#by sumeragi

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Mai Natsume featured in Famitsu magazine By Sumeragi

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By Sumeragi on Twitter!

"Happy birthday, Taokaka! May you eat your fill of your favorite food, meat buns!"

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Purchase bonuses for Variable Heart Volume 3. You would receive a different card dependent on which store you bought the book from.

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And here we have Akane's BBDW expressions! As I mentioned in his Card Art post, for some odd reason his sprites cut off the edges of his coat.

In order, the expressions are labeled “01normal, 02joy, 03mad, 04sad, 05happy, 06angryroar, 07arch_smile” in the files.

Below you'll find his expressions for his Academy Uniform and his other costume!

0091000

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Birthday Art by Sumeragi

"Happy birthday Jin! I wonder if his friends during Military Academy celebrated birthdays."

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MAI VS CHACHAKAKA

Remix Heart, Volume 3, Chapter 18 + 19

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I'm still a little salty that we know so little about Professor Emma. If she would have made it into BBDW... Ahem.

One of the things that stumps me the most is the Estella vs Emma thing. The translation uses the word "alias" for her Emma moniker, and it's the only name any of the other characters ever use.

So the question is- is "Emma" a nickname used by her students, a sort of portmanteau of "Estella" and "McKenzie," or is it a genuine alias? Is her real name kept from the students and faculty as part of her collaboration with Kagura's rebellion, or am I totally overthinking that?

I feel like we have tons of info pointing either way. Her little bio from the Anniversary translates Emma as a "nickname," and the segway into her popularity with the kids suggests it's something they came up with.

But on the other hand, the other adult figure in the same manga IS canonically using an alias- see Chapter 20's discussion of Cypher's history with Sector Seven. So fake names are used in this specific arc. We also see Emma herself referred to as "Agent E" in Chapter 12.

Though her actual given name, Estella, also begins with an E. And why used an "agent" handle if her codename was Emma? Wouldn't the entire point be for the codename to be disconnected from her real name? So it should be safe to use?

Personally, after going on this silly deep dive on the subject, I'm inclined to believe 'Emma' is just a totally normal nickname the students gave her, and that she is on file as Estella McKenzie within the NOL and at the school. Anyone disagree???

...do any of you even know about Emma???

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While BBDW was running, I was always super excited to see characters we never saw much of in the main series. On of the most interesting and surprising characters we got to see was Akane Teruhiko, making his debut as a 3⭐ character available from the start of the game!

His sprites in the files are a little odd to me. His third art in particular. As you can see, the Card Art cuts off the right edge of his coat, but keeps the full edge on the left- but his talksprite doesn't. It cuts him off even earlier! He's the first character I've seen that cuts off like that. Most others keep the full image and just... take up a lot of space. You can see what I mean with Sechs' assets- even though his character Card Art cuts off the edge of his sprite, his talksprite keeps the full image. Why does Akane's instead seem to remove part of his artwork??? Seems rude.

See also;

[ Main Costume Gameplay ] || [ Academy Uniform Gameplay ]

His first costume is, of course, the Torifune winter uniform we see him wear in his introduction back in Remix Heart! We've seen it drawn colored before too, as in the Jin birthday art Sumeragi drew. It is nice to get a look at the full outfit though!

Beyond that, both of Akane's later costumes are brand new! These are our first look at the NOL air force uniform! We'd previously been told that the uniform color would be some kind of green ('helpfully' described as "Triumphant Return of the Kingfisher") but this would be our first time seeing a full design!

The look is so intricate, too! I'm super grateful that Akane was added, as through him we also got to learn more about an unseen side of the NOL.

I wonder what the women's version of the uniform looks like though... Specifically, since each variation of the girls' division uniforms has a different arm accessory, what is it for the air force? Akane's uniform gives us a lot of pieces that could translate over to that... the orange ribbons, the black belts, the 'X' motif... hm. Anyone have any ideas???