Eclipse Hunter V1Extra2: The Origin of Eclipse Hunter

Eclipse Hunter Volume 1: Brothers

Original novel in Chinese by: 御我(Yu Wo)

Extra: The Origin of Eclipse Hunter—translated by Trespasserby (proofread by EvlNabiki; C/E edited by lucathia)

The Two Sides of the Sun

It’s difficult to define the kind of story Eclipse Hunter is in a single word. In my opinion, it’s actually a story about protection.

The main characters of the story are a pair of brothers. Although they’re brothers, their fates and personalities are as different as can be. One is as resplendent as the sun, and the other cycles through the dark night, like a black sun—Dark Sun.

I like contrast, such as how a single character can have completely different sides to them. In the case of Eclipse Hunter, the biggest contrast is between two characters: older brother and younger brother, sun versus Dark Sun.

Despite having such a large difference, because the pair of brothers have something in common, they don’t seem to be so different. That is, they both want to protect each other.

The brothers each have their own methods of protection. The older brother uses his tremendous influence to guard his little brother so closely a drop of water couldn’t leak through. The younger brother chooses instead to take matters into his own hands, hunting down all of his brother’s enemies.
The so-called hunting is actually protection. This is Eclipse Hunter’s true meaning.

Positive and Negative Contrast

Usually, what I write leans toward light-hearted, humorous books, like The Legend of Sun Knight and No Hero for example. However, I actually also have a darker side… No, what I should say is that I feel that negative feelings aren’t an unpardonable crime, but rather are a necessary existence. So much so that the creation of positive emotions is dependent on them.

Sometimes it’s a cause and effect relationship. For example: Too much love can bring forth too many burdens and create resentment, unrequited love can turn into hate, or people can sometimes even feel intermingled love and hate toward the other person.

Loving someone and also hating them at the same time could also be counted as a kind of contrast, right? From personalities to appearance and all the way to feelings, I really like to insert the element of contrast into my books.

No matter if it’s in Eclipse Hunter or my other book Gong Hua, I always try to insert this sort of feeling of love and hate intertwined, wishing for these characters to be as human as possible, for the story to read as something that has actually happened.

Because in my opinion, all stories are things that actually happened. In the worlds I have created, these characters have really been through those experiences and will continue to live on into the future.

Tug-of-War Between Love and Hate

Although the main relationship touched upon in Eclipse Hunter is brotherhood, because of the two brothers’ backstory and the large age gap between them, the two of them actually have closer to a father and son relationship instead.

In the book, it’s like the two brothers are in a tug-of-war. This one wants to protect that one. That one also wants to protect this one. In the end, they’ve hurt each other—Just like the relationship between parent and child in actual society.

Deeply loving yet deeply wounding.

I wanted to write about this kind of perpetual tug-of-war between love and hate. Sometimes love wins by a bit, other times hate wins a little, but really the wins and losses don’t matter at all. The most important thing is that the rope never leaves the two people’s hands, that connection never possible to sever.

Therefore, it seems to begin with hate, and in the end, allows us to more strongly feel that it’s a story about love—This is how Eclipse Hunter was born.