Yes, this is another trivia post for Innocence Seekers: The Black Rose. This time, I will talk about some of the inspirations for the current set of characters in the stories. Obviously, no character is completely original; they are either inspired or based on one or several fictional characters (or tropes), or they could be based on real life people. I will list a number of these influences below.
The relationship between Akari, Michiru and Yayoi, as well as the way they became friends, was partially inspired by Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (specifically, the relationship between Nanoha, Alisa and Suzuka). It largely follows the same pattern: one bullies the other, a third person intervenes, the bully then gets into a fight with said third person, which is stopped by the person who was bullied.
Hiyori was partially inspired by Mami Tomoe of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (including the colour theme and the use of guns).
Sometimes, I take aspects of characters from some of my other projects and put them into new characters, and Innocence Seekers is no exception. In some cases, I may even take aspects from other characters in the same project and put them into new characters. In fact, Akari was partially based on Amelia and Erika (and their mage outfits are effectively palette swaps of each other), and this is shown by the fact that they prefer to use the same element (fire). Michiru was partially based on Fuyuka.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Mirai is based on Nanako of Yume ni Aruku. This can be seen not only in their personalities (both are rather shy), but also the roles some of the other characters have regarding them (Sakura and Inori more or less fulfil the same roles Shion and Yae had, respectively).
That will be it for now. I may put up another trivia post next, but my next Innocence Seekers post will be Mizuki’s bio.
P.S. Happy birthday to Hiro of Hidamari Sketch and Japanese voice actress Rina Hidaka!
P.P.S. For From the Scattered Petals, to the Blooming Flower, I’ve created more characters. In addition, I gave Teru a little sister, meaning I may have to rewrite the first episode.
P.P.P.S. The Spring 2016 anime season is drawing to a close. I’ll give my thoughts on some of these anime in a later post.