It's taken me far too long to get around to this, but let's do it.
We all know the question: just how stupid and narratively linked are the names of the Hundred Line characters?
Come on and find out with me!
Spoilers Ahead!
Let's address something first, because it seems the term "kirakira name" has breached containment into the English-speaking internet, and I want to discuss a bit what that term means and how it relates to what I mean when I call a name "stupid".
A kirakira name is, boiled to its essence, a name that a Japanese kid is given by their parents who are trying to make them stand out. This can include things like using weird readings for kanji (i.e., I know a couple who named their kid "Runa" and spelled it with the moon kanji to evoke the Latin "Luna"), or giving kids Western names (when I was teaching there were plenty of Alices and a few Edwards or Johns), or giving a kid a extremely historical or ostentatious name (again when I was still teaching I had a Masamune once, and a current coworker gave her son a four syllable samurai name).
Think of it like a white mom giving her child like seventeen y's in Mackenzie, or that meme where the dad is talking to his son, Karkat. Japan has some failsafes in place to keep things from going full the twins from The Pinballs, thankfully, but the names can still get pretty out there.
When I talk about a name in a DanRon game (or any Japanese media) as being "stupid", it will undoubtedly include kirakira names. However, it's not limited to that, because unlike real life, this futzing of meaning and reading can extend to family names in addition to given ones, and can be more subtle than irl.
I actually have a set of criteria I consider when I'm ranking how stupid a name is:
Does this name exist irl? Could this name exist irl?
Does this name, when read aloud, sound the same as an existing word?
What kanji does this name use? How rare are the choices? Do these kanji fall under jinmeiyou status?
How meaningful is this name? Does it reflect something about the character or their place in the narrative?
How much would it make a homeroom teacher gawk at seeing it on a class list?
My judgements may appear frivolous, but I promise you I have some measure of standards in my methods.
Anyway, I hope this context enriches this dumb post for you, reader.
Sumino Takumi 澄野拓海
In keeping with Kodaka's MO, protags generally don't tend to get especially stupid names. Very few people write "Sumino" that way, but it does exist. It's the meaningful bent which gives it some stupidity points, since the first kanji can mean to "clear something up" and it's a common practice in Japanese pop media to tack 野 on the end of a meaningful term to make a stupider, meaningful name.
Takumi is just a regular name, often written that way. It translates roughly to "breaking up the sea" which I guess you could argue discusses how Sumino likes to defy fate, and phonetically it's the same as one of the words for "a great piece of art" which we know Kodaka thinks Hundora is (because he won't shut up about it).
Overall, pretty normal name to start.
Stupidity of Name: 3/10
Personal Pronoun: オレ (ore), very masculine but softer than if using the kanji version, it's hard to explain
Mode of Address: Last Name No Honorifics for both boys and girls, with the exception of Karua and the twins who are First Name No Honorifics
Shizuhara Hiruko 雫原比留子
Shizuhara's name roughly translates out to "Field of Drops, Child Who Keeps Comparing" which I think is pretty meaningful. The "drops" part to me makes me think of the killing blow animation when they bathe in the blood of a captain they've killed, and Shizuhara is always pushing for everyone to measure up.
"Shizuhara" is an extremely rare last name, though it's written as "Quiet Field" instead of "Drop Field". Stupid, but not especially. "Hiruko" meanwhile is a name, though not for people. It's the name of the first child of creation gods Izanagi and Izanami, who is born with some sort of disability (no bones, no limbs, etc.) because of his mother fucking up the marriage ritual, and he's cast away into the sea as a toddler. Obviously this refers to the first scenario, where Shizuhara gets unceremoniously merked in her bed and then dumped out into the ruins of civilization.
All of this adds up to a name that is pretty damn stupid, but doesn't feel stupid because it sounds very normal.
Stupidity of Name: 6/10
Personal Pronoun: 私 (watashi), pretty normal and to be expected by someone like Shizuhara who's all business
Mode of Address: everyone gets called by Last Name No Honorific, except the twins who are called by their first name
Yakushiji Takemaru 厄師寺猛丸
Believe it or not, Yakushiji is a real last name people can have! It's definitely not written as "danger master of the temple" though (usually it's the "medicine master of the temple"). Takemaru is a pretty rare name, but it could theoretically exist, though that first kanji for "excess" probably wouldn't be used, since it often comes up in less-than-savory contexts.
The name sounds way more stupid than it actually is, weirdly enough, which is a variety of stupid name we normally don't see in DanRon. The name is pretty meaningful, though, given that Yakushiji's whole character is centered around defying first impressions: he is excessive, but he isn't dangerous, and instead is willing to throw himself into danger for others.
Baseline stupidness.
Stupidity of Name: 5/10
Personal Pronoun: 俺 (ore), despite technically having the same pronoun as Sumino, using the kanji feels harsher and more confident; I can't quite articulate why, really, it just does
Mode of Address: everyone is Last Name No Honorific except the twins, who are First Name No Honorific
Amemiya Darumi 飴宮怠美
Here we go. Now this is a stupid fucking name!
"Amemiya" is a real last name, sure, but it's almost exclusively written as "Rain Palace" and I can't imagine a person who would have "Candy Palace" as their surname. And "Darumi"? Dude. It's clearly from the term darui, which means to be utterly knackered. The kanji choices are also ridiculous, roughly translating to "lazy beauty".
Presumably you've played the game. You know that Darumi is constantly complaining about not having energy, refusing to eat real meals in favor of snacks, etc. You could argue there's a bit of irony there, since she perks up considerably and has energy for pathos, but hoo boy this is a very, very dumb one.
Stupidity of Name: LazyBelle Candyland gets a big ol' 9/10, held back only because "Amemiya" is a real name
Personal Pronoun: 怠美 (Darumi), as usual, Kodaka gives his third person self-referencing to his silliest female soldiers
Mode of Address: everyone is First Name No Honorific, except for when she starts calling Shizuhara "Hiruko-sama"
Aotsuki Eito 蒼月衛人
Here's a fun example of a name that's pretty stupid, but almost entirely because of the context of the game itself.
Here we have an unusual reading for the kanji (蒼月 comes up more often as "Sougetsu") but nothing that weird. Plenty of real names are just "descriptor-moon" so that's not that strange. "Eito" exists as a pretty normal name, though I've almost always seen it written as 瑛斗 ("shining north star") instead. Our "Ei" here is the one that means "protect" or "defend" while the "to" is "person".
So you've got Blue Moon Defender of People, which seems very ironic, doesn't it? The moon part causes some question since the moon features so prominently in the game as a symbol of what's left of humanity, too.
So it's an ironic name? Not just that, actually.
What actually does "blue moon" mean? (Forget the beer for a second.) There's the "second full moon in one month" thing, which isn't really all that relevant. In the U.S., it usually refers to a long period of time (i.e., "once in a blue moon" meaning something that happens rarely), and it can also refer to when the moon literally looks blue, which is often the case when there are natural disasters that disrupt the atmosphere. Blue is also the color associated in shounen anime with the deuteragonist, who is more level-headed and logical compared to the emotional and impulsive red-coded protag.
Then we've got the first name. While 衛 does in fact mean "defend", one of its most common uses is in the word 衛生, or "hygiene". That was the first association I made upon meeting him, and when he started talking about being fussy about cleaning I was nodding along. In that light, the meaning transforms from wanting to defend people to wanting to cleanse them.
It's more normal than a lot of the ones we've got, but the meaning alone makes it pretty stupid.
Stupidity of Name: 6.5/10
Personal Pronoun: ボク (boku), fairly normal, less aggressively masculine than "ore", feels more casual because it's not using kanji
Mode of Address: girls are First Name-san, boys are First Name-kun (in Mattari-hen, he calls Eva "Evacchi" and she calls him "Aopii")
Kawana Tsubasa 川奈つばさ
This name is disturbingly normal. There is very little here to rag on, given that Kawana and Tsubasa are pretty common as irl names written this way. Writing girl names in only hiragana to make them cute is, as we'll get into later, a common practice also. Unsure if "wings" refers to anything meaningful, since nothing has come up so far in the routes I've played, but I guess I will make an edit to update this if it does come into play.
Til then, though, Kawana is the John Smith of this party.
Stupidity of Name: 1/10
Personal Pronoun: 私 (watashi), in keeping with her normieness, she uses the most normal personal pronoun
Mode of Address: boys are Last Name No Honorific, girls are Last Name-san except for the twins, who are Ima-kun and Kako-san
Maruko Gaku 丸子楽
Similar to Kawana Tsubasa, this is an extremely grounded name. Both of the names exist irl with those kanji choices.
On the meaningful side we get a bit more to work with, since Maruko is deliberately Showa-era-coded and I believe the name is meant to evoke Chibi Maruko-chan. Since she represents the innocence and purity of childhood, it's ironic to pair that with lewd crude dude Maruko Gaku. His first name is written with the kanji for "comfort" which, again, is intended to be ironic since he's had such a tough life.
Overall very unassuming name but has a lot of irony baked in.
Stupidity of Name: 4/10
Personal Pronoun: オレ (ore), same as Sumino
Mode of Address: everyone but the twins is Last Name No Honorific, while the twins are First Name No Honorific (same as Sumino...again)
Ginzaki Shouma 銀崎晶馬
Ginzaki does say when you first meet him that he doesn't deserve such a high-class-sounding name, and it does seem to be largely the intent here.
Loosely translating to "The Silver Penninsula's Crystal Horse", the whole name doesn't come off super stupid. Ginzaki itself isn't a common name in the wild, but it does exist out there. (The internet is telling me it originates from Hyougo Prefecture?) Shouma is a pretty common name, and both the kanji used are often included in names, so it's reasonable to assume you could write it this way even if it's not as common as other kanji choices.
You could argue the horse inclusion hints at his affinity for animals, and that he's more of a workhorse type personality than a leader, but mostly it feels like the name is just meant to evoke an ironic elegance.
Stupidity of Name: 4/10
Personal Pronoun: 僕 (boku), same as Aotsuki, though a bit more formal maybe because of the kanji use
Mode of Address: mostly Last Name-san for everyone but the twins, who are First Name-san
Tsukumo Ima 九十九今馬
After a string of pretty reasonable names, we come to the twins. Hoo boy.
These names are very stupid, but they're even MORE stupid in relation to each other, since "Ima" is just the word for "now" and "Kako" is the word for "Past". The way they've decided to write "Ima" here is using the kanji for "now" and "horse".
Unlike Ginzaki, I 100% believe this is an Ouma nod. How can it not be? Ima's the little shit with purple hair! You combine that with his VA being Ogata Megumi and you have a perfect blend of both Ouma and Komaeda!
As for meaning, Ima's very practical and very good at adapting to whatever is going on at the given moment. He's one of the few characters I could see not going insane after his brain is transplanted into Sirei's body, for instance. A real "live in the moment, take things as they come" kinda guy.
Now, Tsukumo can be a last name, and it's written that way (it pops up a lot as a place name too), but the fact that in HUNDRED Line about a HUNDRED day period, having someone whose last name is written as "99" is a bit much.
Very dumb.
Stupidity of Name: 8.5/10, held back by Tsukumo being a real name that's actually written that way
Personal Pronoun: 自分 (jibun), very gender neutral
Mode of Address: everyone but his sister is Last Name-senpai; Kako starts being called Imouto-chan (little sister) but then he starts calling her Kako after she stands up to him
Tsukumo Kako 九十九過子
Like her brother, Kako's name literally reads as "past", but unlike Ima, her kanji use is the much less neutral "kid who overdoes it". 過 means "overly" and comes from the verb 過つ, which means to "make a mistake" (it is the first part of the word for past also: 過去).
Obviously, Kako's more hung up on their shared past and still has lingering attachment to their parents (especially their father), so it's meaningful as well.
Again, Tsukumo is a real last name written that way, but if I rocked up to the 100 Day gauntlet with my name literally written as 99, I'd be a bit anxious.
Stupidity of Name: 9/10, higher than Ima because at least his name doesn't use kanji with negative connotations
Personal Pronoun: 自分 (jibun), very gender neutral, same as Ima
Mode of Address: everyone but her brother is Last Name-senpai; she starts out calling Ima "Oniichan" (big brother), but then calls him Ima after she learns to stand up to him
Kirifuji Nozomi 霧藤希
This is a name that's moderately dumb at first glance but becomes dumber in the context of Kodaka's oeuvre.
On the surface, Kirifuji ("Fog Wisteria") is not a name that exists as far as I can tell, but it's one of the ones where the component kanji are pretty common in last names, so you could suspend your disbelief and just think it was rare. Nozomi, meanwhile, is a common enough name and it's usually written that way.
The issue is that this is a Kodaka joint.
"Hope" (and for that matter, "despair") are not neutral terms that get to just exist free of baggage. Guess what "nozomi" means? Notice how she's always giving the group inspirational speeches?
In addition to this, Kirigiri is a long-standing, very prominent figure in the DR-verse, and any echo of her dumb name will resound (heh, a little joke based on her first name) across all of Kodaka's works. Kirifuji even looks a lot like Kirigiri, with the silver/purple hair, the lavender eyes, the dark-purple jacket over the button-up shirt, etc.
(As an aside, my gf and I had a Kirigiri/Junko lovechild OC we named Nozomi, so our ongoing joke is that Hundora Nozomi is that kid but after Junko goes out for milk and never comes back so Kirigiri remarries.)
This is a deceptively stupid name. Not excessively, but pretty dumb in context.
Stupidity of Name: 7/10
Personal Pronoun: わたし (watashi), normal for a girl to use, has hiragana to make it softer/cuter
Mode of Address: boys are Last Name-kun, girls are Last Name-san except for Kako, Kurara, Moko, and Kyoushika, who are all First Name-chan, and Ima, who is First Name-kun
Oosuzuki Kurara 大鈴木くらら
Someone on Twitter was going on about how Kurara has a kirakira name, and while that's technically true, it's not that odd to run into it in the wild irl, so I don't think it's particularly egregious. It's even written with hiragana to make it cuter, which emphasizes that it's meant to be more Japanese-feeling. It's definitely not a Celes situation, is what I'm saying.
I probably don't need to tell you that "Oosuzuki" isn't a real name, because the game itself addresses this, by saying that Kurara-chan's family was originally just Suzuki but then a bunch of lines decided that they were going to merge to be big and important and Togami-esque, so they added the kanji for big to make themselves the "Grand Suzuki" family. Suzuki is a very common last name that is not at all remarkable.
In this way, Kurara-chan has one of the more grounded names in the game, which obviously is intended to be ironic. (See: Tanaka Gundam)
Stupidity of Name: 4/10
Personal Pronoun: アタシ (atashi), very feminine, though the use of katakana gives it a sharper edge; Fun Fact: this is sometimes considered Junko's baseline personal pronoun
Mode of Address: everyone is Last Name No Honorific except for her girlies (Nozomi, Kyoushika, and Moko) and the twins, who are all First Name No Honorific
Magadori Kyoushika 凶鳥狂死香
Holy shit. I never thought Mukuro would ever have any direct competition, but this is pretty dang close. There is no way that anyone would let you name your baby this.
"Magadori" or "Ominous Bird" is not a real last name. Come on now. In no universe is 凶 going to be used for a human name. "Kyoushika" meanwhile could be a first name (be it archaic and deeply Buddhist). But not with those kanji, jesus fuck. "Insane Death Fragrance"?! One of those is legally allowed to be used in names!
I love this name a lot, actually. It's so over-the-top and balls-to-the-wall.
Stupidity of Name: 9.5/10, Magadori is standing with the jumonjitou pointed at Corpsey McWarSword in challenge
Personal Pronoun: 拙者 (sessha), an archaic pronoun reserved for samurai (used by Yamada sometimes in DR1)
Mode of Address: boys are Last Name-dono, girls are First Name-dono, except Ima, who is First Name-dono (when she's mad at someone she sometimes will drop the "lord" honorific)
Omokage Yugamu 面影歪
I was prepared to go in really hard on this one, because that first name is not fucking happening, only to discover that apparently there are people out there named Omokage ("Face in Shadow"). There aren't may of them, and they mostly live in Akita and Tottori apparently, with a handful in Osaka of all places.
So touché, Kodaka. I guess this is a real last name with real life kanji choices.
That first name though, no way. "Yugamu" means "twisted" and as apt as it is for our little freak, it is in no way a real name a real person would have.
Stupidity of Name: 8/10
Personal Pronoun: 私 (watashi), fairly normal, if a touch feminine and/or formal for a teen boy to use
Mode of Address: boys are Last Name-kun (Ima aside, who is Ima-kun) and girls are First Name-chan
Mojiro Moko 喪白もこ
I will endeavor not to make any kind of FuwaMoco joke in this section but I make no promises.
"Mojiro" or "Mourning White" is not a real name. ("Mourning Black", 喪黒, however, is the last name of the titular character in The Laughing Salesman series.) By itself, "Moko" is not a name either, though lots of names have "moko" in them.
As you may know from...sources, mokomoko is an onomatopoeia for "fluffy" and the name being written without kanji feels like it's trying to push your mental association in that direction.
I can't quite call this an ironic name, though it is in some ways. Despite her stronk exterior, Moko is pretty soft and fluffy personality-wise. In the original timeline, we never even get to meet her and her sacrifice is felt throughout the rest of the story, fitting in with the idea of both mourning but also being a blameless/face character (except for the captain who impersonates her not being blameless and putting us squarely back in ironic territory).
Also don't come for me: DanRon established "shiro = innocent, kuro = guilty" okay? That wasn't me.
What I'm saying is that this is a very, very stupid name.
Stupidity of Name: 9/10
Personal Pronoun: アタイ (atai), a shortened, rough form of atashi meant to evoke someone you shouldn't fuck with
Mode of Address: boys are Last Name-kun (except Ima, of course, who is First Name-kun), and girls are First Name-chan
Kashimiya Karua 柏宮カルア
This is one's a strange one. So Kashimiya ("Oak Palace") does not exist as a real name, though it uses kanji that commonly come up in last names, so it sounds and looks very believable. Phonetically, it's identical to the loanword for "cashmere" (on my mind lately as I'm simultaneously playing a lot of Fantasy Life i), which could be relevant as demand for cashmere has had some adverse environmental effects in China and Mongolia, the world's largest producers. Unsure if Kodaka intended this, but it's extremely on the nose for Sumino's major reason to continue his people's genocidal conquest to seize a new world after they fucked up the old one to have the name of what is essentially our world's thneed.
Karua as a name is driving me crazy, because I want so badly to just say "Carla" but it's not that, because Carla is カーラ in katakana. My second (admittedly lushy) instinct is to change it to Kahlua, but that's カルーア with a long ru. I guess if you mean a Kahlua Milk specifically, it often gets shortened to カルアミ but like...
Anyway, katakana does indicate that this is intended to not be a Japanese name (please contrast with Kurara's hiragana), and that's a bit out of my wheelhouse. However, I did some digging and it seems like Karua is an Abkhaz name meaning "amber". Perhaps it's significant because Abkhazia is a partially recognized state that sits at the junction of Europe and Asia? You could argue that relates quite a bit with the themes of Hundora. Could also relate it to current events quite easily, with wars of conquest happening in roughly the same area.
Amber is interesting, because it's probably most famous for the role it plays in preserving specimen of times long past, which I could see relating to the story in that Sumino can't move on and grow so long as he's trapped longing for a life he can't reclaim. In addition to a relevant coming of age theme of not being able to go home again, this again connects to the idea of tradition as baggage, which is very relevant for Japanese media.
Sorry, wandering away from the path a bit here. This is an incredibly stupid name.
Stupidity of Name: 9/10, would be higher if Karua didn't turn out to be a real name in a real world culture
Personal Pronoun: わたし (watashi), unsurprisingly, the same as Kirifuji
Mode of Address: I haven't seen her interact with anyone else (so far at least), but she calls Sumino "Takkun"
Bonus!
Sirei
No Japanese here because this one is just written in romaji. And about that: Kodaka please let go of Nihonshiki romanization and embrace the "sh" sound, you fucker! This one is kinda dumb I guess in that it's a shortening of Sirei's role--commander, or shireikan--but it's not that unusual for a non-human character. Feels a bit like referring to a sergeant as "sarge" instead of their name.
Stupidity of Name: 2/10
Personal Pronoun: 本官 (honkan), which is generally used by military commanders when issuing orders.
Mode of Address: First Name-kun for boys and First Name-chan for girls
Nigou
This one's pretty straightforward as well, though there's a tinge of melancholy here, I'd argue. "Nigou" more or less just means "the second one" in a series of things (the vibe is like the second machine, or the second large thing; in Japanese, Eva's Unit 02 is called "nigouki" for instance), and that kind of highlights that she's less of an individual and seen more as an extension of Sirei. Clearly that isn't the case in practice, so score another big fat zero for nomative determinism here.
If you wanted to, you could maybe scour through the game for evidence to draw parallels between Nigou and Asuka, since I'm pretty sure the reference to Unit 02 was intentional.
Stupidity of Name: 4/10
Personal Pronoun: 本官 (honkan), same as Sirei
Mode of Address: First Name-kun for boys and First Name-chan for girls
Shion シオン
The game itself addresses this, actually. This is the name of a flower, which in flower language (a Japan classic) means "I won't forget you."
Extremely meaningful, but also a pretty common name, so minimally stupid.
Stupidity of Name: 4/10, most of it coming from the meaningful nature
Personal Pronoun: ボク (boku), same as Aotsuki
Mode of Address: Honestly I don't think he's casually referred to anyone by name yet so far, but I could be wrong; if I figure it out as I play more, I'll update this part
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There you have it! There may be some details that are off in the modes of address here and there (do you know how hard it is to go back and find a part where Omokage, Kurara, or Moko are talking about a girl who isn't one of their close friends?), but overall this should be pretty accurate. Nvm, my buddy lenga managed to find the relevant info for the last bits I needed and now understands the pain I went through combing the timelines.
It took me quite a while, hunting out all the personal pronouns and the modes of address, and I did a lot of due diligence to see if names existed or not, so this post took much longer than originally planned. Sorry about that.
i drew tohru from fruits basket for a shoujosei stamp rally when i tabled at anime north and i just realized i never posted her! i rmb going hogwild drawing fruits basket when the anime was airing, it feels nice to draw it again
i realized i have ten years worth of art summaries now... the early art summaries were using other templates but i updated all of them to have the same template for consistency... literal 10 years worth of tears
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