miraculeusecoccinelleThe item the kwami go into in the opening of Miraculous Ladybug piqued my interest. I tried to do some research on it. It seems very similar to an Eight Trigram furnace, or a bagua lu (八卦炉). 八卦炉 can also be read as “hakkero” in Japanese.
Quick introduction to bagua from the Wikipedia page: “The bagua are eight trigrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either ‘broken’ or ‘unbroken,’ representing yin or yang, respectively.”
The Eight Trigram furnace can be found in the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West.
The item in the opening does not have eight trigrams. There appears to be only five surrounding the yin-yang symbol in the center. The shape of the trigrams create a symbol similar to a flower.
The item above may be inspired by the bague. There may be an item that fits more closely to the one in the opening than this one, but I’m not sure what it would be. But we’re somewhat closer to figuring what the thing is :P
(I actually started my research looking into the mini-hakkero on the Touhou wiki… hahah…)
akas-ladybug
ruinedchildhood
