TFCC: Shattered Glass Drift

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

I don't get the use of the Kanji 定 on the bonnet... it means to decide/determine/settle etc. On the regular Drift toy has 侍 ("Samurai") written on the doors... so I don't really see how "decision" relates to that... I thought perhaps having the Kanji 忍 ("shinobi" (i.e. Ninja)) would make more sense, being the opposite of Samurai.

Or if they wanted to go for a semantic opposite, "Samurai" literally means "to serve" or "servant" -- so maybe the Kanji 主 ("master") might make more sense... if Unshattered Glass Drift lives to serve others, then perhaps Shattered Glass Drift lives for others to serve him (kinda like Movie Barricade's "To Punish and Enslave" motto perverting "To serve and protect").

Unless there's some other meaning to it I'm not seeing. <shrug>

Urgh kanji...

Anyways, the tfwiki puts it down to this.

[GoktimusPrime]

Fun Publications has explained that they wanted the character on Shattered Glass Drift's hood to mean "A doom" because Drift "brings A DOOM to any enemy he meets". They were limited to only one character, however, and could not find a singular character that embodied what they wanted to convey.

凶 = きょう (kyou); misfortune, fail, bad luck, catastrophe, plague, distress, affliction, fierce, terrible, ominous

This resulted in the use of the character 定 ("decided", as in "your fate is decided"?), which is "a stretch"

Huh?

Erm... perhaps the saw the word 決定 (けってい; decision) and took the second kanji... but that only means "decided" or "set" (e.g. チキンカツ定食 (chicken cutlets set menu). I reckon it would've made more sense if they took the first kanji (決) as that's the actual one that means 'decision' even on it's own (because it's the same Kanji in the world 決める (きめる); to decide, thus 決定 literally means a "set decision").

Of course, 決 on it's own is pronounced as けつ ("ketsu") which sounds like the Japanese word for bum... heh. But it would've made more sense than 定 in terms of picking a single kanji to use as "decision."

I still think 忍 (stealth) would have made sense too -- aside from being the polar opposite of Samurai, it would have kind fitted the Deadpool thing too, since he also wears a mask concealing his identity like a ninja. <shrug> I reckon FB should've consulted someone like Doug Dlin over this. :/