Daisuke Nagase's Persona: Take-Minakata

Take-Minakata was one of the child dieties of Okuninushi.  When the dieties of the heavens came down to increase their power over the land, Take-Mikazuchi challenged Take-Minakata in what was considered the first sumo match ever.  Take-Minakata lost his arms in the bout and conceded victory to Take-Mikazuchi and left to become the patron deity of Lake Suwa, where it is believed he is responsible for the cracking on the ice’s surface when the lake freezes over.

Four aspects I wanted to pull into this design—one, the obvious sumo wrestler look, to call back to the myth.  Two, I wanted him to look something like a foil to Kanji’s Take-Mikazuchi, so I stuck with a kind of big pseudo robot man look.  Three, the armless nature of Take-Minakata was important, but I don’t consider the Persona I’ve designed to be actually armless.  Rather, I feel his arms are actually hidden inside the body, and you can see in an earlier design that I was playing with showing them on the outside (but felt it took away from making him at least look armless).

And then four, I wanted to call back to the chained up to a big ball thing of my Shadow Daisuke design, so I came up with the solution of having chains coming from where his arms should be and having them attached to big wrecking ball things, like he’s turned his self handicap into strength.