Talk:General Discussion/@comment-92.150.171.236-20141101140548/@comment-167.220.240.8-20141105071216

Akizuki instead of Akitsuki has nothing to do with whether the compound is a 'word' or not. It's called rendaku and it's a frustratingly inconsistent part about reading kanji compounds. Basically when certain words starting with certain consonants appear in a kanji compound and are read with a certain type of reading (generally doesn't apply to chinese loanwords except when it does) and are not the first character, the initial consonant becomes voiced most of the time but there are seemingly random exceptions and no real hard-and-fast rule to it. And then there's a few that are just crazy, where they voice a different consonant, like Sazanami (combines 'sasa' and 'nami'). It is crazy and esoteric and it drives me insane because of how inconsistent it is. :(