#joruk

002 | Give me a character & I will tell you:

· How I feel about this character: I like him! Joruk’s very much an “average” guy,(compared to the pure fanservice that is Azel) but because of that he’sperfect to play the “only sane man”role. The Hergal clan really should have listened to him.

· All thepeople I ship romantically with this character: Eh…I can’t really think ofanyone. He’s old enough to be married right? Because he reminds me of Sami, Ican’t help but imagine him being married to someone like the twins. Maybe withAzel? We already got yuri fanservice – maybe it’s time for Mori-sensei to pullout some yaoi.

· Mynon-romantic OTP for this character: Amira. I like their interaction, brief as it is. You can tell that hedoes care for her. I want to see aflashback of their childhood.

· My unpopularopinion about this character: Nothing.

· One thingI wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wantthat childhood flashback. Alternatively, I’d like to see his lifestyle in theHergal clan.

· My OTP: Amira/Joruk Friendship!

· My crossover ship: N/A

I've recently become obsessed with Otoyomegatari, it's just a lovely piece of historical slice of life. Since the ethnicity of some of the characters has finally been revealed recently, I thought I'd provide some real life facts.

Amira's Family. Since Karluk's town goes Uzbek/Uyghur, I'm going to assume the first part is their area of residence and the second part is their actual ethnicity. In other words, Amira's family is ethnically of Kyrgyz descent and living in what will become Kazakhstan. The Kyrgyz and Kazakh languages are said to be pretty mutually intelligible, with about 75-80% intelligibility. For reference, two languages must have an intelligibility of at least 90% to be considered dialects of each other. In short, Amira and her family are probably fairly competent in communicating with the Kazakh majority, which would be important in situations regarding commerce or land-grazing agreements. Nonetheless, being a minority in this region would likely add to some of the distrust Amira's older brother has for the surrounding tribes. As a side note, the more Mongolian-look of the clothing Amira's relatives wear makes a lot more sense now, as Kazakstan was once under Mongolian rule.

As for the specific location of Amira's family, I don't think we've been given any names (correct me if I'm wrong). However, what we do know is that Karluk's town is located "somewhere near the Caspian Sea" and Amira comes from "a distant village over the mountains".

A quick glance at a map of the Caspian Sea reveals that the closest part of Uzbekistan to the sea is the area bordered by Kazakhstan to the west and Turkmenistan to the south and east. There doesn't appear to be any noteworthy mountains along the Kazakh-Uzbek boarder so I can't get anymore information past that; on the plus side, at least Amira didn't have too difficult a time traversing all the way to Karluk's village.