#ichaival

[axia-chan]

[x]

[its-to-the-death]

Fictional Weapon War Round 1

Riz Gukgak's arquebus (Dimension 20 Fantasy High) vs Ichaival (Symphogear)

Which is the cooler weapon?

Riz Gukgak's arquebus

Ichaival

Voting ended onAug 1, 2023

Mod comments:

I am a Fantasy High and Dimension 20 fan but Ichaival's ability to turn into a bunch of ranged weapons is pretty cool

[eirikrjs]

Saw a video on Youtube about Ichaival and learned something interesting: its appearance in Symphogear predates the infamous Wikipedia edit, and comes complete with the same shoddy Romanization that, as far as I know, exists only in unofficial fan translations of Genealogy of the Holy War. A more accurate romanization of the JP name would be Ichiibaru or Ichival. When the bow reappeared in Fire Emblem Awakening, the translators picked the much more sensible localization Yewfelle over a direct romanization, making it obvious that the original Japanese name was adapted from Ydalir.

This leaves me to wonder: were the writers of Symphogear referencing English-language Fire Emblem fan sites?

(Another fun fact: Freikugel is used in the most recent Fire Emblem game as the name of a legendary axe. Why isn't it a bow? Who knows!)

Ok, I had to look up what Symphogear is, lol. I had heard of it.

But another Ichaival twist? All of this might just show that people making games and anime are all consuming the same stuff.

Here's an article about Ichaival from 2019 that covers the same stuff.

I have no idea about the localization of the name. My guess is that "Ichaival" was just an erroneous romanization used in Japanese materials. According to the Symphogear wiki, "Ichaival was originally written as "Ichii-Bal" in S1, except for in the lyric booklets where it was spelled as "Ichaival". Later seasons consistently name the relic as "Ichaival." So it sounds like Ichaival was the intent after all.

Personally, I think the Ichaival or イチイバル might just be an author's invention. Considering this happened with Brionac, I think Ichaival might also have its origins in a volume of the cursed Truth in Fantasy series. The weird romanization could also originate there, but I also don't know when the Genealogy of the Holy War fan translation released.

[littlemisspinky]

that's what it means to pull the trigger / my kiss will hit the target / with a shot loaded with love / I don't do this to kill, but to protect

chris! her character development is just *chef's kiss* and her main song from xv always makes me a lil emotional with how well it reflects that

[cutepresea]

I'm basically making a more fleshed out post about the addition I made to that last reblog

Soooo...

Everyone pretty much agrees that Ichai/Ichii comes from the Japanese word ichii for "yew," yes? Okay

The val/bal thing though, people these days tend to think it's short for "valley" to make the full name Yew Valley to reference Ydalir but...

There are also a few older claims around the JP web that FE created the term to mean "bow." I can NOT find an official source for this so I'm a bit wary of it, but Symphogear actually also uses this meaning:

The first sentence reads "A bow (val/bal) made from a plant known as yew (ichai/ichii), that was supposedly possessed by Ullr, the god of hunting and skiing in Norse Mythology." (The above excerpt is from the Symphogear Official Design Works book that was sold at Symphogear Live 2012)

The rest of the paragraph is just about Ichaival in Symphogear, I assume you know this stuff.

There was a wikipedia edit made in February 2012 (after Symphogear started airing) that made the claim that val/bal is a word created for Fire Emblem to mean "bow." The page for val/bal on pixiv also words it the same way as wikipedia.

The only other thing I can find on the subject is a Japanese fansite from 2005 that suggests "bal" could be short for ballista and is used to mean "bow"

(I apologize, it's probably hard to see the screenshot posted above)

*I used screenshots in case those pages are edited or taken down

But yes, no sources. Very wary. It's just funny that Symphogear also used that meaning

[kamizin-art]

雪音クリス

[inversionimpulse]

it’s really funny to me that Fire Emblem fans once accidentally invented a Norse myth

[sg-r03-gungnir]

So uhh here they are! O-O Enjoy and please tag me if you wear them :D