Akito Takenaka

"Princess pronouns and prophesy-fulfilling amnesia aside? I like my destiny. And I may love it here but I have to go back, I just sense it! They watch over me, up there, and no story or lack thereof can change it."

- Akito's card quote

Akito Takenaka is the biological son of Kaguya-Hime, the moon-princess from the fairy tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. He is being raised by two elderly relatives of the late bamboo cutter and his wife, people that he very much considers to be his closest family.

Though he may refer to himself as a Royal for convenience sake, he personally prefers not to get involved with the messiness involved in Royal-Rebel drama. He simply believes that someone's choice to change or stick with their fate (or not) is their business alone to deal with. As he thinks that he'll be made to return to his birth home regardless of whether or not he rebels his own story (and he wants to go through with his tale, though he'd love to regain his memory at some point), he has a love-hate relationship with his destiny and how it personally affects him.

Portrayal
For his English voice actor, I literally have no clue! No really, this entire two-sentenced paragraph is simply filler for later.

As for live action, other than the fact that the portrayal in question is cis, actor and J-pop singer Shori Sato would be an exceptionally well-fit match for him. Appropriately matching Akito's age range, his charming and boyish appearance aligns quite well with him standing 5'5", not to mention his infectious and charismatic stage presence.

Personality
Akito is an inquisitive if somewhat mercurial teen, an adolescent who is venturesome and rarely backs down from trying new things. Though not too in-your-face regarding his royal birth, being raised under the care of an old bamboo cutter, he is nonetheless curious about where he came from (however little he knows about it). Destined to lose his memories of the land he currently calls home, and all too wary of being forgotten by those on earth, the lunar prince wants the time he has left in the land to mean something.

While he appears to keep a level head at first glance, the prince is quite excitable and rarely stays completely still. Sometimes this is masked by twiddling his fingers or foot-tapping, even clicking pens and other means of subtle stimming; other times he'll pace around or join his friends/local troublemakers in a little bit of fun, all under the guise of a calm smile with an air of nobility. Akito has an active mind that he likes to keep stimulated, a strength of affability and a weakness for compulsion. In a way this helps fuels his drive to feel remembered, but more often than not this wears him out mentally and in a worst-case scenario, it can even get him into trouble.

His short-term memory is a sporadic and his attention to detail is a little bit... odd, such as remembering a friend's specific idiocentricities yet forgetting obvious details on how they met, or drawing a blank on someone or something's name no matter how how many times it's been said. Nonetheless Akito tries his best to be there for his friends -- then again, he would be friends with almost everyone and anyone if he had his own way. Though he knows deep down that this is impossible, that doesn't stop him from trying to reach out to people. Even when they turn out to be toxic.

That said, he may avoid people he's met who've shown a pessimist demeanor, as his tolerance of criticism – whether shown or not – is small to the point of hypersensitivity. Even more conversely, Akito doesn't always think before he speaks, his mind rushing a mile a minute before he can process how what he's saying could potentially rub off the wrong way. He really does want mean well however – he genuinely likes people and he’s a naturally sociable person – it's just that his mutability has a profound effect on his otherwise approachable nature.

Overall, whether letting loose with friends, socializing with acquaintances, or being curt around those who have earned his disdain, wax, wane, and the energy that drives him are key terms that are essential to who he is – like the many phases of the moon itself.

Abilities, Hobbies, and Interests
As one would likely figure, Akito has innate abilities pertaining to his lunar lineage. The most obvious of these is his skin tone's bioluminescence, casting a bright, blue and golden glow even within the darkest of abodes. There is also a tendency for bodies of water to rise or make waves when he nears their presence, if somewhat minimally. The young prince can also have the ability to conduct moonlight onto other surfaces: mirrors, transparent windows, crystals, as long as there is a reflective or shiny surface, he can cause them to temporarily emit or refract light at the will.

The lunar cycle affects his energy levels subtly depending on his mood, and in general has an effect on the strength on the overall assets of his powers; waxing = increase, waning = decrease. On a new moon he may feel lethargic, and when it's full his levels are high and he's practically restless while under the night sky. For reasons that are obvious, a bad day when combined with either phase is not a pretty picture to behold.

Beyond his moon-powers, Akito is a fan of travel – not quite in vein of his nature-loving BFFA or an hextreme sports junkie like Briar, but he's into urban exploration and natural caverns. While he knows he can't visit every locale before he leaves Ever After, the teen wants to look into what spaces he can before it's time to live out his destiny. He likes to photograph these remote spots, making them his favorite and only subjects to capture on film.

He also has a thing for poetry – both reading, writing, and even reciting it. Although his rhyming is somewhat lacking in English (he finds it much easier to do so in Japanese, bilingual or not), he shines in the realm of rhyme-less poems with structure as well as free verse. He's an avid participant in Ever After's Nursery Slam (a terribad pun on Poetry Slam because Aki's creator is lame) and takes quite a bit of pride in this.

Something to note is that while the prince has exceptional reading comprehension skills for his age, he doesn't read a whole lot on works beyond his poetic interests and short stories. It's not that he can't flip through a novel or become engrossed in a book series, he's just simply a slower reader and reading retention isn't quite his strong point; all in all, concentration is a challenge for him in terms of longer written prose (among other areas). Having been picked on for his reading struggles when younger, he's wary of people who think themselves superior to those who don't read/have trouble with it otherwise.

That said: sci-fi, astronomy, and really anything relating to space are topics he takes quite a bit of interest in, to the point where he can usually sit through and read anything on these subjects with relative ease (attention-fatigue aside and with a break here and there). The tale of Orihime and Hikoboshi (the weaver girl and cowherd, or the stars Vega and Altair) is a favorite of his; then again, his affinity for deep space isn't limited to books by any stretch.

Appearance
Akito is of fairly short-average height for someone his age, being slender-built and youthfully handsome at 5'4".

Straight blue-black tresses – as deep as the night sky – tend to stick out in random, spiked strands no matter now much he smooths it out. His hair is roughly a few inches above shoulder length, and he often parts it in stylishly asymmetrical bangs. They help to frame his round face and half-moon eyes, the latter a notably dark brown.

His skin, however, is often the first thing that one will notice;  a light shade of peach, but with notably glowing, strikingly blue undertones. His bioluminescence, as mentioned earlier, is especially notable in areas that would normally be shrouded in darkness, emitting a bright, celestial glow only rivaled by Daring's teeth.

Fortunately for most students, his literally bright complexion has yet to blind anyone in his presence.

How it goes
Wikipedia is your friend. For a detailed and direct translation of one version of the folktale, go here. For the sake of redundancy, here is a readily skippable synopsis:

The tale starts with an old couple with no children, the husband in particular being an aged bamboo cutter. One night he discovered a glowing bamboo tree, deciding to cut it down only to find a pretty yet tiny baby girl within its thin hollow crevice. He took the infant home to show his wife, naming her Kaguya-Hime, and the two decided to raise her as their own. From then on, for every bamboo tree the man cut down, he would find a piece of gold within its stock, even discovering other precious gems and metals on occasion. The riches he earned from the bamboo-valuables made his family the wealthiest in the village. Their once small child, having grown into a gorgeous young woman who literally brightened up the household, was treated as royalty in their then richly furnished home.

Rumors spread of Kaguya's beauty. Men from all across the land came see her, but she showed no interest in their offers of marriage. She was eventually persuaded by her father however, when 5 proposals were made by a group of princes/men of varying degrees of nobility (depending on the version, that is). She gave each of them one of 5 impossible tasks, each of them expected to retrieve a specific object for her. Long story short, they all failed. Three of the “returned” items were fakes, and the last two items were never found.

Meanwhile, the Emperor of the land showed interest in the mysterious Kaguya-Hime. She rejected his offer too, however, but they eventually became good friends, even sending poetry and letters to each other once they parted.

As the months passed by Kaguya grew ill at ease, looking forlorn at the summer moon at night and even sobbing whenever the moon became full. After a few failed attempts to ask what was wrong, she finally revealed that she was sent down to earth from her birthplace in Tsuki-no-Miyako (the moon-capital) and that, truly belonging there as a citizen (and a princess),  she must return to the moon during August (after autumn starts, according to the Japanese calendar). Depending on the version, Kaguya is sometimes sent away from home due to a celestial war; in other accounts, she is living out the sentence for a crime. Though it depend, the reason, more often than not, usually isn't explained. The precious metals and jewels that the bamboo cutter found were payment in exchange for having taking care of her. While she wanted to stay on earth, Kaguya knew it was impossible to prevent her departure.

The Emperor found out, and he sent his many guards to prevent the moon-people from seizing her. But alas her celestial entourage arrived, and with their otherworldly powers the Emperor's men were forced to helplessly stand by. The people of the moon gave Kaguya a potion filled with the elixir of life, and once she drank it, she became immortal. Some of the potion still remained though, and she asked (and was granted) permission to give the elixir to the Emperor's guards so they could send it to him. She also wrote him a message for them to deliver to him, as well as letters to her parents and friends. Then the moon-people gave her a celestial feather robe, and once she wore it, her earthly memories were completely forgotten. She returned to her birth home with no concern for her loved ones at home, while her old and weary parents grew bed-ridden from grief.

When the Emperor received the letter and elixir, his heart was broken. Kaguya had written down that she did want to become his wife, but with her time on earth being only so long, she just couldn't marry someone she was bound to leave anyhow. The Emperor decided not drink the elixir she left him, for he’d rather live a mortal life than rule forever without the woman he loved. He wrote a letter in response to hers, and ordered his men to burn the elixir and the letter on the highest mountain top in the land (mt. Fuji), hoping that the smoke would carry his message across the heavenly bodies and reach the moon-bound princess.

How Akito Ties Into It
Not much is known about Akito's birth place beyond the obvious, yet it's presumed that Kaguya bore a child with someone of celestial, lunar, or of some other space-related noble descent. Who they are is a complete mystery, and even the teen himself has no idea who his birth father is. Meanwhile, the princess's earth-bound parents passed away of a broken heart, and after years of silence passed in the once occupied home, the next bamboo cutter and wife were chosen by the Storybook of Legends (before Raven's mother stole The Book of course, with the current bamboo-cutter being one of the nephew of the last bamboo-cutter himself). They inherited the family fortune left by the long gone family, and as they grew older, the aged and destined bamboo-cutter discovered a small infant within a glowing bamboo reed.

Although Akito was assigned-female at birth (AFAB), he never felt comfortable using "princess" to describe himself. To make a long story short he's transgender (though he wasn't aware of the term at the time), using masculine pronouns and asserting himself as the prince he truly is. He came out to his earth-parents when he was still a nursery rhyme (around 7 to 8 years of age, to be precise), and while dealing with the revelation hasn't always been easy, they've accepted him with care and see Akito for who he is: their beloved and only son, a blessing sent from the moon-people. Along with changing his name to what it is currently (among other things), they have and still support Akito with open arms in his social transitioning.

One of Akito's fears is how his gender identity will impact him after his tale. While his destiny is bittersweet, he's alright with taking Kaguya's place as long as he can resume the title of prince at some point. He's terrified of the possibility that his true gender won't be accepted by the moon's imperial family after the story ends, and especially by Kaguya herself. If the moon-people don't see him as a prince, he'd have a much more difficult time coping as he'll have forgotten the family and friends who already embrace him for who he is. It makes the concept of losing his memories all the more frightening: by the time his "Happily Ever After" comes, he might never know of the support system he once had.

The history and customs of the moon-people are obscure due to seldom visiting the fairytale world in which Ever After High resides in. There's only so much Akito knows about his birthplace, a fact of life that sometimes gets to him. One of his current goals is to find out more about lunar society (and its potential prejudices) before fully deciding whether to fulfill is destiny. He's strongly for it, however, so unless he finds out something that'd change his mind, he'll generally admit that he wants to go through with the tale.

Family
It's not known whether or not Kaguya had more children, but the next bamboo-cutter family has raised Akito as their son, and all three of them live in a stable, loving household. While he doesn't quite consider the princess a parent by traditional means, in an odd way he almost misses his birth mother. Akito is a moon-person and isn't quite human, and like his fairytale parent before him he has always been aware of the fact that he was sent away from his birth home. He doesn't quite remember what the moon was like, but he's spent his life knowing that he wasn't like most fairytale citizens. As he views the bamboo-cutter's wife to be as much of a mother as any, he tends to feel uncomfortable when others refer to Kaguya as his "real" mother.

As of late, possibly related to destiny, he's been having late-night, fragmented flashbacks of once latent memories of his former home. They've caused him to feel a strange sense of homesickness, but he can't seem to explain why.

The Takenaka household is wealthy with a villain-free reputation, so his family's high standing (to an extent) made his gender more easily accepted in the rural village he calls home. Generations of raising royalty and being payed in gold has done wonders for one's income and connections, though it was a struggle getting him assigned to the boys' dormitory at EAH. The solidarity/friendship he formed with Rosalia Fee (a trans girl in a similar position) along with meetings with the Headmaster and schoolboard before entering highschool~* helped him to be placed in a dorm room with his (cis male) Best Friend Forever After.

The arrangement also made way for accommodations in taking princess-oriented classes while being allowed his rightful title as prince: private tutoring/classes before and after school hours, courses arranged on the MirrorNet, anything to help him pass his classes while not raising suspicions among students. More parent-teacher conferences and donations to the school ensued, however.~**

Tsutomu "Ramesh" Yukimura
Akito's BFFA, they're childhood friends who act like sibs from different cribs. Around age 8, Ramesh's family moved into town with his single father (for the Crane Maiden left the wood-cutter, as the story goes), The young prince noticed that Ramesh looked quite different from his Japanese fairytale parent. After excitedly pointing it out, an awkward misunderstanding, and parents taking the acknowledgement too seriously, young!Akito went "wait everyone's freaking out I only said your skin is brown" in which young!Ramesh replied with "loltrue hey wanna hang out?". They hung out indeed, and they've been buds ever since.

Rosalia Fee
They met the month before starting as freshman at Ever After High. He knew he'd have to take testosterone in place of the hormone blockers he was on, and upon overhearing he could get them in a certain part of town, he bumped into Rosa at the doc's office there. She vouched for him there to get his shot every month. which to his pleasant surprise had the ability to change his sex (if only within the aformentioned monthly span). They've been friends/trans allies since then, and sometimes hang out in secret.

'''For his safety, Akito intends to pass as a cis male. His identity as a trans guy isn't widely known aside from the folks from his village, certain teachers, certain classmates from nursery rhyme school, and a select students at Ever After High. This isn't something that he'll readily tell the average fairytale, and for him to reveal that he is trans is a telltale sign that he trusts someone as a close friend.'''

Pets
As did the students in The Storybook of Legends, Akito also received an animal companion: a pudgy white rabbit, one that hopped right his way during the Animal Calling. Since the-bundle-of-fur's roundness reminded him of the shape of most rice cakes, Akito enthusiastically named him Mochi.

Romance
While his tale doesn't end in marriage, the descendants of the Emperor and Kaguya's five noble suitors are primarily guys. As a bisexual, Akito doesn't mind one bit. That said, unless he decides for sure that he doesn't want his destiny, it's a challenge for him to form a relationship in highschool knowing that he'll have to leave his family and schoolmates behind.

Hala Amir
The girl mentioned in his Storybook Romance Status is the daughter/reincarnation of The Little Prince, and they met at a local Tanabata event run by his earth-parents. Hala, whose destiny is tied to the night sky, visited Akito's village with the narrator of her story, and the starlit visitor caught his eye in the best way possible. He didn't get the chance to approach her however, and she disappeared within the celebrating populace. Be it by chance or Cinderella-esque cliche, Hala dropped one half of her newly bought pair of geta. Akito happened to come across the missing shoe.

when school started, Hala turned out to be a classmate in his Astronomy class. Akito has yet to build up the nerve to approach her, though. One thing he noticed was that her behavior at Tanabata, when compared to school, was vastly different; she seemed unapproachable in class and didn't fit in with the conformist setting of Ever After High, but she was happy and in her element at the festival. It made the prince all themore  curious, but Akito is keeping the slipper for now, saving the shoe's delivery for a better time and place. He's unsure if his infatuation will become something more, but whether or not it does? He hopes that he and her can become good friends.

Basic
Over a long-sleeved v-neck shirt with an indigo-violet celestial print, he wears a blue-black zip-up hoodie with azure flame decals, all lining the bottom of the sweater and its sleeves. The zipper handle and the aiguillette of each drawstring are all stylized with the shape of hitodama (flame-like, will o' the wisp type entities that accompany Japanese spirits), yet appear in the shape of blue teardrops from a distance without close inspection. The jacket can be reversed to show a yellow base with orange flames. A dark haramaki wrap printed with the phases of the moon peeks from underneath his space-themed shirt, and overlaps his green, bamboo-print cargo shorts.

Poking from the wrap is a black and white chain clipped to hidden belt loops, which again highlights the lunar cycle. His shoes are a simple pair of violet high top sneakers, the tongue being yellow and the toe of each shoe patterned to appear like craters on the moon's surface. Over his head he wears a simple green bamboo-patterned circlet. The front displays a white gem in the shape of a full moon, each side lined with a semicircular stone with their flat sides facing the center.

Other than the moon/bamboo motifs, there's more story-related symbolism in his attire. First, he wears a cowrie shell bracelet on each wrist: the last of the five impossible tasks was to find a cowrie born by swallows. Another bracelet on his right forearm is woven together in gold and silver, with a white bejeweled flower and metallic leaf charm: the second task was to find the jeweled branch from the island of Horai, the Japanese equivalent of Mount Penglai of Chinese myth. As for his hoodie: the third task was to find the legendary robe of the fire-rat of China. While Kaguya's third suitor did find a robe, the garment burnt down in blue flames, thus it was a fake. Also, the tear-shaped hitodama-aiguillettes are in reference to the tears Kaguya cried while looking at the summer moon.

Legacy Day
[TBA]

Notes/Trivia

 * "Akito" can translate to a number of things depending on the  kanji. Kaguya can also mean "radiant light" or "scattered light" depending on how it's written, so to relate his name to that, the correct spelling of his given name is "bright person" (朗人). "Aki"  can also mean "autumn" ( 秋), being relevant since Kaguya leaves earth during the fall season (it starts on August on the Japanese calendar, which is around the time the story ends), but again it's not the same word.
 * The surname "Takenaka" means "(one who lives) in the middle of bamboo" (竹中).
 * Akito is diagnosed with ADHD, specifically combined type.
 * Sometimes, when Akito is with his pet, he sits Mochi on his head and pulls over the hoodie he wears. Cue bundled up bunbun and Akito pretending he has rabbit ears. Don't try this at home, kids.
 * Although Akito's creator didn't realize it at first, his blue-ish undertones may or may not be a(n accidental) play on the phrase "once in a blue moon" due to the fact that, while most Kaguya-Hime descendants are princesses, Akito is a prince.
 * Both Rosalia Fee and Hala Amir are wonderful creations of by leavesofthree on devinantart, the two of them being mentioned with her explicit permission. In fact everything written about them here has been discussed/planned by the two of us~