KANZEN THE KENNEN

 

Name: Kanzen the Kennen

Trivia: The Kennen is his character’s nickname in the drama. It has since become so iconic that his fans have attached it to his real name. The “kennen” originated as an elfen play on the words kenen (thunder) and denen (loyal, faithful), referring to “a thunderbolt that would never strike its master”. This phrase was first used by Esta mages to refer to the nature of their own magic, but became widespread as a way to refer to dangerous pets that nevertheless would not poise danger to their own masters. Kennen is in itself a play on Kanzen’s name: -nz- is not a native sound in elfen (the language the drama airs in), so Kanzen’s name often becomes “kannen” which, depending on pronunciation, can be indistinguishable from “kennen”.

Nationality: Kingdom of Barien

Role: main cast and official mascot

Trivia: Kanzen was scouted by Higre after the series had already started airing, so the lack of foreshadowing for his abrupt debut in the series angered many fans at the time. The Director and scriptwriter did their best to ret-con his presence in the main cast, to varying degrees of success. But it’s all water under the bridge now, and even the harshest plot-hole hunters have since yielded to Kanzen’s superb acting skills and overall charm.

Personality: making plans and sticking to them might not be one of Kanzen’s fortes, but riding the flow with wild abandon sure is.

 

"Don't you get tired of worrying all the time?"

 

And now on to the more useless facts.

Fun Fact #1

Many will be surprised to learn that Kanzen majored in Apothecary, and is an officially licensed Alchemist. Apothecary is widely regarded as the most taxing of alchemical disciplines, requiring disciples to spend years pouring over textbooks and rote memorizing thousands of formulas, so it is said that only those with a will of steel can hope to achieve greatness in this field. Now that is not something you’d expect from someone with the attention span of a 3 year old such as Kanzen.

Trivia: Alchemy, which originated as a discipline bridging magic and technomancy, has developed into many branches, the most notable ones being Healing, Apothecary and Transmutation.

Fun Fact #2

On a regular day, if you were to be looking for Kanzen, there are high chances you will find him at the set’s lounge, partaking in Deymera’s day-drinking habits. Recently he has only been allowed to have mocktails and herbal tea, after Higre found out and forbade bartender Bruel to serve Kanzen alcohol.

Fun Fact #3

Kanzen is the number one (and only) fan of Higre’s cooking. Among his favourite foods is a certain infamous banana seaweed beef stew, a recipe invented by Higre by combining Thasaru’s traditional meat stew dish with Roete seafruit wraps.

Trivia: While Higre mistakenly thought a Roete seafruit wrap is a dish of fruit wrapped in seaweed, there is actually no fruit in it. This misunderstanding stems for a mistranslation of the dish’s elfen name sulistor’tilber, whose original meaning is in fact “fruits of the sea”. In Roete seafruit wraps are composed of thinly sliced seafood served in a seaweed package.