The character formerly known as "Prince," now known as "Prince" again.

 After going around in circles on it all week, that character is probably a member of the Japanese Royal Family.

Maybe.

See, following the surrender, what is called the Collateral Branches were trimmed off, de-nobled, leaving only the direct male line descendants of Emperor Taisho as actual nobility. Or in the Imperial succession. There are only a dozen actual nobility left in Japan, all of the Imperial Family -- so few, in fact, that it was seriously considered quite recently to change the rules and allow an Empress on the throne for what might be the first time since Himiko.

The official side branches from before 1947 have basically died off as well. So this isn't like some noble families, where you could find a bastard son hanging around in the fringes somewhere if you needed a character.

That's why I worked so long on it. Sure, there are powerful corporations (the daibutsu were also largely dismantled after the surrender, so there isn't that kind of direct connection to power noble in the past, powerful owner of a company today. This ain't Cyberpunk.) But an essentially secular and worse, corporate guy just doesn't hit some of the things I want to hit.

***

I've also been learning about the economic bubble, the central bank. And all sorts of weird class stuff is showing up although it is never quite neat about picking sides. The ninja grew out of poor farming communities trying to protect themselves. Among the legends surrounding the kitsune is the accusation of being a fox-friend; having an unfair advantage over your neighbors, which was generally economic, which ties pretty directly to merchant class and control of the rice...and Inari is goddess of rice and sake and of merchants, who are the ones who pay for all those vermillion torii gates around the Fushimi-Inari shrine.

And thinking in other directions. Kyoto has the Silver Pavilion and used to hold the Golden Pavilion, burned down by a man who became the protagonist of a book by Yukio Mishima, who became the protagonist of a movie...

***

And I am back and forth on the make-up of the cult, or even if I want to use the cult. The actual I.M. Pei designed Miho Museum has been described by several people in "Doctor Evil" terms, although as I mentioned before it is more an art appreciation society than a cult. But their avid collection of artifacts is exactly the kind of thing I need my cult to be doing in order to give Athena Fox a foot in the door...or rather, for Ichiro/Sanjiro (he might end up with an older brother) a terrible idea to make use of a certain actress he's seen in action...at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum.

I still haven't set any scenes. I still am not sure if there is a bunch of fancy parties and Yojimbo talking stuff or what the end game is. I'm not even sure I can fit that snowmobile in. But I am really fixed on the idea of her singing "Yuki no Shingun."

***

Now if I could just keep from having a total crisis and having to stop even thinking about the story for days on end...

And now I just found out about Nara Dreamland, which was abandoned in 2006 and demolished almost exactly two years before my story is set...

Or did I mention a big chunk of the action is in the Kyoto/Osaka/Nara triangle?