Talk:Kiyoshiro Higashimitarai

Surname

I think his surname may be intended to be a double barrel surname. It contains two Japanese surnames, Higashi and Mitarai, and with him coming from the United States (whether born there or simply studied there and now returned to Japan), double barrel surnames are common in the west so it's possible his name is meant to be from both his parents and is supposed to be formatted as Kiyoshiro Higashi-Mitarai (like Dorothy Elias-Fahn) also worth noting that if you google "Higashimitarai", only digimon comes up. it appears toei invented a surname, or fucked up and its meant to be *two* surnames not one. not much we can do when this is the official romanisation of course, but should we meet his parents it should be an interesting situation. Or alternatively, the english card game may clear things up at some point.Marcusbwfc (talk) 21:43, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Actually, that's illegal. The fact his name is written in kanji means he has Japanese citizenship because Japan doesn't allow kanji surnames unless you have Japanese, Chinese, or Korean citizenship. And Japanese law doesn't allow Japanese citizens from the same family to have different surnames. Married couples can only have different surnames if one of them is non-Japanese. Unless we assume Ghost Game's future society has changed the law, the only way I can imagine for this to a double-barred surname is if his parents don't have Japanese citizenship and he is naturalized, and I'm not sure if you can get uninherited citizenship while being underage.

Also, "this surname doesn't exist" isn't a strong argument when you're dealing with fiction, which often gives ridiculous names to characters all the time. For all we know, his name being that long might be the joke itself. And also, people can change their names, even to ridiculous stuff. Anime... PAAWAA!!! 22:24, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

well, we know he's travelled from the US. It could easily be he was born there, they registered the double name whilst they could, then moved 14 years later to japan. I would imagine in that situation Japan would respect his legal american registered name? his name in general does seem like it has some chinese influence to me though specially when it can end up as either kiyoshiro or seishiro (also, pretty sure the characters will be pronouncing it as seishiro in the first place so I think toei fucked up here). too much speculation I guess, the name is just super redonkulous, and if you split it like I did its two *actual* japanese names. we'll see what happens if we meet his parents/what the english card game does I suppose. (hopefully the card game would fix "Ruli" too.Marcusbwfc (talk) 22:40, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

"I would imagine in that situation Japan would respect his legal american registered name?" No, that's not how it works. All members of the same household must have the surname. Period. No argument. The koseki is extremely anachronistic. If you want another example for how respect doesn't exist, Japan doesn't recognize same-sex couples even if they married in a country where it is legal, at least last time I checked.

Really, the only way this is two surnames is if Ghost Game explicitly says the law has changed in their future.

Also the name is definitely Kiyoshirō. That is the spelling in both the kana and romanization. The likelihood of it being a mistake is small with him being a main character.

And "Ruli", while not being a standard romanization, is not something exclusive to Ghost Game. I looked up the name to see if that specific spelling meant something and found Aikatsu Planet also has a character named Ruli. I'm under the impression there's a trend of stylized romanizations for female characters or something like that. Some Love Live! characters have non-standard romanizations like Eli and Nico, and I think I've seen Idolmaster names like that too but I can't remember of the top of my head.

I'm not sure how recent this trend, considering one of the first PreCure series has a protagonist literally named Love (らぶ) and Tokyo Mew Mew has 3 of the 5 main characters with such names. Even the Chinese girl is Pudding when the standard is Bùlīng. And it's not exclusive to female characters because even in Digimon we had Knight two series ago, and there's a toy car race manga with protagonists named Lets and Go, but I think I've seen more female examples than male ones. Anime... PAAWAA!!! 23:58, 12 September 2021 (UTC)