Meaningful Name/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

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** Taeko, the [[Dojikko]], has a name meaning "delicate child".

** Mayu's name means "cocoon", and she's both a sheltered rich girl and a silk heiress.

** The [[~~Bottle~~ ~~Fairy~~]]'s name is Tina [[wikipedia:Fosters Lager|Foster]], though this may actually be a reference to the dissonance between her caucasian (American) ethnicity and her Japanese cultural identity, as in a foster child.

** The [[Hard-Drinking Party Girl]]'s name is Tina [[wikipedia:Fosters Lager|Foster]], though this may actually be a reference to the dissonance between her caucasian (American) ethnicity and her Japanese cultural identity, as in a foster child.

** There's also a pun in the title, since another word pronounced "ai" means "love" and it's a romantic show. To imitate this effect, the manga translation keeps the title ''[[Ai Yori Aoshi]]'' but adds "True Blue Love" as a subtitle.

* Remember the flower garden that's so important to Shizuma in ''[[Strawberry Panic!|Strawberry Panic]]''? Her last name, Hanazono, means exactly that.

* ''[[Hell Girl]]'''s Enma Ai looks like a beautiful young girl but sends people to hell, and she has a name to match that dual nature. Enma is the Buddhist god who rules the underworld (you may know him from ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' under his Japanese name, King Yama). Ai is that word for love again -- probably. It's deliberately always written in kana, so we can't be sure which meaning of ''ai'' her parents had in mind. There are hints that the "indigo" meaning is significant: the second season finale is called "Aizome" ("dyed in indigo"), as is the end theme, which [[Mamiko Noto]] herself sings.

* ''[[Hell Girl]]''{{'}}s Enma Ai looks like a beautiful young girl but sends people to hell, and she has a name to match that dual nature. Enma is the Buddhist god who rules the underworld (you may know him from ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' under his Japanese name, King Yama). Ai is that word for love again -- probably. It's deliberately always written in kana, so we can't be sure which meaning of ''ai'' her parents had in mind. There are hints that the "indigo" meaning is significant: the second season finale is called "Aizome" ("dyed in indigo"), as is the end theme, which [[Mamiko Noto]] herself sings.

** Kikuri, too, has a kana-only name. But given that she wears a chrysanthemum (the Japanese funeral flower) and has someone calling her "hime", her name is very likely a reference to the dragon goddess [http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Kikuri-Hime Kikuri-Hime].

** Two more kana-only first names in the series: Tsugumi and Yuzuki, who are both protagonists and foils for Ai. Yuzuki's family name is Mikage, which means "spirit of the dead"... and once you know why, [[Tear Jerker|you'll wish you didn't]].