#tho edemome could also work

[authoratmidnight]

So I’ve been working on translating (ish) Osamu Nishi’s live tweets from the reairings of Iruma and while I was untangling a 魔 pun (for the curious it was a pun on ‘edamame’ where she swapped out the last kanji in 枝豆 for 魔 to make 枝魔 since both are pronounced as ‘ma’) and had a realization.

It’s probably a well known fact at that this point that Iruma’s name is intentionally written to look like how ‘human’ is written in Japanese.

Iruma = 入間

human = 人間

Well. It suddenly clicked for me that, while *visually* his name resembles ‘human’, audibly, the last part of his name, ‘ma’ is the same sound as 魔, which is read as demon or devil.

And in any other franchise I’d toss this up to ‘haha funny coincidence’, if not the fact that Nishi LOVES her 魔 puns, generally done by subbing in 魔 into a word in place of, whatever character has the ‘ma’ sound. (think, Akudol, Hell Grey Tea, those all have 魔 in there)

He has a name that evokes both ‘human’ and ‘demon’ depending on how you perceive it(which, you know, is fitting for his character if you think about it).

AND, you could, in theory, write Iruma’s name as 入魔 and still read it as Iruma (I think).

Like, this cannot be just a coincidence right?

Especially since, if you look at the series title 魔入りました! 入間くん

The first two kanji that make up ‘Mairimashita’ are 魔入 The kanji for demon and the kanji that makes up the first half of Iruma’s name.

I have NO idea if this like, actually means anything or if it’s just a fun easter egg from Nishi but, I think it’s cool regardless.