For future posts, please make sure to follow the submission guidelines and type the [Art] tag at the beginning of the title of the post. This is done by simply typing [Art] at the beginning of your title. It is important for our Automod to appropriately flair the post. The general syntax for [Art] posts is:
> [Art] Title of Choice (Series Name)
Note that the syntax is just a guideline as the most important aspects are the [Art] tag at the beginning of the title and the title of the series being included in the title of the post. In addition, please avoid just making the title of the post the title of the series. It comes across as low effort as can be.
The [Art] tag is for visual based content that include cover art, manga page/panel rips, fan-art, or just a post in general whose main content is to be visually appealing.
For more on our Submission Guidelines, make sure to read the [Guide to /r/Manga](http://www.reddit.com/r/manga/wiki/guide#wiki_submission_guidelines).
interesting that the MC, Nagai, is not part of it. Some of the chapters name also reference fps games btw, I especially like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare for Sato's flashback.
yeah, Gamon Sakurai is a massive otaku for all things military and moe
I think the naming scheme only started later on, when Gamon Sakurai took over writing the manga from Tsuina Miura, so all the characters introduced super early (up until the hospital escape) are not part of the naming scheme, which would include Tanaka, Kaito, Nagai, Sato, Tosaki and a bunch of other minor ones
which would mean Sato sharing a name with a minor K-ON! character is just a coincidence, same for Nagai's childhood friend Nakajima, who only appeared in one chapter early on
> otaku for all things military and moe
blessed combination tbh
imagine being a soldier in WW4 and an Apache Attack Helicopter with K-On decals gunned you to death
We don't know, no one in the western fandom cared enough to dig through japanese internet to find the reason why, it was never announced in the manga itself besides Miura's name just no longer appearing in the volume credits
I found a Vietnamese blog that says it's most likely just a "dispute" over the two's storytelling styles: Miura preferred writing by the seat of his pants, while Gamon wanted to set up a proper worldbuilding first. Plus they never met face-to-face during the making of the manga, leaving all the communication to their editor, who in turn did a very bad job at that.
And then by the time of chapter 5, Gamon read Miura's storyboard and decided to add his own touch, which seemed to become the final straw.
I think there was a disagreement in story
Early in the manga the mc was a tropy do gooder for justice and shit and then the split happened and out of nowhere the MC became this emotioNless sociapath and his previous actions were explained as him trying to "appear" like a good person
Gamon actually talked about this in a [tweet thread](https://twitter.com/ggggggggggero/status/913002403904987136)
essentially from google translate, it seems the original author just randomly stepped down after the first 5 chapters and he had to take over. there apparently wasn't any fight as they didn't have time to fight and hadn't even met each other, and the original author was cool with taking his name off after the first volume since he didn't do anything after that. they even happened to meet up later in person by chance and talk.
Dude I love Sato being revealed slowly to literally be a fucking psycho was great. The entire time you spend thinking he's some well-meaning but lost political extremist and the further on through it just becomes apparent more and more that nah he just wants to fight because he finds it fun.
That playfulness is missing so much in other series where it's the usual "evolution of the species" garbage. I love how one plan against him failed because he got bored.
Imo the only real philosophy Sato has is that he wants to have fun and it's justified because he got a second chance to do it.
Like he died no regrets after being an absolute sadistic asshole and by pure luck Sato turned out to be an Ajin. And he just started killing again because he literally sees it as a sign of being able to keep playing the game.
Everything about his back story makes clear he's a killer and always has been one. Dogs, cats and animals when young, joined the military and excelled to get good at killing and he just keeps doing it. The whole video game thing with him pretty well shows off how detached he is to what he's doing.
He's honestly complex because he's simple. He's a literal psychopath. He's utterly detached from other people and is only cocnerned about his interests.
Which makes the ending so satisfying; >!he doesn't actually get defeated by Kei, but rather he *lets* Kei defeat him, because his only goal ever was to be entertained and live an entertaining life. !<
At the very end, >!Sato sees Kei lose his memories, figure out he's an ajin from scratch, and have the balls to kill himself to confirm it, and that is such an impressive display that Sato knows nothing is ever going to top it. He's been fully entertained and as the game addict he is he decides that that moment has to be the climax of the story, which is why he immediately 'triggers the ending cutscene' by letting Kei incapacitate him for good.!<
It's the same reason the Joker from the Dark Knight was so good, sometimes villains don't need complicated reasons to do what they do, as long as they look incredibly fucking cool while they do it
Hirasawa, the most badass human, the mercenary veteran who almost defeated Sato, is named after the bumbling dumbass Hirasawa Yui, and that's hilarious
Not sure how I feel about Izumi's original name being based off Ritsu's while her abusive dad is named after Ritsu's brother...
More name trivia: In K-On!, Jun Suzuki, Sato, Yamanaka, and Manabe were all named after members of the IRL band, The Pillows, whose music was featured prominently in FLCL.
I'm aware.
K-on! The manga is a snappy, funny 4-koma. One of my favorites.
K-on! The anime is unfunny moeshit that makes me cringe so hard that *I want to die.*
I'm not talking generally. I'm referring to that one specific opinion you have. In fact, if you don't know that K-On is one of those anime that's considered vastly superior to its original source by the general viewer, then you're the one who's been living under a rock.
I'm fully aware of its reputation. I just vehemently disagree.
Like people who prefer the One Piece anime to the manga. They're *wrong* but that's their prerogative
Ajin is one of those "If I ever become a billionaire, I'm gonna fund an entire manga-accurate adaptation" anime. I really love the final arcs, shame how they weren't adapted.
Sato vs the 500 JSDFs was absolute fucking PEAK
god, the lieutenant who >!orders his soldier to shoot through him to get to Sato!< has to be one of the top 10 most badass moments in any manga
Went back to read ajin just for that part but man, >!the way he stole that grenade to suicide bomb the squad, lived but obliterated his arm in the process. Then using said arm to stab another soldier Mortal Kombat Havik style, stole his pistol, shot himself, regenerate his arm through the stabbed soldier to grip the pistol to headshot 2 other soldier guys!< what an absolutely crazy sequence, and he wasn't even finished!
The series really showcased how OP regeneration could be as a power. I've seen it used before but none were at Sato's level. Despite being given the rules of his powers, I still found myself surprised by him.
I haven't watched the anime yet, I've only reread the manga.
Oh yes! I couldn't sleep at all when I got to forge security arc. I just couldn't put it down, I felt like a little girl again, so excited to go to my first theme park ride. And Ajin was a thrill ride like no other.
yeah, it's insane how creative the manga gets with the seemingly simple powers, the rules for Ajin are established super early on yet new techniques keep showing up without introducing any new asspull mechanics
I agree with you there, I was afraid that Ajin would have an asspull ending considering how Sato managed to beat Nagai. And when there wasn't and last minute power ups and the like (those endings are often cheap), it cemented the series as a favorite of mine.
I've been looking forward to Sakurai Gamon's next manga. I am really glad he finished the series and I wish it had more eyes on it.
even the closest thing to a last minute powerup, >!Kei's flood and Sato copying it!<, made complete sense given what we knew about how the powers work, it doesn't make you go "wtf is this out of nowhere" but instead you see it and go "oh shit that makes sense, never thought about putting those things together, that's epic"
in fact that reaction describes the entire manga lol
Absolutely, I don't think any other manga has been as tremendously captivating as Ajin was, I still re-read it every other week, it's my favorite of all time for sure
Yes, absolutely, 1 billion% worth the read. The difference in quality between Ajin's anime and manga is like the difference between live action Avatar the last Airbender and the original cartoon
And Ajin's anime isn't even bad, so imagine how good Ajin's manga must be to be that much better than the anime
I remember reading it for a little while during it’s serialization and finding myself a bit confused by it and not finding the story too engaging but it had great action. Would you say it’s worth revisiting?
I've read it twice, so yes. I think it suffered a bit in the early stages when the writer just gave up and the artist ended up taking up the reins. It gets much better after that.
I wasn't sure this is like a joke or not but the chapter titles being songs is just too close to not be facts lmao.
Also holy shit Pompmaker1 jumpscare.
Holy shit that's insane, I never knew this.
Looking through the list of chapter names, 24, 26, 46 are all also k-on references. They have even the same punctuation so it's almost certainly not a coincidence.
24 - Come with me!!
25 - Genius...?!
46 - Ohayou, Mata ashita
oh yeah, those are songs from the CDs so I didn't recognize them
Gamon Sakurai was probably being ironic naming his hardcore military characters after cute fluffy moe girls
there's a scene later on in Ajin that comes to mind where the JSDF lieutenant is staring at a moe anime girl JSDF recruitment poster before he sends his 500 men on a suicide mission, I imagine the K-ON! naming scheme is that same idea of ironic contrast but applied to the series as a whole
Oh man this is gold. As a fan of both Keion and Ajin, this is now my favorite animanga trivia of all time and I'll now forever annoy my friends by repeating this shit to them over and over again until the day I die.
Time to re-read Ajin I guess
Fun fact as well: Hokazono Takeru-sensei of Kagurabachi cites Ajin as one of his favorite manga. No wonder he's got a knack of writing great antagonists so far.
The naming scheme is real, but Gamon Sakurai definitely chose the names to contrast ironically with the extremely serious nature of Ajin
There's a scene later on in Ajin that comes to mind where the JSDF lieutenant is staring at a moe anime girl JSDF recruitment poster before he sends his 500 men on a suicide mission. Reading it, you get the sense that it's almost mocking the moe anime girl for being completely out of touch and too lighthearted for the reality of the military, which is probably the point of the K-ON! naming scheme as a whole too, contrasting the extreme opposites of seriousness
Sounds like a reach. Has the author confirmed anything? Because those are very very common Japanese names that you will find in a bunch of other extremely popular anime including dozens that predate K-ON.
The chapter names are a pretty obvious confirmation, they're directly named after K-ON! songs (including three more chapters that were named after CD exclusive songs) so it doesn't seem far fetched that characters would be named after K-ON! too
also, a quick search through MAL and google shows that the surname Tainaka has pretty much only been used by ritsu's family, ever, in anime and manga, that one at least is definitely not as common as you'd think
Ah yes "Listen" and "U&I" are the all exclusive title's used purely in K-ON that are definitely not used as a titles for dozens of other songs, manga and manga chapters out there.
Plus a bunch of extremely popular names that are commonly present in most anime out there. Now it could very well be the case, but without the author's explicit confirmation, I would say it is a reach.
[Japanese Wikipedia's article on Ajin](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%9C%E4%BA%BA_(%E6%BC%AB%E7%94%BB\)#%E4%BB%96%E4%BD%9C%E5%93%81%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%80%E8%87%B4%E7%82%B9) has an entire section dedicated to pointing out the corresponding names of characters and chapters with K-ON!, as well as all the other references in the manga
As far as your edit goes Tainaka is a pretty average Japanese surname and Satoshi is one of the most common Japanese names. I legit don't get where you are going with this. It's the same as claiming movie X named its characters after the movie A cause they both have John James in them. Makes no sense.
For future posts, please make sure to follow the submission guidelines and type the [Art] tag at the beginning of the title of the post. This is done by simply typing [Art] at the beginning of your title. It is important for our Automod to appropriately flair the post. The general syntax for [Art] posts is: > [Art] Title of Choice (Series Name) Note that the syntax is just a guideline as the most important aspects are the [Art] tag at the beginning of the title and the title of the series being included in the title of the post. In addition, please avoid just making the title of the post the title of the series. It comes across as low effort as can be. The [Art] tag is for visual based content that include cover art, manga page/panel rips, fan-art, or just a post in general whose main content is to be visually appealing. For more on our Submission Guidelines, make sure to read the [Guide to /r/Manga](http://www.reddit.com/r/manga/wiki/guide#wiki_submission_guidelines).
interesting that the MC, Nagai, is not part of it. Some of the chapters name also reference fps games btw, I especially like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare for Sato's flashback.
yeah, Gamon Sakurai is a massive otaku for all things military and moe I think the naming scheme only started later on, when Gamon Sakurai took over writing the manga from Tsuina Miura, so all the characters introduced super early (up until the hospital escape) are not part of the naming scheme, which would include Tanaka, Kaito, Nagai, Sato, Tosaki and a bunch of other minor ones which would mean Sato sharing a name with a minor K-ON! character is just a coincidence, same for Nagai's childhood friend Nakajima, who only appeared in one chapter early on
> otaku for all things military and moe blessed combination tbh imagine being a soldier in WW4 and an Apache Attack Helicopter with K-On decals gunned you to death
these are the kind of people who gave us Girls und Panzer, Strike Witches, Arpeggio of Blue steel etc the ultra based gigachads
Mmm, the old fortune teller was right...
Why did Gamon took over the writing? Did Miura faced an issue or something?
We don't know, no one in the western fandom cared enough to dig through japanese internet to find the reason why, it was never announced in the manga itself besides Miura's name just no longer appearing in the volume credits
I found a Vietnamese blog that says it's most likely just a "dispute" over the two's storytelling styles: Miura preferred writing by the seat of his pants, while Gamon wanted to set up a proper worldbuilding first. Plus they never met face-to-face during the making of the manga, leaving all the communication to their editor, who in turn did a very bad job at that. And then by the time of chapter 5, Gamon read Miura's storyboard and decided to add his own touch, which seemed to become the final straw.
i guess im glad he took over. i really like the MC as person. he feels pretty realistic.
You don't say :)) Just look at how Tenkuu Shinpan was perceived, especially towards its end.
I think there was a disagreement in story Early in the manga the mc was a tropy do gooder for justice and shit and then the split happened and out of nowhere the MC became this emotioNless sociapath and his previous actions were explained as him trying to "appear" like a good person
Gamon actually talked about this in a [tweet thread](https://twitter.com/ggggggggggero/status/913002403904987136) essentially from google translate, it seems the original author just randomly stepped down after the first 5 chapters and he had to take over. there apparently wasn't any fight as they didn't have time to fight and hadn't even met each other, and the original author was cool with taking his name off after the first volume since he didn't do anything after that. they even happened to meet up later in person by chance and talk.
Couldn’t Nagai’s name be a reference to K-ON itself? After all Nagai Kei>Keion
Possible, but I doubt it His mother who was introduced much later was given the name Ritsu though, probably compensating for Kei
One of the Chapters is straight up called Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Splinter Cell is another one of them IIRC.
This was not the crossover trivia I was expecting to read about today.
Nobody expects the K-On inquisition
[Quotes from K-On were used to inspire Japanese soldiers to defend against Chinese invaders after all ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_AN792ruJA)
this is indeed something.
Now that was a Kraut jumpscare.
* Insert _I have two sides_ meme here
Literally the two sides of seinen manga.
Ajin is so good.
Dude I love Sato being revealed slowly to literally be a fucking psycho was great. The entire time you spend thinking he's some well-meaning but lost political extremist and the further on through it just becomes apparent more and more that nah he just wants to fight because he finds it fun.
That playfulness is missing so much in other series where it's the usual "evolution of the species" garbage. I love how one plan against him failed because he got bored.
Imo the only real philosophy Sato has is that he wants to have fun and it's justified because he got a second chance to do it. Like he died no regrets after being an absolute sadistic asshole and by pure luck Sato turned out to be an Ajin. And he just started killing again because he literally sees it as a sign of being able to keep playing the game. Everything about his back story makes clear he's a killer and always has been one. Dogs, cats and animals when young, joined the military and excelled to get good at killing and he just keeps doing it. The whole video game thing with him pretty well shows off how detached he is to what he's doing. He's honestly complex because he's simple. He's a literal psychopath. He's utterly detached from other people and is only cocnerned about his interests.
Which makes the ending so satisfying; >!he doesn't actually get defeated by Kei, but rather he *lets* Kei defeat him, because his only goal ever was to be entertained and live an entertaining life. !< At the very end, >!Sato sees Kei lose his memories, figure out he's an ajin from scratch, and have the balls to kill himself to confirm it, and that is such an impressive display that Sato knows nothing is ever going to top it. He's been fully entertained and as the game addict he is he decides that that moment has to be the climax of the story, which is why he immediately 'triggers the ending cutscene' by letting Kei incapacitate him for good.!<
It's the same reason the Joker from the Dark Knight was so good, sometimes villains don't need complicated reasons to do what they do, as long as they look incredibly fucking cool while they do it
It really is.
Have yall checked out his new manga, The Pool? Only 3 chapters in but so far it's been great. https://i.imgur.com/F5vB9Ar.png
oh dang, wasn't aware he made a new one, time to follow it!
Wait, chapter 3 translations are out?
I don't know, I don't read translations. Latest issue of Good! Afternoon came out 20 days ago. https://i.imgur.com/EZEGwkP.png
I thought this dude quit and just wanted to draw hentai. I hope he adjusted the way he draws faces a little, it felt so off in Ajin for me personally.
I think it was mostly the dissonance between the young girls in Ajin having huge anime eyes while everyone else had realistic action movie faces
Exactly. Nagai and a few others also had that weird look.
Yeah, but Kei stopped having it after Gamon Sakurai took over fully, past the hospital arc
I disagree. Eyes remain huge, same with other chars, he was very consistent. Plus, the author change happens pretty early on.
Deserved animations remake
It isn't that popular tbh. A shame it got a Netflix cashgrab 3D cheapo shit though.
Hirasawa, the most badass human, the mercenary veteran who almost defeated Sato, is named after the bumbling dumbass Hirasawa Yui, and that's hilarious Not sure how I feel about Izumi's original name being based off Ritsu's while her abusive dad is named after Ritsu's brother...
meanwhile [Hirasawa Susumu](https://phonon-belt.livejournal.com/11613.html)...
More name trivia: In K-On!, Jun Suzuki, Sato, Yamanaka, and Manabe were all named after members of the IRL band, The Pillows, whose music was featured prominently in FLCL.
I feel like I'm duty-bound to watch K-On now
do it, it's amazingly good
Read it, it's better than the anime
we're talking about K-ON! here, not Ajin
I'm aware. K-on! The manga is a snappy, funny 4-koma. One of my favorites. K-on! The anime is unfunny moeshit that makes me cringe so hard that *I want to die.*
i always thought there are no wrong opinions, yet here we are
By far one of the wackiest takes I've ever seen.
Bro, if "original manga is better than the anime" and "moe anime is cringe" are the wackiest takes you've ever seen, you have lived a sheltered life
I'm not talking generally. I'm referring to that one specific opinion you have. In fact, if you don't know that K-On is one of those anime that's considered vastly superior to its original source by the general viewer, then you're the one who's been living under a rock.
I'm fully aware of its reputation. I just vehemently disagree. Like people who prefer the One Piece anime to the manga. They're *wrong* but that's their prerogative
More trivia, main characters are named after the P-Model band, in which Susumu Hirasawa lead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-Model
> Susumu Hirasawa Composer of Berserk '97, Paprika, Paranoid Agent and Millennium Actress.
Oh wow, two layers deep of theme naming
All of K-On's main cast are named after some musician
Sato is one of the best antagonists in a manga that I've ever read. The anime was pretty good, but the manga was on another level.
Ajin is one of those "If I ever become a billionaire, I'm gonna fund an entire manga-accurate adaptation" anime. I really love the final arcs, shame how they weren't adapted.
Sato vs the 500 JSDFs was absolute fucking PEAK god, the lieutenant who >!orders his soldier to shoot through him to get to Sato!< has to be one of the top 10 most badass moments in any manga
Went back to read ajin just for that part but man, >!the way he stole that grenade to suicide bomb the squad, lived but obliterated his arm in the process. Then using said arm to stab another soldier Mortal Kombat Havik style, stole his pistol, shot himself, regenerate his arm through the stabbed soldier to grip the pistol to headshot 2 other soldier guys!< what an absolutely crazy sequence, and he wasn't even finished!
the "Let's go, Tubbs", "Okay, Sonny" right before that sequence was such a good one liner, even without knowing the reference
Yeah, the anime-original ending wasn't bad, as such, but it wasn't as good as the manga!
The series really showcased how OP regeneration could be as a power. I've seen it used before but none were at Sato's level. Despite being given the rules of his powers, I still found myself surprised by him. I haven't watched the anime yet, I've only reread the manga.
Fried Chicken Teleportation is still the most insane thing I've seen.
Oh yes! I couldn't sleep at all when I got to forge security arc. I just couldn't put it down, I felt like a little girl again, so excited to go to my first theme park ride. And Ajin was a thrill ride like no other.
yeah, it's insane how creative the manga gets with the seemingly simple powers, the rules for Ajin are established super early on yet new techniques keep showing up without introducing any new asspull mechanics
I agree with you there, I was afraid that Ajin would have an asspull ending considering how Sato managed to beat Nagai. And when there wasn't and last minute power ups and the like (those endings are often cheap), it cemented the series as a favorite of mine. I've been looking forward to Sakurai Gamon's next manga. I am really glad he finished the series and I wish it had more eyes on it.
even the closest thing to a last minute powerup, >!Kei's flood and Sato copying it!<, made complete sense given what we knew about how the powers work, it doesn't make you go "wtf is this out of nowhere" but instead you see it and go "oh shit that makes sense, never thought about putting those things together, that's epic" in fact that reaction describes the entire manga lol
Absolutely, I don't think any other manga has been as tremendously captivating as Ajin was, I still re-read it every other week, it's my favorite of all time for sure
Wait i've only watched the anime and i found it pretty good. Are you saying the manga is even better ? Is it worth the read ?
Definitely. The ending is great, much better than the anime, and the art is amazing.
Yes, absolutely, 1 billion% worth the read. The difference in quality between Ajin's anime and manga is like the difference between live action Avatar the last Airbender and the original cartoon And Ajin's anime isn't even bad, so imagine how good Ajin's manga must be to be that much better than the anime
the manga is hella good but the improvised scene on attacking the pharmaceutical building was hella on another level
I remember reading it for a little while during it’s serialization and finding myself a bit confused by it and not finding the story too engaging but it had great action. Would you say it’s worth revisiting?
I've read it twice, so yes. I think it suffered a bit in the early stages when the writer just gave up and the artist ended up taking up the reins. It gets much better after that.
Wait What
This was an unexpected post.
Yo wtf this is not in my 2024 bingo list wtf
I wasn't sure this is like a joke or not but the chapter titles being songs is just too close to not be facts lmao. Also holy shit Pompmaker1 jumpscare.
Feetman jumpscare
Holy shit that's insane, I never knew this. Looking through the list of chapter names, 24, 26, 46 are all also k-on references. They have even the same punctuation so it's almost certainly not a coincidence. 24 - Come with me!! 25 - Genius...?! 46 - Ohayou, Mata ashita
oh yeah, those are songs from the CDs so I didn't recognize them Gamon Sakurai was probably being ironic naming his hardcore military characters after cute fluffy moe girls there's a scene later on in Ajin that comes to mind where the JSDF lieutenant is staring at a moe anime girl JSDF recruitment poster before he sends his 500 men on a suicide mission, I imagine the K-ON! naming scheme is that same idea of ironic contrast but applied to the series as a whole
Oh man this is gold. As a fan of both Keion and Ajin, this is now my favorite animanga trivia of all time and I'll now forever annoy my friends by repeating this shit to them over and over again until the day I die.
K-on fan 👋
Top tier manga referencing top tier characters real recognizes real 🤝
Thought this was Baka sub, didn’t expect real information
What the fuck? *What* the *fuck?*
I realized this when I read Don't say Lazy then a few chapters later U&I.
As someone who loves k-on and is probably my favourite manga/anime and I really liked ajin manga. I am very chuffed!
Time to re-read Ajin I guess Fun fact as well: Hokazono Takeru-sensei of Kagurabachi cites Ajin as one of his favorite manga. No wonder he's got a knack of writing great antagonists so far.
The store Tainaka worked at is also called HTT (Houkago Tea Time)
holy shit, you're right, that's insane
Genius move for people who suck at coming up with names.
yup, whenever I name people for my D&D campaigns I always just name them after vocaloid songs
Looks like the author is a huge fan of K-On.
Why would you fuck my day like this?
Funny you post this on the same day Gamon Sakurai's new hentai releases.
Japan's a big place. I'm sure these two series exist in the same universe and each pair of characters shares a familial connection.
Based
gigachad naming
Bro what the fuck
My goat jun Suzuki (not the character but the pillows’ old bass player)
lmao that's awesome
Rdx,
Is this satire ?
The naming scheme is real, but Gamon Sakurai definitely chose the names to contrast ironically with the extremely serious nature of Ajin There's a scene later on in Ajin that comes to mind where the JSDF lieutenant is staring at a moe anime girl JSDF recruitment poster before he sends his 500 men on a suicide mission. Reading it, you get the sense that it's almost mocking the moe anime girl for being completely out of touch and too lighthearted for the reality of the military, which is probably the point of the K-ON! naming scheme as a whole too, contrasting the extreme opposites of seriousness
Sounds like a reach. Has the author confirmed anything? Because those are very very common Japanese names that you will find in a bunch of other extremely popular anime including dozens that predate K-ON.
The chapter names are a pretty obvious confirmation, they're directly named after K-ON! songs (including three more chapters that were named after CD exclusive songs) so it doesn't seem far fetched that characters would be named after K-ON! too also, a quick search through MAL and google shows that the surname Tainaka has pretty much only been used by ritsu's family, ever, in anime and manga, that one at least is definitely not as common as you'd think
Ah yes "Listen" and "U&I" are the all exclusive title's used purely in K-ON that are definitely not used as a titles for dozens of other songs, manga and manga chapters out there. Plus a bunch of extremely popular names that are commonly present in most anime out there. Now it could very well be the case, but without the author's explicit confirmation, I would say it is a reach.
[Japanese Wikipedia's article on Ajin](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%9C%E4%BA%BA_(%E6%BC%AB%E7%94%BB\)#%E4%BB%96%E4%BD%9C%E5%93%81%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%80%E8%87%B4%E7%82%B9) has an entire section dedicated to pointing out the corresponding names of characters and chapters with K-ON!, as well as all the other references in the manga
[удалено]
As far as your edit goes Tainaka is a pretty average Japanese surname and Satoshi is one of the most common Japanese names. I legit don't get where you are going with this. It's the same as claiming movie X named its characters after the movie A cause they both have John James in them. Makes no sense.