China ACG Culture
The New Superman is Chinese
A new Superman comic book series by DC Comics is coming out. No Clark Kent this time, but teenager Kenji Kong – a young Chinese superhero with a Japanese name.
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Guest
April 8, 2016 at 9:52 pm
Not sure what’s the focus. “Kenji” isn’t used here as a given name, so the Japanese association is invalid. Instead, it is clearly used as an Anglicized forename, eg. “Sherlock” Holmes, “Homer” Simpson, “Remington” Steele, etc. In fact, it’s already a relatively familiar choice among overseas Chinese: 3 Taiwanese celebs (吳克群, 陈子胤, 林学楷) adopted it; ditto some Hong Kong commoners I’ve come across. There is even a fairly well-known hairstylist duo in Singapore called Benji & Kenji. If they want, DC comics can profile “Kenji Kong” as, say, a 21st-century Westernized descendant of Confucius (Kongfuzi).