Trivia

This is supposed to be a digest overview of (or portal to) things-worth-knowing about Oni. Please keep in-depth discussions for added value sections elsewhere. Also feel free to elaborate on the talk page.

Events

Emergency Override Griffin Alpha Zero

People can't always tell why (zombie) Shinatama, after engaging Omega Security Mode, continued to advance on Griffin despite the emergency override and the order to "stay back".

It turns out that Griffin was using one of the low-level emergency overrides that had been turned off by D. Joost and P. Tamte (Bungie staff cameos) without Griffin being notified.

Names

Oni

There are the buddhist oni (either imps or patron deities) and the pagan oni (malicious ogres or beasts). Food for eerie tales, oni-slaying epics and more.

A relevant expression is "Oni ni Kanabô" ("strong beyond strong"). It can also have the proverbial meaning that great power should only be granted to the worthy.

Oni-gokko is the game of tag. The "it" in the game of tag is the "oni" in oni-gokko. Another interesting reference is the "oni warrior" Musashibo Benkei.

Konoko

More notes on the meaning of "Konoko" and where it occurs in the real world can be found on the Talk:Trivia page.

Konoko's name is never written in Oni, and so one can't really be sure what kanji/hiragana it would be composed of. Given the many meanings of "ko", tentative decompositions and interpretations can get rather wild. Thus, the meaning depends a lot on the context. But if you watch subtitled animé, you'll enter this phrase fairly often, with the meaning "this child" ("kono ko").

Shinatama

Among the animated dolls of the Edo era, a shinatama was a "trickster puppet", guarding the contents of a jewel box.

The puppet could also make the contents of the jewel box disappear, with a "magic trick" animation.

The initial decomposition of SHINA-TAMA in this case is probably "precious jewel".

Mukade

Mukade are large centipedes that are known for infesting Japanese houses. Several mukade species exist.

Mukade was also a mythical beast (a giant centipede), which bothered dragons and was slain by a human warrior.

BGI

Placeholder name standing for "Bad Guys International" (source). Reinterpreted as "Be Good, Inc." by geyser.

Development and hype

Hidden messages in Oni art & trailer

From the Marathon Story page, long before Oni even came out:

   I don't know if this has been covered before, but perhaps this is of interest.

   I got out my Oni notepad tonight (the freebie from the Action Sack) and the faint Kanji (Japanese characters) caught my eye. Behind the image of
Konoko there are faint vertical lines of Japanese text faintly visable. Faintly is the operating word here. There are several words seperated by ones
and zeros in each line. After squinting at these line for a while, I managed to translate a couple of them. Now these lines repeat, both within the
"sentence" and also across the page. So while there looks like there are about 20 lines or so, there are only six unique "sentences" that I can pick out.

   They are:

   shinrai ni atai suru hito inai (there is no one I can trust)
   kiki (this is the Oni kanji repeated twice) ... kurai shorai (dark future)
   kako no aru onna (a woman with a past)
   furu kontakuto akushon (full contact action)
   buramu (blam) korutana (cortana)
   warui keikan (bad cop)

   I don't know but I suspect this is the same kanji used in the trailer. 

Source: http://marathon.bungie.org/story/halo_oct-dec99.html

N.B. they are actually hiragana/katakana rather than kanji.