i never paid much attention to this manga, but i've been reading about the chinese legend that it's based (fengshen bang, or fengshen yanyi) and it just sort of strikes me how poorly done a lot of translations of japanese works set in china actually are. everyone has a japanese name in the english version, even though in the japanese version these names are japanese approximations of chinese names, and it just seems weird. even the name of the thing "hoshin engi" is the japanese reading of the characters for "fengshen yanyi".
reminds me of a similar thing a while back when a british tv channel commisioned dubs of the 20 or so episodes of saiyuki (70s japanese tv series) which were not aired in the show's original british run as "monkey", and all the newly appearing characters were called by their japanese names, despite chinese names being used in the original 70s dubbed episodes.
maybe its just me, but that shit bugs me. its like either the translator didn't care enough to determine that a) the characters and locations are chinese and b) what their chinese names are supposed to be, or it was a purposeful decision to make the thing seem more japanese to flog it to the american manga-fan market
or it could be that chinese names suck
seriously i tried to read water margin a few years ago, and i had to take notes to keep all the characters straight
stuff like "Li Gun - Pan Rui's friend and former subordinate, don't confuse with Li Jun (the navy dude) or Li Yun (the martial arts constable)"
atmittantly that's also because water margin just has a fuckton of characters
Chinese names are confusing, that's why. I mean, I'm Chinese and I can't even keep track of the characters in Dynasty Warriors.
it is a bad idea to have lots and lots of characters with name
just take LoTR as an example after some 10chapters in to the first book you start to NOT CARE ANYMORE WHAT THAT RANDOM RETARDS NAME WAS
Yes, characters without names are the way to go. "That dude with the long hair", "that gay wizard" and so forth.
you dont have to keep on introducing new characters all the time and as in alot of fantasy TELL the characters familytree,his son who was killed by that person and that he himself once was a famous warrior who killed this and that
old east and west sagas...and also Most fantasy are filled with this useless information that only fill up the page count