田山新勝寺), a Buddhist temple established in 940 to commemorate the victory of the Heian capital against Masakado.

According to the temple's origin tale, a bunch of Buddhist priests were ordered by the court to pray for their force's victory and Masakado's defeat.

Emperor Suzaku personally issued a similar decree to the priest Kanchō (寛朝), who brought with him a figure of the deity Fudō Myōō (不動明王), Acala in Sanskrit, said to have been carved by the founder of the school he belonged to.

When Masakado really was defeated, Emperor Suzaku rejoiced, thinking that Fudō Myōō himself must've heard and answered the monks' prayers.

When he later heard Kanchō's report that the statue suddenly got too heavy to bring back, he thought it was a sign that the deity wanted a temple dedicated to him built where the statue no longer moved from, and hence, the Mount Narita Shinshō Temple was founded.

Tenkai Zuifeng & Tsurubami Senri — Nikkō Tōshō-gū Shrine

Another location Kanae gave was one related to Tenkai Zuifeng and Tsurubami Senri, the Nikkō Tōshō-gū Shrine (日光東照宮).

The shrine is where Tokugawa Ieyasu, the basis for Tsurubami Senri, was buried and enshrined. Additionally, Tenkai Zuifeng makes numerous references to the shrine in their spell cards.

To learn more, check out my analyses of Tenkai and Tsurubami, if you'd like~.

??? — Kumano Grand Shrine

You remember how I said Kanae wanted to be careful with their words in order to avoid potential spoilers? Well he wasn't careful enough, oops~!

Ever considerate of his viewers, Kanae wanted to list places from all across Japan so that everyone can visit one of these holy sites without having to travel so far.

This lead to him considering the locations in Izumo (出雲), this is when he blurted out: "The Kumano Grand Shrine?" He quickly realises that he didn't tell the story related to the shrine yet, and asks the viewers to forget about hearing that bit.

Even so, I'll have to apologize to JynX/Kanae here, because I'm definitely digging into this. So, let's see what the shrine is about~!

Kumano Grand Shrine, First Shrine of the Izumo Province

While I wasn't originally sure whether he was referring to modern-day Izumo City (出雲市) or the historical Izumo Province (出雲国), the mention of the shrine confirms it to be the province.

This is because Kumano Grand Shrine used to hold the rank of First Shrine in the Izumo Province (it still holds onto the title in an unofficial capacity), "First Shrine" being the highest ranking shrine in a province back then.

Below: The gate to the shrine, an impressive shimenawa rope hanging from it.

The shrine is said to be where fire was first discovered, and is thus also called "Hinomoto-Hidezome no Yashiro" (日本火出初之社 shrine of the first appearance of fire in the land of the rising sun).

I would love to learn more, but the tale behind this name has already been lost to time, and any theory I make based on this little bit would simply be too vague and unsubstantiated.

Looking at the shrine's history doesn't do us much good either, it's just one of those shrines that is so old it's seemingly been there since the dawn of time (or at least, the written record).

Our first record of the shrine comes from the Nihon Shoki, Japan's second-oldest chronicle of its own history, where the gods themselves are said to have ordered the creation of this shrine. Nothing else is known about its origins, a dead end again.

God of the Kumano Grand Shrine

Finally, we can look at the one lead we do have, the gods of the Kumano Grand Shrine, or rather, the god of the shrine.

Below: The prayer hall of the shrine (right), behind which you can barely see the main hall, where the god's spirit is said to dwell.

Curiously, the shrine enshrines but a single god, his name?

Izanagi-no-Himanago Kaburoki-Kumano-no-Ōokami Kushimikenu-no-Mikoto

伊邪那伎日真名子　加夫呂伎熊野大神　櫛御気野命

Yeaaaah... That's a long name, like really long. In fact, it's the longest deity name I think I've ever encountered in researching Japanese mythology (just by a single character but hey).

Still, the name can be broken down:

Izanagi-no-Himanago (伊邪那伎日真名子): "August and beloved child of Izanagi"

Kaburoki-Kumano-no-Ōokami (加夫呂伎熊野大神): "Divine ancestor god, the Great god of Kumano"

Kushimikenu-no-Mikoto (櫛御気野命): Another name for the god Susanoo-no-Mikoto

"Kushimikenu" (櫛御気野) is not too clear, although scholars propose that "kushi" (櫛) means "wondrous" and "mike" (御気) means "food", thus the name is understood here to denote a food god.

And so, the name can be interpreted to be:

"The august and beloved child of Izanagi, divine ancestor god, the great god of Kumano, Kushimikenu"

Yep, that's a name.

I'll be honest we didn't really need to delve into the name so much, but it's one of my favourite parts of Japanese mythology so I couldn't help myself, ehe~.

What Could This Mean?

Now that we have one clear lead, the Shinto god Susanoo, here's a few possibilities of what this shrine could potentially inspire/lend itself to in Len'en.

Possibility 1: Revelation of the Adagumo's Downfall

Susanoo is the god who, most famously, slew Yamata no Orochi, the serpentine monster who served as the inspiration behind Adagumo no Yaorochi, Saragimaru and the clan leader they spawned from.

So one possible way to interpret this little leak, is that we might get to learn about the people who caused the downfall of the ancient Adagumo clan from all the way back then.

That, or we may get to learn more about how the Adagumo siblings, the orochi youkai, fell throughout the ages.

Possibility 2: Conflicts with and amongst the gods

Another key story about Susanoo, is his banishment from the heavenly realm of Takamagahara.

I won't recount the story here, but most notable to me personally, in the relation of the Len'en series, is that Susanoo traces his lineage back to the heavenly gods.

However, after his banishment, he never went back to Takamagara even after patching things up with them, nor did he go to rule the domain originally granted to him, the sea. Instead, he chose to go to Ne-no-Katasukuni (根の国), the "land of roots".

The nature of Ne-no-Katasukuni is not well understood. It's commonly thought of as an underground realm, perhaps related to the realm of the dead, Yomi.

However, other scholars and even traditional prayers contradict this, proposing that it's a location on the surface of the world, or a mystical location across the "great plains of the sea".

Nevertheless, Susanoo's banishment from Takamagahara and subsequent move to Ne-no-Katatsukuni means that he has transformed from a heavenly god, to an earthly god.

This of course ties into a curious line uttered by Hoojiro in AWTIF:

AWTIF [Baclside] - Alice Leaping Atop Lily Pad Ice

Hoojiro "Have you ever heard of it? The story of the imperial family and the Earthly Gods buried by history's darkness."

I have a more detailed analysis and theory on it here, so go check that out if you want more context.

If a Susanoo figure really is going to show up in Len'en, perhaps we'd get to learn about Len'en's own version of events from them. What dark secrets do the heavenly and earthly gods hide, and what has been lost to the flow of time? Maybe it's time to find out~.

And that's concludes that. We covered a lot this time, none of them too detailed, since they don't really directly impact Len'en's lore, but interesting stuff nonetheless.

And most curiously, we went over two possible directions the story is taking us in, all thanks to an unfortunate slip of the mouth. It's alright Kanae, nothing was spoiled and the intrigue is greater than ever~!

As a side note, there's actually a surprising amount to analyse in regards to Kanae's himself (as a character I mean, design and such, I'm not about to analyse him as a human being), so if you're ever interested in that, it'd be an interesting dive too.

Well then, that's all I have. I hope you enjoyed~! :)

[magicalmelancholy-blog1]

JynX has a Vtuber now!

Their name is Tabinoki Kanae!

Youtube here

Twitter here

Remember guys, be nice, no matter what "I hate Vtubers because they're popular and their fans are sweaty" thing you have going on.

[yukarinuniversaltraveler]

So you know I sometimes make memes, right?

[neobiohazardus]

むきむ木かなえ... (Sorry for stealing this joke)

[yukarinuniversaltraveler]

Dibujé a un Kanae enojado porque Kanae está muy enojado. /j (?)

Where my Spanish-speaking Len’en fans @??