The Rising Champion: Characters

The characters who appear in The Rising Champion

The Heroes

Ken Amagi (天城健): Born in Shizuoka, Ken’s parents were killed by an avalanche, thus he was an orphan from the start. As a baby boy, he got shipwrecked into the Virunga volcanoes along with his much older sister and brother, thus he lived in their neighbouring jungles as a result. Being raised by a sister in the Congolian jungle plains, he sometimes pounds his chest when cornered.

Kana (佳奈): 

Gai Amagi (天城凱): Gai is Ken Amagi’s older brother. 

Shingo (真吾): 

Phra Aphai Mani Characters

The Characters of Phra Apai Mani

Sourced from a Thai website. These are the most popular characters of Thailand's longest epic poem and public domain story ever made. 

Of all the heroes in the story, which indeed was somewhat fair for its time, Phra Aphai Mani is the only almost wholly nominal one, as although he is a hero in almost all things except having a complete code of moral conduct, his behaviour and actions sometimes affect other characters for the worse.  

The mermaids in the story of Phra Aphai Mani live in the deep sea. They are half-human, half-fish hybrids. When the ship was wrecked, the mermaids go and pull the humans in pairs, causing the children of mermaids to know the human languages. Many mermaid fathers and mothers, plus the mermaid wife of Phra Aphai Mani, know that as well. Sinsamouth was also amazed at the appearance of the mermaids. One of the mermaids looked less cunning than the other girls and gave up to Phra Aphai Mani because of the sweetness that the man was good at. However, a mermaid's love can be regarded as supportive kind of love, because Phra Aphai Mani has a merit that doesn't go away, when they meet at Nang Phisamuth’s Cave. At that time, the mermaid made a vow that she would be a servant of Phra Aphai Mani until his death. At first he thought that she would surely die, because she was captured by a giant like Sinsamouth, but when she met Phra Aphai Mani who promised to let her go back. It was as if Phra Aphai Mani had saved her life. It is therefore appropriate that the Main Mermaid's father will submit himself to Phra Aphai Mani. In addition, fellow mermaids have to bear the burden of serving Phra Aphai Mani. Phra Aphai Mani indicates that her father and mother have passed away. The mermaids therefore rarely argue with Phra Aphai Mani, as their main duty is to take care of their own children like Sudsakorn, until they grow up and go to war to help their father later. The role of the main mermaid was not less pathetic to look at within the eyes of the present day, because when leaving Koh Kaew Phitsadan, Phra Aphai Mani never returned to receive her as promised. He would visit sometime at the end of the story. There was still some happiness for her when Indra later sympathized to help cut off the fish's tail and give her legs like a human. And Sudsakorn happily accepted to live in Lanka with his children and grandchildren.

The sea demon woman Nang Phisamuth’s eyes were very angry, but her figure was ragged and her mouth was too fragile. She lived in a cave in the middle of the sea. Able to transform into a beautiful women in a previous life, she was blessed to be able to take off a man's heart and put it in a stone. Therefore, she began to fight against the fire, so she was burned by acid flames until her body was set on fire. She became a sea demon, possessing a stone that she had entrusted to her heart. Phra Aphai Mani was reluctantly captured by the sea demon woman in the cave, until becoming the husband of Phisamuth, whose position does not know yet, and had one child together, Sinsamouth. Sinsamouth was 8 years old when he angered her off. While his mother was away from the cave, he tried to push a stone so strongly (it was the stone that the sea demon woman used to cover the mouth of the cave of Dee Phi Phai) and go out to tease her and play with the dolphins, until they meet an old mermaid. Out of curiosity, she brought him to show his father what it was. The old mermaid was very good. When she met Phra Aphai Mani, he became sympathetic. She would take him away to rely on the prestige of Lord Ta (The magic yogi) is still on Koh Kaew, so the plan is done. Phra Aphai Mani used a trick to deceive the giant woman into fasting for 3 days, during which she clings on the back of a mermaid as if playing a jet ski to the sea breeze until she almost reaches the shore. Phisamuth returned to the cave and couldn't find her husband. So he knew that he was deceived. They hurried up and caught up with each other at the beautiful and rich sandy beach at Koh Kaew, narrowly missed. (Unfortunately, The Old mermaid, plus both husband and wife were almost caught and eaten, though only the little old mermaid left that will become another wife of Phi Phai later). After many years had passed, the stone also had limbs, as its face grew out and finally came back to life. One day, she saw Phra Aphai Mani and thought of her love, so she carried her to the cave, until they had a son together named Sinsamouth. Later, Phra Aphai Mani and Sinsamouth ran away from her. Phisamuth went out to follow with love. But then she had to die by the sound of Phra Aphai Mani. Her body had turned to stone on the beach by the sea.

Phra Aphai Mani is the son of Thao Suthat, the king of Rattana and Mrs. Pathum Kessorn and has a younger brother named Srisuwan. Phra Aphai Mani went to learn how to master the sound of the bagpipes, until he became proficient in making those who heard the sound of the flute fall asleep. But Thao Suthat was not satisfied, therefore expelled from the city along with Srisuwan. During the journey, Phra Aphai Mani was abducted by a female sea demon named Phisamuth and stayed with her in a cave, until they had a son together named Sinsamouth. Later, Phra Aphai Mani took Sinsamouth and fled to live with the Yogi at Koh Kaew Phitsadan. and then met with Mrs. Suwanamalee, the daughter of Thao Silrat, when he was married to a first wife of his, Mrs. Lawengwanla. He had to wage war with Usren until she died, and Mrs. Lawengwanla, Usren's sister, had to revenge on her, so they had to go to war. Phra Aphai Mani was charmed by her to make her fall in love with him, until she went to live in Lanka as well, and she also encouraged Phra Aphai Mani to wage war with the same party. Until the Yogi of Koh Kaew Phitsadan came to mitigate the war, it ended. At the end of his life, Phra Aphai Mani went to be ordained as a hermit at Khao Singsut. 

Sudsakorn was the son of Phra Aphai Mani and a mermaid. Good at swimming and diving, a yogi brought him up since birth and taught him different subjects. When he was three years old, he caught the onyx coloured sea dragon. The yogi advises Sudsakorn to find his father by giving him a magic wand to protect himself and ordaining him to become a yogi. During the trip, an old nudist was deceived and pushed into the abyss. and took the staff and the onyx coloured sea dragon, but soon the creature fled back to find both the yogi and the former's father, as well as following to help Sudsakorn rise from the abyss, so he adopted him as his son. After ten years, Sudsakorn bid farewell to find Phra Aphai Mani again. Haschai and Mrs. Saowakorn, the daughter of Suriyothai, asked to go along with them, and the three went looking for Phra Aphai Mani until they found him. Later, Sudsakorn married Ms. Saowakorn and was the ruling king of Lanka.

Sinsamouth was the son of Phra Aphai Mani and Nang Phisamuth. Has a beautiful appearance similar to Phra Aphai Mani, but has fangs, curly hair, red eyes, and is very powerful. When he was 8 years old, his father asked him to flee to live with a yogi at Koh Kaew Phitsadan. Later, both of them relied on Thao Silrat's boat to travel back to Rattana but the boat was broken. Because she was rampaged by a sea monster, Sinsamouth took Nang Suwanamalee fled to an island but lost her father. Later, the robber took the boat as well. Sinsamouth was furious that the robber had harassed Suwanamalee and killed him, then seized that boat and continued on until he met Sri Suwan in the city of Ramajak, therefore they invite each other to follow Phra Aphai Mani until they meet again. After completing the war with Lanka, Sinsamouth was married to Mrs. Arunrasmee.

Srisuwan is the second son of Thao Suthat and Queen Pathum Kessorn and is the younger brother of Phra Aphai Mani. When Thao Suthat gave Phra Aphai Mani to study art and science, Srisuwan also travelled with Phra Aphai Mani by choosing to study Krabi Krabong. This made Thao Suthat dissatisfied and drove Sri Suwan out of the city as well. After being separated from Phra Aphai Mani, Srisuwan travelled with the three Brahmins to find Phra Aphai Mani until reaching the city of Rom Chak. Srisuwan and the three Brahmins were residing in that city and volunteered for Thao Thosawong, Mayor of Romchak, in order to prepare for a war with the Javanese Thao Uthen army which brought an army to win Mrs. Kesara, the royal daughter of Thao Thosawong, until an unexpected victory happened. After the war, Srisuwan was married to Mrs. Kesara and ruled the city of Ramajak. They have one daughter, Mrs. Arunrasmee. In addition, Srisuwan also has Mrs. Srisuda. who was the governor of Kesara as his wife at the same time, had 1 son, Phra Krishna (later was an important force of the Ramkhamhaeng side in the end of the Battle of Mangala) after occupying the Ramajak city Srisuwan meets Sinsamouth and together they go out to find Phra Aphai Mani and later on join forces with Phra Aphai Mani to fight with Lanka. Until crossing to Lanka, the charm of Nang Rampha Sari, who was a member the Lankan people of Nang Laweng Srisuwan, had Mrs. Ramphasari as his wife. They had one child together named Walyuda.

Rhododendron Maze: Characters

Kenneth Wolmark: Kenneth is a sad sack at a newspaper agency who means well, but neglects all his three daughters. 

Azalea Wolmark: Azalea is a mixed race, green eyed ginger in the remake novels. She is a psychopath, who instead lives alone with her older and more mature sisters after their mum died of hyper empathy related complications via killing herself in the head with a suicide shotgun, which is mostly due to her mental health being nonexistent for her whole life. 

Rosebay Wolmark: Antisocial twenty two year old Rosebay Wolmark seems to be the only one with a consistently positive relationship with party girl Rhoda and psychopathic Azalea. 

Rhoda Pinxter Wolmark: Rhoda seems to be about twenty years old. She’s also a wildly gesticulating party girl. 

Muskeg Simpson Bravo Wolmark: Hyper Empathetic, mixed race, very short sighted, slightly wrinkly, grey eyed, partly leucistic and quite overweight towhead mum trying to survive with her hereditary CPTSD, as she was a female world war vet born from the deathly violation of her also Hyper Empathetic birth dad by her birth mother after they have a forcibly arranged shotgun marriage gone horribly right together. 

Christine Simpson Bravo Denker: Muskeg’s much older if similarly somewhat overweight sister, who’s about the same age as Mrs Monica Breedlove. She was about twenty when her mum was pretty much bludgeoned and mauled by her own sons to death. Her husband was a low rank Kosher mafia mobster named Patrick Denker, whom she had a very dysfunctional relationship with. 

Chunky Dick Simpson: Christine’s birth dad and Nerium’s sole husband. Both were married by their own screwed up parents at a forcibly arranged shotgun wedding gone horribly right. 

Nerium Peel Simpson: Muskeg’s sociopathic, screwed up birth mum and a serial killer of people coming from fellow screwed up families, who might have made the town where she lived even worse. But to be fair, she indeed did feel somehow slightly guilty, enough for much of what she had done; thus she strapped herself in a chair filled with ropes and shot herself while also letting her sons chop her to death, perhaps in order to make the town’s equally corrupt police and lawyers happy, and also ensuring that Emily got happily adopted by a high schooled peer parent. 

Oleander Peel: Oleander Peel was Nerium’s also highly predisposed and screwed up father. Psychopathic like Azalea. His only long term sex toy was a half-black brothel spinster named Betty Schober, whom he sexually violated even before she birthed Nerium Peel Simpson.  

Ricardo Bravo: Fellow relative World War veteran who died in an Italian prison due to a bunch of rather very corrupt people running it with impunity. He seems to know all the ultra fundies a bit too well, resulting in him putting posters for pretty much all the screwed up families that they’re in. 

Into the Heart of the Jungle

Strong feelings will abound for a crazy Sydneyside exhibition focusing on the fan works of the few major Soji Yamakawa properties long known to anime fans, and largely Japanese fans anyway. At least within a few years. 

As artworks belonging to (the definitively superior and much more popular manga adaptation of) Isamu of the Wilderness are technically created by Noboru Kawasaki in his own studio, the manga as a result is not a major focus for legal reasons, even though it otherwise has the same writer as Kenya Boy.

The Tiger Boy, aka Shonen Tiger, has about five versions, three of which have almost been completely lost for a long time. Only the somehow more enlightening mid-late 1950s strip and book volume versions are known in Japan even today, even though both are still somewhat unfinished. The catch is still that the much better known Sankei volume version (lasting from 1956-59) is surprisingly more commonly seen in online auction sites, despite similarly commanding high prices. The other three are technically sequels/soft reboots to each other and are all in the Kamishibai format. 

The Boy Champion, also known as the Boy King, hasn’t been reprinted for a long time due to being pretty fair for its day, which is understandable since the second and most popular version was first made in the mid-late 1940s shortly after WW2 ended. Even though there is a much lesser known sludge of appendix books from the early, pre-Omoshiro and Yonen book period, there are a couple of supplements and two combined books from the Omoshiro/Yonen book period (both of which are unfortunately kind of reduced).

There are chapters and supplements which haven’t been added into the actual Emonogatari books (mostly of the second and sixth versions) for a long time, even though some of them have been adapted into mangas already. ‘The Papio Palace’ still doesn’t seem to appear as much in the books and mangas, which mostly due to its rather values dissonant content. Neither are the generally completed short stories ‘The Last Dinosaur’, ‘Zambaro’s Adventure’ and a couple of others. Even by then, the whole story is somewhat but not fully complete. According to a longtime visitor (whose real name shall not be mentioned for legal reasons) on Fukkan’s website, the whole story should’ve had twenty (for an abridged version which currently has only ten because of Haruki Kadokawa’s excessive and long term franchise-dumping strategies), thirty or forty volumes made during its creator’s lifetime. 

The first major retelling, albeit of the same version as the stories from both pre-1949 and Omoshiro Book postwar periods, was for Yonen Book (aimed at older children and preteens) in the mid-late 1950s. A faux-finale/continuation of the second version, known as the New Boy Champion, was made for Shueisha’s Omoshiro Book in 1957. One of the older reprints, which is basically a reduction of the second for primary school kids of the fifties, was itself made for Omoshiro Book (a Shueisha school mag) in 1957-58, while a rarely seen fourth version was made primarily for Shogakukan’s Shogaku Nensei school magazines in November 1963-September 64. A much rarer tribute was made for Suntory Ogamishibai (a short lived co-venture of Suntory and Nippon Reader’s Digest) in November 1974. Finally, a long overdue sequel analysis to the postwar Boy Champion and its 1957 faux-finale New Boy Champion was made for the Tabi magazine in October 1980. There is also a sixth mostly surviving version (from Kadokawa Shoten), itself a budget reprint which indeed has considerably improved writing (thanks to a possible team of hip and then-upcoming ghostwriters), but it isn’t as popular, partly due to most of its volumes being printed in a rather inadequate resolution, as well as the plot execution being somewhat iffy (combined with inexperienced ghostwriters, volume gaps and all) in comparison. The first version is pretty much the only one that is both a prototype and which seems entirely lost, as only the few footnotes of it have survived and, perhaps from a modern Japanese kid’s point of view, could have been a really crude piece of schmuck bait in hindsight, all according to sources like the honestly somewhat flowery AZITO. 

There are about five major manga adaptations known to hardcore fans of the Boy Champ. The first one was drawn by the (very long lived but) internationally little known Yonkoma talent Akira Otomo (born in 1926), while its much more faithful continuation (to the point of expanding the picture story itself!) was drawn by the late, great Hiroshima native Sanpei Wachi (1926-99). 

The most popular one, despite initially being made (as a tie in to a likely scrapped Toku adaptation) for only two of the Shogaku Nensei magazines (Shogaku Ninensei and Shogaku Sannensei) from 1961 to 1964, was drawn initially by Sanpei Shirato (1932-2021), one of the people behind the invasion of ninjas into international markets, and later by internationally unsung occult manga talent Jirō Tsunoda (born in 1936). A bolder and more middle school friendly soft remake/sequel (since I am confused with all three), drawn largely by Sanpei Shirato himself, was likely also produced for Shogaku Sannensei in 1966.

There once was a radio drama adaptation, made a year before Kenya Boy’s radio drama and aired on Nippon Cultural Broadcasting in 1952-53. 

Last but not least, there’s even a scrapped anime adaptation, written and directed by the late Japanese film industry maestro Kinji Fukusaku (1930-2003). What makes its status as both forgotten and unavailable media (though not really lost forever, which is okay) even funnier, is that a (rather internationally obscure) pop culture expert (replete with a Twitter account nonetheless!) probably has/had sold its screenplay and its direction in paper sheets to a fanboy-private collector, whereas a not quite famous (at least internationally) online karaoke star (who’s also a fan of Kaiju films, replete with a Twitter account) has a toy projector containing the anime’s (barely seen) surviving reels. 

Kenya Boy began life as a propagandistic Kamishibai prototype which wasn’t even fully made within its creator’s lifetime, as the creator himself was partly forced by corrupt dudes to do something really uncomfortable in hindsight as well, and later on, was also very unsubtle in its delivery of propaganda related stuff. That said, it pretty much got cancelled for good, partly due to many factors. Shortly after WW2 ended, the definitive second version was instead written with much more nuance (for the 50s, mind you) in mind and became very popular with older children and young teens as a result. It only has thirteen volumes (in twenty six parts though) and two appendix books. There are two other surviving versions, one of which is a pretty good budget reprint (despite only having ten volumes), while the other one is pretty much so okay it’s average (while having twenty volumes), even if its predecessor surely seems to burrow a lot of things from both the cheesy 1961 manga and tv series, as both of which preceded them by a few decades more. As indicated by how messed up its production history has become, Kenya Boy won’t be forty nine picture story volumes long until the end of the 2020s.

There is also a preceding strip version, a rarely seen monthly retelling, and a Suntory tribute, which are all known primarily to hardcore fans. The retelling was made in 1968 for Wild, a fabulous but weak selling magazine by Tiger Shobo, which was one of the short lived businesses run by Souji Yamakawa during his lifetime. The tribute was made for Suntory Ogamishibai (a little known co-venture of Suntory and Nippon Reader’s Digest) in September 1974. 

The story’s adaptations often include; a now almost fully lost 1953-54 radio drama which aired on Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, an equally unavailable black and white tokusatsu film which was distributed by Daiei, a surviving black and white Toei tokusatsu tv show which played fast and loose with the Mythos, a Shogakukan Weekly Shōnen Sunday manga known for largely being (somewhat) more faithful to the meta-story’s second version, and and a surviving animated colour film being better known for being more popular (albeit as a bizarre kids film) outside of Japan, which is mostly due to its so bad it’s good execution (charmingly) contradicting the surreal nature of its summarised storyline, replete with a companion series of children’s picture books and a manga tie in from Fujimi Shobo. 

WMT competitors

WMT competitors 

TMS Literary Theatre 

The Adventures Of Gamba #

Nobody’s Boy Remi #

Treasure Island # 

Moby Dick Five 

Botchan #

Twenty Four Eyes: based on a novel. 

Sanshiro Sugata 

Sherlock Hound 

The Psammead 

Little Nemo In Slumberland

Anpanman $: the most successful but only extant entry in the whole TMS Literary Theatre, which technically counts since it is based loosely upon a series of young children’s beginner books. 

The Mischievous Twins At St Clare’s 

Lottie And Lisa

My Patrasche 

The Secret Of The Cerulean Sand 

Emily Of New Moon

Madhouse Classics 

The Adventures Of Gamba: A tv show and a few movies were made by TMS and Madhouse together. 

Nobody’s Boy Remi: The show and its movie are lighter and softer than the more adult book they’re loosely based on. 

Treasure Island: Likely the best ever animated Treasure Island adaptation with the straight model. It also comes with both a movie and a prequel by the way. 

Botchan: The sole main animated adaptation of a famous boys’ novel by Natsume Soseki. 

Ōshin: Actually a companion film to a famous dramatisation based loosely upon the founders of Yaohan’s lives. 

The Dagger of Kamui *: The anime film is way better known than the original novel series, which frankly needs completion at all costs. 

Chironup No Kitsune

Enoki Films Masterpieces 

The Wonderful Galaxy Of Oz: A cross between the Land of Oz and Star Wars. 

Huckleberry Finn 

Willow Town: An urban adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows. 

Toei World Classics 

Little Remi And His Famous Dog Capi 

Animal Treasure Island   

Les Miserables 

The Little Women

Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird * 

Taro The Dragon Boy

The Call Of The Wild 

Adrift In The Pacific 

Wagahai Wa Neko De Aru 

The Boy And The Blue Sea

The Life Of Don Matsugoro 

The Cherry Tree 

Kenya Boy 

The Dagger of Kamui 

The Snow Country Prince 

Coo From The Distant Sea 

Crayon Kingdom of Dreams: Based loosely upon a series of children’s novels known for being The Land of Oz’s closest Japanese equivalent. 

Future Folktales 

Group TAC Literary Legends (retired) 

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn 

Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird 

The Night On The Galactic Railroad: The most famous entry of the Group TAC Literary Legends.

Chironup No Kitsune *

Spring And Chaos

Pierrot Kids Literary Classics 

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils 

Mrs Pepper Pot

The Mysterious Cities of Gold 

The Souji Yamakawa school of fashion and acting

Dear the Mitt Kahl school of acting and mime, move over! Here comes the near globally influential Souji Yamakawa school of acting and fashion, aka the (little known at least in the anglophone world) wonder that inspired the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai/Power Rangers schools of acting and mime.  

Souji Yamakawa and his own school of fellows are responsible for how a lot of Japanese pop culture’s best known villains and anti villains look and act. They may be the bad guys, (check!) and they may be flashy, (check!) but there are subversions. Something similar can be said for its best known heroes and antiheroes in their shared veins. 

The Villains

Skull, the main big bad villain of the Cyborg 009 Mythos, is likely inspired, in an ironic twist of fate, by a Golden Bat competitor called The White Skull, whose original incarnations themselves (mostly drawn with Souji Yamakawa’s pens) are mentors to all the original incarnations of The Tiger Boy. 

The Heroes 

There’s Prehistoric Ryū, who has been popular in Japan and Scandinavia for a longer time than one of his spiritual predecessors, Prehistoric Sabu. Said predecessor, himself inspired by Souji Yamakawa’s Sapin the Prehistoric Boy, got outcompeted by and ended abruptly upon the relative domestic (and overall national) success of Teruyoshi ‘Kyuuta’ (or Quintus) Ishikawa’s very own Prehistoric Boy Bibi in the mid-1960s. He and Bibi themselves had a major South Korean counterpart in Manhwa pioneer Jong Jin Lee’s Baba The Cave Boy, who also was one of Prehistoric Ryū’s competitors, but whose artwork appearances are very hard to come by even in his native country; mostly due to how fast the old manhwa volumes (and their masters) infamously decay, so much so that most of their reprints are now pieces of luxury mostly bought by ultra rich manhwa fans. 

Hunterwali: Characters

Hunterwali Characters 

Mavuno’s family

Shida: 

Mavuno: 

Maisha (マイシャ): Maisha is the sole female child of Mavuno and Hunterwali before they died in a flood. She was raised by a shaman named Shawana. 

The Mahmouds 

Hunterwali (aka Waseme Mahmoud): Hunterwali is the only adult one out of three sisters. Her father is a wealthy commoner entrepreneur and her mother is the daughter of freed slaves. Married a man named Mavuno and birthed a girl named Maisha. 

Amina Mahmoud: One of Hunterwali’s sisters.  

Zuwena Mahmoud: Another of Hunterwali’s sisters. She rescued Hunterwali while knowing the consequences of their town’s demolition. 

The El Atrashes

Abdullah El Atrash: Asha’s dead dissident ex-businessman father, known for being against the rather horrendous slavery of both women and men from various warring Bantu groups, often by Arabs or fellow natives regardless of religion, ethnicity and skin colour. 

Asha El Atrash: One of Hunterwali’s friends, she is a bookworm. 

The Haq Family 

Sharifa Haq: Sharifa is another of Hunterwali’s Friends.  

The Husseins 

Samar: Samar was both Ilam’s slave and the victim of serial sexual violations by one of Ilam’s wives.

Kahan: Kahan is the third wife’s only son of the equally screwed up Ilam. He was a badly raised train wreck who didn’t know any more than most of his fellow royals. 

Ishar: Kahan’s relatively narcissistic, filthy rich son who clearly has a weak amount of already rather limited empathy. He also isn’t a good person to begin with, but nonetheless ain’t as much of a master manipulator as Hamid. 

Adhab: 

Ramallah: Kahan’s once favoured (albeit PTSD suffering) older half brother and the fourth wife’s younger son of Ilam. He committed suicide in light of his family’s atrocious track record. 

Pinku: Pinku is the son of the sexually violated and defiled Samar. He is a muscly young man trying to find his own niche at the cost of his relatives frequently dying. 

Ilam: The father of many children and husband of his six wives. Ilam was born into a barbaric family with links to the mind numbing corruption of fellow warring chiefs, and sometimes foreign (mostly Omani, Lowland and Highland Scottish, British English and German) merchants. 

Hamid: A person with a genetic affinity for the Karma Houdini effects, Hamid is Ilam’s last known boy child and the only son of his fourth concubine. He becomes ruler of the Husseins at the end of the main story, causing all of the main heroes to flee away from him as far as possible. Before that, he unceremoniously let his own half brother Madu kill Kahan and forced Ishar to marry Ramallah’s daughter Misha. 

Madu Al Hassan: Hamid’s equally crazy half brother and the second concubine’s son. 

Misha: Ramallah’s foul mannered daughter. 

Hallam: 

Shamsher: A defiled but brutally honest young man who wears a lot of blinging jewels to signify his status.

Nana: Pinku’s older sister and Samar’s fellow child. She is a young woman, perhaps older than Hunterwali herself. Happily, Nana instead becomes a shaman. 

The Bin Saids 

Rashid: Nicknamed The Behemoth due to his huge size, Rashid is nonetheless a moderately unstable man trying to shake off the legacy of his own awful and formerly amicable friends. In the end of the main story, he has finally gotten his very own desired wish; to truly be his own man in a good light, but it happened seven years after the day that his estranged father committed suicide. 

Banwari: Rashid’s sly younger brother, who is a bullied and emotional fellow nonetheless. 

Salim: A well intended extremist, Salim is the cunning older brother to Rashid and Banwari. He frequently tries to usurp the throne until he realises that the Husseins are even worse than he thought. He slowly grew from a thievish being into a flawed but intelligent, sensitive being throughout the story. 

Other characters

Gamal Haider: Adam Haider’s brother.

Adam Haider: Adam Haider is the brother of Gamal Haider, a village man for his time.