there are a few names that keep popping up in fandom things that aren't the canon names of the characters and i find this just kind of curious, so i thought i'd look at some. (prefacing this by saying this is just explanatory canon stuff. do use whatever headcanon names you want regardless of what misdre is saying on the internet again)
kyouju/professor/chief/kenny: starting with a simple one but he somehow has exceptionally many different names. his actual name is manabu. (poor guy is never called this by anyone but his own mom)
takao's grandfather: it's ryuunosuke, as opposed to just ryu(u) which seems to be a fanon equivalent that i see used here and there. maybe ryuunosuke feels too long so people just chop it in half to make spelling easier, i dunno.
'brooklyn masefield' and 'mathilda alster/angelloni/some other version': they don't actually have canon surnames. i also use the fanon names for convenience in fics, but they are just that. the ones used for mathilda are actually so close to each other that i have wondered if there is some kind of source for them, though, since i've also seen japanese fanart using angelloni. but none of the manga material from aoki has this name on it for what i’ve seen.
volkov/vorkov/balkov: i know a good chunk of the fandom just calls him boris per the english dub but anyway. the 'balkov' spelling i believe also comes from the dub. in the original, his name is specifically spelled with the katakana formation for rendering letter v, which japanese innately doesn't have. whether it's supposed to be 'volkov' or 'vorkov' i don't actually have any other evidence on than volkov being by far a more common russian surname and given that all the other characters have john smith-esque names, i put my money on that one personally. but japanese uses r in place of l so it’s still dubious anyways for all i know.
rai and mao’s surname: it’s chen (or cheng) as written in the manga. the ‘chou’ version i believe comes from a weird misspelling in the anime, but there’s an occasion of DJ calling them chen there as well so i think that’s just the anime staff not knowing how to spell anything in latin alphabet (i mean, gouki is spelled ‘gouache’ in s2. it’s that bad) also ‘wong’ is an english dub fanon name i think, AFAIK not many characters had dub canon surnames
sergey's surname: it's rybakov. i believe a fanon version is petrov and the reason it's been used is that aoki only fairly recently called him sergey rybakov in the manga.
garland's surname: i see him called 'siebald' a lot and i don't know if that's from the english dub, but in the original it's.... well it's something else, frankly i haven't been able to figure out which real name it's supposed to be but it's 'shettobaruto' in japanese. zetbalt? schetbalt????
olivier's surname: it's bohringer. the ‘boulanger' fanoning i guess has just come from people who don't know either french or japanese very well going 'it kinda looks like this so i’ll go with it’, but bohringer and boulanger are actually pronounced differently and aoki confirmed bohringer in a bday art for olivier. and sometimes he somehow gets called ‘polanski’ and i can’t begin to explain why olivier would be called a pole but.
also, not a character name but anyway, the chinese team name in g-revolution: byakko/the white tiger is báihǔ in mandarin, the team name is that plus a -zu at the end which probably indicates the plural -s from english. japanese makes no difference between the fu and hu syllables which is why it’s technically spelled baifuuzu. lesson of the day is that it takes a bit of knowledge to tread the wild world that’s non-japanese names and words spelled in japanese because the system goes by how the words are pronounced according to japanese phonetics (and it’s crazy yes)
that's the ones i could think of. again, this is more like, for anyone who's interested or has wondered about some. not out here to judge people.
i made a post like this sometime earlier but i couldn't find it anymore (my blog is a mess) so i'll just make a new one because i'm really fond of the japanese character name meanings in bakuten shoot! and also it’s a saturday and i’m procrastinating cleaning the house or doing anything actually useful in general
the main five (named after the five elements of wu xing which i apparently have a post about here):
kinomiya (木ノ宮): shrine/palace of wood
takao (タカオ): author aoki takao's namesake, written in katakana so the name doesn't mean anything per se but my small empirical research showed that the most common kanji spellings of the name are generally combinations of kanji meaning either 'filial piety' or 'high/valuable' and 'man/male/husband' so it's a pretty masculine name.
hiwatari (火渡): crossing fire
kai (カイ): also written in katakana, and there are way too many kanji spellings to really say much about it. here's what wikipedia says: ‘In Japanese, kai has a number of meanings, including "ocean" (海), "shell" (貝), "restoration" and "recovery".’
mizuhara (水原): water field ('field' as in an expanse or area)
max: obviously not a japanese name but you can look at behindthename for etymology instead. for random trivia’s sake, in japanese max is spelled ‘makkusu’ which actually makes his name a lot longer in japanese since it’s one syllable vs three syllables.
kon (金): metal, gold
rei (李): plum
technically rei's name should be chinese instead of japanese but i don't think aoki really thought this through when naming him (or much any non-japanese character to be honest) so actually his first name is written with the character that's used in the very common chinese surname ‘li’ (often stylized ‘lee’ in english), and the most common surname written with the character for gold is ‘jin’. sometimes people spell his first name as ‘lei’ which is the cantonese pronunciation of 李, but i have no idea if it's actually used as a name since i don't know any chinese myself. (just for science, the japanese reading of the kanji is actually 'sumomo'. the dictionary site i use says that the reading ‘rei’ is a feminine name instead. but a lot of names are generally unisex in japanese to be fair)
sumeragi (皇): divine, imperial, the emperor
daichi (大地): earth
the surname is most likely linked to the fact that while there are five chinese elements, there are only four of the symbols that the holy beasts represent so daichi has the japan-exclusive 'fifth beast' that's the yellow dragon (gaia dragoon) and a symbol of the japanese emperor.
others:
saien (才媛): 'genius, gift' + 'princess' (lol), also sounds like the first syllables of the english 'science'.
manabu (マナブ): written in katakana, but the verb ‘manabu’ 学ぶ means studying. i just learned from the japanese wiki page that apparently he had no name beyond kyouju/professor in the original manga but is now called manabu in rising, which means that aoki adopted the name from the anime and made it canon!
tachibana (立花): standing flower
hiromi (ヒロミ): also written in katakana, wikipedia says: ‘Generous beauty (寛美) although it can have other meanings depending on the kanji used.’
daitenji (大転寺): 'big, great' + 'revolve' + 'temple'. the 'ten' in there is the same as in 'bakuten' so it can be taken as spinning and an actual reference to beyblades. so very loosely thinking his name means the great temple of beyblades.
hitoshi (仁): humanity, virtue. this kanji actually only has a meaning when it's instead read as 'jin' and hitoshi's alias is shippuu no jin.
the names of takao's father and grandfather, tatsuya (龍也) and ryuunosuke (龍之介), don't mean anything per se but both include the kanji for dragon in them. takao's mother's name is yoshie (良恵), 'good' + 'blessing, grace, kindness, wisdom'.
the name of kai's father, susumu (進), means 'progress, advancing, development' which fits together with the crossing fire of hiwatari, so he's basically 'advancing through fire'.
as for other characters......... well. the chinese team technically has names with meanings but they are mostly named after japanese logic (except mao which is mandarin for cat). the russians’ surnames do have meanings, but i’m pretty sure that’s just coincidental since a lot of the most common russian family names just happen to mean occupations and it’s not really related to the characters themselves. and then there’s characters named after athletes and actors and such. if someone wants to do a post about all those, you totally should!
so aoki has gone unhinged and actually gave just about every character a bday (in addition to BBA + borg who already had them) in the newest rising volume so i decided to put them all together for everyone’s convenience! while hoping i didn’t make any typos with the numbers--
January
6: Max
14: Gaou
24: Yusuf
February
8: Yuriy
9: Eddie
21: Emily
March
21: Takao
April
7: Rai
12: Giancarlo
18: Kyouju
21: Michael (the American one)
26: Steve
27: Aaron
May
2: Rick
18: Mathilda
21: Julia & Raúl
27: Ozma
June
1: Johnny
12: Ivan
21: Olivier
22: Kiki
30: Daichi
July
12: Gouki
29: Leon
August
1: Kai
8: Mao
September
22: Hitoshi
23: Jim
October
3: Ralf
10: Kane
22: Claude
30: Dunga
November
6: Rei
12: Michael (the European one)
22: Sergey
29: Salima
i come with actual content today, we were discussing the bakuten shoot concept art that aoki has published on his website and there was some really goddamn funny stuff in there that i haven’t seen translated by anyone here so i just started doing it myself. here’s the first three pages where aoki talks about the early manga and stuff. i made these translations pretty fast so the language isn’t super perfect or anything but who cares lbr. texts in square brackets are my own additions. (i’ll translate more later, i got actual things to do today!!)
Preface
"While a manga is in the manuscript phase, it belongs to the author. Once it's become a book, it belongs to the readers." That's always been my philosophy for doing manga. I didn't talk much about Bakuten Shoot Beyblade after the serialization ended in 2004, so I only hoped that the characters would keep living on in the readers' hearts. However, since the RISING sequel was serialized in 2016 in CoroCoro Aniki, and in 2019 it's been 20 years since Beyblade was first serialized, I decided to celebrate the anniversary by showing how it got to the present point and release the character creation stories and concept materials little by little.
- Aoki Takao, 5 May 2018
Manga Bakuten Shoot Beyblade: Page 1
Preface
In spring 1999, CoroCoro Mikku offered me the opportunity to begin the serialization of a new hobby manga about beigoma spinning tops (beyblades). When I tried playing with the prototype of a beyblade before they were officially launched, I got the image of a martial arts-like sport. I decided to include the spirit of the sports anime I used to watch as a child in the series. A story about a main character who can use cool special powers and grow by fighting against rivals and cultivating friendship with them.
The presentation of Beyblade
Beyblades were officially launched in July, and the serialization started around the same time. I wasn't familiar with the readers of CoroCoro yet, so I had no idea whether they would find the series charming. I created the characters of Beyblade with the thought that I somehow needed to make the readers empathize with spinning tops that are so tiny they fit on the palm of a hand. I used the four Chinese gods of the four directions (Seiryuu, Suzaku, Byakko, Genbu) as a motif and made them into the four holy beasts dwelling in the beyblades, and made it a story about the bladers chosen by them. Like this, the concept of it being a story about four main character boys happened very naturally.
The three characters
Before the manga was planned, there was a promotion for a Game Boy Color game about a Beyblade game as “the next generation of beigomas”. I decided from the beginning that the three characters I designed for the game would also appear in my manga.
(Takao, the protagonist) An energetic and cheerful boy who loves Beyblade. Uses the bey “Ultimate Dragoon”.
(Kai, the rival) The cool leader of a gang named Shell Killers who hates Beyblade. Uses the bey “Frostic Dranzer”. [?? idk if frostic is right?]
(Shippuu no Jin, the mysterious ninja blader) Uses the bey “Saizoo” [??]. There was no image of Jin, so I’m using one I’ve drawn later.
However, the manga serialized on CoroCoro was not a comic version of the game but a completely original work. I got to freely work on the personalities and personal histories of the three characters. Therefore I constructed the world of the comic without paying much attention to the game’s contents and didn’t play the game.
This is the complex explanation behind the main character sharing my own name, “Takao”.
Creating the manga characters
I started from adapting Takao and Kai into the concept of the four holy beasts.
Main Character “Takao”
His bey is Dragoon (carrier of a dragon musket) so his holy beast is Seiryuu. To match the wu xing theory, I decided to make his surname Kinomiya to match the element of wood (“ki”). His personality is very CoroCoro protagonist-like, he’s energetic and cheerful and always tries his best. He loves bey battles. His skills are of high level. He lost his mother when he was very young, and his father and big brother are archaeologists working on excavations and doing research abroad. He lives together with his grandfather from his father’s side.
Rival “Kai”
Since his holy beast is Suzaku, I derived his surname Hiwatari from the element of fire (“hi”). He has a cool personality and his skills are on the same level as the main character’s, or even higher. His family owns a big company. Since the game’s concept of him hating beyblade was very unique, I decided to use it and make the reason behind it his antagonism with his father. (Details about him were the same as in the manga.)
Since he hunts beyblades as an act of revenge, I made the setting such that he has subordinates (the Shell Killers).
Shippuu no Jin
Since I thought it unreasonable to make Jin, who was an adult, a rival of the elementary school kids, I made him Takao’s older brother who watches over his little brother from the shadows. “Jin” is the Chinese reading of the kanji in his name, so I made his real name “Hitoshi”. [hitoshi is the Japanese reading of the same kanji]
Since the bladers of Byakko and Genbu appear much later, they didn’t have character designs yet.
So I created the Beyblade expert “Kyouju” and Takao’s grandfather “Ryuunosuke” next.
Kyouju
He’s Takao’s classmate and a Beyblade researcher. I created him after the image of an elderly university professor.
Kinomiya Ryuunosuke
Takao’s grandfather who lives with him. The master of the Ryuushinken sword.
Story
I wanted the story be like 里見八犬伝 [i have no idea what that is ngl] where the protagonist fights through several rivals, keeps running into legendary bladers, and once all four are present, the story takes a dramatic turn.
Like this the serialization began in 1999, first with a special in the August volume of CoroCoro Mikku and then as a monthly series starting from the September volume.
Manga Bakuten Shoot Beyblade: Page 2
Special techniques
When Beyblade began its serialization, I kept in mind that I needed to convey the charm of beys to the readers somehow and wanted to make the battles feel real. However, I struggled with the manga not really getting popular. I felt like, despite trying to convey the realism of how fun and intense the battles were, in practice it didn’t feel the same as it would have in real life, so I decided to take it to a more dramatic direction. I made them use special techniques where the spinning causes tornadoes, flames, thunder and other such unrealistic effects to happen. This is how the special techniques that are now used in the currently serialized RISING originally came to exist.
Max and Rei
I had planned that the bladers of Genbu and Byakko wouldn’t appear until much later, so I hadn’t yet created characters for them when the manga was serialized. However, since Takara Tomy created beyblades for the four holy beasts to fit the manga series, I had to come up with the other two characters.
“Max”
His holy beast is Genbu. From the wu xing element of water (“mizu”), his surname is Mizuhara. He has a cheerful personality and he’s always smiling. I modeled his battle style to rely on defense based on the tough shell of a turtle. (Details about him were the same as in the manga.)
“Rei”
His holy beast is Byakko and wu xing element metal, so I named him Kon Rei [“kon” is one reading for the kanji for metal; also aoki uses the kanji for plum for “rei” here]. He’s Chinese and from a clan of people with fangs. He’s extremely agile and his bey battle skills are top level. Originally I was going to give him a braid, but I settled down with the current style with the image of a tiger’s tail in mind. His personality was such that outside battles he was only going to eat and sleep but having another mute character clashed with Kai, so Rei got more lines little by little. The above pictures are from the beginning, but his design somewhat changed as I drew more of the manga.
Like this, I made Max and Rei appear in the manga a lot earlier than intended to match the release of the parent beys of the four holy beasts.
Manga Bakuten Shoot Beyblade: Page 3
The big four of Shell Killers
“Hiruma Makoto, Tsukuba, Motegi, Suzuka”
These four characters basically appear to emphasize Kai’s strong presence and make him appear stronger. There were originally only going to be one or two of them, but as I doodled character designs at the bottom of the manuscript, I was so pleased with the drawings that I decided to increase their number in the opening scene of the next episode. By the way, in the last volume of the comic (vol 14), Takao’s future child is named Kinomiya Makoto, but the name is not related to Hiruta in any way. I had completely forgotten that I had named Hiruta “Makoto” in the past, so it was my mistake. The names of Tsukuba, Motegi and Suzuka come from race track sports.
“Mizuhara Tarou”
Max’s father who runs a hobby shop. Back when he first appeared together with Max’s first appearance, I hadn’t yet made any plans concerning his wife (Judy). In RISING I drew him with a smaller beard so he has a somewhat more youthful appearance.
“Daitenji Kogorou”
President of BBA (Beyblade Battle Association). He appears in vol 2 as a representative of the organization in charge of battle tournaments. The image behind his character is a kind old man who watches over the young blader boys and girls. The model of his design is detective Hercule Poirot as played by the famous actor David Suchet in the British television series “Agatha Christie’s Poirot” in 1998—2013. I loved the way Suchet’s Poirot was playful while overflowing with kindness, so I used him as reference. By the way, the name Kogorou is also linked to the detective theme and was derived from 明智. [no i don’t know who that is either]
“Hiwatari Souichirou”
Kai’s grandfather. The chairman and director of the Hiwatari Enterprise, he’s not only a dictator of the company but also has a dominant attitude toward his family. He’s an important character regarding the discord between Kai and his father (Susumu). He’s not modeled after anyone in particular, but the name Souichirou is from the founder of Honda, the car-making company.
Bit chip characters
In 2000, the line-up of Beyblade toys was expanded with lots of new products. I was requested by Takara Tomy to design more characters for them. I had no plans to include them in the manga, so they became bit chip characters rather than holy beasts.
Design concept for “Mechanical Seiryuu”. Regarding the number of its claws, Takao’s Seiryuu is designed after the imperial dragon with five claws, so I gave this one three to make a difference. I later used it as a bit chip character in the model used by Shippuu no Jin, Metal Dragoon.
“Armed Dragoon, Dranzer, Draciel, Driger”
I was requested to design armed versions of the four holy beasts. I also didn’t have any plans to include them in the manga, so they are bit chip characters only. They have been used in video games.
well i have no life so here’s a little post about beyblade and wu xing in general, because i found these cute little descriptions of the elements here so i thought why not see how it looks like when associated with the bey kids. this is not some headcanon thing, they literally are named after the five elements in the original version and this is all from either wikipedia or that other post. i just think it’s fun stuff. the four(/five) symbols that their holy beasts represent have also been linked to the same system with the same corresponding elements.
wu xing (五行), also known as five elements, five phases, five steps etc is a concept from chinese philosophy that many traditional chinese fields used to explain a wide array of phenomena, from cosmic cycles to the interaction between internal organs.
wood (takao)
mental quality: idealism, spontaneity, curiosity
emotion: anger, kindness
planet: jupiter
season: spring; a period of growth, which generated abundant wood and vitality
Wood is very optimistic, and expansive. It also supports growth, idealism, and new beginnings. It is outgoing, impulsive, generative, and is sensitive. The energies of wood has yang characteristics. It is also connected to the direction of the east.
fire (kai)
mental quality: passion, intensity
emotion: hate, resolve
planet: mars
season: summer; a period of swelling, flowering, brimming with fire and energy
Fire is very passionate, and aggressive. It also supports intensity, ambition, and vitality. It is creative, powerful, strong, and persistent. The energies of fire has yang characteristics. Fire is connected to the south direction.
earth (daichi)
mental quality: agreeableness, honesty
emotion: anxiety, joy
planet: saturn
season: the in-between transitional seasonal periods
Earth is grounded, and stable. It also supports inner reflection, hard work, and balance. It is orderly, fortified, hard, and strong. The energies of earth have balanced yin, and yang energy characteristics, and is connected to the directions of center, up, and down.
metal (rei)
mental quality: intuition, rationality, mind
emotion: grief, bravery
planet: venus
season: autumn; a period of harvesting and collecting
Metal is very determined, and willing. It also supports control, forcefulness, and firmness. It is business-oriented, wise, courageous, and intuitive. The energies of metal has yin in characteristics. Metal is connected to the west direction.
water (max)
mental quality: erudition, resourcefulness, wit
emotion: fear, gentleness
planet: mercury
season: winter; a period of retreat, where stillness and storage pervades
Water is very witty, and resourceful. It also supports flexibility, stillness, and softness. It is spontaneity, gentleness, calmness, and contemplation. The energies of water has yin characteristics, and is connected to the direction of north.
the elements/phases/whatever are visualized as a cycle where they affect each other.
