harmless kitten

I don't think so. Jin sounds like he has broken free of Yukianesa's influence at that point; he can still use it when Hakumen challenges him. What he says implies that he's as sane as he'll ever be in CS. The way he reacts to Hakumen talking about Tsubaki implied that he's already fought dark Tsubaki too. "My brother is suffering in his own private hell. It is for that reason that I intend to kill him, to end his pain forever. To save him from the insanity of this world." I think that's only part of the reason he wants to kill Ragna, but it's the clearest one you'll pry out of him. Being told that he's literally destined to kill Ragna can't have helped with those feelings. wat Jin has always been like this, from CT arcade onward. It would be more inconsistent if he suddenly stopped acting like a brat around Ragna in CP. Ragna is his weak spot, one of the things that brings out the childish, ugly part of himself, much like how Noel brings out his hateful envy and disgust. Is it so hard to believe that he can act differently around different people?

I don't think Hakumen would give much of a damn. Hakumen is wholly devoted to his mission of destroying the Black Beast. A part of him still loves Ragna, but he's locked that part up and the only way to get a glimpse of it is in his CT alternate ending. Doesn't he very briefly come across Ragna in Phase 0 though? If Jubei (or Celica) ever told him that his friend's name was Bloodedge, I'm sure he figured it out. Jin's reason for wanting to kill Ragna is simple: first and foremost, he wants to save him by killing him. Second, he is still very childishly possessive of Ragna. That has never changed, and I feel like to expect it to suddenly change for CP is misinterpreting Jin's final scene with Ragna and Jubei. Besides, I wouldn't label him as...sane. Even with Yukianesa's influence broken, he still has a lot of problems. He's not going to get over them anytime soon.

You're thinking of Jin's story. The part I'm talking about happens in Ragna's story. @BlackYakuzu94: I think that he's saying "I will fight, but in case destiny is inescapable you'll be the one to kill me." He does say IF, even if it's right after he boasts that no way is he gonna lose.

CS. It's only in CS that they can have a rational conversation for once, in CT Ragna is mostly like "I'll never forgive you!" or "Idiot/Bastard!" or "JIN!!" haha.

Well aside from CT, he really doesn't want to fight Jin, and that was a special case born from 7 long years of pent up rage, aggression, trauma, and despair. Once he gets the bulk of his anger out on Jin and Terumi appears on the picture, Jin is neatly put aside. But Ragna really doesn't care about fighting anyone except Terumi. Most of his battles are when people get in his way and won't move, or if they deliberately antagonize him (such as Rachel). It is a rather tenuous rivalry, but it's the closest one BB has for Ragna. Wait, are you talking about when Ragna is goading Jin in Jin's story, or when he's talking to a passed out Jin? In the latter, he says that he will fight but if that time comes he will fight Jin and Jin will manage to kill him. He sounds a mixture of wistful and resigned here, but not really annoyed (at least in the JP ver). Note that Ragna is pretty much talking to himself. Jin certainly can't hear him.

One of the reasons I don't regard it as a rivalry because neither of them seem to consider it as such. Hakumen outright terrifies Ragna in CT, and Ragna only wins by the skin of his teeth. Plus, I think it'd be a more substantial rivalry if Hakumen became stronger too in order to destroy Ragna--which doesn't happen. It's Jin that takes up that mantle. Jin is growing along with Ragna (both in character development and strength), faster than him even, but Hakumen is static. Of course, until CS Ragna didn't seem to regard Jin as much of a rival either. If he ever loses, it's only because he went easy on Jin. Jin might not be a perfect rival (although he may be shaping up to be one for CP?), but I just don't think Hakumen fits that role either. I thought Ragna sounded relatively sincere when he told Jin that, but I guess this depends on which language you're listening in? I listen with JP voices on and he sounded almost wistful in that instance. It didn't sound like an older brother annoyed at giving up time for his sibling, although I think he wasn't telling the truth (mainly because I can't imagine Ragna would give up that easily without a fight when he claws and fights against his destiny no matter how hopeless).

Hmm, I don't think Hakumen is so much as a rival for Ragna as something to overcome. A sort of cross between fated archenemy and doom, as Hakumen probably isn't going to get any stronger and has little room for growth while Ragna does. Jin is still closer to rival status, but due to Hakumen being a more imposing (and implacable) threat he's often eclipsed by Hakumen. Mori said that the series story will end will probably end with the next game. After that, the story will probably become fragmented and more focused on different character threads (much like in GG) than a major plot that ties everyone together. If they don't just go back to GG anyway.

Oh, Overture was decent in its own right, but it just doesn't feel like it belonged. It feels like a completely different game with transplanted GG characters. It might have even been a different game at first but was converted into a GG game; the gameplay is certainly different enough. It looks just like a novelization of WoF or a timeline similar to that one.

Lol well if you do play it, play it expecting a really bad or cheesy movie with fun gameplay. I enjoyed it, but Final Fantasy XIII-2 is pretty dumb, and not even in a vaguely self-aware dumb like BB. Even dumber than the original XIII (which I enjoyed enough to Platinum). I had a lot of fun with the monster system at least. She probably had a generic armagus, much like Tsubaki now before she released Izayoi. She was Jin's ministerial secretary so she probably didn't see too much fighting anyway. GG was good until it got to Overture. Then it was just like ??? But still, you can tell that it wasn't planned out in quite the same fashion and character plots are different... There's not much of an overarching backbone for the story like there is in BB. Of course, I'm sure BB will eventually get to that point once the quadrilogy finishes and it's a struggle to keep things going for the characters.

That's probably because CT is mostly setup and character establishment. All of the individual story modes are just variations on a theme, building up to a timeline that manages to break free of the loop. In the grand scheme of things, CT and CS is like a single book chopped in two, with most of the action compressed into CS. Which is why they put Calamity Trigger Reconstruction in CSE, I suppose. Is it? I feel like the beastkin thing is pretty understandable. There probably aren't many beastkin that are natural or descended from natural ones now, with Valkenhayn and Jubei likely being the only ones left. They're just exceptions to the norm. On the topic of the story: BB frequently operates on its own internal consistency, and is (usually) good about it. There's some bits where the internal consistency is pretty stupid, but hey the consistency is consistent . The problem is that BB loooves to spread information out. To fully grasp the plot, you can't just play the games, you have to read the novels and you have to read the Setting Material Collections. I'm not a big fan of this kind of thing. If it was merely stuff that had yet to make it into a game, much like many aspects of the SMCs, that'd be all right. But the Phase Shift series contains a lot of exclusive content that is vital to understanding aspects of the series' story. We'll practically need a primer along the lines of TMML in Chrono Phantasma just to explain what happened in the various novels and why it's important. If you look at just the games for the story and only the games, the plot as a whole doesn't stand up very well on its own. You need that extra stuff. Even with the explanations from various side materials, explanations can be weak at times or just stupid...or spawn ten more questions on their own. Actually, I feel like the worldbuilding and lore aspects of the series are the most poorly thought out (also, stupid things like 'but how did Noel pull Ragna out of the Cauldron in the first place?'), but then I am very picky about worldbuilding. For a fighting game, it's all right. I don't think anybody is looking for a Pulitzer here. Still, ultimately I feel like the story is pretty successful. It gets kind of, uh, weird at times but it does its job: to be entertaining and engaging. The cast is vibrant, and the series is pretty good at maintaining character consistency at least. It's more praise than I can give to other games that feature space-time abnormalities, like, lol, Final Fantasy XIII-2.

I'm probably just remembering wrong. For some reason I remember it being stated in a Teach Me Miss Litchi; I'll run through all of them and see if she says anything along the lines. If she doesn't,well, my memory is faulty. I know that it isn't stated in the story proper. The story usually makes sense in its own weird logic, but oftentimes it's a dumb kind of sense. Either way, it's been shameless right from the start so it's not like any of this is a surprise... Although the time travel is especially dumb. edit: Ah, I see where I made the misconception. Early on (just after talking with Jubei and just before Hazama shows up) in Jin's CS story he sees Makoto and remembers who she is, and thinks to himself that she's the "daughter of a half-squirrel beastkin." I saw the word a and thought that only one of her parents was a beastkin. However, the Japanese text appears to use hanjuujin for this sentence, not juujin or ajinshuu. I don't understand Japanese and I could be making a gross misunderstanding but I think the part specifically referring to this is "リス系の半獣人の娘". The daughter of half-beastmen with squirrel heritage? This would make her either 3/4 human 1/4 squirrel beastkin (if one parent is fully human and the other is half-beastman) or half and half (if they are both half-beastman). But she's called ajinshuu and not hanjuujin, so she's probably 3/4 human. It seems that, at least in CS, they use ajinshuu for people with animal attributes (Makoto, Valkenhayn) that are not beastman (Jubei or Makoto's grandparent) or half-beastman (Kokonoe, Makoto's parent) themselves. Although English conflates the two so I'm not sure why the hell I did all this? I may be interpreting this all wrong. I apologize if I am.

As far as I know, no. I was just comparing Kokonoe's appearance to that of other beastkin. Although if I remember correctly about Makoto being only half-beastkin, then normal beastkin are probably more animal-like, while half-beastkin are just people with animal ears and tails. Valk's probably in a special class all of his own. His human form is perfectly human, but he can shapeshift into his wolf form at will. No other beastkin that we've seen can do this, and Tsubaki certainly seems surprised if she wins against him in arcade mode.

She's technically half, but the series doesn't make much differentiation between half and full. IIRC, Makoto is only half too (I think her dad is the squirrel beastkin?), but she's always just called a plain beastkin. It seems that if you have enough beastkin heritage then you're automatically a beastkin. She's much, much more human-like than Jubei, so I suppose it makes her closer to the humanlikes/beastkin than a full-fledged large two-legged cat like Jubei, if that's what you mean.

Then that makes certain types (such as Makoto's type) created for the Dark War. Considering Jubei looks just like a nekomata and Valkenhayn is literally a werewolf, I had the impression that pre-war beastkin were based on supernatural animals, but we've only seen Jubei and Valk for beastkin hailing from that era. Jubei at least had a whole clan before Japan was ravaged under the Black Beast and a nuke. Valk himself is unlike any other, literally altering himself on the atomic level according to Lambda and Mu.

Amaterasu hid there voluntarily; she was just enraged at Susanoo for the shit he pulled. (Look it up, he did a bunch of bad stuff including throwing a dead horse at her.) Besides, BB isn't literally following the myth. The Master Unit is hidden in the Boundary for whatever reason, maybe because she's even hiding from Terumi (who was Susanoo once). Basically, Terumi wants to remove her from the Boundary so he can destroy her. The Nemesis Horizon is probably referring to the gate that will open to let her through--or to let something pull her out.

I guess it's important to her backstory and past character development, but I don't think it's important now. Yes.

From page 61 of the Continuum Shift Speculations thread. He survived because of the Azure Grimoire. He loses sight in his right eye when the Azure Grimoire ceases to work in Phase 0 and Hazama's CP arcade ending. @zeth07: What I mean is there is no mention of one. There's only Rachel and her father, and they are just vampires. There could be dhampirs or half-vampires or what have you existing, but as of right now there is no indication that vampires work that way in the BB world. They could or could not. It could go either way. Until they're mentioned in either the games, the books, an interview, or any other supplementary material, I take the stance that they don't exist. If evidence pops up, I will change it. @Ctrlaltwtf: His Drive is because of the Azure Grimoire. It's named Soul Eater and Ragna directly states that his Grimoire requires souls to work, Terumi goes on and on about how the Azure Grimoire exists to gather souls and forge a Murakumo Unit, it's an Azure Grimoire thing, not a vampire thing. His eye is heavily implied to be because of the Azure Grimoire.

Platinum's hair has pink in it. But then, the girl also has heart-shaped pupils that disappear when Trinity takes control. She's not exactly normal. I think Nu is supposed to give the impression that she is albino or has very little melanin in her, or very sick and strange. Her skin is bordering on gray (compare it to Noel's and Lambda's), her eyes are red, and her hair is white as fresh snow. Lambda shares her red eyes, but none of the hair or pale skin. Maybe Relius just went "nah, I won't go ahead and add melanin to the 13th subject," additional experimenting caused her to be that way, or even the Azure Grimoire's influence. Ragna has never been a half-vampire except possibly in the initial loop. The red eye is connected to the Azure Grimoire, and he even loses his sight in it when the thing goes offline. The white hair is either because of trauma or, again, the Azure Grimoire's influence. Additionally, Rachel only bit him in the initial loop to save his life. In every other timeline she scolds him and opens the way to the headless body of the Black Beast and Ragna takes it. Half-vampire thing is an old rumor that was never excised. I've never seen a word of confirmation about it, nor even the indication that it's possible to be one in the BB world.

Seithr mutation, remnants of genetic engineering, some people like to use ars magus to permanently color their kids' hair something cool, whacky hair colors have always existed in that world, etc. Take your pick. Ragna's is more likely to be white because of something from his Azure Grimoire; even ten days after he had lost his arm his hair is bone-white. Hair doesn't work that way. He's not a half-vampire either. Going for the most realistic explanations, Bullet's white hair could be the result of trauma, Amane might dye his lavender hair, and Azrael's hair is the result of genetic tampering from S7.

Amane's ending involves Rachel, so I doubt that trying to recruit Carl is the only thing he'll be involved with. He also uses some of her stage terminology. I think he'll be much more important than he seems right now. Maybe not Tenjou's son, but involved with the B cast plot. Or do we have so many characters that we're up to C and D cast? Bullet's whole idle stance looks bad. Her hair, her face, the legs, the way her skin looks really shiny like she upended a bottle of tanning lotion--don't look at it too long. It'll suck you in.

It doesn't really seem to do anything at all though. Ragna seems to have all the actual powers of the thing, and his arm is crafted of solidified seithr. Worst case scenario for her is that Celica nullifies any abilities that require seithr, like maaaybe Sword Summoner. But the effect wouldn't be as drastic as the one upon Ragna simply because she probably doesn't have body parts made out of seithr. I guess she'd be blind in her right eye too, but she has an eyepatch over it anyway.

Let's try to avoid the harem and pairing discussions for now. @Chao: Would she have much effect at all? Besides Nu getting morbidly jealous.

The problem with Celica being around Ragna is that he can't use the Azure Grimoire (or his right arm at all) or see out of his right eye. Unless she learns how to control her passive nullification of seithr Ragna is essentially a cripple around her.

Her calling him that is more a mark of respect and because they did sort of grow up together. The Yayoi tradition is kind of silly, really. When your family has a hereditary illness that is debilitating enough to kill any infants that have it, that's a good sign to start bringing in new blood and begin testing for genetic abnormalities. If you want good ars magus scores, why not bring or marry someone with high ones, like Jin or Noel? But the whole family is described as being inflexible, and BB world doesn't seem very high in logic anyway. Even the Imperator told them to stop and Tsubaki's father refused to.

LOL wow what a screwup. Yes, I meant green-eyed. That's what I mean by fucked up family. But no, really--Ragna immediately thinks of Saya when he looks at Noel, and he apologizes to Saya in some lines with Nu. In CS, Carl cries out for his sister and Ragna is momentarily distracted by remembering the way Jin would call out for him (there also seems to be a point in Phase 0 where he's reminded of Jin, Saya, or both when Celica is pleading with Nine). Jin's feelings are, uh, warped to a degree, and we don't know Saya's feelings aside from fragmented memories and Noel's BAKABAKABAKABAKA mode.