Iron Knight: Tucker Report

Tucker's episode notes (including name pronunciation/meaning) for our Iron Knight episode

Characters

• Ushizume Teppei
  • 鎮丑 鉄兵 ……
    • Ushizume is written with characters for “ox” (as in the Chinese zodiac sign) and “tranquilize”....
    • Teppei written with characters for “iron” and “soldier”....so pretty much literally an iron knight.
    • PRONUNCIATION:
      • “Ushizume”:  Nothing crazy, but remember that the Japanese “u” is a vowel sound that is like the Spanish/Italian “u” (as in rhyming like “boo”), but with unrounded lips
      • “Teppei”: kind of like “tep” + “pay”...for extra credit, pronounce the double P as if there is a momentary pause right before it.
• Himegami Tsubasa
  • 姫神 翼
    • Himegami written with characters for “princess” and “god”/”holy,” making it pretty much mean “goddess”/”young goddess”
    • Tsubasa just the word for “wing”/”wings”...common personal name in Japanese, but definitely keeping with the goddess/angel naming theme here.
    • PRONUNCIATION:
      • Himegami is pretty easy
      • Tsubasa...the “ts” is the same sound combo that exists at the ends of many words in English, but isn’t allowed at the beginning (unlike Japanese). Practice by saying the phrase “pots and pans” a bunch, but then think about the “ts” at the end of “pots” sliding over to the beginning of “and.” You’ll eventually be able to easily say “tsand,” and apply that sound to other words (had to do that a lot when first learning German)
• Yuki
  • Just written as syllables in katakana.
  • Word “yuki” means “snow”...pretty on-the-nose naming
• Kikuta
  • 菊田
    • Name literally means “field of chrysanthemums,” which I don’t think has any significance.
    • PRONUNCIATION:
      • Remember not to pronounce “ta” as “da”!
      • Don’t pronounce it as “KiKUda,” please! In fact, the second syllable would likely be deemphasized by a native speaker.
• Amachi Zenjirou
  • 天地 善次郎
    • “Amachi” is written with characters of “heaven” + “earth”
    • “Zenjirou” written with characters for “virtuous” + “next” + “son”/”guy”/”dude” (very common ending character for male personal names)
    • PRONUNCIATION:
      • Amachi: Again, don’t apply Spanish-style stress to the second syllable. It breaks down to “ama” + “chi,” so don’t pronounce it as “a-MA-chi”
      • Zenjirou: The “rou” at the end is a double-length version of normal “ro.” Also, again, don’t stress that second-to-last syllable like in Spanish or Italian!

OTHER:

• “Yamato Nadeshiko”: Yamato nadeshiko is a Japanese term meaning the "personification of an idealized Japanese woman", or "the epitome of pure, feminine beauty"; poised, decorous, kind, gentle, graceful, humble, patient, virtuous, respectful, benevolent, honest, charitable, faithful.
• “Seven Mysteries”: Brought up in relation to the charmed blackboard in the first chapter, this is a pretty common recurring trope in Japanese school-based stories. It originally comes from the fact that the Japanese term for the “Seven Wonders of the World” uses the word “fushigi,” which also could suggest something mysterious. You can read more about it here: https://horrorjapan.tumblr.com/post/174542994855/the-seven-school-mysteries-is-a-topic-that