Why is it that the slender, flat-chested girl is always named Futaba? Because that’s what the name means: 双葉 = bud, sprout.

With that out of the way, perhaps a better question would be why busty, unable-to-confess childhood friend Manami’s last name is written 金武城 but pronounced as if it were simply 金城 (which, incidentally, is a word meaning “impregnable fortress”). It’s unusual enough to get furigana in the original novels, since if you were to use the likely reading for all three kanji, it would be Kin-bu-jou, but it’s simply Kin-jou.

But it turns out you can read 金武 as Kin. And there’s a city by that name in Okinawa, that happens to be the location of the US Marine Corps base Camp Hansen. Surely this is simple coincidence, and has no connection whatsoever to Okinawa gun-nut Manami, who was training to join the CIA…

And is it wrong for me to want someone to make a Jens figurine?