Yo. American living in Japan here. I loved the lizardmen in the Total War game, so a friend finally convinced me to make the jump and go physical. Looking forward to building my first army soon!
Trying to read your name now. It's been a while but I am fairly sure the first kanji means big? I admit I googled the rest, which is Gongen it seems. So... you are Buddhist I guess? Or wait.... wasn't Tokugawa Ieyasu called Daigongen??
Not actually buddhist myself, but I've stayed at some buddhist temples for a bit and know some monks. The title is usually appended to the names of shinto-buddhist gods and some historical figures. I thought the meaning was cool, since its translated to something like "the great avatar", so now I just put it as my screen name lol
The principle behind the Gongen is interesting. It basically means that a shintoist kami (a ghost literally, but it means god. Gods in shintoism can be weak or strong, big and small) can be the manifestation (the avatar as you say, which is pretty accurate) of a Buddha. So it is basically an interface between two religions, almost a unification, which is quite fascinating and pretty unique as far as I know. It is something that cannot happen in most religions as pretty much all of them claim to be the only correct one and disallow polytheism.
Welcome to the forums! I'm not sure we've ever had a forumite from Japan before, or if we did they are lurkers that don't post much. Let us know know if you have any questions about gameplay, painting, fluff, or anything else!
Both hello and konichiwa! Welcome to Lustria! @Warden is a big fan of Japanese history - perhaps you two could enlighten each other!