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In Kara no Kyoukai, Araya comments to Lio saying that he just needed one
character to be called a lion.

English-wise, this would be very correct, but given that these characters are
talking in Japanese, I doubt that Lio needed an
[ン](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_\(kana\)), and according to the
[Wikia](http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Lio_Shirazumi), Shirazumi Lio's name in
Japanese is 白純里緒 not シラズミ リ゜オ.

So in his Japanese name, what character is Araya saying Lio is missing to be
called Lion?


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2015-12-09T22:41:51.393
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question
japanese-language the-garden-of-sinners
What character is missing from Lio Shirazumi's name to allow him be called Lion?


Weirdly enough, Araya must, in fact, be referring to the fact that "Lio" is
one English letter away from "lion". This has to be the case because "lion" in
Japanese is 獅子 _shishi_ , which bears no resemblance whatsoever to Shirazumi's
name.

Of course, Araya should be fluent in English, having lived at the Clock Tower
in London for some years, so it's not _that_ weird. And Nasu (the author)
clearly knows enough English to give us silly phrases like "blue blue glass
moon" and "heavens feel", so I wouldn't put it past him to put a touch of
English wordplay into Kara no Kyoukai

([Some guy on
chiebukuro](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1334358478)
claims that it's actually that リオ "Lio" is one Japanese character away from レオ
"Leo" as in the zodiac lion, but I think that guy's claim is dumb.)

(Side note about Japanese: English "lion" is pronounced ライオン _raion_ , so you
can't actually get Japanese _raion_ from "Lio" with a single character in
either English or Japanese. But you can get English "lion", which is why I say
that that's what Araya must've been going for.)


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answer