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houkagokappa · 3 months

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I went to Desucon Frostbite this weekend :3

The head organizer commented that it was their 10th year attending Desucon events, and that's actually true for me too, Desucon Frostbite 2014 was one of the first cons I ever attended (never forget and please let me forget).

I always attend the opening and closing ceremonies. This year they did a small performance spoofing Death Note and sentai stuff, which was well made as usual and I'm always impressed by, considering the performers are volunteers and not professionals.

This year's guest of honor was composer and musician Yasuharu Takanashi. He held a concert on Friday night together with Finnish metal musicians I feel some amount of national shame not knowing, because they seemed like fairly big names. I'm not big on metal music, but it's always nice listening to live music, and it was fun to get something to do on Friday night, since most con activities don't start until Saturday. I also attended Takanashi's panel on Saturday, and although I wasn't familiar with the music he composed to Naruto or Fairy Tale, he was an entertaining guest (comes with the profession, some writers/directors they've had in the past have been a little awkward). Me and my friend spent the entire time hungering for a Show By Rock!! mention, as he had apparently worked on that as well, but alas it wasn't brought up and we didn't dare ask him about it during audience questions.

As for other programs, I attended a lecture on character and clothing design in Suisei no Majo, which was really nice and informative. I haven't read any staff interviews on it, so I didn't know anything about the designing process or the people behind it and it was fun to learn about it. I also went to a lecture on analysing yuri, which was disappointing, since it contained little to no actual analyzing on what makes yuri "yuri". They made a lot of jokes about the famous Iori Miyazawa "Yuri Made Me Human" interview and I would've loved to hear their takes on the whole "yuri of absence" concept, how much truth or weight we should put on it, why the yuri classification matters, or if it even matters, considering the freedom and joy of your own interpretations vs. the importance of representation and author intent, or how expectations and readings differs in the West compared to Japan, etc.. Their lecture was on the shorter side and went over some common misconceptions over terminology and reader demographics, which I guess was nice, although I feel like (or at least hope) most people in the room would already be aware of those. Overall I think the lecture description might've been at fault here, because it gave me the impression there would be more actual discussion and analysis on these topics/I misinterpreted what the lecture would be about. At least people seemed to enjoy the jokes.

Then, me and my friend always attend the AMV contest, and this year I left the contest happy, because for once all of my favourite AMV's got honorable mentions or won some of the prizes! The audience favourite award usually goes to some humor video I don't care for, but this year it went to a PMMM video I actually really, really liked!! My other favourites were the PMMM/SKU mashup which worked surprisingly well, and another SKU one. Same series, but very different AMV's lol.

Another tradition I have is to drink the official Desu Drinks, although I should stop because they're small, expensive and not that interesting anymore (Kill la Kill takaisin!!!!). This year I drank "Beck", which contained Finlandia, ginger ale and a slice of lime. It was good, but not "10,50€ good". For Saturday's dinner we went to one of the Indian restaurants that was still operating in Lahti (restaurants DO NOT stay open there). The food was pretty basic, but good, as expected from a place like this.

I brought my Monogatari itabag with me, because I wanted to celebrate the recent Off Season and Monster Season announcements (plus it's fun to use my itabags, and it's quite practical to have a big bag with me even if it weighs a ton lmao). As for merch, I bought Farwell to my Alter by Nio Nakatani at the con flea market for very cheap, and then I FINALLY got my hands on the first volume of March Comes in Like a Lion. I've been wanting to get it from my local shop, but they've never had it when I've been there to look for it. I'm suuuuuper happy to have it in my hands!!!! Then I bought one roll of washi tape from the artist alley with adorable long-tailed tits and plum blossoms. I suppose it's good I didn't spend that much money this con, although there was more manga that tempted me (why must River's Edge be 20€ ugh, maybe next time).

I was also happy to briefly see and chat with some of my kimono friends, and then I finally met up with @akroglam who I've been mutuals with for ...7 years? That was a lot of fun, although I felt like a stalker for all the "I saw that on your twitter/tumblr" comments I made :P

And here you have it, my diary entry for the Desucon Frostbite weekend. Thanks for taking the time to read it :)

#my nonsense #desucon #desucon frostbite 2024 #this is way too long but i didn't tweet anything during the weekend and i need to save these images and thoughts somewhere #they announced kenji nojima for desucon 2024 which should be good!!!!

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necrolexic0n · 3 months

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i don't really like reducing Ink's east asian inspirations as a 'preference' in all sincerity.

When analysing his character by a WHOLE, he is indeed french but he also seems to be japanese at the same time....

/But one thing to remember is that the only reason to why Ink's french is BECAUSE Comyet's french also, If you look at her original artwork you'll realize that a lot (If not all) of her characters are also french! But they're all of different etchnicitys at the same time!/

It's like making your characters american since you're american and knows how america works, but that doesn't mean all of them need to be white or something you know??

Anyways, in a deep analysis through Comyet's blog, Ink always *had* a certain level of east asian characteristics associated to him

(a few exemples from 2016/2017 alone:: the fact that he's named 'ink' in the first place is because of the japanese inspiration and not because he's simply 'an artist'; the 'kawaii desu-chan'' 2016 Inktobertale prompt, in the same Inktobertale there was also a prompt mentioning a japanese clothing for him to wear!; his ink-bending powers was inspired by a chinese video of someone performing a traditional martial art called 'Tai chi-chuan'!)

And this is from 2016 alone you know? There's even more as the years go by!!

(this characterization also affects a lot of human interpretacions of Ink since most are characterized as half-french/european/ and half-east asian. Because of those 'mixed' inspirations he's often translated as mixed in the fandom!)

I’m not trying to minimize or reduce his Japanese traits at all, so sorry if it comes off that way. I am well aware of them, I encourage them! It’s totally okay to have Ink be Japanese/French mixed. Was just saying there’s many interpretations is all.

I mean, my human Ink is French/Filipino, as an example. I have another Ink design on the back burner that’s Puerto Rican like me, too.

But yes! Japanese/French Ink makes the most sense canonically!

#utmv #ink!sans #ink sans #necro asks!

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queen-of-bel · 5 years

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Back at it again with the character analyses. My girl Mari is up next.

naoya | kaido | atsuro | amane | gin

Mari has always been a really interesting character to me. She may seem a little bland at first but I think that’s bc she really forces herself to keep up a perfect facade in front of others.

There are two aspects about her which I find really interesting in conjunction with each other. The first is that she’s a nurse at an elementary school. The second is that her late lover was the founder and leader of a gang group in Shibuya.

The reason I find this intriguing is because of society’s expectations of school staff and administrators. The actions of the people who work at the school directly reflect upon the school itself.

We know this is the case because if Kazuya warns Mari to remain rational during the riots, Mari says “Even if I don’t look it, I still work for the school. I have to try to set an example.”

This is a pretty loaded statement, and there are two things we can take away from this. The first and obvious one is that Mari is aware and conscious of the fact that her actions as an individual has an effect on the reputation of the school she works at.

The part of the statement that I think is really interesting, however, is when Mari says that she doesn’t look like she works for the school.

Nothing about Mari’s physical appearance or demeanor makes her not look like a school nurse. She expresses concern for the health of others in the lockdown, and in the material collection, Yasuda even apologized for her cliched nurse outfit.

So why doesn’t Mari think she fits in with the image of a school nurse?

This is where the other part of her character comes into play– her relationship with the leader of the Shibuya Daemons.

She is aware of what is expected of her, and yet she still chose to be in a relationship with the founder and leader of a gang. Granted, Atsuro states that the Shibuya Daemons are known as one of the more charismatic gangs, but they are still a gang nonetheless. When Atsuro says “more charismatic”, that means charismatic relative to other gangs– not objectively charismatic.

They’re not a group of boy scouts or a neighborhood watch. They are still a group of thugs who commit crimes. This fact seems pretty self-explanatory, but the game explicitly states this as well. If Kazuya doesn’t manage to save Keisuke, Keisuke will touch on what the Shibuya Daemons have done. Keisuke says that the Daemons break things out of pure anger and spite, and that they “resort to violence when someone looks at them funny, or at the slightest annoyance”. Kaido doesn’t deny any of this, so we can take Keisuke’s words as truth.

Another moment in the game that points to the shadiness of the Daemons is in Naoya’s eighth day. Kaido states that having others out to kill him is nothing new, which prompts Mari to gently remind him that most people aren’t threatened with death every day. If Kaido truly is regularly receiving death threats, then the Daemons have to be making a lot of enemies, even if it’s just from other rival gangs.

I know it seems overkill to prove what most people assume to be an obvious fact, but establishing exactly what kind group the Daemons are is crucial to understanding Mari as a character.

Again, the actions she makes as an individual reflects upon the school as a whole. Considering who her late lover was, Mari has created a direct connection between the school she works at and the Shibuya Daemons. It can’t look great for the school to be linked to a group like that.

If Mari is aware of the fact that her relationship might reflect poorly on the school, then it becomes clear why she thinks she doesn’t look like she works for the school.

Mari truly loved Kaido’s brother, but we know that she also has a love for nursing and caring for others. She had been studying for nursing school for years now, and during the lockdown, she can’t help but worry about the patients in the hospitals, prompting Atsuro to comment on how dedicated of a nurse she is. Even in the material collection, it says that her favorite type of music is “healing music” (whatever that means).

Being a nurse at an elementary school and having a relationship with the leader of the Shibuya Daemons seem like they are mutually exclusive, but Mari decided to have both anyway.

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that her relationship could have threatened her job. Her relationship already is the reason she feels that she doesn’t fit in with the image of being a school nurse, but the way she acts indicates that she’s hyper-aware of how others perceive her. Not only does she try to be viewed as a perfect nurse, she’s also desperate to make sure she is never seen in a negative light.

A good example of this is when Mari tells Kazuya and the others about the bloodless killer. She states that “I hate the killer so much…” before apologizing because she keeps showing her unattractive side to the group.

This line always stood out to me because I never once thought that this statement showed an unattractive or negative side to Mari. Mari wasn’t swearing or losing her temper. She was just sadly saying how she hates whoever killed her lover. It would actually be weird if she didn’t express contempt for the killer.

And yet, she still felt the need to apologize to everybody. The only reason I can think of is because she has so much pressure to be “perfect”. If her relationship were to threaten her job, she could point to the fact that she has always been a kind and patient person. She wouldn’t want to give her employer any reason to fire her based on her own performance or temperament.

As a result, she tries very hard to make herself seem as perfect as possible, and gets scared if something negative (like her hating someone or something) can be associated with her.

However, Mari is only human, and not as perfect and selfless as she tries to present herself as. Like nearly everybody else in the Yamanote line, the events of the lockdown brought out Mari’s darker side, but what’s interesting is that Mari made a very clear and conscious decision to abandon the “perfect” persona that she spent so long trying to uphold.

This trait shows up a few times, one of which is in Naoya’s eighth day.

When Naoya gives Kazuya a choice between killing and not killing the people who oppose him, Mari never rejects the idea of killing others. She states that both methods have their pros and cons, but she never lists the most blatantly obvious drawback of the kill route, which is that killing the demon tamers is… not really the morally correct thing to do.

If Kazuya chooses to kill all those who oppose him, Mari never objects to this. She is perfectly fine with Kazuya’s decision, and the only reason she leaves the group is because Kaido forces her to.

All of a sudden we see the disconnect between an elementary school nurse who worries about hospitals running out of supplies and a woman who happily goes along with a plan to massacre civilians. Mari originally was terrified of seeming the slightest bit negative to others, to the point where she apologized for saying she hated the bloodless murderer. But now? She’s content with murdering others, and has zero regard for her public image.

It’s certainly very odd, to say the least, that she seems to have changed her morals in just a matter of days. However, there is one more piece of information about Mari that ties these seemingly contradictory aspects together– Mari blames herself for her late lover’s death.

After defeating Kudak, she thanks Kazuya and the others, saying she always thought her lover’s death was her fault somehow. She also expresses this sentiment in a line that’s specific to Overclocked.

In the original game, when Kaido tells Mari to stay away from the bloodless killer case, Mari begins to say the two of them were lovers before Kaido becomes enraged and cuts her off. In Overclocked, however, this line interestingly got changed to Mari saying that Kaido’s brother’s death was her fault.

The fact that the writers changed this line shows that Mari’s guilt is essential to understanding her character.

So back to why this guilt bridges the two conflicting parts of her personality.

As I said earlier, Mari was walking on a tightrope trying to balance her relationship and her job. I have no doubt that she was devoted to her lover, but in order to minimize any threat to her employment, she probably publicly downplayed her relationship with the leader of the Shibuya Daemons. (Although we know she didn’t hide it completely, as she has no issue mentioning it to Kazuya and the others).

However, it’s because she didn’t go all in with her relationship that she feels guilt over her lover’s death.

After Kudlak is defeated, Mari says that her lover’s death always ate away at her for some reason, and she blamed herself for his death. She knows that the guilt she feels is irrational, but she can’t help those feelings anyway.

This would explain why she’s so willing to follow Kaido and Kazuya no matter their decisions. She feels an incredible amount of guilt (these strong feelings allowed her to summon Kresnik to begin with), and she wants to make sure she never makes that mistake again, no matter the cost.

Another thing which supports this theory of where her guilt came from is actually to compare her unequivocal support with Atsuro’s.

As I said in my analysis about Atsuro, he is loyal to Kazuya, but in doing so, he turns a blind eye to the fact that he’s sacrificing his morals. He expresses doubt at the morality of his actions, and during Naoya’s kill route, desperately tries to convince himself that what he’s doing is for the greater good, even though he knows deep down that isn’t the case.

Mari, on the other hand, shows no qualms about killing YHVH and other people, as evidenced in Naoya’s route. However, we know she doesn’t care much about the war between demons and YHVH either, since she asks to join the group during Amane’s ending.

Not once does she ever talk about the morality of her actions like Atsuro does. Seeing as she’s happy to either kill or support YHVH, she clearly has no regard for the outcome of humanity. All she cares about is giving her full support to those she cares about.

What we can gather from this is that once Mari decides to move on with her life after defeating Kudlak, she not only has totally forsaken her morals, but welcomed and embraced this change in her. The only thing driving her actions is the desire to never feel that level of guilt ever again. To her, the only way to do so is by giving her full and unconditional support to those she cares about.

The best proof that this is her new motivation is when she joins the group on Naoya’s seventh day. After Kaido tries to discourage her from teaming up with them, Mari says that Kaido let Mari lean on him, even though she was being selfish regarding how she went ahead with searching for the bloodless murderer. She then continues to say “That’s why… This time, it’s my turn to let you lean on me.”

This would explain why Mari has no qualms about killing others. Remember, the first person to propose killing the demon tamers in Naoya’s eighth day wasn’t Naoya. It was Kaido. After the group runs away from the demon tamers, Kaido asks why Kazuya can’t just kill a few of them to set an example. It’s after this suggestion was offered that Naoya states killing others is one way of handling the situation.

Because this was Kaido’s idea, Mari is more than willing to go along with it. Mari doesn’t really want to kill others, but if that’s what Kaido wants to do, then Mari will support it wholeheartedly.

This unwavering loyalty is also demonstrated in Naoya’s kill route, when she tries to convince Midori and Yuzu that Kazuya’s actions are justified. Her attempt fails, but we clearly see that Mari is still trying to support Kazuya despite being kicked out of the group.

When we compare the woman Mari was introduced as to the woman she becomes after defeating Kudlak, the difference is striking. She seems almost like an entirely new person in just a few days. I found it fascinating how she so willingly gave up her perfect facade once she got revenge for the man she loved. She may seem simple and plain at first, but once you start connecting the different pieces of her personality together, she becomes a highly complex character.

#I LOVE HER SM #desu character analyses #mari mochizuki #devil survivor #desu #desu rambles

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ilovepauljack · 3 years

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What is the origin of Ahegao memes?

The hentai face (also known as the ahegao face) is a popular topic of discussion among anime fans. As a result, ahegao memes have gone incredibly widespread on the internet. So, what is the origin of ahegao? How did it go viral? Let’s all find out with ilovepauljack.com.

What is ahegao?

Ahegao is a drawing genre in Japanese Hentai comics, in which the person (mainly female) is showing, during sexual intercourse, an intense amount of pleasure showed by her facial expression.

Ahegao is defined in several blogs and online user-created dictionaries’ articles, which list these features below.

Rolled-up Eyes

Stuck-out Tongue

Got wet with tears, snot, drool or semen or other body fluids

Flushed Face

Extremely strange moans: eg. Nhoooh! , Aheee!, Iguuh!, etc…

Ahegao memes

Where does the word ahegao come from?

In the name, “Ahe” stems from Japanese onomatopoeia of “Aheahe” describing female’s flushed breath and moaning in sex & her sexual excitement, and “Gao” means “Face”. According to a forum article in Nico Nico Pedia’s entry for Ahegao, it’s confirmed that the term had come already used in porn magazines to simply explain porn actresses’ face with pleasure in early 1990s. Used in the same context, it also made looks on a handful of posts in 2channel and its sister board community in adult contents BBSPINK as well as descriptions for porn videos on adult e-commerce pages in the first half of 2000s. The oldest 2channel post in existence which includes this term was posted to a thread in /company/ (tip-off) in November 4th, 2001.

Meanwhile, according to 2008-2009 Japanese blog posts WebLab.ota’s “Ahegao History” & “Ahegao Chronology” , and Himajin no Dabun’s “Chronological Analyze of The Ahegao form in Adult Games”, it was around 2003-2005 that some hentai manga & anime creators began introducing extremely exaggerated face depictions of women’s abnormal orgasms with unwanted sexual intercourse, hardcore BDSMs, rapes or other sex assaults. Another blog aritcle by Bar Rikashitsu no Bibouroku suggested that Japanese ero guro mangaka/painter Suehiro Maruo has already introduced this kind of depiction to his works in early 1980s.

Continuing these prior researches on the web, Japanese bishoujo comic researcher Rito Kimi included “Genealogy of Ahegao” in his 2017 book The Expression History of Ero-Manga. At this book, he points Hiromitsu Takeda’s 2008 manga “I

Scraper” is that first commercial work where a character utters the word “Ahegao” in the meaning of this facial expression , and it suggests Ahegao had established its personal concept in the hentai subculture at that point. He also analyses the image board communities Futaba Channel (2chan) and Pixiv, where its users started to highly use this technique for pure jokes like Ahegaokin around 2007, also had the critical role to spread the concept on the internet.

Ahegao in nowaday’s meaning was formed by increase and evolution of this drawing style in that middle of 2000s, and its spreading to the otaku community via 2chan, 2channel/BBSPINK that became to host Ahegao-themed threads around the middle of 2007, and matome weblogs reprinting threads in those online communities. And in around 2008, it had adequate spread to be recognized as one of famous drawing techniques for climax. The first Ahegao-themed doujin comic anthology “A-H-E” was released in the winter in that year.

Ahegao comic AHE

Related: Confused anime boy Is this a pigeon memes – The interesting story you need to know

The spread of ahegao memes

Against the backdrop of the large popularity in the otaku group, which had been developed in the late-2000s, Ahegao has earned a lots of on-screen visibility as both a hentai art technique and fodder for parody illustrations. At its early days, Ahegao had been a popular style in the Collage tradition in 2chan and 2channel. And Japanese illustrators communities Pixiv and Nico Nico’’’ Seiga which were launched in the same period have been popular Ahgao-sharing services from its beginning. As of June 2017, Pixiv holds over 20000 illustrations tagged involved Ahegao, and Nico Nico Seiga, which doesn’t have the adult section, also had plenty of illustrations featuring the face.

On the Westerners Web, this specific facial expression is called in not only the original name, but also translated types “Fucked Silly Face” or “Mind Break Face”. Tagged under these names, loads of Ahegao illustrations have been drawn by DeviantArt users, or reprinted to Tumblr & Danbooru. Urban Disctonary’s article and Reddit’s subreddit Ahegao were launched in June’’ 2010. Besides, Instagram’s hashtag also has tons of Ahegao selfies by female otakus & cosplayers.

Readmore: Anime traps meme – What is it?

Some famous ahegao memes on the internet

Ahegaokin

Ahegaokin is a series of exploitables for the face. Started from an illustration which was inspired by 2chan’s Ahegao photoshopped image of Suiseiseki in Rozen Maiden, lots of illustrations of characters being infected by the bacillus was uploaded to Pixiv in 2008-2009.

Ahegaokin meme

Desu Desu

Desu Desu is a derivative from Desu meme and an Advice Dog spin-off which reused that Suiseiseki’s Ahegao face. As early as April 2010, this series became to be shared in Meme Generator.

Desu Desu

Ahegao Double Peace

As well as the face itself, its descendant Ahegao Double Peace is also one the iconic poses in the hentai subculture & online parody illustrations. This quite weird pose had established its concept at the middle of 2011.

Ahegao Double Peace meme

So, have you gotten all of the information about ahegao memes? We hope that the above article is helpful to you. Share it with your anime-obsessed friends so that they could understand more about the mentioned topic.

If you’re looking for Anime memes, Dank memes, and Pet memes , ilovepauljack.com is the place to be.

The post What is the origin of Ahegao memes? appeared first on Happiness is handmade with Paul's Memes.

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 3 years

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Deca-Dence 5

“…cannon won’t ignite in time!” The subbers spell cannon as “canon” later as well.

Off to the cliffside, where Kaburagi goes to die…

Deca-Dence 6

“Maybe someone intervened.” – I think Minato did, somehow.

This Death Dive reminds me of Wipeout.

Moriarty 3

I once made up a quote that goes, “When life detests you, fight back.” I think it’s also roughly along the lines of advice Albert needs.

I remembered an odd line from Macbeth: “Brother, he has killed me!” Seriously, Moriarty is scarier than some actual horror anime, I swear…Update: It’s actually “he has killed me, Mother!”, but same impact.

I had my hands over my mouth from the moment the fire began. That’s how intense this is.

This ED…doesn’t sound like an ED. It sounds like the OP for a different anime, like Joker Game or something. Also, having Saito Soma as Gentaro and Moriarty…is a bit unsettling because they have a lot of overlap but one’s basically the evil twin of the other.

Yashahime 4

“…was raised here…”

“…we can…”

I felt a heart twinge when I saw Towa tear up…man, it’s been years since I last dealt with Inuyasha properly.

“…nights where I can’t fall asleep.” – So…you’ll play it a lot then, Setsuna.

Oh, so Kirara is a nekomata? I never knew until now.

Kikyo!

According to the mythology, the kirin rules over the middle…so why is Kirinmaru the monster in the east?

Is “s***” unwarranted here? I didn’t have the volume on, so I don’t know…Going back, I think Moroha said “kuso”, but it’s still kinda weird to have a swear word in a mostly family-friendly series in a slot near Detective Conan. (Then again, Detective Conan is where I learnt “kuso” from…so my standards are probably not as up-to-scratch as they should be.)

Rin! People keep saying Rin is the mother of the girls and it’s basically the only conclusion that could be done, considering the relationship the two had…but it’s still kind of squick…(Says a person who has no problem with SGRS s2’s ending.)

Update: Someone on ANN said the teacher’s name (Osamu Kirin) being similar to Kirinmaru is sketchy and I agree.

Maou-jou 4

There’s no pun for Rocket Turtle…that’s kinda startling, actually.

I’m not going to translate the eyecatches anymore. Seems they were actually translated in the manga and someone just copies them over or something.

I’ve seen some characters use wa when they really aren’t that feminine. However, the voice Suwabe uses for the Sorceror leads me to believe this guy really is trying to be feminine, even if in just a vocal capacity.

…aw, no puns here too.

Oh no, the seal…!

…hmm? The Scissors Sorceror’s info is…we’re not allowed to look at it. That’s what the red text says.

…my brain exploded for a second when I suddenly heard jazz music. It’s a Detective Conan parody! *screams*

Iina! doesn’t really mean “Lucky!” It means more like “cool!” or “It’s good, isn’t it?”

I7 s2 5

I missed these boys!

I like the Kinako transition. It’s cute.

I don’t really like it when Tenn looks at the screen…it gives me 1st person cam vibes.

Why is Tsunashi being called “this”, anyway?

Oh yeah…mensore = youkoso = welcome.

Uh oh…is Yuki actually evil???

Riku (earth) vs. Tenn (heaven). Hmm.

I still can’t believe they don’t believe Gaku is the soba guy. It’s so obvious!

Chikuzen-ni.

Someone on staff ships Gaku and Tsumugi together…hmm…

Oh! So this is DESTINY, huh? I’ve probably heard it on Spotify before, but I don’t recognise it by sheer sound like I do HypMic. (Then again, the half-year off the airwaves probably really hurt I7, man…)

Akudama 4

Say what you will about how bad Funi translations can get…they’re definitely entertaining!

Geesh, Doctor gets all the sexy shots, but Brawler gets all the ab shots. Can I get a sexy Courier shot…?

“…she’s right.” – There’s a lot of dialogue here, so…uh, who’s “she” in this case?

What’s a “bro fro”?

Wow, Brawler, talk about being punched into next Tuesday…(partially joking)

Swindler’s face, LOL. (I know she’s an ordinary gal, but calling her “Swindler” is shorter to type.)

I remember reading around and people agree Swindler works at the Seal Centre.

The shark and bunny’s shirts say things like “Kanto/Kansai”, “earth, air/water” and “pollution/clean” during their montage.

“feminist” – Uh, ex-squeeze me?! Feminism does not equal “ladies first” or “going easy on ladies”. Update: I went and listenend to it and although one of my ears is mysteriously almost constantly plugged these days, I’m fairly sure Doctor did not say “feminist” (in katakana). Update 2: Then I listened to it again and…I’m not sure anymore.

LOL, Hoodlum hit the in-series camera. With his face.

Oh, vault = garage or storage. Right, how did I not know that?

Cat, nooooooooooooooooo! Don’t die!

HypMic 5

After the two “darker” divisions, it seems almost strange to not have a “dark” introduction about the seedy underbelly of alt. future Japan…

Oh, my gosh. That’s Ichijiku on the phone.

The studio has the word “drops” on it.

Lemme guess: Neither hand!...Yup.

The only spoiler I know for this ep. is it’s a Halloween episode, and “Ramuda ruins Halloween”. That quote is way too subjective to mean anything, though…

…hmm, Gentaro doesn’t say “shousei” in that sentence involving “this humble bard” (not that I heard, but one of my ears is mysteriously plugged after I stayed up late browsing Twitter on my phone – don’t tell anyone that, though! They’re not meant to know!). Gentaro is not a humble bard (although that would translate “shousei” quite correctly in the Shakespearean), he’s an author.

LOL, that “ding!”

Gentaro actually says “ghostbusters” in katakana, LOL.

I almost thought this Shinjuku man was Doppo…but no, this Aoyama Cemetery exists. It has nice cherry blossoms.

The “dun dun dun” soundtrack is great. It really sets the atmosphere.

Gentaro really is an idiots’ minder, just as I used to characterise him. (Then the FP and M manga and developments regarding Ramuda being evil changed my mind.)

I-Is this just gonna be an episode of FP being scared and Ramuda yelling? It’s fun for a bit, but when you’re stopping to analyse every few seconds, Ramuda’s voice is gonna get annoying eventually…

Kurosu seems to be a cross between Jyushi and Doppo.

This ep…makes FP look money-crazy. Dice is only money-crazy when he’s broke…because of course you would be…but the others aren’t.

That rock track that plays when FP hand out flyers is cool!

Are they…eating squid?...Welp, squid jerky. I’d say I’m correct.

Oh, so they’re all street photographers? Not just Tom?

I was wondering…how would the “tie to a different division” occur in episode 5, considering episode 6 is where the plot really kicks in? Turns out…they tie back to BB, which is not a thing I was expecting at all.

BB have a BB tablet…makes sense, because I think Hypster have iPhone cases for each division.

Oh, they’re planting the seeds of Ramuda’s ability here, so to speak. By knowing what Hypnosis Mics are capable of doing, you can see the building blocks of Rap Abilities as well.

Okonbanwa! The extra O is meant to make things formal, but only in front of nouns (sometimes it’s “go”, e.g. goshujin), so it’s Ramuda being overly formal to be cutesy and unconventional.

*lightbulb goes off in head* It makes sense that the group affiliated with illusions and randomness does the Halloween episode, actually.

…Yargh! Of course all these onee-sans are FP stans!...*lightly touches temple, as if to get rid of a headache* I should’ve known.

The new song is “Shibuya Ghost Night” by Tokyo Health Club, Yuki “T-Groove” Takahashi and Yuma Hara.

*stops video before the darn airhorn sounds* Thank goodness…hey, isn’t this quote from Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka…?

This episode is very seasonal, but doesn’t really make sense outside of airing on Halloween. C’mon, couldn’t you have given us a Sasara appearance instead of having Ramuda yell down the house…? I knew the FP episode was going to be either lighthearted with a dark undercurrent, like the BB ep (considering we haven’t gotten to Ramuda dying yet), or full-on lighthearted, but…I somehow wonder if the staff had an empty spot labelled “Fling Posse episode” due to COVID and went, “Okay, it airs on Halloween this year, let’s make it Halloween-inspired”…or something. Also, I feel Gentaro got the short end of the stick here.

Update: As for yakuwarigo, Ramuda trends towards the feminine side, which is not something I noticed until my groupwork partner pointed it out to me. The message in this episode has a “yone”, which proves that point even further. “Dayo~n” is a variant of the gender-neutral “yo” ending. Meanwhile, I have game samples that prove Dice uses “ze” like BB/MTC, while Gentaro uses “yo” and desu/masu like Jakurai, so it was really Ramuda anyone wanted to pay attention to since his speech patterns are the most feminine-leaning, possibly due to his extensive hanging out with ladies. (I once read a Tofugu post on how non-binary people deal with language that said if you hang out with ladies a lot, you take on feminine yakuwarigo and if you hang out with guys a lot, you do the same in that direction, but I clearly remember Ramuda using “sa”, which is a slightly male-leaning ending.)

Taiso Samurai 4

There’s something in the background which stops me from listening to it and one of my ears is blocked, but I gotta find out what Tackey was saying about the NHK Cup (the joke, I mean). Update: So I think it’s ninja/nukihara/kekkou, but I may have heard that wrong due to my blocked ear…I should get someone to clean it out properly.

Here’s the YoI monologue about competitions again. <- (neutral on it) Also, NHK is in English letters/romaji in the term “NHK Cup”, but the “Cup” isn’t (it’s in kanji).

Sekigahara had a huge historical battle.

Huh? This episode’s called “Samurai Musume (daughter)”, so…where did “Battling Samurai” come from? That’s one of the previous episodes, right?

Selfies, before they were cool.

I was wondering if Leo actually calls Rei “Rachel” like he calls Jotaro “Joe”…and he does. I just haven’t paid much attention to the audio, that’s all.

The Battle of Chibi? Never heard of it until now, but the Battle of Red Cliffs is the same thing.

Leo Naruto runs…LOL.

If Rei was in 4th grade in 2002…are we going to see the characters in the present in the end? She would be 28 in 2020.

I guess I should’ve guessed from “hat trick”, but a Bergkamp trap is related to soccer.

There’s a random Japanese-sounding track in the background…didn’t expect that.

A cemetery…on the day after Halloween.

“Grandma’s place” = the bar…Ohhhhhhhhhh. I was wondering, didn’t the grandma and Rei live together? Then it all came together.

Jim Beeam (sic), LOL.

I wonder, are Tackey and Ayu dating like he asks?

Gotta love a man in a suit! *chef’s kiss*

Yashahime 5

Who’s this Tokotsu guy again…? Also, the “ja” in Jakotsumaru means “young”.

Oh, Myoga. It’s been a while.

Can there be 4 Perils when there’s only 3 of them…?

Well, it makes sense that a dog demon would have demon fleas…in a sense.

Why is “trying to swallow up this world and turn it into a degenerate age” (or whatever Kirinmaru’s aim is) so vague? You could say the present is already an age of mass degeneracy…

Maybe the Dream Butterfly took Moroha’s memories…?

Wait, why is Myoga only allowed to drink Moroha’s blood when she puts on the rouge?

So this is an arhat. Also, aren’t morals an Anglophone ideal imported into Japan and the rest of Asia? That’s what separates Towa from Setsuna.

Akudama 5

This drone definitely won’t come in handy at all…(sarcastic)

There’s an Evangelion feel to these “masks”…

That box is like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs! It’s great!

I like how the kids jump to the potential fact (?) this is a Swindler trick.

You can see Courier’s bike in the background when the bunny says “…and I mean everything.”

*Knights of Sidonia music starts playing* Search! And! Destroy! *record scratch as music stops*

I think this little discussion between Courier and Swindler will go down in Akudama Drive history as one of my favourite moments because it’s the little conversations that count. Also…does Courier have a mechanical hand, or is that just me thinking weird things…? Is that a glove?

Ooh, scars. Sexy. (On the Executioner Master, at least.)…Now I get why the guy wears that mouth covering.

HypMic 6

Halfway through the season already…? Yikes, how time flies. By the way, my assignment’s come and gone so I don’t need to focus on it anymore.

Hmm? Why did the subbers put “Prime Minister” when Ichijiku merely says “yes”…?

Wait, 1st question: how does one sign up for a rap battle? I don’t think that’s ever been answered. 2nd question (well, not a question): Dice is paying attention to Otome now…

I’m fairly sure that red brick warehouse was just that…as in the Red Brick Warehouse in Yokohama, which was also featured in Bungou Stray Dogs. Update: Oh, it’s (partially) a shopping mall…? I didn’t know that until now.

See, I told you they’re (Tom, Iris and Rex) probably foreigners…

That one shot of Jakurai? *chef’s kiss* Beautiful. Give me a million of ‘em. (Okay, I’m kidding to some degree, but I can’t help staring at it. Jakurai’s just too pretty…)

“Tweet-like lyrics”? Eh? When was Twitter a collective pessimist?

Oh, that’s basically the scene from the drama track. Where the heck is Jakurai fishing though…? I always imagined it to be at a river or a pier, not some concrete complex. Update: According to a user on Twitter, the fishing place is called “Ichigaya Fishing Centre”. It is, as you would expect, found in Shinjuku. Apparently, even Osomatsu-san featured the place...which would explain why it looks vaguely familiar to me.

Wow, I can’t believe how upfront they’re being about Ramuda breaking up TDD.

Ramuda thought in his deep voice…I almost didn’t recognise it for a second. It doesn’t even sound like Shirai. It sounds more like…Hayami, in fact.

“F*** yeah!” - …and they’re still going with the F bomb. Keep being you, subbers, keep being you.

That shot of Saburo in a dimly-lit room almost looks like the SR card in ARB, except in that one he has his headphones on (and might be outside, to my memory).

Oh, so the round thing really is Ichiro’s ring. It’s got an “I” on it too, i.e. the Roman numeral for one.

*Ichiro explains what happened to TDD from his and Samatoki’s side* - I don’t think we’ve ever seen the story from Ichiro’s or Samatoki’s perspective enough to know either thought this (or this way).

“Jiro! Saburo! Let’s go!” - …and Tom’s just taking photos as they leave, LOL.

I didn’t expect the TsudaKen guy to be back again, really.

Well, if this Google route is to be believed, “Sadamezuka’s soul” only lasts about 30 minutes by car crossing from one point to the other, hence Jiro’s remark.

Googling “Toyotama” and “Toyotama Line” gets you…Ghost of Tsushima links…?

…hmm. I’m not listening to it on a hugely loud volume, so I can’t quite tell what the pun is, but I think the word for “monk” in this case is “bouzu”. Then what’s the word for “electric dynamo”…? Update: The pun, according to Takahisa Maeyama, is Erekiteruteru Bouzu.

That ticking thing was really effective in terms of the song…but sasuga HypMic. Things went ka-blammo again.

So we’re probably going to see BB’s first DRB round next ep…or Matenrou doing another takedown similar to ep. 3. Or both. Both is good. (Or it could be the FP/M side of things, much like we got the BB/MTC side of things here.)

...Uh, shouldn’t that be “dawn”? The anime’s generally been very good about this (aside from the obvious typo in the BB logo), but…welp, they’ve done it now.

Update: The LOVE you see Hifumi and Doppo near is this one.

Update 2: As for the yakuwarigo, it…turns out, to no one’s surprise, it stays oddly consistent across all media, although individual treatment of the characters can differ depending on the author.

HGPC 4

Ooh, is this Element of Light?

Fate/Stay PreCure! Here we come!

Moriarty 4

Why is the “to” capitalised? (Is that even capitalised?)

Quinine.

I kind of knew the grapefruit and the heart condition and/or quinine would be relevant somehow…and boy howdy, was I right! I just didn’t really know what it was going to do, that’s all.

I thought the ED didn’t match very well, but looking at the translated lyrics…now it kind of makes sense.

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chibimyumi · 5 years

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In the Shadows of the Spotlights – Kuromyu 2015

First of all, thank you, @rmglawliet for your interest and prompt for analyses. Thank you @lambsthroat, @inarislair and @downthebitterrabbithole for your interest and compliments. As my blog is dedicated to only Furukawa-era Kuromyus, I shall start with the first Yunbastian musical: The Lycoris that Blazes the Earth 2015

Details in the Shadows of the Spotlights

The main differences between the manga and the musical are brought by the result of different possibilities that come with different media type.

Unlike in manga, stage portrayals allow for what can be called a simultaneous panelling. With manga, as pages and panels are limited in both size and number, a mangaka must often choose to sacrifice certain things for the sake of aesthetics. Just imagine every single panel to be drawn in panorama featuring every single character’s reaction just because the mangaka is indecisive. Nope, not pretty. On stage however, the opposite is true; even if the centre of attention might only be on one character, whoever is present also on stage –however far in the background – cannot be ‘out of view’. This is where skilled performers and concrete character interpretation become essential to a good production. The most memorable examples in my opinion are brought by Sebastian and Madam Red.

1. Hints in the Background

The first scene for analysis is when Ciel first meets up with Madam and Lau in the London town house. When we meet Lau, he behaves like nothing but an utter and complete airhead. He gives nobody reason to suspect he is not the ‘dumb foreigner’ as dictated by Chinese stereotype. In this rendition, ‘nobody’ seemed to include Madam Red and Grell as well. Though I personally think Araki laid emphasis on the clown aspect of Lau a bit too thick, he does fit in with the goofy half of the Lycoris musical. While I would have loved to see how Lau would function as a more subtle bridge between the musical’s starkly contrasted serious-vs-goofy tone, he is what he is. The only problem is that I personally find it hard to believe how this Lau could have survived this well in 19th century supremacist England as a foreigner, let alone made his way through the ranks to becoming branch leader of a crime syndicate… but that’s just me perhaps.

♪The air is filled with darkness and a beast-like stench, unlike anything you have ever seen. You could hold your breath and desperately try to keep your calm. But once you set foot in there, all that is left is being consumed by madness ♪

Lau joins a comic song where he enjoys gossiping and taunting Grell together with Madam, and Madam seems to enjoy his company, until Lau suddenly displays a sudden hint of intellect and wit previously invisible in him. At this, Madam who was originally sitting to the side of the table springs up in seeming paranoia.

She appears to try to assess Lau from closer up and subtly shifts towards the man. The second Madam gets up, Sebas already takes notice and makes to collect the empty cups. Sebas’ action here gives us a hint that he has been paying a very close eye to the duo and is constantly on alert. This is perhaps the first indication that Sebas already knows something is wrong with Madam and her butler.

Grell meanwhile, notices the increasing distress in her mistress and approaches her, convincing her to remain calm and sit down. A very small but telling detail is when Madam is about to sit down again, she waves a gesturing hand to assure Grell that everything will be alright. This small gesture is easily overlooked, and yet is a powerful detail in storytelling. To spectators who are already familiar with the story, it adds layer to the characters and is almost a spoiler to cracking the case. To unfamiliar spectators, it is subtle enough to not spoil the outcome, but does give them a glimpse of the deep bond in this master-servant relationship.

2. Not ineffective, just nasty

The second scene that can serve as splendid example is Sebastian’s passive aggressive upside-down reading previously mentioned in this post. Here however, I shall go into more analytical detail.

Another hint we are given that Sebastian knows more than he lets on is the scene where Ciel and Madam play chess. Sebastian has been ordered to go through the list of suspects over and over again, because Ciel remained dissatisfied about his report that “other than the Viscount of Druitt, none of the humans present at the party could have committed the crimes.”

「ドルイット子爵以外の人間には不可能です」 “Druitt shishaku igai no ningen ni wa fukanou desu”

Although translated to English, ‘none of the humans’ sounds like such a blatant give-away that people might even doubt Ciel’s intelligence, in Japanese this phrase is art itself. ‘Ningen’ means ‘human kind’ as well as ‘people’. In Japanese however, though the word explicitly stresses the type of species, to average listeners, nothing about the phrase would sound out of the way. (If there’s something similar in a language that you know, please share! I’d love to know how this ‘hint’ would best be translated in other languages.) Sebas could have opted for equally natural alternatives such as 人 hito, meaning simply ‘persons’, or 容疑者, yougisha, meaning ‘suspects’, of course. But why would he? This specific wording is a very subtle way of Sebastian to hint at his master that he is headed in an altogether wrong direction, without giving the boy the satisfaction of getting the answer presented to him on a silver platter. Sebastian cares little that his sense of humour would come at the expense of more human lives. What the demon does mind is that his master would make him put up with more of the boring paperwork, again.

This annoyance was not explicit because no lines were given to Sebas in either manga or musical script. Though Sebastian remained graceful, his true sentiments probably boiled down to a simple ‘bitch, please’. In the shadows, Yunbastian would display his irritation with the attitude of a five year old in the most elegant fashion ever to be seen in theatre.

In an interview, Furukawa shared with us that his Sebas would obey his master’s instructions, so reading is what he would do. But he would not hesitate to let his master know just how foolish these instructions were. Passive-aggressive loud turnings of the pages and upside-down reading are what were due. Sadly the loud turning of the pages is inaudible in a grand theatre, but the upside-down reading can be witnessed in its full glory. No, it was not a coincidence, and I can assure you. Even if it was just so that the stack of paper was wrongly sorted, nobody besides Furukawa could have seen that the words were upside down. So why would Yunbastian bother? Turning paper with gloved hands is tricky! (Seriously, you try it yourself).

This seemingly small gesture is more important to the entire flow of the story and the characterisation of Sebas’ character than one may suspect at first. Sebastian is designed as a demon butler to whom the even most herculean of tasks seem like a doddle. The way that it has been revealed in the manga that Sebas had always known whose tail his master should have been after seemed a bit of out of the blue. In the musical version however, thanks to this ‘simultaneous panelling’ I mentioned before, the revelation was turned into an inevitable result of a gradual development in time. The manga left me personally wondering why Sebas didn’t help Ciel solve the Ripper case sooner. The obvious reasoning is that he simply couldn’t, be it because of order restraints or even personal incompetence. As it turns out in the musical however, Sebas was not ineffective, he’s just nasty.

The small hints in the backgrounds did not only show us how savvy Sebas had been, but also function as a warning that behind the elegant façade, a nasty jester hides. This is perhaps the first example we get of Yana-sensei’s claim that ‘she was beaten to the punch by Yunbastian.’ Glimpses have been shown, but we did not get any explicit confirmation that Sebastian is a nasty demon with an even nastier sense of humour until 2018 in chapter 138. During the run of Lycoris back in 2015, we already see that Furukawa foresaw how petty and tempestuous Sebas truly is behind his concocted beauty.

3. That Demon, Still Butler

The third and final scene I selected for analysis is the one with Undertaker after Madam’s funeral.

After the funeral, Undertaker brutally taunts the boy about the loss of his aunt, but Ciel buffs up and lies: “I prioritised catching Jack the Ripper over saving her life. I left her to her fate… with knowledge. Even my own blood relative.”

In the manga, Sebastian’s reaction ⇈ to Ciel during and after the funeral had mostly been a stoic and disapproving one. This is to be expected, as without Sebastian, Ciel would simply have been useless at his own job in this case. It had been Sebas who had given all the puzzle pieces to his master, and it was also he who had to lay all the pieces into its frame. Ciel was only there to see that the job be done the way he wanted it to be done, but otherwise only served to slow the case down. Sebastian’s attitude? If you see fit to waste my time I would happily waste yours too, my Lord.

Yunbastian too has grown rather spiteful by the end of this arc, but he is sassier than Sebas in the manga. While Sebastian in the manga seems to merely disapprove, Yunbastian raises a very judgemental eyebrow. He said nothing, but the eyebrow may as well have been knitted into a frown spelling ‘oh-really-now?’

Then, although Undertaker was hardly a threat at that point of the manga, when he grabbed the boy by his collar in a somewhat aggressive manner, Yunbastian turned immediately and stays on alert from that point on. However subtle this gesture, we are once again reminded of the sole reason Sebastian is on Earth. He is still bound by the terms of his contract, and is therefore first and foremost Ciel’s mother butler.

All in all, I think that both Akane Live and Furukawa Yuuta made very significant contributions to their characters that Yana herself admitted to have failed to portray in the manga (I shall add the source when I find it again). Although the Jack the Ripper arc is very interesting and beautiful, I do wish the manga could have been fleshed out a bit more. I personally found the solemn-vs-goofy balance a bit askew in the Lycoris musical, but the actors really did give the characters so much more depth and layers.

Thank you all for your interest and compliments, and also for reading this long fan-ramble disguised as an in-depth analysis!

#Furukawa Yuta #Akane Liv #kuroshitsuji #Musical #Black Butler #Kuromyu #the lycoris that blazes the earth #Analysis #Simultaneous panelling #In the Shadows of the Spotlights #Request by rmglawliet #Thank you!!

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kawoshitting · 7 years

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Tag Index

A list + explanations of all of my tags, most of which are NGE-related. This is mostly so that I know what my tags are lol. Not all of these have posts associated with them, because part of the function of this index is to keep track of my entire tagging scheme.

Table of Contents:

Relationships

Characters

Clothing/Appearance

Evas

Angels

Other Entities/Objects

Which Evangelion

People/Entities who Worked On/Created Evangelion

Works Created for/Used by Evangelion

other types of posts:

#asks

#anonymous

tangentially related to NGE:

#cats

posts with pictures of cats, will probably also be NGE-related but maybe not

#plants

I really like a nice drawing of a plant (very calming, I love succulents) so I think it would be good if I tagged these too

#flowers

#clouds

i really like clouds okay

#colorful

posts -- likely art -- with lots of colors because i’m a sucker for that lol

art references

#color theory ref

posts that I want to reference for color theory/color scheme references/ideas

#clothing ref

art that I want to reference for nice examples of drawing clothes (fabric makes me want to cry lol)

#pretty

also likely art

#cute

also likely art, equally likely to be comics as well

#lol

some comics, but more likely some Evangelion shitposts + me reacting to myself in my own tags...sigh...

#other

contains content not directly related to NGE, but the post still involves NGE content

#unrelated

Nothing in this post is related to NGE

personality

#mbti

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

this entire list actually makes me question the fact that I’m an INTP

#moral alignments

D&D (dungeons and dragons)-type moral alignment-related posts

#audrey thinks too much

original posts where I mostly just ramble lol, they’re probably about Evangelion but they’re less refined than my #eva conspiracies posts

#have i reblogged this before

when I’m not sure if i’ve reblogged something twice lol

#the happiness queue wished for

queue tag

template url

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queen-of-bel · 5 years

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Devil Survivor spoilers

Okay, I know I already wrote an analysis for Naoya, but that was pretty disjointed as I wrote one half before playing Overclocked, and then tacked more in a reblog after playing it. I just want to consolidate it into one, more coherent post (and i added more stuff!), so here we are.

kaido | atsuro | amane | gin | mari

Naoya gets a lot of shit for two main reasons. One is that some people think he has equal responsibility with the Shomonkai for YHVH sending the ordeal. The thing is, Naoya wasn't at fault here. Another reason is that it's his fault Kazuya and his friends were trapped in the lockdown.

Let me start by addressing the latter point.

Yes, he invited Kazuya, Atsuro, and Yuzu to Shibuya knowing that they would get trapped in the lockdown. But here's the thing. The Shomonkai had already defeated Jikokuten six months prior to the beginning of the game, which meant the barrier between Tokyo and the Demon World had begun to deteriorate. This is why demons such as Kudlak were able to come into Tokyo on their own.

So, let’s say that Kazuya, Atsuro, and Yuzu weren’t in the lockdown during that week. There are two things that could have happened. Either the humans trapped in the lockdown failed, and humanity is eternally stripped of their free will, forced to walk under YHVH’s command, or somehow the humans are able to end the lockdown and survive another ordeal.

Let's be honest. The most realistic way the the lockdown could have been ended is if the demon tamers broke out, like in Yuzu’s original ending. We all saw how that turned out: Honda lost his fucking shit, and everything was thrust into a truly chaotic world.

Even with Yuzu's eighth day, the only way to make things right is to restore the barrier, but Kazuya only did that because the government was treating them as terrorists. And the only reason the government was so easily able to identify them as terrorists is because Izuna and Fushimi had frequent contact with them throughout the lockdown.

So my point with that is, if normal demon tamers broke out, it would be harder for the government to identify who the "terrorists" are, and it's pretty unlikely that they would have been searching for a way to fix the situation they're in now.

So, we see that breaking out of the lockdown would be a bad ending for humanity. What about other ways of ending the lockdown?

Well, any other means of ending the lockdown involves either rewriting the summoning program, or becoming King of Bel. Both options just aren’t realistic without Naoya’s guidance. Yes, it is possible that another person with Abel’s essence was trapped in the lockdown, and could have defeated either Beldr or Belial, but the likeliness of them discovering the truth about the War of Bel on their own is questionable. I think it's highly possible that Loki would've told them, but Loki is a trickster, and would've manipulated the situation for his own enjoyment. So yes, maybe another Abel could've become the King of Bel through Loki's support, but Loki has his own selfish agenda, and frankly I'd be pretty terrified of a world where that Abel became overlord.

If none of the above happened, then we all know what would happen. The UEM field would annihilate everyone in the lockdown after the week was over, and humanity would be stripped of its freedom, forced to walk along YHVH.

So to summarize what I've said so far, if Naoya hadn’t involved Kazuya and his friends, there isn't really a good ending for humanity. Either the world would turn into a chaotic wasteland, a... less than ideal person would become King of Bel, or humanity loses its freedom.

Okay, so now that I talked about why Kazuya needed to be in the lockdown, I'm going to talk about Naoya's involvement with the COMP creation, and why that doesn't mean the lockdown was his fault.

Again, the dissolution of the barrier between Tokyo and the Demon World had already begun because of the Shomonkai. Defeating Jikokuten was difficult and put a huge strain on Amane, but it wasn’t impossible. After she had time to recover, the Founder would have just had Jezebel defeat the other three Devas, thus completing the dissolution of the barrier. The Shomonkai would just summon demons the old fashion way, and guess what? YHVH would still order the lockdown!

So really, by the time the Shomonkai commissioned Naoya to create COMPs and the Demon Summoning Program, it was already inevitable that the lockdown would happen. The COMPs made the ordeal come sooner, but it still would have come anyway.

Despite the fact that Naoya was commissioned by the Shomonkai, he had modified the program so that the Shomonkai didn’t have complete control, though. During Gin’s battle against Azuma, the “safety” precautions that Azuma assumed Naoya had put on the COMPs didn’t exist. Evidently, despite Naoya’s desire to get revenge on YHVH, Naoya didn’t agree with the Shomonkai’s morals.

He even says this on his eighth day, saying that while humanity does deserve to be free, just as the Shomonkai teaches, humanity can't be free if they are being led by a demon. Only a human (who has become a demon king) has the right to lead humans.

And yes, the demon summoning program wasn’t without casualty. We all know that Aya was dragged into the demon world and killed. But here’s the thing. Aya knew what she was getting into. She sacrificed her life to complete the demon summoning program. Naoya didn’t sacrifice her. This was made clear when she left her sequencer with Haru. If Aya didn’t know she was going to die, then why would she task Haru with completing the dispelling song? Haru even says during her route that Aya must have known what was going to happen.

So I know this was pretty lengthy, but I think this is a good case for why Naoya didn't have anything to do with the ordeal.

Alright, I'm going to talk a bit about Naoya's morals now.

Naoya makes it very clear that he has no qualms about killing most people who stand in his way (more about that later). He’s so desensitized to the concept of death that he really doesn’t give it a second thought. He also strongly believes in the concept of the strong ruling over the weak in society.

Here’s the thing about this philosophy, though. Historically, SMT games have presented chaos as just straight up darwinism. Anyone can do anything they want so long as nobody is strong enough to stop them. Chiaki, Takeshi, Walter, the Gaians– all of them subscribed to this interpretation of “strong over the weak”.

However, there’s a more subtle interpretation that doesn’t get explored that much. Those who are in positions of power don’t have to abuse their abilities in order to rule over others. Nothing in the chaos ideology says that you have to use the power of demons for selfish purposes. Just that you side with the demons for ultimate freedom. That freedom can be on an individual level (where we see the “might means right”), or can be used for humanity as a whole (focusing more on freeing humanity from YHVH’s rule).

That’s where the kill/no kill sub-routes in Naoya’s eighth day come into play. Both of those routes represent the two different interpretations of chaos.

So now that we’ve broken down chaos as an ideology, let’s get back to Naoya.

Naoya doesn’t give a shit which path Kazuya chooses. To take the time to convince others that the angels are the true enemies, or to kill anyone who may oppose the overlord, it’s all the same to him. The only thing he cares about is being on Kazuya’s good side. This is why he stops Kaido from attacking the mob that confronts them on the beginning of the 8th day. Naoya needs to learn Kazuya’s motivations for becoming the King of Bel. If Naoya does something which upsets Kazuya, he runs the risk of Kazuya changing his mind about Naoya’s plan. Especially now that Kazuya is the commander of all demons. If Kazuya doesn’t agree to Naoya’s plan now, Naoya will never get another chance to defeat YHVH.

So, if Kazuya wants to be the overlord purely because he wants power, Naoya has no reason to stop Kaido from killing the civilians. On the other hand, if Kazuya became the overlord truly to help humanity, Kazuya would be pissed that Naoya/Kaido are using their power for personal gain. Naoya is now forced to have unwavering loyalty to the overlord.

We know that Naoya doesn’t really care what choice Kazuya makes, but which route would Naoya choose if it were up to him? Honestly, I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody can know for certain. Killing all those with a dissenting opinion is certainly a much faster method. On the other hand, having humanity unite to back the overlord would absolutely give Kazuya more power. Also, keep in mind that Naoya does truly want what he feels is best for humanity– to free them from YHVH’s rule. This is evidenced by Yuzu’s eighth day where Naoya admits he didn’t anticipate Kazuya’s actions, but is pleased nonetheless because his goal of YHVH abandoning humanity has been completed.

We do know that Naoya has no qualms about killing his enemies. In Yuzu’s seventh day, he volunteers to attack Shinjuku because that’s the only point where human soldiers are guarding the barricade. He knows that Yuzu doesn’t want to kill humans and even says that he’ll have more fun dealing with humans than angels.

This last statement is an interesting one because we know that Naoya absolutely detests YHVH and the angels. So to say that he’d have more fun fighting the humans than the angels that he hates so much? That means that the SDF soldiers are at the absolute top of his shit list right now.

So why is this? Why does Naoya hate these humans even more than the beings he considers to be the embodiment of YHVH’s wrath?

Again, Naoya values humanity and humanity’s freedom more highly than anything. He already dislikes the Japanese government, saying that the “gross incompetence” they displayed while dealing with the angels is a sin. My guess is that to him, the only thing worse than YHVH and the angels would be humans who side with angels. He views this as a betrayal to humanity, and this betrayal will endanger humanity’s well-being.

So, back to the question of which method Naoya would prefer. The answer to that question is dependent on Naoya’s opinion on the demon tamers’ actions-- does Naoya view the tamers as traitors to humanity as well?

Because he has to be entirely neutral during the beginning of his eighth day, we have no way of knowing how he feels about these people. He tells them that all of their lives combined are still worth less than Kazuya’s life, but that doesn’t mean Naoya will jump at the opportunity to kill them, either.

Although, in his no-kill route, when the civilians ambush Kazuya and the group in Miyashita park, Amane attempts to convince them that the angels are the true enemies. When this fails and the civilians seem to only get more worked up, Naoya says that they must retreat from the conversation or else the group may end up having to kill the civilians. He also states before his challenge on the 5th day that Kazuya should "eliminate anyone who stands before you by your own power! Your own will!”

If the question we’re trying to answer is “Would Naoya kill people who oppose him?” then the answer is clearly yes. But the question we have is slightly different. The question is: “Would Naoya kill people who oppose him as a means of introducing the overlord to humanity?”

This distinction is important because how the overlord deals with this situation is going to drastically affect the entirety of humanity’s future.

When Naoya talks about killing the SDF soldiers in Yuzu’s seventh day, or eliminating those who stand in his way, he’s referring to very localized and isolated incidents. On the other hand, having Kazuya’s first act as the overlord be to kill everyone who opposes him has a drastic effect on humanity as a whole. Killing those with a dissenting voice leads to a tyrannical rule, and I’m not positive that this is something that Naoya agrees with.

He is at least partially okay with it, given that he doesn’t object if Kazuya chooses that route. To Naoya, a tyrannical rule led by a human is better than a tyrannical rule led by YHVH. Even so, we always circle back to the point that Naoya wants humanity to be free above all. Humanity in his kill route is not as free as humanity in his no kill route.

When we take all the above points into consideration, there’s simply no way we can know how Naoya would handle the situation if it were up to him. His first instinct probably is to kill people who stand in his way, but does his wish for humanity’s freedom override this initial urge?

At this point, it’s worth noting the difference between Naoya and Cain. As confirmed by the writers, Naoya has two sets of memories. Cain’s memories are the accumulation of his previous lifetimes and are the cause of his suffering. Naoya’s memories, on the other hand, are purely related to his current life. The writers have stated that throughout his lifetimes, Cain has lived pretty normal lives and is implied to be a kind person. Revenge against YHVH is always on the back of his mind, but is typically not the driving force behind his personality.

However, when he sees an opportunity to get revenge, that’s when his memories as Cain really take over him. He has endured so much loss and torment over thousands of years, and he won’t let anything stop him from getting the revenge he was wanted this entire time.

This doesn’t stop the fact, though, that he has bonded with the people in his lifetimes.

As we clearly see in Amane’s original ending, and eighth day, Naoya feels extremely guilty that he killed Abel. On Amane’s seventh day, he lashes out at Kazuya, having a complete and total emotional breakdown, all the while begging Kazuya to hate and kill him.

The next day, Naoya completely shuts down. He doesn’t care about revenge anymore. He feels hurt and betrayed by Kazuya’s decision to become the messiah. Ultimately, he feels hopeless. His brother hates him, his chance at revenge is over, and because he refuses to give into YHVH, he accepts that he is bound to be cursed forever.

The rest of Amane’s eighth day is pretty straightforward, so I won’t analyze it much further. We know that throughout the lockdown, Naoya truly cared about Kazuya’s safety, Naoya respects Kazuya so much that he let Kazuya choose his own path instead of forcing him to be overlord, and Naoya steps in during the battle with Okuninushi to save his brother.

Another time we see Naoya's guilt over killing Abel is during his seventh day. When the angels fight Kazuya in front of Hills building, they attempt to reawaken his memories as Abel.

Naoya's reaction to this is really interesting. This is one of the few times in the game that he actually panics and shows signs of vulnerability. He frantically tells Kazuya not to listen to the angels and says they're only trying to confuse Kazuya.

Now, Naoya is a walking database of human emotions and behaviors. This is why he's so good at predicting what people will do next. He prides himself in being able to anticipate Kazuya's actions and fully understands his motivations. We see this in the email he sends Kazuya at the end of the sixth day, when he says "Kazuya, come to me. Now." That's a pretty cocky thing to say, so we knows he's confident at knowing what Kazuya will do.

But Kazuya's trump card over Naoya is his memories of being Abel. From Naoya's perspective, it would make perfect sense for Abel to hate Naoya. Any reasonable person would hate their murderer, and possibly even moreso if their murderer was their own brother.

Of course, there's also the possibility that Kazuya wouldn't remember his life as Abel, and would sympathize with what Naoya had to endure. But the key point is, Kazuya has the potential to have two sets of memories, just as Naoya does.

So when the angels try to awaken Abel's memories inside Kazuya, Naoya doesn't know if that'll be successful. If it is, and Kazuya does remember Cain killing him, there's a chance that Abel doesn't forgive him.

This is what terrifies Naoya so much.

Of course, if Abel doesn't forgive Cain, then there's the possibility that Kazuya won't go along with Naoya's plan anymore. But I don't think that's what Naoya is most worried about.

Remember, as we saw in Amane's eighth day, Naoya respects the choices that Kazuya makes, and really cares about Kazuya's wellbeing. He also says in his own eighth day that he's lucky to have had Abel by his side throughout the ages. This implies that no matter how many times he was reincarnated, there was always somebody with Abel's essence close to him.

For thousands of years, Naoya has felt utterly alone, but the knowledge that his brother was close to him was probably his only source of comfort.

So when the angels ask Kazuya if he really has been reduced to a mere human, Naoya doesn't panic because his plan's success is in jeopardy, he panics because he might lose the only thing he feels that he has.

There is one other time that Naoya shows true vulnerability. In his eighth day, when he realizes Metatron is planning on using God's Thunder to purge the earth, he panics, saying he didn't anticipate this action.

Again, Naoya wants what's best for humanity, and YHVH killing everyone on the planet certainly goes against Naoya's wishes. Naoya gets scared not only because he failed humanity, but he's about to be responsible for his brother's death. Again.

Thankfully, Kazuya awakens to his overlord power in time, and Metatron concedes, so Naoya quickly goes back to his usual calm demeanor. But for a few seconds, he did break his facade and show a moment of weakness.

Speaking of breaking his facade, he does show a couple other times of letting go of his typically cold personality. After successfully convincing humans that the angels are the true enemy, most of Kazuya's friends rejoin the group. They start having heartfelt interactions (Midori excitedly chasing after the group, Kaido calling Atsuro "otakuro"), which leads Naoya to chuckle and comment how this is a boisterous group, but it's not a bad thing.

In all of his lifetimes, Naoya has felt extremely lonely because he knows everyone around him will move on, but he never will. If YHVH is killed, then his punishment will be over. This means that he knows this will be his last life. He'll get to pass on just like everyone else does, and as a result of that, he's allowing himself to be more open around people.

In the very beginning of the game, Naoya is implied to not have any sense of humor at all. Yuzu says that the Laplace email must be a joke, and Atsuro says that Naoya must have a sense of humor. But the way Atsuro says this means that Naoya hasn't been shown to joke around, and Atsuro is just assuming that Naoya has a sense of humor because Naoya is human, too.

At the end of Naoya's no kill route, though, Naoya shows his lighthearted side by teasing Atsuro about his crush on Yuzu.

Taking the previous two points into consideration, I think it's safe to say that Naoya is slowly opening up to other people now that he knows his punishment will be over soon.

Naoya gets written off by a lot of players as “evil asshole cousin”, but is actually an extremely complex character. The Shomonkai forced him into a tough decision by defeating Jikokuten, and the only thing to do at that point for the sake of humanity was to get Kazuya involved. This happened to coincide with his goal of defeating YHVH, so Naoya put a very intricate plan in action to undermine the Shomonkai and ensure that their plan failed, all the while freeing humanity from YHVH’s reign. His two sets of memories make him a walking contradiction. He’s kind and ruthless at the same time. Manipulative yet respectful. He carries around a tremendous amount of emotional baggage, pain, and suffering, and while he does have a personal stake in making Kazuya overlord, he also does it for the sake of humanity as well.

#phew okay i think that's all i wanted to say about naoya #... for now lol #devil survivor #desu #naoya minegishi #desu character analyses #desu rambles

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queen-of-bel · 5 years

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Another Devil Survivor character analysis! This time, I'll be talking about my favorite SMT law rep, Amane.

naoya | kaido | atsuro | gin | mari

As the Shomonkai's maiden, Amane is a very quiet and reserved girl. I think most of her personality is shaped by her father, who has very clear expectations for what kind of person Amane should be.

Amane seems to be very distant and detached from other people. We know she's not in school anymore as her father pulled her out of school once she finished her compulsory education to focus on her duties as the Shomonkai's maiden. But even while she was a student, I can't imagine she had many friends. Her dad is a cult leader, and Amane is part of that cult, so I think she may have been alienated by her peers while she was in school.

If we look at how the other members of the Shomonkai treat her, we can see that she's basically placed on a pedestal and revered among them. They always call her "Lady Amane" despite her young age.

Essentially, I don't think Amane has ever had any meaningful interaction with people her age, or at least someone who views her as an equal. This lack of connection leads her to become seemingly detached to other people, and I think this is exactly how her father took advantage of her.

As I mentioned earlier, Amane's father has a very strict and precise image of how his daughter should act. She is the maiden of the Shomonkai. She should be calm, charismatic, and above all, display leadership qualities equaling his own.

The first time we see these expectations is actually in the prologue of the game. After Naoya tells Amane that the demon summoning program is complete, Amane asks Naoya if he would be willing to cooperate with the Shomonkai.

Now, if Naoya agreed to this, it would be a huge win for the Shomonkai, and this isn't something they can afford to mess up. Amane's father needs to be certain that he gave this his best effort.

I would've assumed that the founder himself would be the one to ask, but the fact that he asked his 16 year old daughter to do so instead says to me that he expects her to be able to deliver the same results he would have.

Another thing I want to point out is that I think it's very possible that Amane was Naoya's primary point of contact throughout his development of the demon summoning program. If Naoya was primarily in contact with somebody else throughout his time working with them, it would be weird that Naoya delivers the finished product to somebody other than that person. Again, the founder's plan hinges on the success of the demon summoning program. To put her as the face of this project instead of himself really speaks volumes about his expectations of Amane.

Even if Naoya's point of contact was somebody else, we know for sure that her father trusted her enough to ask for Naoya's help. We can start to see how high his expectations for Amane were, and imagine how the pressure of this must have affected her.

Another example of Amane's, quite frankly, dysfunctional relationship with her father is with the whole Jezebel mess. When Belberith made a pact with her father, her father agreed to place Jezebel inside Amane. I think we need to pause and really acknowledge how fucked up that is to do that to your own child.

Now, I'll be honest. I don't think her father did any of this with any malicious intent. Her father does love her and care about the wellbeing of humanity, but these feelings are extremely misguided. He's a naive and idealistic man, as we see when he takes Belberith's words at face value. He also believes in the greater good, thinking that the lives of the people who were killed by the summoned demons are a necessary sacrifice for humanity's survival.

Amane initially shares these sentiments, but when she starts hearing another perspective from Remiel, she begins to change her mind.

Like her father, she still wants humanity to survive the ordeal sent by YHVH, but she now sees there's a way to do so without causing so much destruction and chaos.

Amane defying her father and siding with the angels actually is another perfect example of how detached she is from humanity.

The truth is, the lockdown was caused by a single person-- Amane's father (no, Naoya has no fault in this. my Naoya analysis has the justification for this). As such, humanity's potential judgement day is solely the responsibility of the Shomonkai's founder.

Now, to kill everyone in the lockdown and strip away the freedom of every person on the planet based on the actions of a single person is... harsh, to say the very least. If you're not only going to agree with, but also advocate for the ones who propose that idea, you have to be disconnected from humanity.

I'm in no way trying to say that she's a mean or cruel person, but to me, her viewing humanity as a collective whole as opposed to being made up by billions of individuals does reinforce the fact that she lacks meaningful connections with people.

Still, she's only doing this because she thinks this is a better outcome for humanity. Her primary goal above all else is to save as many people as possible. Unfortunately, for most of the game, she has only really been exposed to 2 methods: her father's, and the angels'. Both are extreme, but the success of one plan would mean far fewer casualties than the success of the other.

Amane doesn't really want to side with the angels, but for her, it's more of a "lesser of two evils" type of situation. Her actions on Naoya's no kill route prove this.

She at first very strongly objects to Kazuya becoming the King of Bel because she believes he will use the power of demons for evil. As of the seventh day, she still believes that becoming the Messiah would be the best way to save humanity.

On the eighth day, however, Remiel flees from her mind and returns to heaven. Remiel does so in order to prepare God's Thunder to purge the world, but Amane doesn't know this yet.

As I said before, Amane lacks real friendship or connections with other people. I think it's safe to assume that Remiel was the first person/being to treat Amane as something other than the Shomonkai's maiden. I'm sure she was already traumatized by her father placing Jezebel in her, so the comfort of divine intervention was something she clung on to.

So how did she feel when she realized Remiel had abandoned her without explanation? Hurt, for sure, possibly betrayed. Her father has already been killed by Belberith, and her only other source of comfort is now gone.

She initially feels bad for failing Remiel. She really thought she'd be able to convince Kazuya to become the Messiah, but instead, the opposite happened. After seeing how hard Kazuya is working for humanity's sake, however, those reservations disappear.

It's at this point that she realizes she was just a tool for both sides. Her ability to hear both holy and unholy voices was manipulated by demons and angels, and that realization came crashing down on her.

If Kazuya chooses to convince humans that the angels are the true enemy instead of killing all those with dissenting opinions, Amane will attempt to take lead of the Shomonkai, vows to never yield to YHVH and the angels.

She steps into the battle when a faction of Shomonkai members who are still loyal to Belberith attack Kazuya. If Kazuya saves her, it solidifies her opinion that Kazuya's path is the correct one to follow, and she pledges allegiance to the Overlord.

This is a very drastic shift from her moral stance two days prior, but it's actually very in line with who she is. Remember, Amane isn't necessarily on the angels' side, but the side which will save the most humans. After seeing that Kazuya ordered the demons to stop attacking humans, and knowing that the angels are more manipulative and selfish than she originally thought, she now sees the best way to ensure everyone's safety.

In the fight against Metatron, Metatron asks Amane why she has switched sides. Amane firmly states her wishes have never changed. Sick of being manipulated by both demons and angels, she goes on to say that humans must now stand up to regain control of their own world.

Interestingly, this moment is the only time we see Amane speak with such emotion and conviction for herself. Even in her route, she still has the calm demeanor she's always had. When she thanks Kazuya, she thanks him on behalf of Remiel and the other angels. But in Naoya's route, when she defies Metatron, it really feels like she's speaking for her own beliefs. She's not spreading the teachings of her father. She's not speaking to others on behalf of the angels. It feels like she's finally broken out of the shell that her father built for her, and she's standing up for what she believes in, as Amane Kuzuryu and nobody else.

Amane is a very sad character to me because she's always been used her whole life. She's devoid of any personality of her own because everything about her very existence has been strictly dictated by her father. The angels manipulated her and she followed that path because she felt it was her only option. It feels more like she's just a shell of a person, only walking the path she's on because somebody else led her there. She's a lonely person who was never allowed the opportunity to express herself or be who she wants to be.

#ahh finally an analysis that doesn't break 2k words #desu character analyses #devil survivor #amane kuzuryu #desu #desu rambles

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queen-of-bel · 5 years

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So by popular vote, Gin won to be the subject of my next character analysis

naoya | kaido | atsuro | amane | mari

Gin is introduced by Yuzu as Haru’s “guardian” and a big brother to everyone. He’s a kind person and genuinely cares about the well-being of others.

He used to be a thug/gang member, as he refers to himself as an “adult Kaido”. He didn’t choose that life out of anger or frustration, but because he was bored with the world and probably couldn’t find another place to belong.

That all changed once he met Aya.

Gin didn’t really have a reason to live before, but he did once he found Aya. Aya snapped him out of it, and he became a better person because of her. He states the reason he likes to look after younger kids is because he’s trying to atone for what he did when he was their age.

This transformation was all due to Aya, and Gin became indebted to her. He found a reason to live because of her. The problem is, Aya became his only reason to live, and once she disappeared, he lost himself again. He became pretty apathetic, going through his daily actions without much emotion.

At this point in his life, Gin isn’t the same person that Yuzu introduced him as. Gin has lost his sense of being a “big brother” to everyone, only minimally stepping into people’s affairs if he would be directly responsible for their death.

The most obvious example of that is when he stepped in to save Shoji. The demon that was attacking Shoji came extremely close to killing her. She said that she was close enough to see the demon’s jaw open wide to attack her, and at the last second, Gin stepped in to save her.

Now, there are two reasons I can think of for Gin’s last-minute appearance. The first is purely because of timing. Gin was walking down the street or stepping outside his bar, saw Shoji getting attacked, and immediately rushed over to help her.

The second reason, which I think is more likely, is that Gin really did wait until the last second to interfere.

If this were the case, then from Gin’s perspective, there were multiple ways Shoji’s encounter with the demon could’ve ended. Maybe she was a demon tamer herself. Maybe she could escape. Maybe someone else would save her.

None of those things happened, and when Gin saw that Shoji really was about to die, he stepped in.

The reason I think that is a more likely explanation is because of how Gin treats Haru throughout the game.

He tells Haru that Aya has moved abroad to study music, which is why Aya isn’t around anymore.

However, that’s a lie about Aya’s disappearance so that Haru doesn’t blame herself. He knows that Haru is majorly depressed, and if Haru thought she was the one who drove Aya away, Haru would kill herself.

As somebody who is known to be Haru’s guardian, that’s a pretty odd move.

Here’s the thing. I agree that Haru would certainly harm herself if she thought she drove Aya away. However, Haru wouldn’t think that way if Gin just told her the truth– that the Shomonkai took away Aya.

The evidence that Gin has so far that points to this is pretty strong. Aya was last seen getting into a Shomonkai’s car, and the Shomonkai are highly avoidant of Gin. Sure it’s not a perfect case, but it’s still a much better explanation than the one Gin gave Haru.

Aya packing up her bags and moving abroad without telling anybody is a pretty half-assed lie, to be honest. Haru’s not stupid. She doubts that Gin is telling the truth, and that’s a huge gamble that Gin is taking. Haru is the type of person to jump to the worst possible conclusion, so if she didn’t believe Aya was abroad studying music, it’s extremely likely that Haru would think she drove Aya away.

So why doesn’t Gin just tell Haru the truth?

I think it’s because Gin doesn’t want to be around Haru.

In the prologue, when we see Gin and Haru together, Gin actually has his back to Haru, only facing her when she begins speaking. Haru expresses her worries that she can’t finish the song that Aya gave her, and Gin tells her to do whatever her heart tells her to.

There’s a few things wrong with this, which support my theory that Gin is avoiding Haru.

First off, it’s strange that Gin wasn’t originally facing Haru. It certainly didn’t seem like their conversation was over, and he wasn’t walking anywhere either. Haru was engrossed in her sequencer, and I think that’s when Gin realized he could look away without Haru noticing. He only turns back once he sees she’s started talking again.

The second thing that’s off is Gin’s lack of support. Again, Gin is known as Haru’s guardian, and I would think someone like that would encourage Haru to finish Aya’s work. Instead, he just says to do whatever she wants and seems to leave it at that.

This is reason to believe he doesn’t want to be emotionally close to Haru. If he encouraged Haru to continue Aya’s song, then Haru might return to Gin for more support. The thing is, Gin doesn’t have the energy for anything, let alone encouraging Haru to break out of her shell. So what he does instead is basically just sends her away. Haru won’t kill herself over that, so she will remain physically safe, and Gin won’t have to interact with Haru. That’s a win-win for him.

Even throughout the lockdown, we can see how he wants to distance himself from Haru.

Once he finds out Kazuya has been talking to her as well, he essentially pushes all responsiblity onto him, despite the fact that Kazuya has only known Haru for a day. Gin warns Kazuya about Haru’s suicidal tendencies, and initially says to stay away from Haru, but when Kazuya pushes further, Gin totally backs off and says he leaves her in Kazuya’s hands.

Again, he doesn’t know Kazuya, or even Yuzu very well. The fact that Gin so easily handed over responsibility reinforces the theory that he just wants to be alone. Haru isn’t his problem or responsibility anymore, it’s someone else’s. The lockdown was becoming an increasingly dangerous place, and the chances of Haru surviving were becoming slimmer and slimmer, especially considering her suicidal tendencies.

If Haru were to die while she’s still under Gin’s care, I think the guilt would kill him. Not just because of Haru’s death, but he feels like he won’t be able to face Aya, who was the first person to take Haru under her wing.

But now, Haru seems to be opening up to another person. If Kazuya were to be responsible for Haru instead, Gin wouldn’t have any reason to feel guilty if Haru died. It would be Kazuya’s responsibility, not Gin’s.

Now, none of this was done with any malice, and I personally think this was all done subconsciously. Gin of course cares for Haru, but the stress of losing Aya has caused him to revert to his old habits– viewing the world as lackluster and gray.

On the 6th day, Haru says that Gin has become lifeless and suicidal after Aya disappeared, which is how she knew Gin was lying about Aya.

So, if Gin doesn’t even have the energy to deal with (who we can assume is) the second most important person in his life, there’s no way that he’s going to play hero with Shoji, a complete stranger. He doesn’t want to see anybody die if he can help it, but his obvious emotional detachment is why I think he waited until the last moment to save Shoji.

So we know that during the past few months, Gin has been wildly depressed and withdrawn. It’s during the middle and end of the lockdown, though, that he starts to actually break out of that.

Gin has always suspected the Shomonkai of being involved with shady business, but seeing their involvement with demons solidifies those suspicions.

Given that there isn’t anywhere the Shomonkai can run to (everyone is trapped within the Yamanote line after all), and that there aren’t really any laws being enforced, Gin can afford to be a bit more on the offensive. He knows everyone will die within a week, and this is his last chance to find information on Aya.

Now, Gin isn’t afraid to die. He never has been. But what he’s afraid of is never being able to find Aya again, and it’s this desperation that fuels his actions throughout the seven days.

Gin knows deep down that Aya is dead, but he doesn’t have the courage to confront that yet.

If Kazuya chooses to become overlord, but didn’t help Gin find out what happened to Aya, Gin actually will join the Shomonkai temporarily. When Kazuya attempts to kidnap Amane, Gin steps in to save her. He apologizes to Kazuya, as he doesn’t really want to fight Kazuya, but Gin knows that siding with the Shomonkai is the best chance he will ever get at finding information about Aya.

Azuma is no doubt just using Gin to protect Amane (really, Jezebel), and Gin knows that. Again, Gin knows that Aya is dead, but he’s still in denial. He’s desperately clinging on to any hope that Aya could return to him, and Azuma took advantage of that.

The fact that Gin allowed himself to be used by the Shomonkai indicates how Aya is Gin’s sole reason for living. But there are other, bigger signs of that as well.

If Kazuya chose to break out of the lockdown instead, then he has the option to invite Gin along. Gin refuses and says he’s just going to relax at his bar and have a drink instead.

At this point in the game, there is no other way to survive the lockdown. There’s not enough time to reach the summoning server or become the King of Bel. People in the lockdown will either have to break out or get killed by the UEM field.

So depending on Kazuya’s actions, Gin may have found out the truth about Aya. But even if Gin didn’t find out, he thinks it’s too late. There isn’t enough time to find Aya, and instead of fighting to stay alive, he decides to succumb and die at the hands of the government instead.

The thing is, he could have continued to search for Aya if he broke through the lockdown, but he explicitly chooses not to. This means that by the end of the seventh day, he has finally come to terms with the fact that he’ll never see Aya again. Unfortunately, this also means that he has totally lost his reason to live.

Gin has no desire to live in a world without Aya, but he also has no desire to contribute to a world that Aya would not recognize.

In Overclocked, the only eighth day he shows up in is Yuzu’s to restore the barrier between the human and demon worlds. Even though some form of peace comes for humanity in both Amane’s and Naoya’s endings, Gin is noticeably absent. From what we know about Aya, she would’ve been content with either Amane’s or Naoya’s no kill endings. Aya loved the world, and was the type of person to find beauty in anything. Someone like that wouldn’t be averse to change. In fact, she might even welcome it.

But Gin is different. Gin never learned what Aya was really trying to teach him. Gin learned to appreciate the things about the Tokyo Aya fell in love with, but that’s not the point Aya was trying to make. Aya was trying to teach Gin how to appreciate the beauty in any situation. Aya would’ve wanted Gin to learn to find something to love in any world, but Gin couldn’t see the big picture. This is why he’s so obsessed with restoring Tokyo, and why he doesn’t show up in Amane’s or Naoya’s eighth days. Neither of these outcomes will bring Tokyo back to how it was.

The Tokyo that Aya loved wasn’t ruled by angels, nor was it one where humanity fought for its freedom. Aya would have found things to love about those worlds, but it isn’t the same world she fell in love with.

Granted, the outcome of Naoya’s no kill route meant that Tokyo was restored to normal, but there’s no way Gin would’ve sided with the overlord. Before Metatron conceded and moved the battle to heaven, the entire world was at risk of getting purged. Everyone else fought because they wanted to support Kazuya and take a stand for humanity. Gin isn’t that noble, though. For him, the biggest risk was that humanity will be purged or even worse, the war between angels and demons would destroy the world.

Gin’s highest priority is the preservation/restoration of Tokyo. He doesn’t actually care about saving others, he just wants the world to go back to how it was because he thinks that’s what Aya would’ve wanted. By the time Naoya’s eighth day rolls around, Gin has accepted that Aya is dead. He doesn’t want to restore Tokyo to get it ready for Aya’s return anymore, but he wants to do so as a final love letter to Aya.

I feel really bad for Gin because he had just started to break out of his shell, but losing Aya was more than he could bear. He really was trying to fix his old habits, but he got even worse once Aya disappeared. He becomes massively depressed, lost the will to live, and shut out the people in his life who really cared about him.

#oof this was a lot longer than i thought it would be #eiji kamiya #gin #devil survivor #desu #desu character analyses #desu rambles

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queen-of-bel · 5 years

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phew okay this was sitting in my drafts for so long, but an analysis for second best devil survivor boy (tadashi nikaido)

naoya | atsuro | amane | gin | mari

Tadashi Nikaido is genuinely one of my favorite characters ever, but I see him get reduced to just "tsundere gangster" but he really is a lot more than that.

Let's look at how he was first introduced. If you remember, there was a thug who was harassing an SDF solider to be let out of the lockdown. He's quickly stopped by Kaido who clearly has no desire at all to spar with the SDF. After Atsuro notes that Kaido has a reputation of treating his members well, Kazuya approaches Kaido for help. Kaido doesn't know of any secret exits, and hasn't seen Naoya. Then, Kaido decides to take it a step further, asking the picture of Naoya to be sent over IR so he can show his crew once the cell lines come back on. This wasn't something that Kazuya asked him to do. This was something that Kaido volunteered to do. He didn't have to do this for 3 strangers, but he did anyway.

The next big thing we learn about Kaido is the "bloodless murderer" and its connection to Kaido. In case you need a refresher, one of the victims was Kaido's brother. It's at this point that we start to see a darker side of him. He finally figured out the secret behind the murderer (that it's a demon) and how to avenge his brother (by using the COMPs). He even calls his brother a "wuss", implying that he thinks his brother died because he wasn't strong enough to fight off the assailant.

Alright, let's throw Mari into the picture now. In case you need a second reminder, Mari is childhood friends with Kaido and his brother. Mari and his brother eventually get into a relationship, but Kaido secretly was in love with Mari, too.

The text differs slightly between the original game and Overclocked, but when Kaido and Mari are arguing, Mari beings to either say how Kaido's brother was her lover, or that she blames herself for his death. Either way, Kaido becomes enraged and cuts her off, and even goes so far as to say he wishes he were the one to kill his brother. He then yells at Mari to stay away from the bloodless murderer before storming off.

The glaringly obvious takeaway is that Kaido has serious issues conveying his emotions. No doubt he's jealous that Mari fell for his brother and not him, but he's also having difficulty expressing his grief over his brother, even resorting to saying something like this to cover his grief. Mari realizes this is just a cover, though, and asks Kazuya to forgive Kaido, as Kaido seems so angry at the moment because of his brother's murder.

Now, jump to the battle where Yuzu gets us into that bet with Kaido and Honda. This is where the lockdown begins to break him. After Kaido realizes he can’t win the bet against a bunch of high school kids, he cries out��“I wanted to gain power, but I can’t... I can’t protect anything!” His strong will is what summons Pazuzu, who comments on his "bitter cries of despair".

Note that the first reason he states he wants power is to protect something. He doesn't want power for personal gain, or any selfish reasons. He wants the strength to avenge his brother and protect Mari. He doesn't care about crushing everything or taking over the world-- he just wants Mari to he safe.

So whether or not Mari survives the battle with Kudlak is going to really define Kaido's outlook, but before we jump to the fifth day, let's take a look at what happens on day 4.

At Suidobashi, we find Kaido and Honda getting into a fight with a bunch of civilians, with the intent to kill the civilians. After talking to them, though, Honda says that the civilians attacked them first, and Honda and Kaido were merely acting in self-defense. After they leave, Atsuro says if he were in Kaido's place, he would've lost control, too.

Let's now talk a bit about Kaido's role as a gang/thug leader.

Kaido doesn't want to lead the Shibuya Daemons. He explicitly tells Kazuya, "I don't really care... I'm only leadin' these guys 'cause it was my brother's gang." Kaido only views this as a responsibility his brother left for him, but despite the fact that he has a reputation for treating his members well, he couldn't care less about the Daemons.

So, jump back to the battle where Kaido/Honda are fighting the civilians. This is all really important to consider when Kaido calls Kazuya and everyone "justice freaks".

At first, it seems like Kaido is just displaying typical, thuggish, "fuck the cops" kind of behavior. But considering his behavior and what we know about him up until this point in the game, it doesn't really make sense.

Kaido didn't start the Shibuya Daemons, nor does he want to lead them. Kaido broke up a fight between a gang member and an SDF soldier, when he easily could've joined in, or at the very least, ignored it. Knowing all this, Kaido is probably best described as just "transient" as opposed to having any actual convictions. Maybe he doesn't care enough to outright respect the law, but he doesn't seem to have an active interest in breaking the law, either.

So where does the "justice freak" thing come from?

The most likely answer to me is that Kaido is frustrated with the Japanese law enforcement for not making any progress in the bloodless murder cases. He laments several times that it's been so long since his brother was murdered, and they still don't know who did it. One of the instances where this is shown is when Kazuya gives Kaido Mari's bag. Kaido says "I've been waiting for this... It's been seven months now since my brother died... I'm finally gonna nail the bastard that killed my bro and cornered Mari!"

So, Kaido already has lost hope in the justice system, and knowing that it was the government who enacted the lockdown certainly didn't improve his opinion on the government. Also, now that he sees demons, the same creatures that killed his brother, are on the loose, Kaido knows that if he makes one misstep in the lockdown, he'll die. Especially considering that he thinks his brother could've protected himself if he was stronger.

At this moment, laws don't matter to him anymore if they're just going to hinder his survival. Note that Kaido never did anything that didn't have to do with his survival. He never robbed anybody, he never looted any stores, all he wanted to do was get stronger so he could survive and protect Mari.

Okay, so now let's jump into the 5th day mess, where Mari's fate is defined.

Let's start with if Mari dies.

If Kazuya is there for the battle against Kudlak, but didn't give her purse to either her or Kaido, Mari is killed in front of everyone. Kaido absolutely loses it, and afterwards, falls into a state of shock and depression. I'll touch more on this later, but Kaido says "Mari... I let down my bro... And now you too..."

The next time we see Kaido, he's fighting Keisuke, where their morals are clearly clashing over the proper use of power. This bit of dialogue is only triggered if Kazuya witnessed Mari's death, but Kaido does say "without power, you can't protect anything close to you" before continuing the fight with Keisuke.

If Kazuya didn't witness Mari getting killed by Kudlak, he'll get a email from Kaido that night saying that Mari was found dead. His words indicate that he lapsed into a depression from how powerless he felt.

Either way, the takeaway is that if Mari dies, Kaido blames his lack of strength for his failures. This solidifies the thought in his mind that if you want to survive, you have to be strong. After all, if he were stronger, he could've avenged his brother and saved the woman he loved, right?

Okay, let's rewind day 5 and see what happens if Mari survives.

If Mari survives, and Kaido defeated (well, helped to defeat) Kudlak, he credits this to his strength. This is evidenced in his fight with Keisuke if Mari survives, where he says "If you don't want to die, you gotta get strong! The weak have no right to complain!"

Whatever happens with Mari's fate, the events of the fifth day confirm to him that if he wants to survive and protect anyone, he's got to get stronger. He just has to.

It's after the fifth day that he totally snaps.

On the sixth day, he rants to Kazuya how humans are basically rotten and his desire to crush everything. The stress of the lockdown has finally gotten to him. After he sees stuff from the Japanese government abandoning the civilians in the lockdown and their plans to kill everyone, to the civilians in the lockdown losing all sanity, killing others and causing pure chaos in the streets, Kaido has lost all hope in humanity.

He's extremely bitter towards YHVH and the angels who enacted the lockdown in the first place, which is why he teams up with Naoya to make Kazuya the overlord. At this point he's just gone insane, truly believing that he can't survive without power, and after a week of seeing people's ugly side, he detaches himself from humanity, seeing people as only stepping stones to make himself stronger.

I want to stress one more time that Kaido does not typically share these sentiments. Even at the end of the lockdown, he knows deep down that people aren't inherently bad. He knows that people were pushed this far because of the lockdown, just as he was. This is evidenced by his reaction to Keisuke's actions on the sixth day. If Keisuke is alive, he tells them that he forgives Keisuke for what he did. If Kaido killed Keisuke, Kaido will apologize to Atsuro, saying that under different circumstances, he and Keisuke would make great friends. He even takes it a step further, saying that he understands if Atsuro doesn't forgive him, and if it would make Atsuro feel better, he can kill Kaido.

The best example of Kaido's true nature is in Amane's eighth day, where he actually agrees to help the Messiah and protect the barricade from the demon tamers fighting to get out. He says that this is the least he can do, considering how hard Kazuya is working to help people. These actions would make no sense if Kaido was truly as power-hungry as he appears to be on the sixth day. In fact, this solidifies the theory that Kaido just... exists. Just two days prior, he was seething with rage, vowing to crush the SDF and YHVH. And yet, now he's siding with the Japanese government and the Messiah.

Clearly, Kaido is the type of person who just adapts to the situation he's in. He doesn't particularly have any morals, but instead, he just goes with whatever is happening in his environment. This is even implied in the materials guide, where under Kaido's favorite music, it says "club music?" including the question mark. Being a highschool dropout (also stated in the materials guide) and a gang leader, it's no surprise that he frequents clubs, but it's interesting that he has so little convictions that even his taste in music is left to be shaped by his environment.

Honestly, I think it's very possible Kaido has some form of undiagnosed mental disorder, quite possibly borderline personality disorder. Besides his feelings for Mari, he has no real convictions or ambitions in life. He's just aimlessly doing what life handed to him. His brother died? Well, guess he has to take over his gang. Being stuck in the lockdown? Gain more power to help him survive. Messiah is working to save humanity? Time to side with the angels.

Yes, Kaido has his issues, but the reason why we see his nasty side so often is bc of the cruelty of the lockdown and how that honestly made him snap. The game, however, also conveys multiple instances where his true nature is shown. Despite it all, he's very conflicted about the whole situation-- bouncing back and forth between attempting to murder others to listening to his conscience and displaying compassion towards others. At the end of Naoya's no kill route, Kaido states that he's doing this because he wants to stay by Kazuya's side. Metatron even notes that Kaido is doing this out of loyalty to a friend. Granted, Kaido isn't the only person Metatron says this to, but if Kaido really did only choose this path to gain more power, Metatron would've said so.

Kaido lives an aimless and metaphorically nomadic life, at times showing symptoms which hint at depression or an underlying mental illness. What he is not, however, is your typical power hungry SMT chaos rep. He's a far more complex character than that. He allows his convictions to change very suddenly, just to match the environment he's in. Really, he's this tangled mess of emotions that he has never resolved, and as a result, has become an extremely apathetic and aimless person.

#it's up #sorry it took so long #not like anyone was really waiting for this anyway lol #also sorry no read more i'm on mobile #bpd kaido is my fave headcanon #devil survivor #desu character analyses #tadashi nikaido #desu #devil survivor spoilers #amelia rambles #desu rambles

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queen-of-bel · 5 years

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part 3 of a series i'm doing on analyzing the desu characters

naoya | kaido | amane | gin | mari

I'll be talking about Atsuro in this post since @roomofangel-s encouraged me to write one and I was planning on writing one anyway. I'll be honest, this was a challenge. Atsuro doesn't undergo any character development throughout the game, and is pretty much the definition of "what you see is what you get". He's a very straightfoward person and is fiercely loyal to Kazuya, but that's about it.

Still, every other Devil Survivor character has their own personal motivations for their actions throughout the game, and I really found it odd that only Atsuro was the one who showed this utter lack of conviction. No matter which route Kazuya chooses, Atsuro is there for him. Atsuro has his own idea of how to end the lockdown, but he's the only person who willingly abandons their idea to immediately join Kazuya if Kazuya chooses a different idea.

(I say "immediately" because there is one character who switches sides in Overclocked, but I'll leave that for her analysis. Also, Yuzu's idea doesn't count as having a belief.)

So, Atsuro didn't show any indication of standing his ground, and really, all his character boiled down to "loyal to his best friend". Given that every other character is fleshed out, I found it hard to believe that such a major character as Atsuro is as plain as he initially appears. But after thinking about it more, I think this lack of conviction is exactly what defines Atsuro as a character.

Atsuro doesn't really lack conviction per se, but what he lacks is the confidence to stand up for what he believes in. Given everything that's presented in game about him, there's only one reason I can think of for that.

At the end of the day, Atsuro is a very lonely person, who is desperate for friendship. This desperation leaves him with a fear of abandonment, an aversion to conflict, and ultimately, he is too scared to stand up to others.

Atsuro was born to computer science researchers who moved to California when he was in grade school. They offered him the chance to come along, but he always refused, citing his poor English. Now, this was made as a passing remark, but it's actually something interesting to note. Grade school children already aren't really fluent in their native language, and they tend to be more confident in attempting to speak a second language. For a young child to be willing to separate from his parents (who are both presumably fluent in English) simply because he doesn't think he can speak the language well enough speaks volumes about his self-confidence.

He spent most of his childhood online, making friends with college students and adults as his parents were away and his friends had cram school. He says that nobody ever caught on that he was just a child, which is a good testament to how mature he is, even as a child.

Atsuro also states that while it was fun to have the anonymity of the internet, he wasn't doing it to have fun-- he was doing it because it was all he had. Again, this was made as a passing remark, but if a child thinks that all he has is the solace of internet friends and the anonymity that comes with it, then that's an indication that the child is extremely lonely in real life.

We also know that he was bullied in middle school. Thankfully it didn't go too far since Keisuke helped stand up for him, but Atsuro easily admits that without Keisuke's help, he would've been at the bullies' mercy.

So now, we can start to understand what kind of childhood Atsuro had. He was lonely and insecure, unwilling to stand up for himself, and felt most comfortable in an environment where people didn't know who he was.

This leads him to who he is now. Atsuro is very loyal to his friends, but at the expense of his own morals. This is evidenced in Naoya's seventh day, just before Kazuya summons Babel. Atsuro says that he's unsure of whether or not they're doing the right thing, but he'll always be Kazuya's friend regardless.

Now, what Atsuro has agreed to do isn't a small favor, or even a large one. Atsuro has agreed to kill YHVH. That's one hell of a commitment, and requires a strong amount of determination. The decision to stand by Kazuya goes beyond typical friend loyalty. Even Yuzu, who's obviously in love with Kazuya, backed out because she thought it was the wrong path to follow.

So, what gives? Why does Atsuro stand by Kazuya to make such an extreme decision when he doesn't believe in it?

The answer to that ties back to Atsuro's insecurities and loneliness. Kazuya is his best friend, and Atsuro treasures that more than anything else. Just to state it one more time to really understand what their friendship means to him, Atsuro would rather kill God than lose his best friend.

This isn't the only time Atsuro is willing to compromise his morals for his friends. He's demonstrated a few times that he is extremely loyal to his friends, perhaps to a fault. This is particularly evident in his relationship with Keisuke.

On the first day, when Atsuro runs into Keisuke, Keisuke runs away when he sees their death clock at 0. Kazuya tells Atsuro and Yuzu this, but Atsuro denies it, saying it isn't possible. But remember, Atsuro hadn't seen or talked to Keisuke in 2-3 years, and realistically Keisuke has changed since he was a middle school student. And yet, Atsuro was very adamant that Keisuke would never do such a thing. It's a realistic and understandable reaction, but it's important to note how Atsuro still holds Keisuke in high regard and is so loyal to someone he lost contact with years ago.

On the second day, when the Laplace email predicts that there will be over 50 casualties because of a demon invasion in Ikebukuro, he is initially extremely concerned about all of the victims, but when he realizes Keisuke is in danger his priorities change. When Yuzu points out that there are supposed to be 50 other potential casualties, Atsuro tells her to basically forget about that and focus all their efforts on saving Keisuke. From this exchange, it's clear that Atsuro prioritizes Keisuke's wellbeing over the others. He could've said to defeat the demons to save everyone, but he made a conscious decision to shove the thought of the 50 others out of his mind and only cared about saving one person-- his friend.

A small aside, Atsuro loses his temper with Keisuke after that battle, which is, interestingly enough, the only time in the game we see him willingly conflict with a friend.

On the fifth day when Kazuya confronts Keisuke about Yama, Atsuro asks Kazuya if there's any way to essentially turn a blind eye to Keisuke's actions. He doesn't want to fight his friend, and is willing to set aside their differences despite vehemently objecting to Keisuke's actions.

Of course he knows that Keisuke is in the wrong, but he's so averse to conflict that he's willing to compromise his morals and settle things with an "agree to disagree" mindset.

Atsuro has also been shown to be unwilling to stand up for himself. This is evident in his friendship with Yuzu.

I won't mince words. Yuzu is not very kind to Atsuro. Yuzu cares for Atsuro, but her teasing goes too far at times. We know that this is a habitual occurence, though, because of his (lack of) a reaction, and he tells Kaido on Naoya's eighth day that he's used to fighting with Yuzu. Atsuro never tells her to stop, though, and the most likely reason I can think of is his aversion to conflict. In his mind, it's better to have a friend who takes things too far, than to not have one at all.

Something else to consider is that Atsuro is vaguely implied to have feelings for Yuzu. At the end of Naoya's no kill route, when Yuzu and Atsuro are reading an email from Naoya, Naoya says that Kazuya will be coming home soon, and thus Atsuro's momentary dream will end.

Naoya's use of the word "momentary" means Atsuro's dream was only viable when Kazuya was gone. There's also the fact that Atsuro becomes extremely embarrassed when Yuzu asks him about it and quickly tries to change the subject. The only thing I can think of to explain this is that he has feelings for Yuzu, and hoped Yuzu would reciprocate once Kazuya is gone. Seeing as Kazuya is coming back soon, Yuzu's feelings for Kazuya won't fade, and Naoya knows that.

Again, this is a subtle event, but it would explain why Atsuro became Yuzu's gofer throughout the lockdown without complaint. If we compare Yuzu's actions around the person she likes to Atsuro's, we can see a big difference, and Atsuro's unwillingness to stand up for himself is apparent.

If Yuzu disagrees with Kazuya, she'll put aside her feelings and stand by what she believes in. She does so when Kazuya initially agrees to Naoya's plan, and even resorts to siding with the angels, who she firmly believes are selfish, to kill Kazuya if he kills any humans during Naoya's eighth day.

Compare this to Atsuro, who accepts Yuzu's teasing (which sometimes borders on verbal abuse) without standing up for himself. The closest he ever gets is telling Yuzu she's being cruel, but even then he phrases it as a nonchalant question and simply lets it go.

Everything I've cited so far is extremely subtle, but together it does show that Atsuro isn't strong enough to stand up for himself or his convictions.

He is the type to enable his friends when they make the wrong decision (Keisuke with Yama, and Kazuya during Naoya's kill route). Despite knowing it's the wrong thing to do, he still becomes a murderer if that's what Kazuya wants. He makes up excuses to himself, saying that this is the only option, but he knows that it isn't. Naoya explicitly gave Kazuya the option to convince humans that the angels are the true enemy, but Atsuro didn't fight for that option. He knew that was the right thing to do, but he didn't speak up out of fear of angering Kazuya and losing his friendship.

So now that we've established that aspect of Atsuro, I'm going to switch gears a bit and talk about another thing which defines Atsuro to me, which is his insecurities.

Atsuro is a very good programmer, and Naoya's best (and most likely only) student. There isn't really any question as to his competency, but Atsuro feels the need to bring up multiple times how good he is at programming and how he's Naoya's star student. He's not lying, so I wouldn't call it overcompensation, but he does so to reiterate in people's minds that he's an extremely accomplished programmer. But it's never good enough for him to just say that he's great at what he does. He always has to back it up with "because I'm Naoya's student". This happens so regularly that Yuzu comments how sick she is of hearing about it.

It's interesting that when Kazuya finishes that sentence for him on the fifth day, Atsuro is dumbstruck and tells Kazuya how much it means to hear that coming from him. His expression implies he wasn't expecting Kazuya to say that, which to me, says that Atsuro still thinks people doubt his abilities, despite being Naoya's apprentice.

The thing is, whenever he says that, it always feels to me like he's leaning on that as proof of his accomplishments.

Atsuro was able to decrypt Naoya's work multiple times, even when the Shomonkai couldn't even do so themselves.

This is solid evidence of Atsuro's abilities, but he never lets his work speak for itself. If he constantly has to rely on Naoya's endorsement, it shows he's always second guessing the quality of his work. He believes that people will still doubt him, despite looking at what he's accomplished, but if he has Naoya's recommendation, then he has to be good, right? Ultimately, it feels like he has no faith in his abilities, and has to rely on external praise in order to feel validated.

Atsuro comes off as a very loyal friend, and while he certainly is, I don't see it coming from genuine support of his friends. I see it stemming from a fear of abandonment, and an unwillingness to stand up for himself and his beliefs. Atsuro is loyal to a fault, resulting in him compromising or even abandoning his morals completely. So as harsh as it may sound, I think the adjective "weak" is better suited to describe Atsuro than "loyal".

#honestly how loyal atsuro is was always something that bugged me #it went beyond just being supportive of a friend #and now i firmly believe that his loyalty is actually more selfish than it initially seems #devil survivor #desu #desu character analyses #amelia rambles #atsuro kihara #desu rambles

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