Discussion → The Impossible Man - Behind the Scenes: Character Design - I-Man's Friends

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  H-M Brown

  Sep 03, 06:56pm

  
  

  Greetings fellow readers.

  Welcome to another edition of behind the scenes. Today I will be covering the character designs of The Impossible Man’s Anime and Manga Shop employees and tenets. Ready? Without further ado here are…

  The Cast of Characters

  Yuki Shimizu
  Character Type – Magical Girl
  Age – 18
  Employment Position – Security Guard
  Hair Color – Silver
  Background: When I first created Yuki, I didn’t exactly give much thought into her. I just made her a magical girl and put her in a situation where she would be in a world far weirder than what she was accustomed too. When I wrote the latest draft, I gave a little more backstory by making her part of the Order of the Magical Girl. Then I added to her reason of being in Denfair City, by having Michael’s mother win Yuki in a combat contest between both of their mothers, as a little homage to Ranma ½ and that story’s forced marriage backdrop.

  I wanted her to have a sense of irony in that she had to face all kinds of crazy monsters and aliens in her life, only to find herself unable to handle the world The Impossible Man lives in. I also wanted to have fun with some of the typical standards seen in Magical Girl shows. Like the transformation sequence where the young heroine would be seen in full glory changing from normal clothes to hero costume or the pre-fight speech. (see Sailor Moon)

  Yuki’s rivalry with Kaori for I-Man’s affection is common in Romance Comedy Anime.

  Kaori Saito
  Character Type – Samurai/Idol
  Age – 19
  Employment Position – Public Relations
  Hair Color – Black
  Background: Kaori originally started out a little bit crazy. For reasons unknown until much later in the first draft of the story, she wanted to kill Michael, out of idle threat. She then stopped after Episode 5: Step Into the Squared. (At that time it was Episode 5 not Episode 6, See Angela Salinas and Ely for more info) Then I shifted her over to be more of Yuki’s rival for I-Man’s affection. On top of that, I never established her back-story; where did she work, where did she live, how did she get the sword in America and can carry it around so easily. So in this draft I dropped the ‘Kaori hates I-Man’ scenario, because it seemed stupid, and I adjusted the current draft so that the spoon made her turned against Michael and everybody.

  Then I established her occupation of being Japan’s Number 1 idol. A very popular trend in Japan from J-pop musicians to models. I figured this would help expand the cultural exchange my novel intended to unleash. On top of that, she’s a samurai. A Samurai Idol!

  Speaking of samurai, her sword never had a name in the first draft, which is something you find in most Japanese sword-fighting shows. Also the sword was a real metal blade. The changes to the sword in this current draft went like this; 1) I named it Seizon, which does mean ‘existence’ to give an exaggerated epic feel to it. Many swords have epic sounding names. 2) I also changed the sword from metal to wood because technically, A) there was no way she could walk around with metal sword in so openly in America, (Hey, there still needs to be some sense of Suspension of Disbelief) and B) it is so much fun to have a wooden sword with such epic powers like that.

  Strangely enough in this current draft, I wanted her to have the comical Harisen, a large folded paper fan with an orange hilt. It was used in many comedy sketches and Japanese game shows. Unfortunately, Seizon has been used in many key situations in the story, particularly in the later chapters, that to get her to use a Harisen now, especially after making her occupation an Idol, would have been too much to re-write. We’re talking changing the entire story and a few characters along the way.
  Besides, she’s a Samurai Idol!

  Like Yuki, Kaori has a rivalry with her for I-Man’s affections.

  Angela Salinas, aka Tangerine, and Ely
  Character Type – Monster Pet Trainer
  Age – 14
  Employment Position – Volunteer
  Hair Color – Brown
  Background: In the first draft, she was just called Tangerine, all throughout the story, as a homage to the character naming in Manga and Anime; like Shampoo, Mousse, and Cologne in Ranma ½ or Bulma, Trunks, and Bra from Dragonball Series. But in this draft, I chose to give her an actual name and let Tangerine be her stage name. Angela and Ely does not represent Pokemon as you might think, but really more of My Neighbor Totoro. Unfortunately, the temptation was too great and I combined both Anime aspects together as you will see (spoiler alert) in Episode 11: Best Friends. Contrary to what the episodes have presented her, my intent was to make her the little sister of the group.

  Ely, Ely, Ely. I know many of you out there are saying, Chupacabra does not look like that. And you’re right. The depiction I gave of Chupacabra was based on caricature drawings I saw on T-Shirts in New York City and New Jersey worn by my fellow Puerto Ricans back in the days. Though the drawing is out of style and Chupacabra is now depicted as scaly spiky looking creature, I felt it would be more funnier to use the old caricature depiction instead. And yes Ely is female and I thought it would be funny if this pet would obsess over I-Man as well.

  Originally, Tangerine and Ely were introduced in The Chupabras is Out There labeled as Episode 6. Now shifting this Episode over to four was done in this current draft for three reasons. 1) After 5 Episodes, the characters would have been well established and settled in the story. Putting Angela/Tangerine and Ely that late in the story, I felt would have been like adding Cousin Oliver. I didn’t want to take the risk this time. 2) I wanted to establish my Employee characters as early as possible so as to get readers accustomed to their presence in the story line. 3) It was Chupacabra, when I read through the first four episodes, while it did establish the insanity of the story, I feared that bringing in Chupacabra too deep into the story would ruin the Suspension of Disbelief. As though I was scraping out of the barrel for something to put into the story. I didn’t want to look like I lacked ideas after a few chapters in.

  Because of the nature of The Impossible Man, where I had to establish the warning that the story was weird (Unlike my original opening in the first draft where I talked about Anime), bringing in Ely as early as possible would help give readers a chance to accept the weirdness of the world.

  Jamal Jones
  Character Type – Martial Artist
  Age – 20
  Employment Position – Inventory/Partner
  Hair Color – Green (Dyed)
  Background: In the early stages of the first draft, I never established his Character Type, just that he was part owner of the shop. It wasn’t until Episode 14: Ki to Wisdom that established his character type. Not much changed from what he originally was in the first draft. I only established his Martial Arts background as early as I could, even though I could not present his fight scenes in some of the early chapters.

  I chose to let him have a sense of skepticism even though he has been with I-Man for so long. This is to allow readers to know there are people with a sense of normality in the world of Denfair City. You have to admit, the story is beyond weird, someone has to have their feet planted on the ground.

  Dom Coqui
  Character Type – Yuru Chara
  Age - ?
  Employment Position – Mascot/Silent Partner
  Hair Color – No Hair
  Background: Dom Coqui definitely follows the Puerto Rican culture of the coqui frog. My people make sculptures, dolls and t-shits around the coqui and sell as merchandise. My favorite is the one with the Coqui sitting on a rocking chair with a straw hat on. So Dom Coqui became a mutant frog and was depicted as the sculpture and caricatures sold in stores. Now in the first draft, I never established much of his character type. He was more like Genma and Happosai from Ranma ½, minus the panty raids. He would always get into a fight with I-Man and they ran around the neighborhood.

  It was not until 2005 when I was a member of the Japan Society in New York City, that I learned about Yuru Chara (aka Yurui Kyarakuta) in the Little Boy Exhibit, which was about how Anime and the otaku sub-culture expressed their post-nuclear life on their identity culture. Seeing how Yuru Chara was presented in Japanese society as regional mascots for merchandising and advertising, struck a chord with me on how my people used the coqui as a national mascot in merchandising and advertising. So in the second draft I gave a little adjustment to apply Dom Coqui fully as Yuru Chara and serve as Denfair City’s Mascot.

  As for his speech, it was deliberate going all the way back to first draft. Having watched Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and hearing Lando talk to the alien co-pilot in the Millennium Falcon, I felt it as awesome. The alien co-pilot spoke in gibberish alien speak and Lando would talk back in English as though he understood the language. That’s what I wanted out Dom Coqui and I-Man when they talked. But I was hesitant when I was going to post it up here on Fictionaut because I was not sure how readers would respond to that type of dialogue. I expected Dom Coqui’s dialogue to create gibberish in the readers thought but I had hoped they could handle it, especially since I-Man and Angela understand him and could repeat his lines. The “Little Book” warns against doing things like that, but I chose to go ahead, roll the dice, and see what happens.

  One final thing, Dom Coqui (pronounced Dome) originally was named Don Coqui. Don means Mister in Spanish. So his name would be Mr. Coqui. That was what I really, even now, wanted to name him. The problem was that many readers would now know that, because they would think Don Coqui would mean Donald Coqui. So I used Dom to at least get the pronunciation of Don, but even now the connection would not be made unless I mention it.

  Shinichiro Katsuragi
  Character Type – Old Wise Man
  Age - ?
  Employment Position – None
  Hair Color – White
  Background: To start, unlike the other characters, Katsuragi had no first name in the first draft. I gave him the name Eiichiro in the second draft but I like Shinichiro better in this draft. Don’t worry the name is permanent now. Unlike some comedic depictions of old men in Anime, who commonly tend to be depicted as perverts, I chose instead to make him more of a mystic and a charlatan. Also like most elderly in Anime and Manga, I went with the Old Challenges the Young approach by having Shinichiro challenge I-Man to throw him out of the apartment.

  About his dice. They were there in the beginning, but I added an extra flavor in the second and current draft with Cho-Han. A traditional gambling dice game that has been played going back a long time in Japan and is featured in Samurai and Yakuza films. In this instance with Shinichiro, Cho-Han is used for fortune telling.

  Not a lot has changed of Shinichiro from the first draft to this current draft. I left him in the late stages of the story so I can allow the transition between I-Man’s rivalry with Mr. Tanaka to transfer over to Shinichiro. But he won’t go through any drastic changes like Jamal.

  Oh, here is a fun little thing for all you gamers out there to do. Play Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for the Super Nintendo and meet Mallow’s grandfather in the beginning. My little shout out to a video game classic.

  …

  What’s that? Where’s The Impossible Man?
  Sorry, but you’ll have to read Episode 20, the last chapter, to learn who he is. After all, explaining his character design now, would be spoiling the entire story.
  Hee Hee.

  So there you have it, The Employees and Tenets of The Impossible Man’s Anime and Manga Shop. Some of them went through radical changes and others remained the same, but all of them are fun nonetheless. Now that my novel is at the halfway point, there will be a lot more illogical fun and comedic chaos to come. Enjoy.

  H-M Brown
  June 25, 2010

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