Illustration by Minteaxo

Wondering who is the guy on Twisted Destiny’s book cover? Well, that’s Takumi Ichirou. And yes, he’s also the same guy who appears in my previous novel, The Diary of Modern Cinderella. Just like in the typical manga fashion, I’d like to dive into what inspires me to create a character like Takumi. I’ll be doing the same for the rest of the characters in The Diary of Modern Cinderella and Twisted Destiny, but it’s going to take awhile. So, please wait patiently for me to reveal the characters’ look.

Anyway, here’s the sneak peek of the inspiration behind the character design for Takumi.

What inspires me to create a character like Takumi

I already had the thought of writing Twisted Destiny way back before I’ve written The Diary of Modern Cinderella. At that time, I was in the middle of watching Yowamushi Pedal and I was such a huge fan of one of the characters from the anime, Jinpachi Toudou. In fact, I went all the way to get Yowamushi Pedal: Spare Bike manga with him on the cover which you could only get it in Animate and it was only available for pre-order.

I thought that it would be great to have a character with a similar personality like Toudou and that was when Takumi was born. For some odd reason, Takumi doesn’t even come close to Toudou at all when I was writing the first draft for Twisted Destiny. The only thing they have in common is they have girls in their school raving about them.

I guess Takumi may have the same personality like Toudou if the storyline doesn’t change at all.

Inspiration behind Takumi’s look

Even when I was in the middle of writing the first draft, I still have no clue on how Takumi’s hairstyle should look like. It was until I watched Donten ni Warau that sparked the idea what hairstyle I want for Takumi. And that’s when I think I want the same hairstyle like Abe no Hirari for Takumi. Well, Abe no Hirari is an ikemen too so I bet that his hairstyle will look great on Takumi as well.

Abe no Hirari is at the rightmost, in case you didn’t watch Donten ni Warau

Even though I like Abe no Hirari’s hairstyle, his hairstyle seems too mature for Takumi and I’m worried it will make Takumi looks older than his real age. I know some people tend to look older despite his or her age, but I don’t want Takumi to fall in that kind of category. Heck, why would I want a main character to look older than his real age, right?

When I showed this picture to my niece, my niece flatly hated his hairstyle. She thought that his hairstyle was too messy and it wouldn’t look good on Takumi. I guess my hunch was right after all. As much as I love Abe no Hirari’s hairstyle, it just won’t look good on Takumi. So, I guess I can use Abe no Hirari’s hairstyle for reference, but I have to make Takumi’s hairstyle short.

And now I have another problem: will Abe no Hirari’s hairstyle still looks good if his hair is shorter than the original length? Now I’m worried that it will look awful. Thanks to Minteaxo’s magic, we’ve got Takumi’s current hairstyle which looks great. In fact, Takumi’s hairstyle looks similar to Abe no Sousei’s current hairstyle in Donten ni Warau Gaiden.

Well, that’s just a coincidence though. I didn’t know about it until I’ve read the manga recently. What matters the most is, Takumi has this ikemen look which is enough for me. For heaven’s sake, Takumi is the main character so he should be the ikemen. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense why he’s popular!

Takumi’s full stat

Since this novel is about basketball, it doesn’t make sense at all if you don’t know the character’s full stat, right? So, here’s Takumi’s full stat for those who are curious about him.

Okay, I have no idea what I need to write about his full stat so if you have any question, feel free to leave a question in the comment section below. If there are too many questions, I guess I should make another blog post compiling everything about him in a single blog post. That should be much easier to read compared to strings of comments in the blog post.

Twisted Destiny is currently available for pre-order when this blog post is written, so if you’re interested to get this novel, you can pre-order it here:

Buy Twisted Destiny

Over to you

What do you think about the inspiration behind Twisted Destiny’s main character, Takumi? Share your thoughts in the comment below. I’d like to hear more about it.