i gotta say if there was kh merch that had these as little storage boxes or even pouches i would eat that shit up. designs that go so fucking hard even 23 years later
What is your preferred outcome when it comes to Luxu's appearance for kh4?
Luxu keeps the Xigbar vessel the entire way through.
Luxu starts in the Xigbar vessel but switches to his original appearance later.
Luxu keeps the Xigbar vessel but we see his original appearance in flashback.
Luxu goes back to his original appearance before the game starts.
Luxu uses another vessels form entirely for the fun of it.
Luxu is in an entirely new vessel/form that is not his original.
Other (love to hear what you'd want)
Voting ended onNov 7, 2025
Just curious on what y'all would prefer, there's a lot of things that could happen with Luxu in kh4 with his appearance (if he shows up)
(he probably shows up)
okay xigbar has been my fav since kh2 released BUT if we do get some kind of reapers' games it would be soooooo funny if he was a random player (maybe even a reaper) and we find out late game like LOL IT WAS LUXU THE WHOLE TIME BB!!!
Thinking about how Nomura said that the voice that talks to Sora in his station of awakening, etc. is “the King” and we all assumed it was Mickey, but I bet that asshole is gonna be like “actually it was Ephemer the whole time.”
@shiro-the-tired-writer So every KH secret boss has always ended up being the next Big Bad in the next game or some kinda of other important character. Xemnas was KH 1 secret boss and he’s the Big Bad in KH 2, Lingering Will was the secret boss in BBS, and we find out he’s Terra, in BBS, the secret boss is Young Xeha and he ended up being the Big Bad in DDD. In fact, it seems the Julius boss fight is the only outlier of this pattern. Julius’ own wiki page notes this:
Now, let’s look back at the synopsis of the short Julius is from, Runaway Brain:
So Julius swapped brains with Mickey and then became obsessed with Minnie…
What if Yozora “swapped” memories with someone and that’s why he’s now “obsessed” with saving Sora?
What if Yozora somehow stole some of Sora's memories of Riku, and that's why he looks the way he does and has an affinity to "save Sora"?
This makes sense for a few reasons:
(1) Yozora having some of Riku’s memories explains his appearance because we know that if you have someone's memories of another person, you can look like said person. For example, Xion (albeit her appearance shifts) looks like Kairi for the most part because she is storing Sora's memories of Kairi.
(2) It is possible Sora lost some memories when he was trying to re-complete himself in the Final World at the end of Base KH 3. It's sorta weird that this mechanic of "collecting Soras" was used in such an important section with no real motive or explanation. (May mean nothing, but the max numbers of Soras you can collect in this section is 333. You also don't need to collect all the Soras to progress. This could be a little wink at the fact that we actually didn't get all the Soras)
(3) Nameless Star tells us that Yozora's heart has been taken over by another. Again, adding memories to someone can have a drastic effect on who they are and their personalities. For instance, Repliku pines for Naminé almost solely because of the Meteor Shower memory. Note that even after Repliku's heart is "broken" by Naminé, he retains the Meteor Shower memory because it is so powerful and still seeks Naminé even though all of his other memories are gone. For this reason, I think Yozora's heart was effectively "taken over" by a powerful memory or memories that Sora has with Riku; memories so powerful that it took over his appearance and causes him to make an "oath" (recall that Yozora's Kingstagram post mentions an oath to save someone) to "save Sora." Yes, Yozora was "told" to save Sora, making it seem like a detached command, but we know saving Sora is personal for him because of his soft demeanor after Sora is crystallized. Thus, these memories possessing Yozora are so powerful that they changed his appearance and personality. Also, we know that a major part of Riku's character is that he seeks strength to protect what matters (i.e., Sora), so it would make sense that a Riku duplicate (or Replica *wink, wink, nudge, nudge) would carry over this personality trait.
(4) It has been heavily hinted at by the Base KH 3 secret movie, Limit Cut, and Melody of Memory that the next game will involve dreams and be reminiscent of DDD. From a meta perspective, then it makes sense that the dev team would want to allude to an important character in the next DDD-like game by making him a secret boss in DDD. Also, Julius appears in Traverse Town, where we also interact with the TWEWY characters. We know Sora and Riku appear in Shinjuku and Shibuya in the Base KH 3 secret movie (which are TWEWY settings), and Traverse Town is the most comparable world to these settings. Also, Traverse Town is where Final Fantasy characters were first introduced in the series, and we know Yozora is a stand-in of sorts for Noctis (or at least the original concept for Noctis). Putting all of this together, it then makes sense that Yozora would have been hinted at not just in DDD but specifically Traverse Town.
To add on to this, I think memories are pieces of your heart, which would explain why if you were given someone’s else memories (especially powerful ones) your heart would change. To explain this, let’s look at the keyblade Ven gets right before going to the Keyblade Graveyard, Lost Memory:
While the Keyblade’s description only says that its good for landing critical hits, we can summarize that it represents Ven’s lost memories of being Xehanort’s apprentice (or even his lost memories of KHUX).
Also of note is the fact that the “lost memory” is presented by a heart that has a chunk taken out of it. In other words, this Keyblade suggests that memories make up the heart and represent different pieces of it.
This also makes sense given the keyblade is an extension of its wielders heart and different keyblades in KH represent different connections or memories with others (the different keyblades we get after completing worlds represent the memories/ connections with the world’s inhabitants, Oblivion represents Sora’s connection with Riku like Oathkeeper represents his connection with Kairi, Xion could summon Kingdom Key because she had Sora’s memories, etc.)
Speaking of Xion being able to use Kingdom Key because she has Sora’s memories… this would also explain why Yozora can steal Sora’s keyblade during the boss battle. He can steal it because he has Sora’s memories and thus a piece of his heart.
Ok one more side note: Julius is a bizarro version of Pete, a villain in the series we see a lot. More specifically, he’s Maleficient’s main side kick. Besides looking like Riku in his present form, does he actually look like a villain we’ve already seen? A “side kick villain” to be exact?
Let’s consider Yozora’s name. We know that Nomura intentionally named him (or the original concept for Noctis) in a way to make him an opposite to Sora (source):
Well, before Yozora’s appearance, we already had a Sora opposite, Vanitas. In fact, Vanitas was named in a way to contrast Sora (source):
Vanitas was Xehanort’s first side kick in a way… So… what if Yozora actually looks like Vanitas?
Now, this actually makes sense for a few reasons:
(1) In the Birth by Sleep novels, Vanitas is described as having red eyes (source). Similarly, there are trailer shots for Versus XIII where Noctis has red eyes:
It could be that if Vanitas appears “un-Norted” he’ll lose his yellow eyes and have red eyes. This actually makes sense because the Unversed, his creations, have red eyes.
We also know that Yozora has one red eye. It could be that his original eye color is red.
(2) Much like Noctis and Vanitas, it appears Yozora may have originally had black hair. You can see that his roots have black hair:
(3) Besides the eye color and hair color, Vanitas and Yozora have a similar color scheme. Their clothing emphasizes red and black:
Another interesting tidbit is the fact that Yozora has a skull motif on his sleeve with two crossed Kingdom Keys
Vanitas has a skull helmet… His name is associated with death… The X-Blade, the principle purpose for Vanitas’ existence, consists of two crossed Kingdom Keys…
The hair surrounding the skull on Yozora’s jacket also resembles Sora’s spiky hair… or ya know… Vanitas’ hair.
In sum, Yozora may originally have bared a resemblance to Vanitas and even have some kind of connection to him. However, because of the influence of Sora’s memories of Riku, he has adopted aspects of Riku’s appearance.
Ok a few more things and then I’ll shut up about this today.
In Runaway Brain, Mickey, in Julius’ body, puts Minnie up on a skyscrapper for her protection.
Kinda like… how if you lose the Yozora fight, he crystalizes Sora on top of the Shibuya tower.
I would also like to point out that Runaway Brain is such an obscure short (it was only shown in theaters a handful of time) so Nomura purposefully choose Julius as the secret boss because he wanted us to notice this choice. He must have not wanted to give away anything about Yozora just yet but still wanted to plant the seed. All of these strange parallels need to lead to somewhere.
@shiro-the-tired-writer So every KH secret boss has always ended up being the next Big Bad in the next game or some kinda of other important character. Xemnas was KH 1 secret boss and he’s the Big Bad in KH 2, Lingering Will was the secret boss in BBS, and we find out he’s Terra, in BBS, the secret boss is Young Xeha and he ended up being the Big Bad in DDD. In fact, it seems the Julius boss fight is the only outlier of this pattern. Julius’ own wiki page notes this:
Now, let’s look back at the synopsis of the short Julius is from, Runaway Brain:
So Julius swapped brains with Mickey and then became obsessed with Minnie…
What if Yozora “swapped” memories with someone and that’s why he’s now “obsessed” with saving Sora?
What if Yozora somehow stole some of Sora's memories of Riku, and that's why he looks the way he does and has an affinity to "save Sora"?
This makes sense for a few reasons:
(1) Yozora having some of Riku’s memories explains his appearance because we know that if you have someone's memories of another person, you can look like said person. For example, Xion (albeit her appearance shifts) looks like Kairi for the most part because she is storing Sora's memories of Kairi.
(2) It is possible Sora lost some memories when he was trying to re-complete himself in the Final World at the end of Base KH 3. It's sorta weird that this mechanic of "collecting Soras" was used in such an important section with no real motive or explanation. (May mean nothing, but the max numbers of Soras you can collect in this section is 333. You also don't need to collect all the Soras to progress. This could be a little wink at the fact that we actually didn't get all the Soras)
(3) Nameless Star tells us that Yozora's heart has been taken over by another. Again, adding memories to someone can have a drastic effect on who they are and their personalities. For instance, Repliku pines for Naminé almost solely because of the Meteor Shower memory. Note that even after Repliku's heart is "broken" by Naminé, he retains the Meteor Shower memory because it is so powerful and still seeks Naminé even though all of his other memories are gone. For this reason, I think Yozora's heart was effectively "taken over" by a powerful memory or memories that Sora has with Riku; memories so powerful that it took over his appearance and causes him to make an "oath" (recall that Yozora's Kingstagram post mentions an oath to save someone) to "save Sora." Yes, Yozora was "told" to save Sora, making it seem like a detached command, but we know saving Sora is personal for him because of his soft demeanor after Sora is crystallized. Thus, these memories possessing Yozora are so powerful that they changed his appearance and personality. Also, we know that a major part of Riku's character is that he seeks strength to protect what matters (i.e., Sora), so it would make sense that a Riku duplicate (or Replica *wink, wink, nudge, nudge) would carry over this personality trait.
(4) It has been heavily hinted at by the Base KH 3 secret movie, Limit Cut, and Melody of Memory that the next game will involve dreams and be reminiscent of DDD. From a meta perspective, then it makes sense that the dev team would want to allude to an important character in the next DDD-like game by making him a secret boss in DDD. Also, Julius appears in Traverse Town, where we also interact with the TWEWY characters. We know Sora and Riku appear in Shinjuku and Shibuya in the Base KH 3 secret movie (which are TWEWY settings), and Traverse Town is the most comparable world to these settings. Also, Traverse Town is where Final Fantasy characters were first introduced in the series, and we know Yozora is a stand-in of sorts for Noctis (or at least the original concept for Noctis). Putting all of this together, it then makes sense that Yozora would have been hinted at not just in DDD but specifically Traverse Town.
To add on to this, I think memories are pieces of your heart, which would explain why if you were given someone’s else memories (especially powerful ones) your heart would change. To explain this, let’s look at the keyblade Ven gets right before going to the Keyblade Graveyard, Lost Memory:
While the Keyblade’s description only says that its good for landing critical hits, we can summarize that it represents Ven’s lost memories of being Xehanort’s apprentice (or even his lost memories of KHUX).
Also of note is the fact that the “lost memory” is presented by a heart that has a chunk taken out of it. In other words, this Keyblade suggests that memories make up the heart and represent different pieces of it.
This also makes sense given the keyblade is an extension of its wielders heart and different keyblades in KH represent different connections or memories with others (the different keyblades we get after completing worlds represent the memories/ connections with the world’s inhabitants, Oblivion represents Sora’s connection with Riku like Oathkeeper represents his connection with Kairi, Xion could summon Kingdom Key because she had Sora’s memories, etc.)
Speaking of Xion being able to use Kingdom Key because she has Sora’s memories… this would also explain why Yozora can steal Sora’s keyblade during the boss battle. He can steal it because he has Sora’s memories and thus a piece of his heart.
Ok one more side note: Julius is a bizarro version of Pete, a villain in the series we see a lot. More specifically, he’s Maleficient’s main side kick. Besides looking like Riku in his present form, does he actually look like a villain we’ve already seen? A “side kick villain” to be exact?
Let’s consider Yozora’s name. We know that Nomura intentionally named him (or the original concept for Noctis) in a way to make him an opposite to Sora (source):
Well, before Yozora’s appearance, we already had a Sora opposite, Vanitas. In fact, Vanitas was named in a way to contrast Sora (source):
Vanitas was Xehanort’s first side kick in a way… So… what if Yozora actually looks like Vanitas?
Now, this actually makes sense for a few reasons:
(1) In the Birth by Sleep novels, Vanitas is described as having red eyes (source). Similarly, there are trailer shots for Versus XIII where Noctis has red eyes:
It could be that if Vanitas appears “un-Norted” he’ll lose his yellow eyes and have red eyes. This actually makes sense because the Unversed, his creations, have red eyes.
We also know that Yozora has one red eye. It could be that his original eye color is red.
(2) Much like Noctis and Vanitas, it appears Yozora may have originally had black hair. You can see that his roots have black hair:
(3) Besides the eye color and hair color, Vanitas and Yozora have a similar color scheme. Their clothing emphasizes red and black:
Another interesting tidbit is the fact that Yozora has a skull motif on his sleeve with two crossed Kingdom Keys
Vanitas has a skull helmet… His name is associated with death… The X-Blade, the principle purpose for Vanitas’ existence, consists of two crossed Kingdom Keys…
The hair surrounding the skull on Yozora’s jacket also resembles Sora’s spiky hair… or ya know… Vanitas’ hair.
In sum, Yozora may originally have bared a resemblance to Vanitas and even have some kind of connection to him. However, because of the influence of Sora’s memories of Riku, he has adopted aspects of Riku’s appearance.
germansingergirl
andulkaphoto
kaledo-art
jbbartram-illu
origamiaround
pixelskylines
dededos
jacobvanloon
izzy806
dailybridgerton
