#kny yahaba | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

demonslayedher · 2 years

Note

Hello hello, Senpai!! How are you doing? I hope everything is going well for you! ^^ <3

I just have one question for you (though it might be a bit long for you to answer, so I apologize in advance 😅): could you please analyze the names of all my babies the Lower Moons (+ Kyōgai)? I tried doing that myself to potentially find out more about their powers or what the origin of their namesake is, but since I'm still a beginner in Japanese and I don't have/know of that many resources yet, I felt like asking you would be the best option.

We don't know anything about the Lower Moons that Muzan himself killed, except for their appearance, their names, and their order in the Lower ranks, but despite this I grew attached to them (especially Mukago 💝) and would like to be able to bring more love and attention to them in the fandom. Because everyone always talks about the Upper Moons and they forget about my poor children in the Lower ranks 💔

I'm sorry for the lengthy ask, I got a bit carried away 😅 But thank you in advance if you decide to answer this!! Take all the time you need with this and all your other asks, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!! 💖

I feel like Muzan would follow that old meme and be like, “I love all my Lower Moons,” and check the handwritten notes in his palm and just be like, “…Rui.”

But let’s do it! Let’s give each of these Lower Moons, as well as some honorable mentions (we love you, Kyougaaaaiiii) some love and dive into their names! Yahaba: 矢琶羽 Dart-Lute-Feathers, I love how catchy this name is (with 矢 clearly being the operative “arrow” meaning, though I wonder if Nakime dislikes him edging in on her lute thing). It often goes forgotten that Yahaba had tastes for staying clean and tidy, which goes to show that the demons were all possessed of their own complex personalities and had richly detailed lives of their own before those demon hunters came in and chopped their heads off. Like how he and Susamaru chatted and became friends while on the way to finding the boy with the Hanafuda earrings? That’s adorable. Also, in Kimetsu Academy, he famous runs a tofu shop and I love tofu so I hope his family’s business is going well. It’s so innocuous and I feel like the innocuous sides of Yahaba should be appreciated.

Susamaru: 朱紗丸 Vermilion-Gauze-Round/Ball, another catchy and wonderful collection of good name kanji. The color reference starts her off with name full of vitality without crossing quite into the glowing reds associated with Red Blades. That 紗 is one that does get used in real life as a gentle complement to rest of the name when parents are looking for a ‘sa’ sound with an auspicious number of strokes to write it (though it’s the stroke order of the entire name typically taken into account), but concluding a name with 丸has distinctly old-timey masculine feel to it. As she presents very feminine, even on the hot edge of Taisho fashion, I love the juxtaposition. That said, in Kimetsu Academy, Susa become her very refreshing sounding last name while 丸 becomes a very cute, feminine personal name when left on its own. It’s also cute because it's the part of her name that has the most personal significance for her, as when she was a human, her father bought a toy ball for her and it remained important to her when she was a demon.

Kyougai: 響凱 Sound/Reverberation-Victory Song. A name that big goes to show how high Muzan’s hopes were for you, Kyougai! And seeing as he was inspired by the epic “Satomi Hakken-den,” Kyougai wanted to write a story that was just as big, with expansive world-building and deep allegory. That being said, Kyougai was totally more of a sensitive Hans Christian Andersen at heart, huh? Being so absorbed in his idealistic dreams for his literature, Kyougai even used a literary personal pronoun often reserved for written form (Literature, gotta be one of my favorite genders), and with his perpetual pouty-face, I can totally see him laying face down in a more successful demon’s yard to cry about how Muzan only likes him for his drum skills instead of his writing skills. (That demon was probably Nakime, and she was probably just as peeved as Charles Dickens.) Kyougai is so sensitive and deep in his literary fantasies that he was ultimately defeated by how moved he was by the literary symbolism of Tanjirou avoiding stepping on his written works, a kind demon slayer who takes heads because he must but will not trample on a demon’s heart. Also, might I say how sad it is that he’s the music teacher in Kimetsu Academy, probably because he still can’t make it as an author!? Kyoooouggaaaaaiiiii!!

Nakime: 鳴女 Sound (anything from an echo to birds chirping to a ringing noise to a honk)-Woman, doesn’t seem very creative on the surface because clearly she is a woman who works with sound (and is clearly more talented at it that Kyougai, get wrecked, is what she’d probably say to him if she bothered saying any more than necessary to the other demons). Muzan might had thought he was clever for this one, though, because ‘me’ is also the same sound as ‘eye’ (目). Maybe he even called her that at first, until she gave him stone-silent response, so instead of being embarrassed for being overly basic he chose to say it was written with the character 女 instead, because duh, she’s a woman. The name had nothing to do with her face. EDIT: HOLD IT, WAIT UP. @lalunaticscribe rightly pointed out that this was the name a pheasant in Shinto mythology, which totally forgot about. Although it can be writing in different ways for "crying out woman," this was a messenger sent by the heavens to Amewakahiko, who was supposed to be doing the heavens' bidding but had put them on read, essentially. The pheasant was supposed to check up on him, and he literally shot the messenger with an arrow. The arrow went all the way to the heavens, the heavens were alarmed, but still wanted to give Amewakahiko the benefit of the doubt, so they threw it back saying, "well, if he's guilty, it'll strike him, if not, it'll miss" and it struck him and he died.

Hairou: 佩狼 Wear (a sword)-Wolf. Muzan must had known he was a Shinsengumi, as they were called the ‘Wolves of Mibu’ (an area of Kyoto they policed). Hairou had a complicated relationship with swords and how ultimately they lost out to more powerful guns, which he relies on after that. He can’t totally forget his affection for swords, though, as the Taisho Secrets Hirano-sensei wrote into the Rengoku Gaiden state that he collects things like handguards from defeated enemies’ swords. Tokens of his victories, nothing more!! He doesn’t admire swords, okay, he’s fine with guns!! Gunpowder is way more effective that silly swords! Nevermind that his name still implies he’d wear one!

Kamanue: 釜鵺 Iron Pot/Kettle-Nue (a Chimera sort of ghastly beast). Given that name, fresh new Lower-Moon-Six might have had the most interesting potential for a stand-off with Kamado Tanjirou, as the hearth (kamado 竈) and iron pot/kettle heated over it (kama 釜) are closely associated. Perhaps he could had been yet another character foil to Tanjirou, another former humans with family ties to working with fire and heat? If he had those orange streaks at the ends of his hair as a human, could he also had been a Kakushaku-no-Ko, but not auspicious ever happened to him and he was forced to take the path of a demon? What’s even more interesting is the ‘Nue’ part of his name, as these were fantastical creatures who plagued the nobles of Kyoto, cursing them with illness by their presence and requiring Heian era demons slayers to go hunt them down. It’s classic and I would had loved to see how that might play into Blood Technique. Was he a shape-shifter, perhaps?

Rui: 累 Continuity/Involvement. This was a name given to him by his parents, who probably wished to keep a healthy baby boy involved in their lives for a very long time. Ouch.

Mukago: 零余子 Nothing-Surplus-Child. Mukago really does leave the most impact for her character design, doesn’t she? It’s the classy symmetrical horns that do it for me, but it’s the feather/fur boa that totally seals the deal. As Muzan called her out for always avoiding strong demon hunters, I get the sense she could be pretty wily with who she choose to target or how she chose to slip away. As for this name, though, the jarring juxtaposition makes me think she’d have had very strange and unusual Blood Techniques, perhaps flirting with the divide between ‘existence’ and ‘non-existence.’ I have no idea how that would work, and her victims probably all regretting finding out.

Wakuraba: 病葉 Sick-Leaves. This one makes me curious, as Muzan probably didn’t like associations with illness. However, taken as a whole, perhaps it was in reference to blight. Were his abilities something that could spread and kill a large number of people in a given area, or did his Blood Technique spread through trees to slowly poison people through the water or attack directly with poison leaves and an evil root system throughout the forest (I wrote that into a fanfic, haaa)? He’s got a pretty unassuming appearance, wearing a kimono pattern used a few times throughout the manga, and only one simple scarf for accessory, but the scars on his face keep him from being able to blend into a crowd. How’d you get those scars, man? What is your story? Did they remain from your human life, something that no amount of demon regeneration can ever erase from you?

Rokuro: 轆轤 Potter’s Wheel/Pulley. Now this is an assuming character design. That’s totally a craftsman’s attire for working in his studio, crouched over a spinning pottery wheel all day. What was your Blood Technique, sir? Did it astound victims for how they never would have suspected you of anything, much less noticed you? Is it like a spinning mechanism, full of potential for a truly horrendous death, or do you trap victims under giant interdimensional tea cups? Does Gyokko hate you for this and want you to stop stealing his shtick? Also, the facial hair makes me think he was a Meiji era human, as it was back in style then. That would make him not a terribly old demon, at his oldest, a bit younger than Hairou (whom he replaced as Lower Moon Two) and the Hand Demon.

Enmu: 魘夢 (To have a) Nightmare-Dream. Muzan wasn’t feeling very creative that night but it does have a nice ring to it. Had he been promoted to an Upper Moon role like he hoped, maybe a name change would had been in order, like “The Enmu Express.”

And good luck with your studies! While a language cannot be learned with dictionaries alone as all languages are contextual (Japanese especially), I do use a collection of different dictionaries when I do translations (even if they pull from similar sources), as they may present slightly different nuances or methods of look-up or examples. ALC (aimed at Japanese speakers, extensive specialized vocab and examples, albeit not well explained) Tangorin (my favorite for overall user-friendliness) Weblio (aimed at Japanese speakers, has more of a human touch than some of ALC's weird examples)WWWJDIC (the handwriting tool usually works well) JapanDict (when Tangorin fails me due to slow loading)

#yahaba #susamaru #kyogai #nakime #hairou #kamanue #rui #mukago #wakuraba #rokuro #enmu #kny nerdery #kny fandom theories and meta

79 notes · View notes