Chapter 8 page 18
[Screen reads: Gladiatorbot persona source materials / The Tale of Gen… Foundational knowledge…
Small clip with a smiley face appears on an alert to the right: Ready to download? Please enter persona name… next screen…]
Tech: This is a big starter pack! Makes sense. Perfect replacement for the Prince!
(Doo doo doo~ entering gladiatorbot name~)
*clak clak clak clak clak clak clak*
Start up tech 2: How’s it going?
Author’s notes: Did I spend 5 years drawing and writing 500+ pages of comics just so I can have a Tale of Genji gladiatorbot? MAYBE I DID. (No, I actually didn’t, but recently it feels that way.) BTW, I’m amazed if you guessed it!
The Tale of Genji/Genji Monogatari, sometimes considered the world’s first novel, was written over 1,000 years ago by a noblewoman we call Murasaki Shikibu (her real name is lost to history). She was creating for women, and the entire thing is written in kana, or women’s writing (men of the time were writing in Chinese). The Tale of Genji was already wildly popular in Murasaki’s own lifetime with audiences of all genders, and has since spawned centuries of scholarship and debates.
♥ Maiji (January 7, 2021)
