Important: The Jinimaru works vary in difficulty and age rating, ranging from junior to adult. Please ensure you read the maturity level of the book before purchasing.
“There is the beast, the machine and the ‘Human being’. You are educated to neglect the beast and embrace the machine, its guise under the ruse of being the ‘Human’…when in fact, you are a beast controlled by the machine.” – Daio, Specimen G-13
The Origins of the Jinimaru
The Jinimaru themselves did not begin looking the way they do now for quite some time, it could be said that they existed from 2006, when a character (G-13, Gakidou) was redesigned, accompanied by his relatives and the entire Jinimaru species. However, this character has his origins as far back as 1998, in a dream series that Thomas had.
Gakidou, the most frequent member of the Jinimaru to appear in all his stories, first appeared in one of these dreams as a ghoulish hound and was later developed into a humanoid as a Dragonball Z fan-character, he was redesigned in 2004/6 after his appearance changed in Thomas’ dreams. It was also around this point that Thomas started logging all the details he could on the creatures in his dreams; this catalogue of information would eventually become the Beginners Guide to Jinimaru. It took Thomas over 16 years to refine everything he could log from his dreams for the guide to make it readable.
Thomas began logging the stories he dreamt about as well in 2009, making many notes and quick character concepts. Many of these stories only happened a handful of times over the year, and often had slight alterations each time. Because of this inconsistency, Thomas decided to make the stories short and simple, stories which would shape out to become the Tales of Jinimaru Folklore. After this establishment was made, the small stories often came up in other dreams, cementing their place as Folklore in his own imaginative world. Around this time he began working on the Specimen G-13 series in 2010, which would be the core story of the series. It had no title by this point, and was only referred to as “The Jinimaru Chronicles: Omega”. It’s prequel, which told more about the origins of the Jinimaru being freak experimentation by Humans, was never drafted and only was titled “The Jinimaru Chronicles: Beta”. Thomas has removed all information on this prequel, as it is now irrelevant to the series.
Come the autumn of 2012, Thomas began to rethink the origins of the Jinimaru in the lore he had been establishing. Many pieces to the puzzle did not fit, or make sense. At this point in development, Thomas scrapped a drafted version of Specimen G-13 which included a merger with the now Subject 218 series. Thomas returned to his dreams for answers, but his imagination began to fade away; his dreams no longer allowed him access to this world, instead they were replaced by empty worlds with barely any creativity to them. He lingered in “Artists/Authors Hell” for almost 5 years.
Finally, when Thomas was at the point of giving up, in 2017 a dream came to him like none he had dreamt about the Jinimaru before; the felines referred to themselves as Feles, lived on a world they called Edris, and there was no sign of Humans or familiar wildlife anywhere. It then clicked with Thomas; the Jinimaru were related to these creatures. Everything about them was near identical, but was far more advanced. At first Thomas believed the Feles were the descendants of Jinimaru, living in the aftermath of a Human extinction or planetary migration. But then, as the dreams went on, things began to be exposed; Feles were abducted, enslaved and ultimately killed by another alien race until all but a handful remained. These Feles were rescued by other, more friendly, aliens and were relocated to another world they called Terra (Earth). Thomas understood that the Feles weren’t descendants; they were ancestors.
The Process of Writing
In the beginning, Thomas had planned to write one large book (Specimen G-13), a compilation (Folkelore Tales) and a Guidebook for the Jinimaru. However, as he dreamt a great deal of smaller stories a compilation just wasn’t possible, as new entries were being planned all the time which constantly delayed the release of such a book. Thomas decided to then release each short story on its own, and make compilations based on continents the tales come from at a later time. Each short story had an entry in his logbook, with notes on what had happened in his dreams, which he used for reference as he wrote the books. Thomas failed to log everything he could from his dreams about the Feles however, because he was so relieved to finally be dreaming about the Jinimaru again after years of radio silence, but one thing he did jot down was their demise; the scenarios that took place were so horrifying, and felt so real, that Thomas still feels great sadness for the Feles even though they do not exist.
After much work, and a handful of doodles of two characters who could tell this tale, the first book to the Jinimaru Folklore stories was finished and dubbed only as “Origins”. Thomas wanted to write it out as a full book of its own, as a prequel to Specimen G-13, but felt knowing less about the Feles would leave a better impact on the reader for future stories, as they would feel the knowledge had truly become lost. It was at this point that Thomas decided to start the series off with Origins and the Beginners Guide, to help people slowly enter this universe of great felines. He continued working on Specimen G-13 and his other project, Subject 218, whilst he left the first 4 short stories to be proof-read.
To this day Thomas still dreams of the Feles and Jinimaru, and while the Beginners Guide is now published, he still learns more about this strange civilisation to expand upon it. The shorter stories, while appearing few in number, are actually potentially endless; it is Thomas’ way of thinking, filtering out the inferior ones and leaving them as tiny entries in a Guide, that leads to this smaller library.
Thomas has more artwork on the history of creating this bizarre but wonderful species of cats, far too much to display on one page, and while much of the work is lost to the sea of internet website purges (such as Deviantart) Thomas has done his best to salvage what he can, polish it up, and put it on display for old-time and new fans alike to enjoy.
Reading Requirements/Information
– It is strongly recommended to read A Beginners Guide to Jinimaru, or to at least read the Preface of each book to get a basic understanding of what the Maru are.
-The stories are divided into two separate categories: Tales and Episodes. Tales are short stories, whilst Episodes are far longer and spread over more than one book.
– Each book in the Tales of Jinimaru Folklore are written in either first-person or third-person. All Episodes to Specimen G-13 are written in third-person.
– Tales of Jinimaru Folklore vary in difficulty and age restriction. None are Explicit. Please check before purchasing a volume to see if it is suitable for the desired readers age.
– Specimen G-13 are considered Mature.
– All Guidebooks to Jinimaru contain mature writing and Images. This is why a basic description of Jinimaru can be found in all book Prefaces.
- Like many of Thomas’ major creations, Gakidou is considered a part of his psyche given physical form. After a year studying psychology, Thomas established that Gakidou is likely the Superego personified. He is not 100% sure if Gakidou is the Superego or not, but so far he fits the role better than the Ego.
- Mayoke, Gakidou’s older brother, was originally destined to have his own book based around him contracting a deadly illness and trying to find a cure for it, titled “Specimen G-12”. Thomas cancelled this title for no reason in particular, it may resurface in the future.
- Thomas had never planned on making the Beginners Guide to Jinimaru public, as he was using it as a reference for all his projects to make sure it remained consistent. After receiving multiple questions about what the Jinimaru were, and finding it difficult to summarise it to those who asked, Thomas decided to release the Guide and just show them the relevant page to the specific question instead.
