Believe it or not, this is my main blog. Multifandom. all over the place Anime-Shows-Gaming-Funny (sometimes my art) I'd love to talk to anyone about any fandoms or ships and such that you like, I'm pretty quiet otherwise. Unless you read my tags ^_^
It's a bird... It's a plane... It's Bamba strutting in for this year's GR⚡️D GALA!
(crossposted on Twitter here)
As per usual, closeups and my giant essay of a design process writeup can be found under the cut:
Behind the Design
This year's theme of 'Celebrating Heritage' was super interesting to explore, in part because Bamba's (and the Ryusoulgers as a whole) whole thing is that he's centuries old and from a really isolated tribe that now has to interact with the modern, outside world. So going into it, I knew I wanted to take aspects of traditional Japanese fashion and modernize it for his gala look.
In terms of fashion designers and brands, I had three big inspirations:
The goat Yohji Yamamoto (No specific collection. Just all of it.)
Sacai, specifically the Women's Spring 2026 Collection
Hare, specifically the 2023 S/S Collection
All three are Japanese fashion brands that do a lot of interesting stuff with layering and texture and shape!
As the Black Ranger of the crew, Bamba... wears a lot of black. There's a pretty famous quote from Yohji Yamamoto on the color black that I think fits Bamba well, and I wanted to craft a look that, while had silver and gold elements to call to his Ryusoul Black look, was predominantly black in color with heavy focus on layering. I also wanted it to be practical to move in, if only because I think it's something he would ask for if he were a real client.
“Black is modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is lazy and easy and mysterious. It can swallow light or it can make things sharp. But above all, black says don’t bother me.” - Yohji Yamamoto
Now that we have that established, let's move on to closeups!
A Closer Look
So many layers, so little time... where to start?
The look is pretty simple on the top half: It's a mesh tank top paired with a silver sleeveless Kimono top, with a bonus armband on his right arm! I did experiment with giving him sleeves, but I preferred the silhouette without.
Allllll of the layers are in the waist/midsection area. We have:
A modern twist on the traditional Obi, it's now been replaced with a corset belt
A long Haori coat with an inner silver lining. Normally this would be worn over the Obi, but I liked the idea of having it drape over it instead to create more texture
A bracer meant to be an asymmetrical match to the aforementioned armband. And it calls to the bracers Bamba wears in his standard outfit!
Beaded waist chains. These are there both because I think they're cool and because the Inro and Netsuke need something else to attach to now that the Obi is a giant corset belt
A black and gold Inro pouch with Bamba's necklace design (created through the maki-e lacquer technique), attached to a silver Kishiryu MilNeedle Netsuke
And last but not least, the bottoms!
Gradient Hakama pants with silver lining at the ends (fun fact: Yohji Yamamoto is one of the first few designers to introduce Hakama pants to the larger fashion world!)
The cane that he's holding is in fact a Shikomizue! A concealed sword disguised as a cane. It usually looks way more subtle, but I've glitzed it up for the gala with more lacquer and gold
I had a very specific vision for his shoes. He's wearing the Maison Margiela Tabi Knee-High Boots in black (Can you tell I spent a very long time drawing and rendering these shoes?)
That's all folks!
If you've made it all the way here, congratulations! As thanks, I leave you my second favorite Bamba thing I've ever made:
Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger but every time Bamba is on screen sexyback plays and every time Canalo is on screen el muchacho de los ojos tristes plays
FINE DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND HERE IS THE BAMBA SEXYBACK EDIT BUT EL MUCHACHO DE LOS OJOS TRISTES ALSO PLAYS EVERY TIME CANALO IS ON SCREEN
(cl
aka if Nox is a Knight, Three + Five + Six are Lords, and The Lady is a Lady (duh), then Sieg is... the dragon they have to slay? The devil whispering in their ears? And so my attempt at demon!Sieg was born :3
plus a bonus cameo from the eye of sauron because i couldn't help myself:
i dont want to be in a fandom that critisizes the choices of fictional characters like they are human beings. i want to see THEORY and ANALYSIS and STORY STRUCTURE and CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!! I WANT PARALLELS AND MOTIFS AND VISUAL CUES!!! They're not REAL they are TOOLS so stop acting like they are people who made bad choices and should be punished. of course they made bad choices!!! that shit is funny and cool to watch!!
So i was fucking around when Zeztz got the plasma upgrade and couldn’t help but think, “man wouldn’t INZM by number_i work perfectly here?” , so i edited it in and then forgot to ever upload it, oops.
thinking about five and nox foilisms, they truly are meant to contrast each other... but despite all of it they're still two sides of the same coin
five is brash and physical, nox is cold and tactical. five fixates on hierarchy (his senpai/kouhai shit), nox works as a lone agent (his agreement with the lady aside). five worships code, nox detests code.
interestingly enough, nox has an animosity towards five that's simply not present in his interactions with kureha, baku and nemu. (five is also similarly antagonistic towards nox, though this may be because of his mission or his hatred of traitors rather than anything specific to nox). we'll have to see if more is revealed on what their relationship was like in the past, but i wonder if this bitterness is partly because five reminds nox of how he was before code left him to die: a mindless puppet of code who never questioned a thing.
"i don't let go until my target's dead". it really shows what five really prioritizes in his missions. baku wants to save dreamers, kureha will get the job done, but five... five's job is to kill. five, whose capsem is named shock. five, who maintains a torture room. five, who perfectly encapsulates everything nox despises about code.
five isn't a person- he's forsaken his name for a number, a title. he's a weapon for code to wield. he's someone who's completely fine putting both himself and others on the chopping block if it means he fulfills his mission. funnily enough, i could say the exact same thing about nox.
i dont mean to blatantly twitter repost (speaking of that, original post found here!) but you guys have to see this oh my god it feels like ive just been given my first drink of water in the middle of the driest desert on earth.
He disappeared a year ago, and before he disappeared he prepared all those things like with the counterfeit paintings to make sure he had an out, but he had to play the waiting game. He had to wait until he could find a way to bring himself back. So he wandered for a year in other people's dreams, just to finally come across an agent that has what he needs to escape. He has just been tolerating Baku at first, or so it seemed. Maybe he even considered him a solution as well?
That doesn't change that the solution he'd been waiting for all along after nurturing and using these nightmares— likely at The Lady's orders, to finally retrieve his belt and capsem and take down his own Nightmare that was keeping him caged there, only to find out he couldn't defeat his own nightmare? How depressing is that? Your one way to get yourself out and you fail.
Only for Baku to show up and prove there's a way to survive. There's a way to defeat the nightmare. Nox just isn't the one that can do it. All this time he's spent thinking he should be the only one to shoulder the burden of defeating the nightmares, and yet, here comes Baku, defeating them far more easily.
Was all that time he spent biding his time in dreams and waiting for a chance to come back worth it? Was all that time he spent hurting innocent people worth it? Was all that time being haunted by his own Nightmare worth it?
Yes. Because now he can return to the real world and join The Lady and take his revenge on CODE and Zero. Of course, he now has to follow The Lady's orders regarding the Nightmares, Zero, and CODE. But he does it on his own terms.
The veil between dream and reality may be thin, but his resolve to take down CODE has never been stronger, and nothing will get in the way of that.
Except maybe the fear of being abandoned again, which is just another Nightmare sequence waiting to happen to be honest. Because that's just being in the dark all over again~
2087
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