I was so amazed by this coincidence. This two image looks awfully similar and feel on cloud nine since last night because it felt like I am seeing my own character on screen. They look just too similar, right?
When I first saw Jenie Koror from the new anime, "Kunon the Magician Can See," my reaction wasn’t jealousy or anger. It was something like shocked yet proud, and honestly harder to describe. A mix of amazement, disbelief and that strange feeling you get when something deeply personal suddenly appears in front of you... moving, animated and as a legit anime.
Jenie Koror is Kunon Gurion’s magic teacher in "Kunon the Sorcerer Can See," a Japanese light novel series about a blind young man who uses water magic to “see” the world in his own way. Through magic, Kunon senses colors, forms constructs, perceives magic power and even discerns details about people that sight would normally reveal, all while pursuing his dream of magically creating physical eyes. Jenie, as his magic teacher, plays a guiding role in shaping his understanding of magic and perception.
But for me, Jenie wasn’t just a new anime character. She felt familiar... uncomfortably familiar. I am weirdly more invested in seeing Jenie than the main character, Kunon because of that familiarity.
On the other side of this comparison is Aqua, a character I created myself more than a decade ago. She isn’t from any anime, novel, or franchise. She doesn’t belong to a world or a story with lore behind it. Aqua is simply my character, one I drew occasionally during my DeviantArt days, purely from imagination. She wasn’t inspired by an existing series, character, person or trend. She was 100% my creation, born from experimenting with designs until something felt right.
That’s why the similarity hit me the way it did.
The defining feature is the thing that makes Aqua... Aqua, is her hairstyle. A braid starting from the front of the face, acting like bangs, sweeping above the ear. The exit point of that braid is hidden by layered bangs in front, while a larger mass of hair and bangs falls to the opposite side, intentionally highlighting that braided section. It’s not just “a braid.” It’s a specific structure that I’ve always seen as her signature.
And then there was Jenie.
The braid placement. The way it functions as bangs. The way the rest of the hair is arranged to both conceal and emphasize it at the same time. Even the overall look of the design, the smart expression, felt eerily aligned. It wasn’t just one shared element. It was the entire visual look of it working together.
To be clear, this isn’t a post about claiming ownership. I’m not accusing anyone of copying. Character designs overlap. Artists influence each other consciously and unconsciously. Anime, especially, is full of shared visual similarities. I understand that completely.
What this post about is something else entirely.
I like to imagine... just imagine... that somewhere, more than ten years ago, the author or someone involved in the creative process of this anime might have stumbled across one of my drawings. Maybe it was just a glance, maybe it stuck in the back of their mind without a name attached to it or maybe, years later, that memory resurfaced as inspiration for a character who would eventually appear on screen.
Whether that’s true or not almost doesn’t matter.
What matters is the feeling of seeing something that looks like it came from my own sketchbook suddenly animated and voiced in an actual anime. It’s surreal. It’s overwhelming. And honestly, it makes me proud, not because Jenie is “my character,” but because it feels like I am seeing a version of Aqua moving in an anime and being appreciated by a lot of people.
Even if Jenie Koror has nothing to do with Aqua, seeing that resemblance makes me feel proud. It's like seeing a long lost twin sister of your own daughter being successful and imagining, "Wow, she could've been that in another reality." It's being proud, not being jealous.
And that feeling, that strange, unexpected pride, is something I’ll carry with me for a long time. So, I also hope you watch "Kunon the Sorcerer Can See" and hope Jenie would have more and more screen time as the anime goes on.
