In English, I think it's more that most people don't have a good sense about what is a surname versus first name in Japanese. With something like "Johnny" and "Smith" we intuitively know which is which, but "Hazuki" sounds like it could be either.
I notice that, in discussions, people tend to use whatever names were used most recently. Suppose we have two arcs, Arc 1 and Arc 2, that are equal in length. Arc 1 involves A and B who are on first first basis and Arc 2 involves B and C who are surname basis. Readers will switch to calling B by the surname during the second arc. A lot of times readers can't remember the name at all and will describe the character instead, like saying "glasses girl". If a reader makes a mistake with the name, sometimes other readers will copy the mistake in discussions.
I imagine Japanese discussions are pretty different and might reflect the level of familiarity readers feel with the characters. In a military series where we mainly get the perspective of soldiers, "the general" feels formal and so they wouldn't use the surname. We even do this in English, like referring to Captain Picard as Picard. I'd therefore expect Japanese readers to use Sendai and Miyagi for the reason you say.
Though of course, in the webnovel version, their first and last names get drilled into us a lot more than they will in comic version with monthly updates.
last edited at Nov 3, 2026 11:01AM
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