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[thebloodfridge]

Rest in Peace, Kentaro Miura

For anyone who didn’t already know, the author of Berserk, Kentaro Miura, passed away. It happened on May 6th earlier this year but has still weighed on me as 2021 comes to an end. He was a massive influence on the entertainment industry as well as myself, and stood as an example of what any aspiring writer should strive to be. Despite it going unfinished, Berserk will similarly continue to go down in history as a peak of the manga industry, and also be one of the few truly great works of fiction to be found worldwide.

It is this heavy loss which has brought me back to a website I never planned to use again. I have thought about and even drafted a tribute to Miura that I was going to post, but as I look it over, I’m unsure it will ever be in a place I want it to be. Miura always gave us his best, and it resulted in the phenomenon that is Berserk, so to produce anything short of the absolute best I can make in return would feel like a waste. Still, it didn’t feel right to let the year close out without saying something out of respect to one of the most talented people I was lucky enough to read the work of, so I am here today to say this.

To anyone who has ever read my work, to anyone who has enjoyed my work, to anyone who hasn’t found themselves wowed by a story in a while, for anyone who has never been wowed by a story, and for anyone who values the craft of writing as a whole.

Read Berserk.

The series tackles subject matter than can be difficult to approach and themes that are hard to nail down, but they are part of a story made with such skill they never reel inappropriate or out of place. There is a cast of characters so layered and complex that any of them could lead a series of their own, and yet none could take the role from the actual main character, Guts. He is a character so well realized that he sets the bar for what a main character should be. When it comes to art, few can claim to so much as rival what Miura has done with Berserk. His drawings can communicate such scale and weight and emotion with such expertise that no animation adaptation has been able to do what he has done with a pen and paper.

I could go on and on signing the praises of Berserk and still not do it justice. I’ll stop there and let Miura speak for himself through his work. Just know that whatever aspect you value in storytelling, Berserk will never fail to meet your expectations, if not surpass them entirely.

You know, its funny, I have joked before that series like Berserk have turned me into a snob. It certainly isn’t fair to compare every story I read to such a masterpiece, but with each read I make of Berserk it is hammered into my head what a good story looks like. Really, I’m grateful for what the series has done for me. Few things may hold up under such critical reading, but I can now appreciate and engage with a craft I care about in a more meaningful way than ever before. If you are looking to do the same, or just want a good story to enjoy casually, I’ll urge you again to give it a try.

As I said before, it is unfinished and that feels so unfair, both to us but also to Miura. He wanted to finish Berserk just as much if not more than we wanted to see it end. While he was taken from us all too soon by an industry that abuses its talent, he left behind a legacy few can dream of having.

It still makes me sad to think about, but I didn’t just write this a eulogy for Miura or an advertisement for Berserk. Even if it is just in some small way, I hope this properly honors his memory and helps new readers find his work so they can come to celebrate it just like I and so many others have. I will surely return to the series countless times to come and enjoy it immensely each and every time, and I hope it turns out the same for anyone who is willing to take the plunge. I also encourage all those who do to do the same as well. Miura’s work deserves to make it to as many hands as possible so it can continue to be celebrated for generations.

I carried on longer than expected. To be honest, I’m torn between feelings of saying too much and not enough all at once. For now, I’ll just say one last thing.

Thank you, Kentaro Miura.

[thebloodfridge]

Bad Headcanons

I probably once heard one of the worst headcanons about BlazBlue before and it popped back in my head the other day. It was about our good friend Kokonoe. Someone actually put forth the idea that she not only exercises regularly but does so enough to be physically fit.

Now, I would like to hope most fans of the series would take their chuckle and walk away here, but I am not so gullible and will use this to prove my point that it is possible to have bad headcanons.

Really, her personality alone should lead people to the conclusion she doesn’t exercise all on its own. She is lazy, has extreme tunnel vision concerning her goals, and certainly doesn’t care what other people think about her. There is nothing about her general attitude that would translate to any care or interest in fitness. The more you look at her, the less likely it gets, too.

To start, you can just look at some context clues given by the series. We can all remember the occasional shot of her lab, yeah? Covered in clutter and packed with trash is putting it mildly. This communicates a very lazy lifestyle that Kokonoe embraces fully. Sure, it is due to the fact she would rather always be on task to take down Terumi (time definitely not wasted there) but it goes to show how little she cares for things like hygiene or her physical condition. Furthermore, because Kokonoe is always seen snacking on chips or candy or what have you we know her diet isn’t great by any means either. These are just a couple ways the audience is indirectly told that Kokonoe is not one to take good care of herself and it is easy to see why she may be out of shape.

Now, how about a couple of more direct points?

Until Arc bent the knee to fan pressure to make her playable, they made it abundantly clear she barely did much personally. Casting the one spell during the whole Relius incident was enough to exhaust her to the point she was immobile and passed out shortly after. This is despite the series claim that her parent’s genes should make her naturally talented with magic and strong to boot. Her officially stated hobby of collecting candy also supports the idea she leads a very unhealthy lifestyle, too.

However, the even bigger point to note would be her Silvervine candy. Played off as a joke at first, the series eventually makes it clear what the stuff is. Silvervine is a real thing, for those who don’t know, and it is basically catnip. I think most know what catnip does to cats right? It is a step further for Kokonoe, though, and by that I mean it is a hard drug she uses to stay up for I believe what is at least implied to be days on end. It is to the point we are told that she would collapse if she stopped taking the stuff. This straight up drug addict behavior certainly paints the picture of someone who would take the time out of their day to exercise, right?

Lastly, and I’ll say up front this is more of a personal point than anything, but did anyone else get the vibe she had a bit of a gut thanks to her CS art? At the time when she wasn’t around as much I thought it made sense that she would have one given what we knew about her and thought it was a design actually being consistent with a character for a change in BlazBlue, but that was absolutely a swing and a miss on my part.

Anyway, back to bad headcanons.

I’m sure plenty of people would argue there is no such thing considering a headcanon is just something someone feels about the media they consume. This is true enough, too. Anyone can feel any way they want about their media and there is nothing wrong about that feeling and no matter what someone may tell themselves no one is trying to take that away from you, either.

However, this conversation can still be useful for people who have an interest in writing or just like to tackle things with a more analytical approach. Because what this comes down to here is consistency in writing. This headcanon could be held by someone just because they like the idea of Kokonoe exercising and taking care of herself, and that is fine, but for anyone honestly thinking about or discussing Kokonoe for who she is knows that this character wouldn’t be Kokonoe. And anyone who is a fan of Kokonoe for who she really is would (or at least should) be able to spot an inconsistency that bad a mile off should it be in a fanfic or something like that. It would be up to the person if it bothers them or not, but anyone who takes her seriously knows that it would be incorrect characterization at the very least.

And so, if it is fun for you to think about Kokonoe’s exercise regimen, Amane’s crippling stage fright, or Terumi’s secret love of puppies then keep at it. You have your fun, and hey, if you can acknowledge these headcanons are more for yourself than being about any character then we can probably all have a good conversation.

Just don’t be afraid to engage with your media more than only liking it.

Hopefully my boredom will be helpful to someone. Or not.

[thebloodfridge]

Kokonoe’s Failings

Anyone ever notice there are a lot of them? It always seems that nothing she tries works, and all her ideas are bad. Yet, she is seen as intelligent and even reliable by both the series and the fans for some reason. Fans have personal bias, sure, but really look at her scorecard over the course of the series.

She took Tager and wiped his memory (retconned into a positive thing) to be a indebted soldier to her, only to constantly put him in situations over his head because her insistence to use science puts him at a disadvantage to everyone else due to magic’s blatant superiority.

“Its thanks to her Hakumen got back into the world!” Which is cool, until you remember her plan was just to keep him locked up and use him like a battery until Rachel saved the day as she is one to do. Of course, being short-sighted and stubborn as she is, Kokonoe rages against Rachel for this despite this being the best course of action. Proof? If Hakumen wasn’t free he couldn’t stop Mu, and not stopping Mu makes for one dead Amaterasu.

Lets not forget she briefly enslaved a Murakumo. Sure, she acknowledges how morally screwed this is (apologizing makes your actions okay, right?), but she still doesn’t hesitate to do it. And why does she do it, one may ask? She figured a Murakumo could beat Terumi. She figured she could use a thing Terumi made to defeat him. Really think about that one. Kokonoe’s grand plan was to send a weakened Murakumo (also important to note) after the guy who knows everything about them to kill him. “Well, this let Lambda save Ragna!” Until you remember Lambda/Nu had broken away from Kokonoe’s control at this point and was acting against her wishes.

It becomes a dropped plot point but there is also the matter of the nukes. The series waves them off as insurance, but think about who they are insurance against. Terumi, of course. What wouldn’t kill a ghost? A nuke. Launch one or all of them at Terumi and he loses, what, his current body? Get another one. All it would do is kill a massive amount of innocent people. Not that Kokonoe cares. “She brought Celica back!” And that was great! For BlazBlue’s marketing, but for the story? Not so much. Talked before how Celica kills the plot dead, and she ultimately doesn’t do anything because Celica experiencing conflict is forbidden. This action of Kokonoe’s amounts to nothing. But, hey, if we want to talk about it then lets not forget Kokonoe wanted to turn Celica into fuel. Right choice or not, I know how much people hate that idea. 

The failure to imprison Azrael is less her fault and more of Mori going “well, we can’t reduce the roster so let's bring him back” but unfortunately for her we have to look at the implications of this in universe. Once again, her big plan (which everyone else did more work for) falls flat on its face when Azrael basically flexes out of her interdimensional prison. Her methods fail again. How about when she has Terumi at her mercy because she can turn off her emotions. Isn’t that cool? It is unless you think about the implication of this scene. We are later told Terumi can Observe himself, but he just saves it for serious situations. What does this tell us? It tells us that he does not see Kokonoe as a threat. If he actually considered her a problem then naturally he would Observe himself and kick her teeth in. However, as he pointed out in Calamity Trigger, the only ones he feels threatened by would be Rachel and Jubei. This scene, regardless of intentions, makes Kokonoe look like the fool once again because the reality is Terumi is only humoring her like a child playing make believe. 

Want to know something else, though? I don’t even blame Kokonoe for all of this. 

Fact is, everything we are told and show about Kokonoe is completely consistent. All aspects of her personality and background feed into each other and makes her character make sense as written. The only problem is no acknowledgement of her problems. Maybe it is just because she is only a side character and they didn’t want to spend too much time on her (doubt it), or maybe it is because no one realized what they wrote her into (probably), but they give her no meaningful arc or impact on the series and that ruins her potential. 

If anyone has bothered to follow along with my ramblings on this site they probably have noticed the pattern. BlazBlue is a series just packed with good ideas that were executed horribly. And, like it or not, Kokonoe is one of the biggest examples of this. 

Because with the series being done (dead) I can comfortably say that the Kokonoe we got is one of the most stagnant, poorly written characters in the entire series. 

[thebloodfridge]

Despite there being a couple of things I like design wise about mori's excessively edgy Kagura, it feels so wrong seeing as it couldn't fit the character less

It's between stuff like that and alpha or his terrible concept art for kokonoe (last thing she needed on top of everything else was a bad design, too) that makes me believe there was just someone on staff who would occasionally have to wack mori with a rolled up newspaper during the making of blazblue

They must've started taking too many breaks after CS

[thebloodfridge]

And Another Thing

Susano’o: A pure evil, cruel, psychotic, hate filled god who only wants to destroy the world and make people suffer and will happily do it by his own hands because he views all life as the lowest of the low that doesn’t deserve to exist in the first place. Ruby: “Can I wear your armor :D” Can we all see the problem?

It doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say that every time a cross tag Susan quote makes it my way that it shines a light on what a problem the writing in the game has. I’m sure that applies to most characters based on the little I have seen, but the worst certainly seems centered around him.

Not only does this one take what was the main antagonist of a franchise and make him feel like a harmless joke, but it makes the main protagonist of another franchise look like a complete idiot. I’ll admit I don’t know the series well at all, but if I was a fan of rwby I’d be pissed at stuff like this because it is taking the face of the series and making her seem like an incompetent, air-headed child. 

Makes matters even worse when you have Susan openly mocking and being a massive racist to (who I assume is) one of her closest friends and she is more concerned with a shiny new toy. You obviously don’t need to build a prolonged narrative for one or two lines of a battle intro, but you should at least show a hero not approve of or be uncomfortable around an utter monster like Susan. 

It is all about consistency with character writing and things like this make it clear they don’t treat that as a priority or the characters themselves with respect. 

[thebloodfridge]

Hey cross tag writers

When you make Ragna say “I’m on your side” to the guy who,

Cut off his arm Burned down his house Kidnapped his siblings Killed his caretaker Broke his brother’s mind Tortured his sister Cost him his other arm Tormented the few he is still close to And ultimately led to his death

under any context (but especially with none), you should probably be fired.

It's like the cross tag staff is having a race with the fanbase to see who can screw up more faster. And its neck and neck.

[thebloodfridge]

I did not expect they would be able to top a character less appropriate than Ragna (or maybe Azrael) for cross tag, but hooooo boy does Susan stick out. 

It is funny to hear him talk all kinds of shit, but to see him be so restrained by such a toothless crossover makes it all feel just pointless. 

You let him tear through the casts like he should and would, or you don’t bother at all because if he can’t then it isn’t him.

[thebloodfridge]

Seeing people try to talk about Rachel only to get her wrong in practically every way despite her characterization being fairly simple and her story beats pretty straightforward is like watching a grown adult drown in a foot bath. 

I’d be almost impressed if it weren’t so disappointing. 

[thebloodfridge]

Does Ragna try to take the easy way out?

Probably a pretty silly question to pose about the character whose theme is “Rebellion”, or I would hope it is but the fanbase has surprised me before. In fact, I bring this up because someone argued for this very point and I am hard pressed to think of a time when someone has misunderstood a character so badly. At least when the person also claims to like the character and isn’t trying to purposefully misrepresent them, at any rate.

Now, on its face, I can see someone believing this argument has some merit. Ragna’s lazier mannerisms and multiple moments where he insists to others that the is not who he is to avoid trouble could lead someone to believe he does indeed seek the easier route in life. If they haven’t seen much of him anyway. Still, to anyone who has played through the story and paid attention to his character, the thought is ludicrous.

And I can prove it, too, for those who consider it necessary.

The simplest place to start would, naturally, be the beginning of Ragna’s story. We all know what happened when Terumi came a knockin’ and what followed. Once he understands the situation, he is faced with a choice with what to do next, and he decides to fight. He commits roughly a decade to training with Jubei learning how to fight, use his grimoire, cook and likely more general knowledge and survival skills. Not terribly easy, I’m sure we could all agree, yes? This is all in preparation to fight what is essentially the world government almost single handed, mind you. This was all made abundantly clear to him, as well, when Rachel explicitly spelled out to him that he would face hell, and he readily accepted it.

How about we jump ahead to CS, though? Ragna finally finds Terumi only to discover he is no match. He seems absurdly powerful and even Rachel says Ragna has no hope of defeating his arch enemy. She goes as far as to assure him she will have it handled and its best he remains on the sidelines for the time being. Does he just nod and understand he isn’t ready to face Terumi yet? Not one bit. He takes the challenge and he charges ahead knowing full well he might not survive. Moving toward the end of CS and after he saves Rachel, which is out of his way in and of itself, he is told Noel cannot be saved and he has no choice but to kill her. An easy enough task for him, especially after Hakumen softened her up, but instead he sacrifices his only remaining arm to bring her back. No walk in the park there.

We can skip to CP and while he wasn’t allowed to do much of anything, by the end of the game he makes another big decision to rescue Nu. This is despite her attempting to violently murder him earlier and stabbing him moments after he makes the decision. She is actually actively denying his attempts and I think everyone can agree it would be the much easier choice to give up on the deranged girl, but he keeps at it all the way through CF. Speaking of… The entirety of CF. He is on his last legs, there is no getting around that, but he repeatedly denies any helping hand. Amane offers to Observe him in Rachel’s place and he says no and for no real reason. We then have others like Kagura and his gang insist they help him in his endeavors, but he still says no and only begrudgingly accepts assistance towards the end. This means over the bulk of that game he is knowingly making things much, much harder on himself.

Now, in the interest of discussion, the counterpoint was made that things such as these are irrelevant because of his personal investment. That these are not valid examples of him choosing the harder path because these choices would be a given for him. I would call a point like this moot for a couple of reasons. The first being that is not the topic at hand. The question is “Does Ragna try to take the easy way out?” As in, do we more often than not see Ragna attempt to avoid exerting effort? It is irrelevant what he gets out of the given situation or what he is saying he wants, because what matters is the actual actions he takes and by his own choice. This is especially important for a character with such limited agency like Ragna (which is a whole different can of worms) because so little is in his control. As for the second reason?

Well, lets try some smaller examples, shall we?

It would be easier to push Litchi aside and kill Arakune in CT rather than let the creature which is trying to eat him (and briefly succeeds in the very next game) roam free, but he doesn’t. It would be much easier to walk away from the crazy cat girl who just tried to rob him, especially after he beat her down, but instead he takes her to a restaurant. Even just giving her money would’ve been easier, but he took her himself. It would be easier to just run away from Tager instead of fighting him seeing as he is so slow, but Ragna stands his ground and fights instead. It would also be easier to kill Tager their first meeting seeing as Sector 7 is no ally of his and we as the audience knows Tager will go on to pick a fight with him every game, but Ragna always spares him as a detriment to himself. Family or not, Ragna would be making things much easier on himself were he to kill Jin, the man who attempts to kill him more than once and had a hand in the destruction of his life, but he always lets him go. He would’ve saved himself a lot of time and pain if he didn’t pull his punches so hard against Carl at the start of CS, but he decided he’d rather give the kid the option to retreat instead of forcing him. You can refer back to his run in with Tao for what happens with his first run in with Platinum. It would be much easier to stand back and let the others handle Azrael when Bullet and Celica are in trouble (especially seeing as Rachel and Kagura do just that), but Ragna runs right in despite being virtually crippled at the time. In fact, accepting any fight in that condition was exceedingly more difficult for him than if he were to lay low like he was told. Also…

The entirety of CF.

Heck, I can even include a plug for myself and suggest reading my last post where I shine a light on his extremely limited use of the Azure Grimoire for half the games because that is him making every fight harder for himself considering if he turned that on he would win almost all his fights in seconds.

The final point being you can look across the four games and you will see while he often is not happy about it, Ragna will not shy away from doing things the hard way by any means. Whether this is thanks to personal investment, some kind of honor code, pride, or what few morals he still has left is up for debate and very much circumstantial, but the common theme should be clear to everyone. Whether he is aware of it or not, Ragna does tend to make things harder on himself and always follows through even if it is with all the complaining in the world backing it.

Personally, I would argue this is one of the strong points of his character seeing as vocal reluctance to take on more challenge and responsibility is very human (a trait many anime styled protagonists lack), and the fact he marches on all the same is what makes him more compelling but I digress…

Honestly, I probably put more effort in this than necessary. People screw up a lot of things about BlazBlue and especially Ragna, but I can’t bring myself to believe this one is a common sentiment. I can’t imagine the majority of people actually think Ragna of all characters is actively avoiding trouble.

So, share your thoughts if you like. If you read all that and disagree, well, I guess I’ve still heard worse.

[thebloodfridge]

Literally the only person on cross tag’s team earning a paycheck is the artist who does the character select portraits. Those manage to look consistently sharp.

[thebloodfridge]

A Question

Did Mori really think he could just retcon things about characters halfway through the game and no one would notice? Well, all things considered about the community, he would be kind of right.

Though if anyone remembers, one of Ragna's character flaws in the first half of the series (you know, before Mori began rewriting things) was that he held back too much. For whatever reason Ragna got complacent about his fights and often would just let his strength and durability carry him through without really trying. For those rusty on the early games, this claim can be supported by Rachel herself chastising him for holding back in her true story route of CT where she went as far as to punch him in the face over it. You also had multiple story routes where Ragna would realize he's about to die and attempt to turn the fight around with his Azure Grimoire but it's too late and he fails. The entire system of time loops was reliant on this, and were then broken by him finally going all out and of course a helping hand from Noel/Saya.

Then we jump ahead to Chronophantasma and not only was this aspect forgotten, but completely reversed as all of the sudden Ragna is labelled as weak and shamed for using the Azure Grimoire as a crutch to win all of his fights by the cast (minus Rachel) and the narrative itself. Which begs the question why did the time loops last as long as they did if Ragna abuses the very thing that broke them? What's more, if you look over the first two games, the claim that he does looks even worse because canonically Ragna only activated BlazBlue twice. There was the first time in CT for the back to back fights with Hakumen and Nu, and then once again in CS for the back to back fights with Terumi and Mu. You can also add to that the few animated fight scenes we see of Ragna in the first couple of games and he would only use his sword as canon examples of him fighting. I suppose Mori and his team could assume players mashing the Drive button to play for some reason holds story significance, but either way this highlights the noticeably weaker writing of the latter half of the series.

If someone wanted to make the claim that it happens more off screen or it's implied or what have you, I would respond with the tried and true "show, don't tell" and refer back to the bad writing point.

Anyway, Ragna clearly understood the weight of what using his Azure Grimoire meant at the start of the series, which makes sense seeing as he always takes Jubei and Rachel's words to heart as they raised him and he trusts them. He only would use it when his life was on the line (sometimes not even then as per the time loops) and it always would net positive results such as breaking the loops, saving Noel etc. This measured, only when necessary use of the Azure Grimoire continues on even after they tried pushing the hollow lesson that it's wrong to use it with the end of CP where everyone acknowledged it was needed against Take-Mikazuchi and also with the entire plot of CF.

And you may ask why the sudden twisting of the narrative if the only result was a half-hearted and half-baked lesson they didn't even keep? Mori hasn't commented on it as far as I know, meaning there is no way to say for sure, unfortunately. However, if I had to bet, I would guess it was due to the fact they decided to add Celica to the games and she needed something "important" to do seeing as her popularity meant it wouldn't be a wise business decision to only give her a cameo even if it would better serve the story.

So, don't worry people who need to rewrite Ragna so they can pretend they actually like him. Mori apparently does it, too.

[thebloodfridge]

Even with it being as rare as it is, the more I see discussions being hijacked by headcanons that make things so out of character it might as well be about OCs the more I find it unfair to put the blame for the dwindling interest in BlazBlue solely on Mori's bad writing and Arc's poor marketing decisions.

[thebloodfridge]

Arc System, “Wait...cross tag sold bad!? But how? That should’ve tricked everyone! How do we fix this...?” “Uh, cross over the games people actually asked you to?” Arc System, “That’s it! MORE DLC!” “But already half the roster was--” Arc System, “Who cares!? Just yank more sprites! It takes, like, 10 minutes!” And so they did, and it was good(?)

[thebloodfridge]

gunframe reblogged your photo:I HATE this picture, and that is because I like...

That’s not Nu-13, it’s Alpha-01. She’s a concept Mori’s played around with in the past.

Alpha’s hair is whiter and her left eye is green, not red. The entire color scheme is also Nu’s, not Alpha’s. I think it is pretty clearly Nu redesigned for that “Dark War Alternative” thing like a few other characters were.

[thebloodfridge]

I HATE this picture, and that is because I like it. Aside from just seeing this and thinking it is an interesting and refreshing design change for the Murakumo (especially if she lost Ragna’s stupid coat) when I see this I can’t help but think, “There is a story here”. Except there isn’t. I would love to believe there is a reason for the new outfit, haircut, weapon, whatever...but the truth is Mori just wanted to play dress up and will half ass a story later. Because no matter how interesting Nu COULD HAVE been, the fact is if Mori can’t lust after a character then they fall by the waist side.

[thebloodfridge]

Mori, I know women with backless outfits do things to you that words cannot possibly describe, but hands off 2B and Satsuki (and the rest of the Kill la Kill cast). They desrve far better than one of your games. Particularly THAT one.

[cleruuuuu]

“But Cleru, this is like comparing oranges and apples.”

I’m trying to state a point here, c'mon. Oh, and this useless analysis is satire.

[thebloodfridge]

Honestly don’t know anything about the property on the left (except that it was better made, apparently), but this is the most comprehensive list pointing out the faults of cross tag that I have seen. Appreciate the effort, cleruuuuu.