Seems to focus on Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang versus Cao Cao.
Yeah, like I know any of the Chinese names. Souten Kouro's warped revamp is my entire source of knowledge for this shit.
Okay, so who were they in that?
Tony Leung is Zhou Yu, 周瑜, Shu Yu. Didn't ring a bell. Apparently he looks like this in the Souten Kouro anime:
Which is probably the least distinctive design in the entire series or something. No memory of the dude at all.
Takashi Kaneshiro is Zhuge Liang. Pretty famous guy, historically.
諸葛亮. Shokatsu Ryo. Hunh. Wait, this guy was awfully famous. Surely he was in the...
Oh. This 字/zi/courtesy name business. Naturally, both these guys are referred to almost exclusively by their courtesy names, so I only know him as 孔明/Koumei/Kongming. Koumei is pretty spectacular in Souten Kouro, portrayed as alternately a flaming homosexual and a fucking God descended to Earth to tell humans how to win fucking battles. He looks like this:
Which also reveals that there is apparently a fucking Three Kingdoms CCG that uses artwork from SEVERAL different versions of the series simultaneously, just to fuck with people.
(Zhou Yu's courtesy name is 公瑾, which the Japanese wikipedia is unhelpful on, but which I'm assuming Koukin. The Chinese is Gongjin. This was unhelpful in jogging my memory.)
I recall Koumei also having a fairly meaty part in Giant Robo, unlike most all of those other dudes imported in from Yokoyama's Chinese epics. And also briefly befuddling me as to why he referred to himself as "atashi".
ReplyDeleteOn a semi-related note, I am also convinced transliteration from the Chinese is some kind of prank from Chinese scholars on everyone else. "Q" should not be pronounced "CH" you mofos!
I've never been sure if the somewhat effeminate aspects of his characterization are Yokoyama's fault, or the fault of the initial translations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
ReplyDeleteAlthough 'atashi' is also the pronoun of choice among older yakuza, so go figure.