Bloody Roar concept art
Hi guys, a while back I asked a question about whether there were still any Bloody Roar fans. Now that I’ve logged into my Tumblr again, I’ve seen some ppl chime in to say hello! Thus, to keep this fandom (however small it is lol) active, imma post some cool stuff concerning BR; concept art for the first game. *Note that all this info is from Mitsuakira Tatsuta and Shinsuke Yamakawa’s Twitters with some of my opinions and observations sprinkled in
So, back when the first game was being developed, the character designers had to rack their brains to come up with good zoanthrope designs. Part of the team were Mitsuakira Tatsuta and Shinsuke Yamakawa and they sketched all kinds of beasts at an incredible rate (like, it was a lot). Mr. Tatsuta himself drew about 300 of them and he said there were a bull and kangaroo design he personally liked but those got rejected (we’ll get there).
The image above is an unused koala girl whom he and the other artists found funny and couldn’t stop laughing at how terrible and dumb it looked. Tbh, they were kinda right lol. Given how slow koalas are, the image of a humanoid marsupial with boobs running towards you is fucking hilarious.
Anteater dude. Probably would have played like a mix between Bakuryu and Busuzima. Mr. Yamakawa thought it looked similar to the former. Speaking of which.......
Early design for Bakuryu. Seems like the mole was going to have ears and a tail. Actually, I’ve always wondered why the Bakuryus didn’t have tails when moles irl do have visible ones. Unless there’s a breed of mole that doesn’t, in which case I’m not aware of. The concept of a 2nd Bakuryu was also apparently already thought up at this time (idk if in the form of a clone, brother, student, etc.) even when Mr. Tatsuta wasn’t involved much in the later games so it’s nice to know that Kakeru/Kenji was not merely an afterthought haha.
Here are 2 very early concept art of Alice. In the 1st one, she looks more mature and edgy. The design/aesthetic may have been recycled into Nagi’s in BR4 (especially the tube top). In the 2nd one, she doesn’t have pigtails since her hair is short and instead wears a giant bow to emulate bunny ears. Very shoujo-esque.
This is the rejected bull design Mr. Tatsuta mentioned and next to it an early bat zoanthrope. The artist had already thought up some ideas on how they were going to fit in the game. The bat was of course used as the basis for Jenny’s beast form later on. There is also the bull zoanthrope’s human form. The character would be Native American it looks like. Bull guy here had been shown before in concept art included in the BR1 game.
A black panther woman (literally lol). It looks like she could have been a black character (probably the first and only in the series unless you count Greg). Also, if this character was approved, we’d have gotten even more cats in the roster.
Squirrel girl, elephant man, and goat lady. The first one looks kinda like a monkey girl (which would be super cute), elephant obvs became Ganesha later, and the goat lady looks more like a demon/satyr to me. This would actually be cool and does fit in with the mythos as shown in the games and the “BR: The Fang” manga i.e., fantasy creatures such as mermaids, dragons, and phoenixes.
Kangaroo zoanthrope. Mr. Tatsuta imagined him using the Muay Thai fighting style. Eventually rejected as Roger, another kangaroo fgc, had already appeared in Tekken 1-2 years before.
Something veeeeeryyyy interesting. This is a pretty detailed design for a character that was going to be Alice’s brother. This guy was also included in the concept art feature in the BR1 game but it was not mentioned who he was supposed to be. I actually thought he was a proto-Yugo or something. Well, if he made it this far into the character creation process (past the rough sketches and onto colored concept art), then there must have been a conceptual storyline for him somewhere along the line. Judging from his appearance and fashion sense (heh), he’s definitely related to Alice.
Additionally, the red eyes and rabbit-like face probably means that he too was going to have a rabbit beast form; maybe even a hare. I guess he was scrapped since having 2 bunnies would’ve been redundant. I wonder how Alice’s backstory might’ve been had her brother existed. Would she have been adopted into the Nonomura family? Was there going to be some plot where she would be looking for him, thinking she lost her family? Who knows. One thing I do know however, is that he’d butt heads with Yugo since he wouldn’t be keen on his sister dating a *gasp* predator.
Now, I think it would be awesome if this character is introduced in a potential reboot/new installment! They could say Alice didn’t know he was alive, or that he stayed away to keep her safe, seeing as she was already happy with the Nonomuras and relegated himself to watching over her in the shadows. Seriouslyyyy the potential is enormous and I’m hoping something will be done with scrapped concepts like this. (Plus, this guy reminded me of the genderbend Alice fanart I did so long ago. I guess male Alice wasn’t too far off after all).
And lastly, Alice in her sailor fuku (human and beast form). Mr. Tatsuta said this was how he imagined she looked like in that costume.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
That’s all for now! It’s really interesting to see all this concept art and trace back where some designs carried over into later installments of the series. After going through all of them, I yearn even more for another Bloody Roar game! A reboot would be great and some of the rejected designs could be used too. Or continuation with new characters and a bigger roster; that would be even more amazing. Anyway, I thought I should share these sketches by some of the original Raizing/Eighting staff and keep the interest in BR going. We may get something; in regards to Konami trademarking the brand name last year, we just have to wait and see.