Wilderness: Characters

The characters of Kyuuta Ishikawa’s Wilderness

Timothy Mount: A young man raised by a band of smart though flawed natives in the plains of western Uganda. 

Selene Sheehan: Timothy’s girlfriend.

Let’s make a Space Invaders comedy tribute!

Taito and Square Enix are iconic amongst video game industry veterans. Their shared franchise Space Invaders is no exception. 

The Space Invaders Series: a 42 episode (comedy adventure) anime adaption to five Space Invaders Games and Space Raiders, can definitely be officially made, if at all, with the explicit permission of both Taito and Square Enix, as well as Tomohiro Nishikado and his family. 

This time, it may be quite far from the source materials, but there’s also a good reason why it’s not going to be too close to them either. Here in my proposed role call; the monsters are mainly ugly cute cryptids and mythical creatures who turn out to be the story’s chaotic neutral stars. Another change is that the ones who ride on the (tanks recycled into) rockets are actually former soldiers trying to see their equally traumatised ex-boss study the fragile place where the cryptids live. With the uneasy help of sympathetic (anti villain) alien scientists, they steadily ensure that the forest survives and thrives, even in a case where there’s a series of invasions from both humans and aliens alike. 

Vintage West Bengal

South Asia seems to have a lot of internationally underrated (if still rather sexist to the hilt) classics as well as a ton of so bad so good stinkers. 

However, let’s mostly focus on books and films from West Bengal.  

Indian Bengali films have come a long way from the days of the Great West Bengal Silents and Talkies, as well as that time when the East Indian state’s own celebrated (if at times convergent) take on the (mostly Anglocentric) Kitchen Sink Drama ruled the roost. 

There are also Indian Bengali pulps, but sadly, these ones not only tend to decay pretty fast and rather frequently in horrifying numbers (in the largely tropical climate of said state), many snobs and supposed pros perceive most of them as crass trash! Fortunately, due to nostalgia not being too much of a bad thing, the major ones are still selling well, even though most of them are just plain forgettable. 

While West Bengal does make stinkers once in a while, a couple of them ultimately evolved rather differently from their Anglo Counterparts. The result is that Byomkesh Bakshi, Shankar Chowdhury and Feluda are still the main retro West Bengali pop culture mainstays, while lifelong buddies Goopy Gain and Bagha Bain currently rule the South Asian PD kids’ story roost to this very day. 

Akim: Characters

The Characters of Akim

Akim: Akim is the titular character in this story. Here, he is a young Pakistani Pashtun whose real first name is Jafar instead of being a Brit as in the original comics, with greenish hazel eyes and titian hair. 

Ganjul: Akim’s wife, who also happens to be his first rival’s childhood friend. 

Liwar: Liwar is Akim and Ganjul’s son. Like his parents, he was born in Karachi, but lived in the jungle with them since he was about four. 

Joachim ‘Jim’ Rank: Implied to be born in a part of Wilmington known as the Bronx of North Carolina, Jim Rank is basically a de-composite of Comic Akim derived from Augusto Pedrazza’s early Akim drawings. 

Rita Turner-Rank: Jim's lovely ginger haired wife. 

Tristan Rubin: Tristan Rubin is the companion of Jim and Rita. His birth parents Beryl and Solomon last saw him on the day they got killed by a really corrupt policeman, who in turn is also trying to kill him. 

Chloe: Tristan’s girlfriend. 

The Recurring Characters

Steven Rank: Jim’s Perversive part sibling-part cousin, who happens to be the son of Lydia Rank and.. Frederick Rank’s older brother Randolph. 

Willy Sanders: Willy is a heartthrob looking for love in all the wrong places.. until he found Shakira Nazir in Maltaka, Pakistan. 

Shakira Nazir: Shakira Nazir is a haughty old childhood friend whom Akim knew for a while.

Minako Konaka (小中実奈子): A beauty living with the jungle animals since a shipwreck took the lives of her father and much of his team, just near the big drum mountains. 

Edgar Felton: Rita’s southern fried genius cousin. 

Zaria Sen: Zaria is Meena Sen’s own adventurous aunt. 

Gonzalo Wong: A Macanese mad scientist. 

The Villains and Anti Villains

Yukio Muraoka (村岡幸男): A mad scientist anti villain who flies on his horrible master’s nearly discarded plane, looking for official asylum. Fortunately, he finally departed into America to reunite with his fellow dissident friends. 

Nikita Morgan: Chafer’s brunette twin sister, who seems to be a more loving brat than he is. 

Chafer: The anti villain Big Bad of the story, Chafer has a sad past, which is caused by his own neglectful parents frequently working far beyond what he called 'home'. His humiliations include being frequently fired by the corrupt policeman who also killed Beryl and Solomon Rubin. He has a lot of even more evil former friends who often try to kill him in sight. His actual name is indicated to be Kiefer Morgan. 

Ali Khan: Ali Khan begins the story as a well intended intern from the state of Maltaka, which is the Pakistani state of Balochistan in all but name. He’s long been abused by his much more heinous smothering master, who birthed his half brother by violating the consent of his unlucky widowed dad. Later on, he became a decent (though otherwise corrupt) military general leading his own fellow rebels towards what could become a traumatic Indo-Pakistani Independence Day in all but name. He is a well intended woobie anti villain, who’s trying to leave his master and her son behind for a better life in exile. 

Nikola Khan: Ali Khan’s much younger half brother, who often behaves in a way that hits even poor Ali to smithereens and, given his mum’s twisted way of thinking, is the one most likely to become the actual state ruler of Maltaka. 

Damocles: A Meglenite From Greece, another intern abused by Nikola Khan’s mother. 

Kapo Musa: Kapo Musa herself is Ngama Joost and Mekuro’s heinous and monstrously depraved mother. She was a recurring villain in the Akim Universe until she got shot by her own son Mekuro. 

Dick Van Der Westhuizen: Dick is Kapo Musa’s cosmic plaything and, as his name indicates, a heinous South African dick in his own right. He was one of only a few consistently recurring villains for the Akim multimedia universe, at least until he also got killed by Ngama Joost.

Jungle Hunt/Kenya Boy: Characters

The Characters who appear in Kenya Boy

The Human Heroes and Antiheroes 

Raja (ラジャ): A faithful friend of 

Penelope (ペネロペ): Margaret’s friend. 

Joe Moriyama (森山ジョー): Joe is the very main protagonist of the story. He has been through so much turmoil that he’s also had to fend for himself for long periods of time. His deeply screwed up mother was unavailable to meet him again (anyway) due to the fact that she was busy fighting off unwanted strangers and relatives, and then fled her native village. Joe is a brave young man who hollers a lot while swinging and sometimes chest beats with his own hands, partly when he’s maddened with nervous anger and partly when he’s excited. It’s likely that his full first name is Joseph (ジョセフ). 

Kiki (キキ): 

Noppo (ノッポ): 

Menko: A fox monkey (キツネザル) whom Joe rescued from hungry goblin warriors. 

Rin Kawagoe (川越凛): A rather aloof friend visiting Joe in India. 

Kana (加奈): 

Kenya (ケンヤ): Joe’s little brother. 

Toma (トマ): 

Yuji (ユウジ):

Nuha (ヌハ): 

Gwenna (グウェナ): 

Butch (ブッチ): Also known by his real name Buchi (ぶち), Butch is Daisuke Murakami’s hotelier, who is most likely the father of twins Miri and Nyakio. 

Lynda Olekina (オレキナ・リンダ): Zega’s Youngest Child and Only Daughter. 

Attar (アッタール) 

Wataru Shiina (椎名ワタル): Daisuke Murakami’s friend and confidante.

Jason Olekina (オレキナ・ジェイソン): Lynda’s twin brother and Zega’s youngest son. 

Margaret Fenn (マーガレット・フェン): An adult castaway. 

Lucy (ルーシー): Butch’s wife. 

Daisuke Murakami (村上大介): Daisuke seems to have almost been killed a lot by so many traitors throughout the story, but still, he did go out of the African continent along with his daughter Jasmine, thus poor Molly had to fend for herself for certain periods of time. Nonetheless, Joe wanted them to immigrate safely to suburban Perth in Australia, just within a couple of months before WW2 could even happen in the country’s own eyes. 

Vic Romano (ヴィック・ロマーノ): A dude who speaks in a Californian surfer accent. 

Kenny Blankenship (ケニー・ブランケンシップ): A heartthrob of a dude in short shorts. 

Guy ‘LaDouche’ Berthou (ギイ・ベルトゥー): A middle aged French Breton explorer who loves pulp novels (French Popular Novels in his case). 

Molly Mizuki (水木モリー): Daisuke’s somewhat mentally unstable scientist wife, who also is a likely political refugee escaping the infamously discriminatory politics of her time. She is the only daughter and likely youngest offspring of a peasant couple. Her rather poor mental health stemmed partly from being bullied and ridiculed almost to death by fellow people, especially in her teens.  

Jasmine Murakami (村上ジャスミン): Daisuke’s rather tomboyish daughter. 

Sam Olekina (オレキナ・サム): The only full brother of Zega Olekina, who in turn has four younger half siblings to contend with, mostly because they all share a dad in common. 

Bion Onita (大仁田びおん): Daisuke’s mother, Sadamichi’s confidante and a former brothel madam, likely of merchant serf descent. 

Sadamichi Murakami (村上貞道): Sadamichi is Bion’s long suffering ex-prizefighter husband and Daisuke’s father. As with most other Yamakawa heroes’ parents, they are likely serfs+peasants gone nouveau riche. 

Kate O'Connell (ケイト・オコンネル): Green eyed Blonde Irishwoman Kate only has a wealthy and much older surviving sister named Mara, mostly because all of their four brothers died before reaching 30 as we know it, and even then, her terrorist birth parents took their lives at the same time, which happened when she was only four months old and on infant formula, even before she forcibly arrived into Kenya. She is quite clearly raised not only by a couple of well meant if dysfunctional foster families (regardless of ethnicity), but also by a creepy wayside cult which pretty much abused her almost to death. As a result, she’s a broken bird learning how to live with long term mental health issues. 

Shotaro Moriyama (森山翔太郎): He is Joe’s dad, probably from Kagoshima, Japan. In 1932, he unhappily had to abandon Joe in Kenya, which was due to so much business going on with his employer’s very infamy being subjected to reviews by reporters from various British Empire friendly newspapers. He was quite neglectful, partly as a result of sheepishly following corporate rules for far too long. He’s also revealed to have crash landed in a mountainous jungle, where he himself and his newfound friends still protect themselves from excessive corruption affecting the area. Like his son Joe, he is also a roaring chest pounder. 

Agni (アグニ) (अग्नि) (અગ્નિ): Initially a perverted and foulmouthed youth in Tiger Boy, Agni went from the Maha gang’s resident would be usurper to rogue freelancer. 

Vayu (ヴァーユ) (वायु) (વાયુ): Unlike in Tiger Boy, Vayu isn’t a young fugitive on the run anymore. 

Donn (ドン): 

Soma (相馬) (सोम) (સોમા): 

Nakshatrani (ナクシャトラニ) (नक्षत्रानी) (નક્ષત્રની): 

Creidhne (クリードネ):

Matangi (マタンギ) (मातंगी) (ಮಾತಂಗಿ): 

Gwydion (グウィディオン): Aka Gwydion Madoc (グウィディオン・マドック), he is Nudd and Olwen’s son who was sixteen when he first met Joe. 

Varuna (ヴァルナ) (वरुण) (વરુણ): 

Maiko (舞妓): 

Tara Mizuki (水木タラ): Tara is Wataru’s daughter. 

Skanda (スカンダ) (स्कंद) (સ્કંદ): One of Tiger Boy’s friends. 

Monfin/Monfion (モンフィン/モンフィオン) (Mongfhionn): 

Luftaine (ルフテイン) (Luchtaine): 

Surya (スーリヤ) (सूर्य) (સૂર્યા): This is the same character who appeared in Tiger Boy. He was about thirty five when he first met Joe in the Assam valley. 

Elada (エラダ) (Ealadha): 

Shiva (シヴァ) (शिव) (શિવ): Shiva is a character named for the Hindu deity of destruction, who has starred in his own eponymous prequel series The Wolf Fanged Boy. He is also half-Japanese like Joe, but older than him by at least ten and a half years. 

Shachi (シャチ) (शची) (શચી): Shachi has also appeared as one of Jun’s friends in Tiger Boy. 

The Other Living Humans

Nihara (ニハラ/ニハー) (नीहार) (નિહાર): 

Tapu (タプ) (तपु): 

Jia (ジア) (जिया):

Suromana (スロマナ/スロマン) (सुरोमन्) (સુરોમન): 

David (デビッド): Kan’s estranged friend, a Meru village rookie. 

Benson (ベンソン): A young village rookie from a Meru village. 

Dr. Hans Stein (ハンス・スタイン 博士): Hans Stein was an ailing scientist whom Daisuke Mizuki met when he was in the decaying factory. He was killed off by Irma Meyn Van Halen. 

Blake Gorring (ブレイク・ゴーリング): A scaredy dweeb, the rather senile Blake is also a heavy mole for the Krupp crime family. Also the heavy of the story before the Krupps show up. 

Shohreh Baboli (ショーレ・バボリ): Shohreh is a mysterious waif covered in a dress. She happens to be a Mazanderani lout who escaped trafficking on her own.  

Dana Baboli (ダーナ・バボリ) : Dana is a former outlaw known to release a crapload of spirits out of the bottle. She also happened to be a street urchin revealed to be Shohreh’s sister.

Mara O'Connell (マラ・オコンネル): The snobbish and fairly self centred older sister of Kate has had a really rough time surviving in a world where not many of her relatives had a chance of long term survival. Her sisters are Brigid and Kate. 

Miri (ミリ) and Nyiakio (焼き王): Fraternal Kikuyu twins Miri and Nyakio are Kate's younger foster siblings who appear primarily near the end of the middle act.

Sharada (シャラダ) (शारदा) (શારદા): 

Greta Van Halen (グレタ・ヴァン・ヘイレン): A daughter of Irma Meyn Van Halen. 

Lugh (ルー) (Lú): Lugh is Angus’s friend in need. He is a fugitive escaping from a horrid cult which turns people into thinking that they’re Gaelic deities.

Kian (きゃん)  (Cían): 

Dealbhaoth (ディールバオス) (Dealbhaodh): 

Nuada (ヌアダ) (Nuadha): 

Ogma (オグマ) (Oghma): 

Manyu (マニウ先生) (मन्यु): Manyu is a character who also has appeared in Tiger Boy as a perverted young adult. Here in Kenya Boy, he is more of an actual master.

Angus (アンガス) (Aonghus): Also known as Angus O’Riordan (アンガス・オリオーダン) (Aonghus Ó Ríordáin), he was on the run until he was revealed to be wrongfully framed for something that he didn’t really commit. 

Anann (アナン): A mystic named Anann seems to be one of the people who debate with Kate on a regular basis. She is from Tralee in Ireland. Her full name is Anann Marianne Dooly (アナン・マリアン・ドゥーリー).

Madan (マダン) (मदन) (મદન): 

Brig (ブリッグ) (Bríg) and Brid (ブリッド) (Bríd): A pair of twin sisters supporting the exploits of Angus O’Riordan. 

Nemain (ネマン/ニームハイン) (Neamhain): 

Brigid (ブリジッド): Kate’s long lost older sister, Brigid is a Hazel eyed brunette. Her full name is Brigid O’Connell. 

Morrígan (モリガン) (Mór-Ríoghain): 

Manann (マナン/マナナン) (Manannán):

Baive (バイブ) (Badhbh): 

Griani (グリーニー) (Gréine): 

Macha (マカ): 

Neith (ネイト) (Néit): 

Govan (ゴバン/ガイブニュー) (Gaibhne): 

Bevin (ベビン) (Béibhinn): 

Fand (ファンド): 

Ahnya (アーニャ) (Áine): 

Kiichi Mizuki (水木喜一): Wataru’s son. 

Airmid (エアミッド): 

Danu (ダヌ): 

The Infrequently Seen  

Joe’s Mother: A mentally unwell person, she probably lived without a partner or even a child for much of her life, which is implicated by how rather screwed up her home life was. Her erratic behaviour is one of the many factors in Joe being both aggressively livid and overprotective as hell, especially when someone violates his bodily rights in a horrendous manner. She isn’t frequently seen.

The Human Canon Fodders

Robin O’Connell (ロビン・オコーネル): Robin was Mara and Kate’s father, who was born on mid March 1877 and had a crapload of freckles, very pale pink skin, auburn hair and dull blue eyes. Robin and his dark haired wife were slightly sympathetic towards their children, despite being terrorists themselves. 

Ailish O’Connell (アイリッシュ・オコネル): Unlike Robin, Hazel eyed Ailish was born in 1879, but on May the 21st. She had at least four dead terrorist soldier sons, who died at the same time along with her, and four more surviving children, who were all girls. 

Becuille (ベア・クイユ/ベキュイユ) (Bé Chuille): Becuille, an unlucky senior mage, was often dismissed, misnamed and ignored by the rest of her gang until Hafgan killed her, years after forcing his privates onto her increasingly infertile body. Horrified, the gang members would ensure that his cousin-wife Ushas would fight him to the death. 

The Named Spirits and Animals

Dena (デナ): Dena, a spirit, mostly appears in the form of a huge fantasy snake. A staunch ally of Zega since he was a preteen, Dena gave him and his village friends (even including his very estranged buddy, Seth) a lot of hunted game during seasonally hard times. A friend in need.

Nanda (ナンダ) (ನಂದಾ): A particularly large African bush elephant, Nanda is a courageously middle aged solitary bull from a herd now led by his (still big) younger sister Wavinya. 

Dingonek (ディンゴネックさん): Dingonek is the alias given to a single senile cryptid who resides in the hot as hell Maasai Mara National Park and who grunts like a leopard. A dangerous if rather understated beast, she frequently shows up not only to scare off her favourite prey, but also to attack them intensely since she’s often hungry. 

Wavinya (ワヴィーニャ): Nanda’s younger sister.

Musili (ムシリ): An unlucky old southern white rhinoceros trying to survive against all odds, just until he accidentally got bludgeoned to death by a wild, livid Joe. A dangerous yet well intended woobie in hindsight, he is a looming reminder that the characters are all beasts inside. 

Nanauner (ナナウナー): A foul smelling hominoid cryptid who lives in a hut of the Mau escarpment. Her son is Mauman, a young ape-boy. 

Kamau (カマウ): the well intended woobie leader of a pack of hungry and mad olive baboons. 

Sabruku (サブルックさん): Sabruku is the pet alias given to a single curiously primitive cryptid, who is probably one of Joe and Kate’s animal rivals/allies besides Wavinya and her herd, plus Monster Dana.

Nyangau (ニャンガウさん): A dangerous but well intentioned beast, Nyangau went mad from revelation due to trolling hunters poaching off the skins of her relatives and their kind. 

Kapwupo (カプウポさん): A single cryptid nicer than Nyangau San, but still fierce and dangerous. He likes to be alone and is from a family of savannah apemen who build shelters. 

Mauman (マウマン): A young cryptid who happens to be 3 feet tall. 

Dokoman (ドコマン): An older offspring of Ms Nanauner, a hairy woman.  

The Monsters

*Monsters are amongst the most frequently seen antagonists in Kenya Boy and Jungle Hunt.

The Human Villains and Anti Villains 

GanKana (ギャンカナ): 

Shabaaz (シャバーズ): Shabaaz is a rather shady Kenyan trader. 

Karabash Barabash (Karabaş Barabaş) (カラバシュ バラバシュ) (Karabaš Barabaš) (Karabaș Barabaș): Named after Buratino and the Golden Key’s Karabas Barabas. 

Rom (ロム): Rom is the chieftain of a deeply screwed up Maasai village dynasty known for his serial schemes. Being a super corrupt dude, he is the most ruthless guy in the history of the whole village, trained by his distant spinster uncle, who was so pathetic that he got killed by his nephew years later, probably because of how much cows he had. There’s also the fact that his mum and dad died of bloated tummy related conditions. It’s profoundly startling when someone like Ron and Seth’s maternal aunt is not as screwed up as their own current false friends, which in turn are not as bad as Rom. 

Seth Rudisha (ルディシャ・セス): A cunning antagonist, whose largely miserable childhood had him be forcibly raised by his much more corrupt false friends, especially following his father and birth mother’s deaths when he was a young teen. Ron’s and His maternal aunt/stepmother was no stranger to corruption, but was quite harsh on them.

Ron Rudisha (ルディシャ・ロン): Another of Zega’s former friends, Ron Rudisha was raised neutrally by his distant maternal uncle and aunt/stepmother in a harsh environment, following his parents’ estrangement and separation, but before their death. Then he and his full brother Seth were trained nobly (but still marred with corruption otherwise) to become warriors by soldiering men from allied villages, and won some of them over due to their street smarts and good spearing skills. Then there was their older cousin/half brother, Joshua, whose other false friends forcibly trained him to conflict with the warriors of another village up north for how many cows they have. Joshua probably got assassinated by the spear of a rival and they kidnapped the cows anyway. 

Diro (ディロ): As his Somali alias suggests, Diro is a corpulent former messenger. Partly due to his screwed up biology, along with a glaring lack of having long term friends in his life, his health issues were so bad that he died of a bloody heart attack. Before his death was made news, Kan deeply regretted that his estranged mentor didn’t eat much vegetables for a long time. 

Rasmus (ラスムス): Mainly known by his alias Kan (カーン). Diro’s most accomplished ex-student. He’s a cunning former bandit, albeit a man somewhat sympathetic to Kate’s physically morbid abuse by his own more villainous former friend, whom the bandits have followed for a long time. The reason why he’s rather corrupt is because he and his older full brother, their own parents and paternal grandparents, plus their own cows and goats had their house raided by his dad’s estranged friend’s father during a pretty bad village conflict. As a result, he went to join a bunch of rather (understandably) vicious bandits led by his once-hero, Diro. 

Andrew (アンドリュー): Kan’s surviving older brother who happens to be tough and quite strict, although he does love the former nonetheless. 

Jörn Van Halen (ヨルン・ヴァン・ハレン): Jorn had a pair of wildly different parents, who constantly clashed on each other for much of their lives. To make things even worse, his malignantly psychopathic mum was such a horrendous parent and wife, that not even her husband lived long after poor Jorn passed at a corrupt exam (in other words, she basically dissected him to death). Although a bad boss with well meant intentions, he did show some remorse at times, but couldn’t feel that his mum was more likely to be a genuine war criminal. He strongly liked to blow up the ratings by shoving tons of overtime work onto his workplace victims, as it was him who frequently is both the heavy and the top antagonist throughout the story’s middle two thirds. Some of his own Mooks are the men behind the man, frequently harassing him in tow.  

Irma Meyn Van Halen (イルマ・マイン・ヴァン・ハレン): Jorn’s life-threatening smother of a mother, who was herself a threat even to her Mooks until she herself got happily killed off for good, albeit by her own other daughter of all people. Said Mooks threw Jorn out of their way and into the ground floor of their infamously OSHA-noncompliant factory, just before deliberately bombing it for good as he dies.

Lenora Van Halen (レノラ・ヴァン・ハレン): Lenora Van Halen is one of Irma’s daughters. As her rather interesting first appearance suggests, she basically left the house at ten (due to the horrid abuse her mother had on her) and lived in Kenya for a long time without Joe even realising she’s there. It is implied that she is irresistibly suggestive partly because of how downright gorgeous her Olympia Rolls are.

Galina Yelchin (ガリーナ・イェルチン): A Soviet Russian blonde who cleanly brushed her hair and clearly mocked against the deadly politics of 1930s Germany, although to be fair, she’s quite hypocritical about the then current Russian elite for reasons related to safety. 

The Krupp Crime Family (クルップ犯罪一家): 

How not to be a Horribly Misled Comic Book Dweeb

Not everyone seems to like something without any continuity whatsoever. However, the few things that negative continuity seems to happily bundle with are also the ones that also make it a relative godsend, which is mostly for people who frankly don’t know much better or even any differently. 

For example, Comic Book Time is often done so badly as to hound over or even intrude the sanities of not just the typical comic book readership, but also of the societal majority. Not so for Webcomic Time, which mostly seems to cow over the former in terms of not displeasing (almost all of) society as often.