the focus of this blog is on the ็ๅฃๅฏๅฎค ร BAKUI series, but i am also very fond of the other MVs that BAKUI has been commissioned for, especially for dear life, hi phi club and ameri :)
i post art, miscellaneous commentary, and headcanons. canonically unnamed characters, especially from the ็ๅฃๅฏๅฎค ร BAKUI series, will be referred to by headcanon names quite often. disclaimer tags will be put on posts that include these names
i may talk about other animator's MVs occasionally, there's a soft spot in my heart for mitsuki sanagi ร seeeeecun mvs. โก other than that, i enjoy anime with rakugo or historical themes, particularly ๆญๅๅ ็ฆ่ฝ่ชๅฟไธญ and the apothecary diaries. other than those, i like sayonara zetsubou-sensei. i also try to read classic literature when i find the time to
there is no DNI or trigger list โ if i do not wish to interact, i will simply block or ignore
tags for this blog include โ
nene prose : general posting
nene visionary : headcanons
nene letters : asks
drawing and playing : art
they're not quite fleshed out, but i thought i'd share my headcanons for the past lives, and former human names, of gummi, chocolate and pine before they became jiangshi...!
to me, narrow created the jiangshi when it was younger as just something to draw. then, later, when narrow grew up, it created names and backstories for them. some of those backstories are partly based off of figures in history, particularly an emperor from the chinese sui dynasty, and a chinese philosopher. for the time being, these are surface-level inspirations, but i intend to do further research later on ๐
themes of death, grief, and suicide follow, so please exercise caution when reading...!
gummy: her human name was kugumiya megumi. (ไน ใ ๅฎฎ ๆต, surname โ first name.)
kugumiya is a surname that consists of the kanji ไน , meaning a long time, ใ , a kanji indicating repetition of the last, and ๅฎฎ, meaning shrine or palace. ๆต means blessing. these meanings did influence my thoughts for her backstory...! not only that, gumi appearing in both names is intentional, since i figured narrow would try to implement name puns in each name.
she was a musician (as pictured in the image,) and she was affiliated with a shrine. perhaps she played for religious ceremonies, or simply as a hobby alongside her shrine duties.
gummi was a cheerful girl, someone a little too fond of sweets and other delights. to others, she was an embodiment of fun and joy. though, in truth, she held lots of grief close to her heart. grief for all the people in her community that passed away, but most specifically, the mentor figure in her life. the person that taught gummi music.
she played music for fun and joy, but also as a tribute, as something to channel her prayers and feelings into. the concepts of grief and tribute are major themes for her.
gummi's cause of death was being lost at sea. perhaps after playing something to the ocean, to let the lost hear her. or, simply playing, frolicking.
chocolate: their human name was chou kanra (้ท ็ฅ็พ , surname โ first name.)ย
้ท means long, which has no specific relation to chocolate, but it is a homophone to ่ถ, meaning butterfly, which is related to their character. ็ฅ means god or deity, and ็พ means silk or gauze. it is not as clear of a name pun as gummi's human name, but still somewhat similar sounding... it is meant to be vaguely either chinese or japanese, as narrow hesitated to give them a clearly chinese name at the time.
chocolate was an author, philosopher, and perhaps a poet too. the main inspiration for their character is zhuang zhou's butterfly dream parable, something that is mentioned within the song itself, as the second to last lyric. it details zhuang zhou dreaming of being a happy and carefree butterfly, but awakening from the dream, finding himself contemplating if he is a man dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being a man.
in this timeline, chocolate was the one who wrote this parable, much later than it was first written. their sole focus in life was writing, honing philosophies, contemplating the intricacies of anything and everything around them. in particular, they were dedicated, if not madly obsessed, with their butterfly parable. chocolate constantly wrote about it, debated it, and even wished to test and prove it.
mental illnesses, their obsession in philosophy and literature, and their wish to prove their parable and metamorphose, eventually got to them. chocolate died by suicide, falling from a height, the flight of a butterfly that they wished for.
pine: his human name was bai nanbao (ๆ ๅๅฎ, surname โ first name.)
ๆ is a rare surname in chinese, meaning to bow to or to worship. the hanzi for it is also used to transcribe bye-bye in chinese. (ๆๆ ๐) a grim nod to pine's nature as a jiangshi... also, the variant of this hanzi that is used in japanese is ๆ, which appears in the lyrics of for dear life as ๆใพใใฆ. ๅ means southern, and ๅฎ means treasure. the romanisation system commonly used for chinese is pinyin, where ๆ would be bai and ๅฎ would be bao. this is what i use. however, in wade-giles, they would be pai and pao. when pronouncing the name with the W-G romanisation, it sounds much more like pineapple... ๐
he was mostly known as a brash and arrogant crown prince in late imperial china, but was also an artist. pine's character is directly inspired by emperor yang of sui, an emperor regarded as one of chinese history's worst tyrants. in his youth, the emperor had his older brother deposed through lies and deceit, then ran more schemes to secure his place as crown prince.
an excerpt from the wikipedia article on him is as follows:
Emperor Yang was also a patron of the arts, having expanded the number of foreign orchestras (from across Asia) at the Sui court from seven to nine. He was, in fact, quite a gifted artist himself, but one prone to horrible fits of jealousy and stubbornness, who seldom listened to the advice of more talented individuals. He was a talented poet but killed two poets after he found their stanzas to be superior to his own.
pine was quite similar. he was conceited yet still horribly insecure in his craft, brutal in his pursuit of being the best artist. pine behaved as he pleased, all while trying to earn the favors of his parents and secure himself a role as the heir.
he abused and fooled around with his newfound power, which likely caused him to get into deep trouble. his cause of death was capital punishment, being beheaded. i headcanon that as a jiangshi, his head falls off sometimes because of that... ๐ญ
here are more thoughts, and below them, picrews that are how i imagine the three looked like as humans...! these are not historically accurate, especially pine's. his is meant to look much more like a c-drama prince ๐ญ
i would like to gush more about the bakui goobers and my headcanons about them on my tumblr, but i often forget that i even have tumblr... ๐ญ i also don't know where to begin most times. i'd be happy if you guys sent me headcanon asks with this
