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chibivesicle · 1 year

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The sadness of Steven A. Starphase.

How Kekkai Sensen/Blood Blockade Battlefront is painfully realistic. In the most banal adult ways possible.

With me going back to rewatch Trigun before Stampede began to air, I was itching for more work by Yasuhiro Nightow. However, his follow up manga that started as a one-shot that became Kekkai Sensen/Blood Blockade Battlefront came out while I was in grad school and when the anime was briefly on Crunchyroll later, it didn’t ping me as a suggestion. I’m very much a josei/seinen person with occasional forays into good sports or slice of life series, then shoujo and then shounen series if they have a good sense of humor. Essentially, I need something like FLCL or Gintama to keep me amused.

With Stampede not meeting what I’m realizing were unrealistic expectations, I was curious and decided to follow up on Blood Blockade Battlefront (B3). The title alone would be a turn off for me; I put faith in it that it would have that original Trigun quirky vibe. Honestly, I wish they’d not have translated and told me it was Kekkai Sensen, I would have been easier to convince to watch it. I watched the first episode and was already loving the style, the artwork and the OST. That OST man - so good. And the VA cast - so many actors from Gintama and I was shocked no one was commenting that Femt, the King of Depravity, was voiced by one of my fav VAs, Akira Ishida! What sealed the deal for me, besides the incredible graphic design, story boarding and attention to detail from studio Bones was the entire sequence in S1E3 - A Game Between Worlds when Klaus and K.K. go to the Alterworld following the former Soviet chess grandmaster to the Alterworld Mafia Don’s home.

As the story unfolded in season one, I started to gravitate towards my usual character types; tough independent females and tall, dark, and handsome males. Yeeeaaaaah; I love Chain Sumeragi, K.K. and Steven A. Starphase. I also appreciate Leo with Sonic and Klaus Von Reinhertz is the best male tank character I have ever seen. He’s so adorable! And gentlemanly with his tie and oxford brogues. B3 is a workplace drama/comedy that just happens to take place in a secret organization that handles weird supernatural stuff. Seriously, that is a great summary and it is a great cast even if I’d likely kill Zapp and punch Brody & Hummer for being double ditzes.

I haven’t finished season two yet (I’ve watched through S2E7 - so no spoiler comments for the rest of season two or the manga please!). But the character who ticks all my boxes is Nicholas D. Wolfwood - er - I mean, Steven A. Starphase. Steven is the second in command of Libra, one of the oldest team members (over thirty), has a facial scar, dark hair, sarcastic, stylish and the team member; who gets shit done. That peaking bit of a tattoo and his ruffly black hair . . . Chain may have gotten Wolfwood’s outfit and is a werewolf, but Steven is the evolution of Wolfwood, balancing out Klaus’ unwavering principles, and willing to take on the role of doing the dirty work in the background which is necessary. The body language of Steven is the same as Wolfwood, he’s a mix of straight lines, angles and noodle.

Steven is also paired with Vash - I mean - K.K. on missions. Following the anime format he’s teamed up with her in S1E5 - Bloodline Fever where they have to fight a Blood Breed in a subway station. Unlike, Vash and Wolfwood, K.K. is not keen on him all the time calling him black-hearted and giving him the mocking nickname of Steven-sensei (I guess since he is the logistics expert of Libra always coordinating the teams while K.K. is a lone sniper character).

However, despite their one-sided discord, the two of them work well together where he shows his noodle qualities saving K. K. and the young girl and her mother in S1E8 - Z’s Worst Day - Part 1. Interestingly, Steven takes K.K.’s criticism rather seriously as he’s shaking as she scolds him . . . Steven takes K.K.’s words into account indicating that he does want work well with her.

Before, reverting to his oft “Now, now, now” line to de-escalate things. The two also naturally balance each other out and communicate well with their options when trying to determine which of the two mysterious individuals is the Blood Breed from the India Gate.

They are also characters who are able to info dump quite naturally due to them being the most senior members of Libra in the main cast besides Lucky Abrams. And the storytelling makes their info dumping flow with the story - sometimes they are trying to figure something out, sometimes Steven is pondering a situation. Either way it works well for the second in command to be the man with a bookmarked to hell reference text and even have a color swatch for a Blood Breed’s aura. He also has lots of paper reports which indicates he’s the kind of guy who likes to read through physical items than scan a computer all the time.

By the end of season one, we know that Steven is for the most part, serious about work, a deadpan snarker, leans towards the more pessimistic side despite having hope for the future. e.g. he’d likely describe himself a realist as opposed to Klaus being a dreamer.

It gives us enough information that he’s been beaten down and is no longer an idealistic youth. Take when he asked about why Leo wouldn’t accept higher pay despite struggling financially and comments that Leo is an upstanding young man. He also originally was hesitant for them to even invite Leo to join Libra in the first place, despite knowing the value he brought to them, we know this is alleviated by S1E5 when he takes a literal beating to stall for time. Steven looks chronically burnt out - he is the only character who always has lines under his eyes. His facial expression is rarely one of him smiling or laughing and he maintains a sort of meh or down turned expression when not dealing with serious work situations. Even in the image below when he’s smiling it isn’t a happy smile, he’s thinking about the situation they are about to enter, looking back on the past three years.

His character is frequently shown with a cup of coffee - at the office, he has a blue mug with a red bottom that matches his shirt, frequently when he has papers in the other hand. He will also drink tea with Klaus but it is clear he’s reached that working adult phase of life where coffee is fundamental to your day to day function. Steven is also shown to down energy drinks in times of extreme deadlines as well.

Season two, B3 & Beyond appears to be a season of back filling manga chapters that were skipped in season one to have a tight story. The one aspect that was a bummer in season one for me was how characters besides Leo, Klaus, Black and White got loads of development and growth everyone else was just in the background as support. Season two likely pulled from manga chapters that were published earlier which lead to some confusing/unclear points for viewers aka, like why K.K. calls Steven black-hearted and the Steven-sensei nickname. It is too bad they didn’t have these episodes earlier but I’ll take my character development background whenever, just give it to me.

We first get the explanation from Klaus and Steven at the hospital that reappeared about their personal experience of the Great Collapse to Leo and the introduction of Dr. Lucina Estavez (who should totally date Klaus) as well as defeating the Blood Breed that the two hand been training to fight.

The episode that really hit on my idea that there is a sadness to Steven wasn’t until S2E3 - Day In Day Out. We get a few parallel story lines that show what happens in Leo, Zapp, Steven and Chain’s day where they are independent of each other but still cross paths by the end.

The first thing we learn is that Steven has an amazing loft apartment with a balcony and cool artwork and an Alterworld/Beyondian housekeeper, Mrs. Veded. He emerges from a bedroom with a cup of coffee in one hand and the newspaper as he greets her. With a genuine smile too.

I can look beyond his choice to put milk in his coffee - however, that goes against K.K.’s comment that he’s got a black heart. I’ll excuse his milk in coffee for his stress and soothing his tummy. The phone rings and he goes to pick it up.

We can still see the lines under his eyes so again, he is either always exhausted or we are to read them as actual wrinkles. Maybe both - he’s older and tired due to working hard. A rather playful female on the phone jokes with him about waking up early - at 11AM and it is clear that he hasn’t been up that long either.

There is a conversation about how much alcohol to bring tonight, cluing us into the fact that he’s having a dinner party at his place. Which again, is freakkin’ swanky as all hell. I want Steven’s place.

He’s got a carefree attitude as he talks to two different people on the phone about arrangements for the evening. These are not Steven at the office looks, these are Steven potentially having an outside life facial expressions!

When he gets off the phone, Mrs. Veded comments that he looks happy and Steven seems shocked. She also noted that he seemed very stressed out and tense all the time and she is glad to see him not in such a state.

Since we know that Steven keeps a straight face for the most time at work, he can’t help but reply that he’s shocked at her observation. Which is true, I’m sure Klaus can read him pretty well in work situations, but it is his thing to keep his cards close to his chest. In season one, he is frequently the go between for Libra and the government whether it is the FBI, HLPD, the League of Casters and so forth. Angelica’s comment of Klaus-san and Steven-shi shows that she knows Klaus from previous interactions, but the -shi on Steven implies that she’s never met him, but knows of him and speaks to him respectfully. The English equivalent would be like staying, “Oh, you’re the well-known organizer at Libra, Steven Starphase.” The point is, Steven is well known in certain circles and is respected professionally.

In season one, he was only happy when they were successful at work or his plans went well. For example, his delight at how Leo was able to spot the Ghost Wagon and how he told Klaus that he needed to work on his management skills of others. He additionally has a mix of a dark and offbeat sense of humor, able to laugh while Leo is wrapped up in bandages.

This is not a relevant image other than that it shows time has passed and I still want Steven’s loft.

Mrs. Veded has been helping him all afternoon to prep for his party and we see that he even gets in on the action cooking and wearing an apron of course. He goes with his more casual dress shirt with no tie. There is an almost excited look on his face. I’d guess he hasn’t had people over in sometime.

He goes to let people in and he hands the flowers to Mrs. Veded (who adorably inhales their scent looking happy) and after greeting them, trips over. Of course the friends comment that he’s been working too hard. Steven, adulting hardcore.

The gifted flowers are placed on the table in a vase by Mrs. Veded and he thanks her for all of her help. However, it is clear that he doesn’t need her for the rest of the evening and she takes her leave.

Again, we see another nice subtle smile from him here but something about it lingers, like he’d like to say more but can’t. After she departs, he talks to himself about getting things started, grabbing a bottle of champagne from a bucket of ice and commenting they should get started.

The next time we return to his place, all of the party guests are eating, drinking and chatting up a storm. There is chill music on, everyone looks fashionably dressed, wealthy - and human. All of this gives us the indication that outside of work, Steven has the most ‘normal’ social group. Look at his swanky place, the nice artwork, stainless steel fridge, kitchen island . . . yet while everyone is chatting merrily in groups we get a framing shot of him silently standing alone leaning into a column in his living room. You can tell that every single individual except for him is talking with another person or two based on their body language. This is such an excellent image and it lingers just long enough before it zooms into him looking off in to the distance with a wineglass of course.

Steven has such an interesting expression here, he’s got what appears to be his usual poor posture, leaning against the wall, holding the wine glass and has a soft but almost sad smile. Wistful is the best I can think of.

The fact that his left hand is across his chest and under his right is unusual for him. He rarely displays this type of conservative closed off body language, think of how frequently he’s got at least one if not both hands in his pockets. Steven speaks rather casually and bluntly; I like to call his overall posture, noodle, which is relaxed and confident. Yet, here, he appears much more stiff and is alone at his own party as you look more closely. Something is definitely off.

He goes off to get more beer and leaves the living room when all of his guests raise their arms to reveal biological weapons and tell him to remain in place, Steven Alan Starphase of Libra. Love the use of his middle name for emphasis as well. Of course he denies any knowledge of Libra at first before turning back towards them slightly. Another great part of this scene is how when he walks the few steps up to his kitchen we get a glimpse of his shoes he’s wearing at his house party.

They aren’t some sort of relaxed shoes, the few short steps allow us to see that they are his modified shoes for Esmeralda Blood Freeze techniques. We didn’t get this when he tripped in the foyer, but this is now giving the viewers a hint that he’s prepared for a serious fight.

The first sign that things are about to go south is that when he calls out two guests for only just meeting this evening but appeared to actually know each other.

As they continue to threaten him, he concludes that they need to capture him alive; likely due to his role as the second in command at Libra. This allows him to stall for time as he teases them to give him more information, by stating their bosses are idiots for wanting to capture him alive - as it implied he was expecting them to shoot him.

The framing for this entire sequence is top notch. He never turns to face them directly while continuing the conversation with Ellen. She tries to threaten him to stop being all pretentious and that they’d have no choice but to attack him. Of course he replies mocking them by throwing the question about it back at them. The resignation in his body language that this is what is happening. I don’t think that at this point that he can even look them in the eye. He’s too upset and is keeping it calm and collected.

The shading over his eyes as he looks down, the slack shoulders, this is not how he wanted his evening to go down. Yet, here he is inside his kitchen in a tight spot. Or so it seems.

However, Steven is anal retentive when it comes to organization and details, and he faked tripping at his front door to use his Needles of Absolute Zero move on them. Obviously, he likely did this at the beginning of the party for the rest of the guests being a good host circulating himself. This also explains why he sent Mrs. Veded home, he didn’t want her to witness him doing something this ruthless. Plus, she likely doesn’t know what he does for a living anyways.

The look on his face as he freezes them is so lonely, his eyes are closed and he’s hunched forward. He may not regret his actions honestly; he had no choice but to follow through with this course of actions but that feeling of disappointment, sadness, loss, betrayal. It hurts. Only after he’s frozen them all in place does he even glance back to them as his breath is visible in the air.

Once everyone has been subdued, he gets a moment to gloat over them and their mistakes. He notes that Larry was smart to select weapons that could get into his building undetected implying that he lives in a pretty secure building and that Larry was carrying his weight funny for the past ten days. He also tells Ellen that she tried too hard to cover the scent of the weapons with her usual perfume - by adding more. However, she should have changed the scent and he wouldn’t have noticed. After telling them how he figured out things were off, he steps back and looks at the group, his entire expression tired and blank. More stress lines under those eyes.

His own personal clean-up crew is there to take them all away. And since this isn’t under the guidance of Klaus, he’ll likely let those masked individuals use questionable methods to interrogate everyone for the information he needs to know. Who or what is targeting him? Why? What do they want from him? These are the sorts of things Steven has to know, but the type of things that Klaus wouldn’t be involved with due to his stricter moral code. In this instance, Klaus is Vash, holding an almost impossible level of hope and goals while it is clear that Steven is pragmatic and realizes sometimes you gotta slog through the shit to get things done and protect others like Wolfwood. Though, Steven would have been very upset if Mrs. Veded’s roast were damaged in anyway so he clearly loves her cooking and the love she puts into it.

The likely immediate reaction for a lot of viewers at the end of this scene when he goes out for some air is; Holy shit! Steven is a total badass. He just froze his entire dinner party and turned them over to shady underlings to pump them for information. Badass indeed!

Yet, when I saw the end of that scene, I felt so sad. When it goes to him alone along the road, he’s chastising himself for his own behaviors. He’s leaning on the railing looking out into the night giving himself criticism for letting his guard down and enjoying himself too much. He tried to meet ‘normal’ people who didn’t work for Libra and look what it got him?!?!

He thinks back to how he met various individuals like Ellen and Larry. And that is when it really sinks in and all of its subtlety. You think back to his comments and realize he had to likely know these people for a few years as he met them and slowly thought about having them meet. To realize what type of perfume Ellen wore all the time. To notice that Larry started walking oddly with in the past ten days meant he saw him walk a lot more for a decent amount of time prior to the recent days.

And then it sinks in - all of those people might have went out of their way to befriend him over the period of several years - for the purpose to kidnap him for their boss. The level of deception, of effort. If that was how he met all of them, it sucks so much that it could break someone down. I almost felt like crying the more that I thought about the entire situation. Even if they’d met him first to just be friends, it still shows they were convinced to join this plot to capture him.

Thinking about that hurts; it would make him absolutely paranoid to befriend anyone who isn’t associated with Libra and socialize with them outside of work. But you don’t want to hang out with your work friends outside of work do you?

The entire mood of this image captures his feelings of sadness, isolation and loneliness. He’s the darkest figure in the image as the car headlights, apartment windows and orange construction barrels are more illuminated than he is.

The car turns out to pull over and stop as it is Mrs. Veded and she’s got her two children with her who meet him. Steven smiles at them and they have a pleasant conversation.

The icing on the cake is when he thanks her for everything - she likely thinks it is about her help prepping for the party and cleaning his place. But Steven is speaking from his heart. She’s likely one of the most normal people he knows. Oh, that smile and his smiling eyes. Steven, you’re a good guy even though you have to do some not so great things. You care about normal people, you know how to talk to normal people and you are not biased based on species.

Her daughter shows him the cat they found and he knees down to see them eye to eye and comment on how the cat is so cute. Note, he’s totally channeling Wolfwood, by talking to the children like they are normal and then comes down to their level to continue to chat with them.

The bonus is that he properly pets that cat which shows it is happy. Aaaahhhh my heart is melting. I love it when someone knows how to properly interact with cats.

The episode then ends with Leo, Sonic and Zapp riding by, Zapp having a total meltdown about his eminent loss of his most important body part. Steven laughs how his friends are having a wild night out on the town - revealing that for better or for worse - his closest friends are his colleagues at Libra and Mrs. Veded.

I’m sure that when Leo stops by to chat with Steven, they likely notice the heads of the two goons in the car and figure out that cat is the missing purebred and all’s well that ends well.

The entire episode was a wild ride as the different characters navigate challenges for the current stages of their lives. The one though that stuck with me the most was how realistic Steven’s entire situation is, besides being a key member of a secret organization who can freeze stuff with his blood. I mean more along the lines of what it is like to be a hardworking professional over the age of thirty. Trying to navigate a work-life balance and meet people outside of a school context. It is really difficult and it makes his situation in this episode sadder. He likely put a ton of effort into meeting all those people as adult friendships are bloody hard. Steven’s actions were not out of revenge nor malice; it boiled to either something bad happening to him or to them. He outsmarted them and won the contest but at the loss of likely a bunch of people he socialized with outside of work and clearly never told them who he was - with the whole working for a secret organization.

We can also guess that with his multilingual skills, like Klaus, he’s not a native of NYC originally and moved there to be a part of Libra. Which makes his story even sadder and more lonely.

We don’t have enough information if he’s a native speaker of Spanish or that he knows it for his Blood techniques. Zapp and Zed have to do theirs in Japanese (with very Buddhist undertones as opposed to Christian for Steven and Klaus) and they were taught by a mysterious ‘otherwordly’ man with a dark skin tone and wears a skull sooooo one can’t correlate Blood technique language with ones own racial/ethnic background. All that it has revealed is that between Steven and Klaus, besides English, they can speak a total of nine languages knowing that Spanish and German are two of those nine.

I’ve gone off track, but getting back to my main point. The entire episode fills in a few gaps from season one.

Steven does have a black heart - sort of. K.K. isn’t incorrect, but he isn’t doing this all for fun. He’s the guy who has to choose between two terrible options. He is the character who makes decisions - very deeply thought out decisions for the overall good of the many as opposed to the few. Unlike Wolfwood, he does not charge into situations and instead, does his research, assembles teams and will work himself to utter exhaustion to prevent disaster. He commands others with a strong presence and organizes almost all of their coordinated plans as well as making sure they are executed properly.

Though his interactions with Veded and her kids as well as his concern for protecting normal people or other staff; he cares a lot about others.

Older characters are more reserved. Steven frequently interacts with all sorts of people and is the contact point for Libra. Everyone has his number. He does not show his emotions easily and takes much effort to be convinced. Detective Daniel Law is the one who talks directly to Steven while Klaus listens silently. Though, as obvious as it is that Law is manipulating Klaus, Steven doesn’t say anything aloud and instead sighs and groans at the expected outcome. When Master Raju Jugei Shizuyoshi appears, it is Steven who quickly determines his identity, implying he’s done his research though it was still after the Blood Battle God utterly mocked both K.K. and him, the two most senior members of Libra. Yet, he holds his own and keeps his cool - interestingly, Klaus does not speak until addressed by Shizuyoshi, instead allowing Steven to carefully question him without being intrusive. A character like Steven also hits differently. The antics of say Chain or Zapp aren’t as interesting or realistic as watching Steven lose it over making sure his computers aren’t destroyed.

He’s realistic even in the context of something like B3. The burnt out vibes, the snarky comments, the confidence in regular work situations. Steven is an easy older character to connect with. And he’s got that twinge of adult isolation and loneliness where you wonder how you got to this point professionally successful, yet, somehow are still alone? What did you sacrifice to reach this point? Was it worth it? I still have a few more episodes to go, but I’m curious to see how things pan out. Annoyingly, the print version of the manga is out of print (throws serious shade at Darkhorse) AND they don’t even have it digitally for me to legally support. That’s pretty annoying there Darkhorse . . . Yet so far, hands down, I love Steven’s character and all of his banal realistic flaws. As life gets older, you have to compromise on things and his character is a great example of that along with the grind of working and being successful

#kekkai sensen #blood blockade battlefront #kekkai sensen meta #blood blockade battlefront meta #steven a starphase #character study

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