Ice-Head Gill: Research Notes

Tucker

Title:

• Ice-Head Gill アイスヘッドギル
  • Title is just English written in katakana

Author

• Hachiya, Ikuo 蜂矢育生
  • Hah-chee-yah, Ee-kɯ-oh

Characters

• Gill Sol
  • Pronounced pretty much how it looks
  • Japanese spelling has the  “o” being a long vowel…I bet the name is supposed to a reference to the English word “soul” rather than the Latin word for sun
• Mela/Mera
  • Meh-lah
• Dreki Sol/Doreki Sol
  • Honestly not sure what the author was going for here or if the translator made the correct call to write this as “Dreki” as opposed to something like “Doreki.”
• Zakuro
  • Zah-kɯ-ro
• Sana Rani
  • Sah-nah Rah-nee
• Ulfgard
  • Oolf-guard
• Leraje
  • That J is pronounced the Germanic way, like an English “y” sound
  • “Lay-rah-yay”

MaxyBee

Manga Details:

• Author: Ikuo Hachiya
  • Notable people they were an assistant for:
    • Gen Osuka
      • on Doron Dororon (source here)
  • Notable people they had as assistants:
    • None known
  • Other works:
    • Seiryu no Magoi (2022, Shonen Jump Plus, ONE SHOT)
      • A powerful student who uses his strength for profit has his life change when he meets a kind girl.
• Publishing:
  • Run Dates:
    • June 26, 2023 to November 13, 2023
  • Series it replaced
• Mashle: Magic and Muscles by Hajime Komoto (18 vols, hit)
• Series that replaced it
  • Shadow Eliminators by Kento Amemiya
• Series that started at the same time as it
  • Martial Master Asumi by Kawada (1+ volume, ongoing)
• Chapters/Volumes:
  • 20 chapters/2 volumes

Manga Itself / Misc thoughts:

• Viking helmets did not have horns. Hachiya admits this in the volume extras, but says he used them because they looked cool. Honest.
• Dreki’s group of warriors is called Nidhogg/Níðhöggr, after the dragon that gnaws upon the roots of the world tree. Dreki also just means dragon. Dragons all the way down.
• The Dainn Royal Antlers are named for one of the deer that eats among the branches of the world tree.
• The Hræsvelgr Royal Wings are named for the Eagle who sits at Heaven’s End, the originator of wind.
• The Ratatoskr Royal fangs are named for the squirrel who runs up and down the world tree, sending messages between the eagles and the nidhogg.
• Gill’s name is just old norse for like a river or ravine. Sol is, of course, the sun.
• King Ond’s name seems to come from the Icelandic word for duck. The action, not the bird.
• The fear of eating alone is called solomangarephobia.
• The Rani were a real west slavic tribe! They were around from roughly the 9th century up until 1168, at which point they were defeated by the King of Norway and the island of Rügen they occupied was subject to Christian conversion, eventually becoming a part of Germany.
• The relic Gleipnir is named after the impossible to break chain that held the wolf Fenrir, made of the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of women, the roots of mountains, the sinews of bear, the breath of fish, and the spittle of birds.
• Idunn the troll is named for the norse god of fertility, who famously produced immortality-granting apples.
• Do they even acknowledge Varthur is a Rani? Or that Orden’s surname is Sol?
• Munin the crow man is of course named for one of Odin’s two crows, Hugin and Munin.
• Slepnir is Odin’s Eight-legged horse.
• Volume extras include:
  • Design notes (including pre-serialisation)
  • 4-panel gag strips
  • Some cute sketches
  • A relationship chart for the king and his men
  • An ‘Ice-Head Saga’ closing page from Sana Rani, because this is a book, remember?
• You should have ‘one of us will get Gill’s haircut’ as a patreon milestone.