A note on the character names in Blade Maiden

[FuguTabetai]

For the two main characters in Blade Maiden, Naoto, and Magato, I didn't explain anything about their names. They both end in "to" - a strange reading for the kanji for Katana (刀). Naoto's Nao is the Nao common in Naoko (a good friend of mine is named Naoko) and is honest, frank, straightaway. In the context where Magato told her that her name betrays her, it was because she was too timid, too easy to read, I think I said "meek" - going by the names I should have translated it a bit differently, but I didn't put any of the name info in there anyway.

Magato is interesting as well - also ends in the Katana character. The first character is well known as the kyo from kyoku (song), and has meanings on its own of "bend; music; melody; composition; pleasure; injustice; fault; curve; crooked; perverse; lean". So I'm betting that the intention here was a mix of perverse (because he sure did seem that way to me) and then later on injustice (because by the end of the story I'm not so sure that he was a bad guy anymore) and certainly lean because he was. You can draw your own conclusions.

I named the teacher guy "Blade Master" but from some reading I've done on the Dogs fan boards, it looks like they've called him "Teacher Blade" (教刀) - or something like that. He was never named in the comic, and I prefer Blade Master myself... I'm sure that Miwa Shirow would have given him an interesting name as well - I would like to see that, because his character is pretty interesting too. He didn't come off smelling so rosy by the end of the story either...

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