M.L. Olmstead

Part 1 of this blog series was a little heavy, but now we get to have some fun. As I’ve mentioned countless times, the Shonen genre of anime is really my favorite type of storytelling. When I set off to write my own story, it wasn’t necessarily a one for one comparison situation. I had just consumed so much of it along with some other classic American shows that it influenced the type of themes and characters I wanted to see. In this post, we’ll break down the character influences. In part 3, we’ll break down themes.

The origin of the Knights goes back to my ninth grade cafeteria. My high school was huge, and since I had made quite a few enemies, I needed to be able to hide in plain sight. There were lines of tables pushed together to make mega tables, and that seemed like a bad idea. I needed to sit where I could not only see the exit, but never let anyone trap me. Near the ramp, there was this lone table that no one wanted. I grabbed it immediately. For a month, I sat alone pondering my next move, until one day, a girl came up to me and asked if she could sit there. She seemed alright, so I nodded. Another month passed where we silently sat together, her reading a book, and me brooding. When we finally did speak, we bonded, and that friendship has lasted to this very day. I don’t know where I would be without her

Before long, my best friend at that time, and other kids who didn’t quite fit in started to sit at this table too. By the end of the year, there were chairs being pulled up, kids sitting on the walls…its still an incredible memory. In that time, I imagined us all as medieval knights and wrote a comedy/action story where each week, something would happen to the characters. People really enjoyed it. The story was insane and crazy and not really something you could publish, but it became the inspiration for the current iteration. The three main characters Mario, Virgil, and Robert were born.

All three character have a human inspiration first, but a lot of their fighting style, relationships, and reactions to Ravena derives inspiration from Shonen storytelling. Like I said, I didn’t set out to create a replicas of my favorite characters, its after watching hundreds of episodes of shows, I know what I like and what I don’t. So let’s break down the characters:

Mario-

Trait set 1: stoic, committed to getting the job done without extra expression

Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing comes to mind. Heero was the perfect soldier because it was the only life he ever knew. He was committed to excellence even to the point of extremes. But as he interacted with more people, some of the exterior wore away-but very little.

Trait set 2.) You’ll see this more in Book 2, but Mario is very efficient in his fighting, but he doesn’t seem to enjoy it. In fact, one might say he’s embarrassed by it. After everything he’s been through, hurting people especially to the point of death is the last thing he ever wants to do.

Vash the Stampede From Trigun and Himura Kenshin From Ruruouni Kenshin

Vash was the best gun slinger in the entire world, but he preferred to be silly and the life of the party. Hurting people in anyway was so abhorrent to him. So much so that its the way his enemies chose to target him.

Kenshin was a master slayer during the Meiji Revolution and killed countless people in that war. Due to things that happen near the end, he becomes a changed man and takes up a reverse blade sword. He swears to never kill again, but he seems to have no problem hurting an enemy if it gets the point across. That is where he differs from Vash.

Where Mario differs greatly is that he has no desire to be a hero, to even help others. He hasn’t even figured out what the purpose of his life really is.

Virgil-

Trait set 1.) Arrogant and defiant, contains an air of being the best, he’s a good guy but sometimes he comes across like a bad guy. Extremely jealous of anyone who is better than him.

Vegeta from Dragonball Z- The price of all Saiyans who is proud of his lineage. Acts like a prince at all times and desires to be the best because of that ranking. When he comes to Earth, he is simply carrying out the warrior way to conquest, but after fighting Goku, he goals to be the best by beating Goku lead to an awkward but necessary alliance at times.

Trait set 2.) A fighter that never quits and never believes he will fail despite being outmatched.

Bakugo from My Hero Academia

Bakugo has believed from day one that he would be the number one hero because he has an excellent quirk and barely ever failed. He goes for broke in every fight, but most fights he actually comes out on top.

Virgil has a never ending belief in himself because its the way he has chosen to live his life. He is strong, popular, and lacks for nothing material on Earth. He refuses to believe anything will take him down because he can’t let him self go there.

Where Virgil greatly differs is that he has a horrible relationship with his father and would cut himself off from his family line if he could. He also is incredibly loyal once given the chance. It’s not that he wants to be great for his own sake, its his way of surviving what has been done to him by his parents. Book 2 goes into that more. Virgil would be more than happy to just have good friends and a good time rather than be the best at anything.

Robert-

Robert is mostly based on his human inspiration, but the anime aspect comes from his entry into Ravena. He represents a version of an anime fan if they were to be plunged into another world. There have been countless examples of those characters in Isekai, but he is different because he is not Japanese, so culturally he’s just different.

He’s curious, innocent, very intelligent and can’t wait to see what this new world has in store for him because its better than home. Where he’s bullied and ignored, and where things are not good at home. He is the epitome of the person who escapes into anime when things are not good.

One last note on this topic. The Mario/Virgil relationship is very much in the vein of any Shonen rivalry you’ve ever seen. I love that type of relationship when it comes to a crisis in a story. Because necessity forces the characters to work together, so you can get into some deep territory there. The obvious comparison is Goku and Vegeta.

I could go on for another twenty pages on the character analysis, but we have to get ready for part three of this blog where I break down the themes.

Stay tuned.