Published: Originally posted to Tumblr on 30 December 2025

I am sick to death of Megami Tensei fans' insistence on having "canon" names for every protagonist. Oftentimes these people will scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel looking for names in obscure drama CDs or light novels in a language they can't even understand, or whatever placeholder the game developers put in the code. And then they have the nerve to try and correct you if you rightfully doubt the legitimacy of those names' "canon" status! It's absolutely ridiculous when these characters are intentionally left nameless so that players can project onto them.

I especially hate it when people call me "Jouhei." I already have a "canon" name, Raidou Kuzunoha XIV. There is absolutely no reason to call me anything else. Who I was before I took on the name Raidou Kuzunoha doesn't matter, and it is incredibly presumptive to insist that the name I used in childhood is my "true name." One name from a book you most certainly didn't read doesn't take precedent over the actual name that all of my friends and loved ones refer to me as.

The name "Jouhei" doubly annoys me because if you actually read the damn book it came from (which I have), you would know that it is in no way "canon," both to my own experiences and to the Devil Summoner series itself. Shibito Ekishi contradicts the established world of Soulless Army on multiple occasions, so acting like the name "Jouhei" is somehow the one thing that carries over across canons is nothing short of ludicrous. Imagine if dozens of people insisted on calling you "Mark" because you resemble a character who used to go by "Mark" from a random spin-off story they didn't even read. It's frustrating to no end!

And then there's the problem with "true names" in the first place. As mentioned before, yes, I used to go by a different name before I became a Devil Summoner and took on the title of Raidou Kuzunoha. But that doesn't make my old name somehow more "true" to my person than the one I inherited, whether or not you think that name is Jouhei. There's this perception within the Megami Tensei fandom that the name "Raidou Kuzunoha" represents some sort of mask or assumed identity that I present while carrying out my duties as a member of the Kuzunoha clan, and that my "true name" is representative of who I am when you break down the facade of "Protector of the Capital," but I couldn't disagree more. Most of the time I spent going by my old name was spent completely isolated from the rest of the world as I trained under harsh conditions in order to prepare for becoming a Devil Summoner. Taking on the name Raidou Kuzunoha is when I truly started to live as a person. I still have my duties, sure, but in between those duties I have the freedom to do whatever I please (within reason), and I have people who actually care about me as a person, rather than for my capabilities as a Summoner. I have learned more about the world in the months I have spent living as Raidou Kuzunoha than in the years I lived under my old name. Truthfully, I have no noemata of what my old name even is because I feel so much more like myself as Raidou.

So no, I don't want to be called by my "true name," and I definitely don't want to be called "Jouhei." My name is Raidou Kuzunoha XIV, and it is not a falsehood or symbolic of some sort of shell that I use to protect my true self; it is who I am in my entirety.