Charles Marlow
Marlow's name may be inspired by the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. Conrad's father was a translator of William Shakespeare who doubtless would have known of Marlowe's work as well. Some intertextual interpretations of "Heart of Darkness" have suggested that Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" may have influenced Conrad. Charles Marlow describes a character as a "papier-mache Mephistopheles", a reference to the Faust legend. Marlow's and Kurtz's journey up the Congo River in "Heart of Darkness" also has similarities to another work by Marlowe, "Dido, Queen of Carthage", in which Aeneas is stranded on the shore of Libya and meets the African queen Dido.
Shadow Hearts (video game)
Yuri was directly inspired by "Devilman" protagonist Akira Fudo, and was meant to directly contrast with the standard JRPG protagonist of the time; he struck a balance between the androgynous norm of Japan and the more muscular builds found in Western games, and his silly and sometimes stupid attitude both represented his purity and set his personality apart from other genre protagonists. A key scene used by Machida to demonstrate his abnormal elements was the opening movie, where Yuri has his arm severed then reattaches it. Simons was modelled on the character of Hannibal Lecter as portrayed in the movie "The Silence of the Lambs". The character designs were created by Miyako Kato, who was guided by Machida's scenario draft. Her design direction for Simons was "an elegant English gentleman". The monsters drew inspiration from monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos, putting them in contrast with the enemies of anime and movies of the time which were described by Machida as generic animal or prehistoric designs.