Greetings! Today I’m actually going to share some background junk about Dankin. Grab some popcorn cuz this is gunna get interesting. *I should warn you if you haven’t realized yet, I say some ridiculous things. I hope you can tell what’s legit and what I’m just rambling from the far side.*
The inspiration for this story came from several sources. Nerdy RPGs and fantasy movies combined with my young brain translated into Dankin. As a young teen I wasn’t horribly interested in the entire fantasia like video games containing magical powers or Dungeons and Dragons, but my friends were. They played as the Princess who gathers gems to free her people from the evil spell of Lord Farquad (wait? What?). Because I watched them play for hours these things got pumped into my blood. Now, I do have to say I love Lord of the Rings, and that is thanks to one of my high school friends too. So yeah, LOTR did influence me... or is it Tolkein influenced me? No way in hell I could write like Tolkein though! My brain can’t even try to do that, nor can my vocabulary.
So, most of the names of the characters and the main book title are all Japanese words. Why? Because Japanese is cooler than English, don’t ya know! I aim to make the names reflect the characters personalities (and the personalities of the people they are based from). The main four characters are loosely based from my friends and people that I know. The situations that the characters experience aren’t from real life though. I don’t want to get into the characters’ backgrounds too much because that’s all stuff you learn as you read. I will tell you what their names mean though.
Dankin: Strong and cannot be broken. This story builds up the developing relationships of these characters and their countrymen through their struggles. This word describes an unbreakable bond.
Tanshin Nisou: Faithfulness, Alone. Priestess. Yes, she’s a priestess. Faith is something that Tanshin has to fight with herself about, trusting in others and herself.
Taishou Ajina: General, Imperial. Taishou is probably the fiercest of the four. She is the one to remind everyone what they are fighting for. For some reason, I can never find/remember what Ajina means but I believe it has to do with heartiness.
Kyoukou Katai: Strong, firm. Honorable. Kyoukou is an advisor to Empress Reppu. He’s been raised to be an upright fellow. Honor is very important to him.
Shishou Kiten: Teacher, Master. Clever, quick-witted. Shishou is not only clever, but he’s kind of a “man’s man.” He was born to lead and teach.
Empress Reppu: Gale. Weak. For some reason (again) I couldn’t find the right translation of this and I can’t remember the meaning. I think it has something to do with rare beauty and fragility.
Empress Reppu is a reoccurring character, but she’s not one that you get to learn a lot about (which I just realized and am now questioning). You may have also seen Toro in the character avatars in my last post. Toro is the bad guy from Dankin. I should tell you that I do plan to have several books. Dankin is the title of the first book, but also the series.
Whelp, I’m calling this thing for now! I hope you got the Wizard of Oz reference in the title of this post! Peace!
