Ubenakimaru

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Ubenakimaru is a fictional character and the protagonist in the story, "The Legend of Ubenakimaru." His story was introduced a long time ago, but has never been actually written down. Instead, it is always told be world of mouth. Because of this, information may be slightly different than other sources because there are many variations to the story.

[edit] Influences

Ubenakimaru seems to have had many influences. He seems at first to be a traditional hero, influenced by many of the other heroes told about in various mythologies. Ubenakimaru does qualify as a mythic hero. However, he seems to have a modern influence as well. Ubenakimaru uses magic powers and impossible skills, and his story also is reminicent of many newer stories. Despite influences from other stories, Ubenakimaru and his story conciously stray from being influenced by politics and real-world problems. The origin of the name Ubenakimaru is unknown. There have been identifications of possible influences for it, but it seems the name was just randomly created by the author.

[edit] Development

Ubenakimaru has changed a lot during the years his story has been told. When the story first started, Ubenakimaru had less of a complex personality. Also near the beginning, Ubenakimaru was seen as an almighty hero and wiseman capable of completing any task with ease. But as time went on he got more of a complex personality and he became weaker, being actually challenged by his opponents and suffering many failures. Part of this is because the story has been only told by mouth. It began to encompass his whole life instead of just one part as it continued to be told. With looking at an early childhood, one is able to see possible motivations for his later actions.

[edit] Criticism

Ubenakimaru has attracted quite a bit of criticism. A big criticism he has suffered has been his name. Many have had trouble pronouncing it, and critics have said that it is unnecessarily long. Also, Ubenakimaru has been criticized for his storyline being overly cliched, however some say Ubenakimaru is just the opposite. Some critics criticize Ubenakimaru for being overly random and they say his strange visions and ideas are hard to follow. Yet at the same time Ubenakimaru has been applauded for his creativeness and originality no matter how cliched the plot is or how hard his name is to pronounce.