From: Reid Carson <rcarson@landmark.com>
   Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 10:52:24 -0400

   >From: 	Ross McKenzie[SMTP:rmckenzi@euclid.ucsd.edu]
   >Sent: 	Monday, May 20, 1996 3:24 PM
   >Subject: 	anime background info needed

   >	I need some names for a new fanfic:
   >3) Konatsu's (the crossdressing ninja from R1/2) family name

	   I double checked my copy of vol. 35, and on page 96 Konatsu 
   introduces himself by saying, "Kunoichi, Konatsu Kenzan." So
   Konatsu is evidently the family name, and Kenzan the given name. I
   do find it a bit odd that no one, not even Konatsu's
   step-relatives, calls him anything but Konatsu, as well as the fact
   that the other time Takahashi uses the name Konatsu, in Maison
   Ikkoku, she uses it as a female given name, but there you
   are. Unless it's the custom for kunoichi to introduce themselves by
   giving their names in the reverse of the usual Japanese order....

Be careful; according to Nelson, those kanji are normally "kenzan
suru", meaning "see, meet," and if I remember correctly, I've heard
kenzan or something like that used before in a stock Entrance (e.g.
Jinno Hazumi's entrance in the beginning of episode #1 of Bauken
Campus Guardress).  

This may be akin to the more familiar "position/status name (tadaima
(sometimes)) sanjyo", where the kanji for zan and san are the same.

					- Harold