In A Better World Les Misérables Would Contain An 100 Page Digression About The Sleeve Trends Of The

Japanese character names

Not much info out there on Les Misérables 1929( Aa Mujo, Seika Shiba ), but I managed to scour some fun info about it. Specifically, character names! The movie takes place during the Meiji restoration, so stuff had to be changed I guess. Citation about name meanings are from Pinar, A. Western Literature in Japanese film (1910-1938) ISBN 978-84-490-8727-1

Valjean- Jaan Gijūrō (邪安義十) The first kanji for his name means “wicked” or “evil”.

Javert- Jashiro(蛇四郎) The first kanji is for “snake”. Snakes were traditionally percieved in Japanese Buddhism as messengers of gods, but during the Meiji Restoration, the religious reform banned beliefs and worship of ancestral gods. Subsequently, negative perceptions of snake arose, and they acquired harmful symbolism.

Bishop Myriel-nun Mitsuki (光月尼). Myriel has here been adapted into a Buddhist nun. Her first kanji means light, or illumination.

Marius-Ushigoro(牛五郎) His first kanji means “bull”, suggesting a nonconformist personality, vigor and force.

Cosette-Harue(春江) Her first kanji represents spring or puberty.

Fantine-Otsune(お常) The kanji in her name means unchanging or eternal.

I only have the most basic of kanji skills and this is all cited, so if there’s anything to add or something that seems wrong hmu :) the film itself is not housed in any archive and is believed lost. At the time it was considered by ciritcs to be populist and made as a cash-grab because of the popularity of Les Miserables in Japan at the time. Here’s some surviving stills from it.

Constantine AU🥵

Enjolras in Korean can be spelt with Ahn as the first letter, which works because Ahn can be a surname.

This awoke a memory for me of a jokey tale I told on ao3 many years ago:

Grantaire is Korean, and he is dating Enjolras. The problem is, Enjolras is White (and he's a man, but that was lowkey irrelevant lmaoo). This takes place in the late 80s/early 90s.

Grantaire tells his parents that he's dating Mx. Ahn.

You see, Grantaire had always wanted to date a foreigner, mainly because his father was very racist and Grantaire himself was seen as a burden on the family, a black sheep if you will.

So, to piss him off, he had dated many foreign men. Enjolras was the only one who was living in Korea and could speak some Korean.

When his family finally wished to see Mx. Ahn, Grantaire felt pressured to introduce him to the family.

All throughout the lead-up to this family introduction, Grantaire had never indicated that Enjolras was White (and a man, I suppose).

It wasn't until when Enjolras came through the door with a tiny whisky in hand did everybody find out on the day what kind of preferences their Grantaire had.

Enjolras knelt in front of the matriarch and poured whiskey for the drunk and disinterested father, and finally got accepted and was allowed to continue dating Grantaire.

You see, before this meeting, Enjolras was given a 'practice run', given how serious this meeting was going to be.

Éponine, a Japanese friend of Grantaire, decided to act as a ''matriarch'. She had asked Grantaire what she was supposed to do, and how she was supposed to act, and given her young age, really took a dramatic and comedic approach to her role as the matriarch.

She pointed at the cushion in which Enjolras was supposed to sit in, had a huge fan in her hand, and started being condescending and judging about him.

"You're a man." She said as she fanned.

"Yes, I think so."

"You're American."

"I'm French."

"What's your name?"

"Éponine, you know me."

"No I don't! I am Mrs. Kang, the head mistress of the household and you will address me as such! Where's the whiskey?"

He popped out a bottle into sight. Grantaire sighed in unison with the action. He had pushed for him to get a large bottle, and indicated, through mimes, to Éponine that she should remark on its size.

"Why is your gift so cheap?"

Enjolras glared at his boyfriend. "I am not getting drunk."

And so on.

Post Seine

Needed to practice backgrounds so I just put him there awsell 🤷‍♀️

forever my favorite part of west end productions- the handshake :)

(again, sorry for the mediocre quality, this is from 2011!!)

father daughter nose boops part 2 🥲

🎥 @medium-observation

Ever since I heard the Hunchback of Notre Dame musical, I wanted to draw Enjolras singing Phoebus's solo from the finale. Finally nine years later I've finally taken the time to draw it. Hugo musicals colliding, it's funny to me that two musicals based on Hugo's work are are like my top two musicals of all time. Here is a link to the song if you'd like to hear it. The solo in question is at 3:12 on that track. And if you've never listened to the album run and do it! It's based on the Disney movie with the Disney songs but is much more serious and mixes in more of Hugo's vision into it. It's wonderful.

Also if you are a fan of Hunchback please check out this other illo I did, I'm still proud of it all these years later.