By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
It’s easy to miss amid all the hilarious writing and captivating acting, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show filled with cool names, especially for its fan-favorite monster of the week villains. From the smooth-talking Sweet to the murderously mute Gentlemen, this is a show filled with memorable monster monikers. In one case, though, this was an accident: when David Greenwalt wrote the episode “Reptile Boy,” he was very proud to come up with “Machida” as the name for the episode’s main villain, not realizing that he was subconsciously inspired by the Makita equipment used for the production of the series.
The Buffy Origins Of Machida
In this Buffy episode, Machida is a particularly hungry demon who frequently receives human sacrifices from some evil frat dudes in exchange for wealth and power. David Greenwalt wrote this memory episode, and he admitted on the DVD commentary that he was initially impressed with himself for coming up with such a great demon name. However, he later felt silly when he realized that the show used Makita brand equipment and that this likely served as the subconscious inspiration for his demon’s name.
While this Buffy naming goof would have been embarrassing for any writer, it was particularly pressing for the man behind Machida because Greenwalt is one of the show’s biggest creative forces. In addition to writing several episodes of Buffy, he served as the show’s co-executive producer for Seasons 1 and 2 before becoming executive producer for Season 3. And he only left this show to co-create the Angel spinoff, making Greenwalt one of the biggest movers and shakers of the Buffyverse.
Amusingly enough, this former Buffy bigwig had a kind of reunion with Machida over in Angel…or, more accurately, the man behind Machida. In “Reptile Boy,” this memorable monster was played by Robin Atkin Downes, an English actor who returned to play a Pockla demon in the Angel episode “Dead End.” That episode was written by David Greenwalt, allowing him to reunite with the man behind the monster he had killed at the end of “Reptile Boy.”
Most Buffy fans are aware that while Machida didn’t survive the end of “Reptile Boy,” his spirit lived on through Avilas, a demon from the Season 7 episode “Help” who similarly offered wealth and prosperity to those who provided human sacrifices. Despite the major similarities with Machida, this later demon is not related to the earlier one. Interestingly, Machida was originally written to survive the events of “Reptile Boy” and Willow had a line about his possible return; had this alternative ending been shot, Season 7 might have featured the return of Machida instead of Avila, his dimestore duplicate.
Buffy veteran David Greenwalt felt bad about accidentally naming Machida after production equipment, but he shouldn’t beat himself up…after all, there are only so many completely distinct names out there to use for the show’s many monsters. And getting subconsciously inspired by a name that you see countless times each week is really par for the course for even the best writers. Still, we can’t help but laugh that the name of Machida, one of the best early villains, has possibly the most embarrassing origin story in all of Buffy history.
