Suzaku

Sick fuck indeed. Anyway, I'm gonna try and get through some more of the story mode, but I don't have a lot of time so I'll sorta be skimming through.

Unless something else has been revealed that I'm not aware of, Ada is Nirvana's "core". There's concept art of what Nirvana looks like beneath the surface, and Ada's dismembered torso is inside there. If you were to crack Nirvana's mask, you'd see Ada's face behind it. Same with Ignis and Carl's mom, presumably.

Well, it's essentially a function of the time loop / continuum shift being over, right? That's one of the coolest things about BlazBlue to me. There was an actual explanation for why everything was technically part of canon. Honestly, the different BlazBlue stuff doesn't translate into English very well, because in Japanese they really play around with fact that the Japanese language doesn't always have a clear distinction between between blue and green. IIRC, the Japanese doesn't necessarily refer to them as being fake or real, it just uses different kanji. If I were to localize them myself, I might have called them the Azure Grimoire, the Cyan Grimoire, and the Sapphire Codex, but probably all pronounced "BlazBlue" in spoken dialogue. And I do think it's noting that this true BlazBlue being mentioned is seemingly being rendered with the kanji 蒼炎, "Blue Blaze," and that it can be rendered in Japanese as the name "Safaia" (Sapphire), which is itself basically a pun, like "sa-fire." I wouldn't phrase it like that. It's not like Carl joins forces with Relius in exchange for Relius helping Ada. Relius beats the hell out of Carl and then basically uses Ada to blackmail him into cooperation. It's this whole Darth Vader / Luke sort of exchange where Relius is trying to coax Carl into abandoning his ideals and turn against the people he's come to care about in exchange for getting what he's always wanted.

Bullet awakens from a nightmare about the death of her squad. She has to revel in these feelings and remember what happened, because that will fuel her hate and keep driving her forward. Gathering information, she had learned that 'the captain is still alive,' and that Kokonoe is the key to unraveling the mystery, but first she is going to go visit Relius, the "tactician" that had orchestrated things. Back to Relius and Litchi. Arakune is gone, and Litchi is angry. Relius informs her that he sent Arakune to Ikaruga, and that she has no say in it due to their agreement. She says she's going to go to Ikaruga, then, because their agreement doesn't give him any say over her actions. After she leaves he mutters that it doesn't matter and it's Hazama's problem now. Kagura has taken Kokonoe under his protection. She's entering a basement which houses a secret weapon. Inside is the coffin which was used to transport Celica. Apparantly Celica left alone to visit the the church where 'he' was buried. He questions if it's okay for her to be alone, but Kokonoe seems to have confidence in her. Celica is standing in front of the tomb when suddenly the Imperator and Phantom appear. "... well, what do we have here?" Celica gets the impression that Phantom is her sister, and Phantom wonders why her path deviated, but feels as if she was drawn to this location. After only a short moment, Phantom and the Imperator vanish using teleportation magic. Celica is sure that it was her sister, but she can't comprehend. Kokonoe recognizes what happened and notes that Celica's presence is important. Ragna and Rachel are at the ruins of the church where the Sister's grave was. Rachel notes that something strange has happened there, and detects a trace of phenomenon intervention. Relius is standing in front of Kushinada's Lynchpin, which is poised over a cauldron. The Imperator appears, and explains that the Master Unit's phenomenon intervention is still too strong, and it "must be done." The gate opens and she enters the inside of the Boundary. Relius orders Ignis to observe this, because the data will be useful. Back at Kagura's place, Kagura tries to give Celica and Kokonoe a harsh talking to for going out alone but Hibiki covers his mouth and restrains him. Makoto is there too, and she says that you can't leave Celica alone for three seconds or she'll disappear, and Kokonoe recall's Litchi's attempt to babysit Roy and gets annoyed. Anyway, once the nonsense is over, Kagura and Kokonoe start talking about their plans. Kagura mentions that he's obtained support from nearly half of the Duodecim, but they've now got a better trump card. Kagura wonders if Kokonoe means Celica, and Kokonoe says Celica is one, but it seems like they've got another. She mentions that the crux of her plan involves her stockpile of nuclear weapons. Kagura wonders if it's time to set the plan into action, and Kokonoe says that they need to wait and assess the situation a bit longer. Relius and Terumi are still wildcards. She contacts Tager. Incidentally, Makoto and Celica hit it off immediately and already seem like good friends. Makoto is sent to give Tager support, and so Makoto, Celica, and Tager are together. Edit: Okay, I think he's posting some of the alternate story paths, because otherwise they don't really make sense... Ragna's alternate story path has him get away from Tao and Bullet in the confusion of their scuffle and as he's walking away, he succumbs to the injuries Phantom gave him. He dreams flashback to his childhood with Sister and wakes up in Celica's lap. She introduces herself, but being near her causes him to lose function in his right eye and arm, so he kinda freaks out and runs off to go find Noel, but can't stop remembering the Sister, Jin, and Saya as he does so. Tao meets Celica, calls her "stupid hair person" because of her ahoge, and I guess Tager shows up too. Edit: I have to head out in a few minutes, so I'll have to stop here.

Sector Seven chapter (continued) Kokonoe had just received a transmission from Tager that Ragna was going off to protect Noel. She's drinking coffee. She thinks about Litchi, who went off in pursuit of a certain man. There are a bunch of Sector Seven soldiers armed with guns around, and she seems annoyed. Her boss and the higher ups are apparantly there. Inside of a prison cell, Azrael the Mad Dog is brought out of stasis for the first time in two years. The chamber is so strong that it even suppressed the movement of his atoms. He's given orders to obtain the Azure Grimoire. A lock is placed on him that will prevent him from killing innocent people with no fighting intent, with the exclusion of Dr. Kokonoe and Tager. Apparantly Kokonoe was the one who captured and imprisoned him, and he wants to kill her. However, the Grim Reaper and NOL sound 'delicious,' so he's in a good mood. He places his arm on the shoulder of one of the soldiers, completely shattering his arm into pieces. "Oh, I'm sorry. That was supposed to be a gentle pat." Azrael attempts to escape the facility and find Kokonoe, but (if I'm reading this correctly) she deploys a smoke screen and teleports to Tager's location, and they set out to track down Kagura, noting that Azrael is biting the hand that feeds him. Elsewhere, Relius is given a report. Given options, choose 'confirm the success.' He speaks Litchi, who is now working for him to help build Imitation Causality Weapons in exchange for him helping her restore Roy, but he seems to sorta be giving her the run around on the progress. He sends her off and is alone in the lab, to talk to Hazama. He tells Hazama the apparatus is almost complete. Litchi leaves to the lab and visits Arakune, who is floating in a capsule. She puts her head on the glass and remembers when she first met Roy. She had mentioned that he never praises Kokonoe's reports or anything, and he said Kokonoe was a pain in the ass and a know-it-all, only for Kokonoe to appear behind him. Litchi couldn't help but laugh.

Hakumen leaves, and Valkenhayn doesn't follow him. Rachel summons him back to her castle. She's there with Platinum the Trinity, who is being guarded by Gii and Nago. Platinum is given options: see who's coming, or try and escape as soon as the door opens. Choose "see who it is." Valkenhayn walks in. Platinum calls him an old geezer, an argument breaks out, and Platinum calls Rachel an old hag. Rachel loses her patience. Platinum VS Rachel. Platinum is silenced. Rachel taunts her, saying she thought she was trained by Jubei. Trinity Glassfield emerges, meeting Rachel for the first time. Trinity explains that she wants to defeat Terumi on her own, for her own reasons, but Rachel explains that she's not strong enough. However, if Valkenhayn and the other heroes work together, they can achieve their goal. Rachel says she wants a change of scenery and they'll talk over tea. Cut to Jubei, standing in the rain in Ikaruga, contemplating. He's thinking about the civil war and the domination of the 6th Hierarchical City of Yabiko. He also thinks about Kagura Mutsuki, and the rumor that his daughter, Kokonoe, has been secretly working with him. Meanwhile, in Yabiko. Celica doesn't recognize her surroundings, and has gotten seprated from her companions. She has a terrible sense of direction, but she's optimistic: with luck, she'll be able to find Ragna, who she met 94 years ago, in the winter of 2106. Second chapter: end. Edit: Oh, okay. Interesting. It seems that the different chapters are actually broken up into smaller parts, and when you complete them you're returned back to the menu and more stuff opens up.

Six Heroes chapter Starts with what I suppose is a montage of the end of Phase Shift. Trinity, Nine, Jubei, and Hakumen confront Terumi. Valkenhayn watches over a sleeping Rachel. Jubei with wounds all over his body talks to the Sister, who is actually Celica. He's regretting that he wasn't able to protect Bloodedge. Celica tells him that the Six Heroes aren't finished yet. Jubei's trying to discover why Trinity and Nine were killed, mentioning that Nine left behind all of the Nox Nyctores and their cores were released (?), and says that Terumi always returns and he will (or she will?) have to protect this land until that day. Decades later, he's recovered the Nox Nyctores Arma Reboare: Muchourin. He's talking with Rachel, and he learns that Nine and Trinity fell into the Boundary, but were not killed. Present day, year 2200. Hakumen arrives at a barrier surrounding Ikaruga, which he recalls was once known as Ishana. He senses that many strong individuals are gathering here, and that their fate rests on his shoulders; this is his mission. He's looking at a black pillar towering over Ibukido when Valkenhayn appears before him. He says that the Imperator's intervention through Takamagahara is not as strong as that which caused the hundred-year time loop. Rachel apparantly has a plan, but Hakumen seems disinterested. His goal is to defeat the Imperator, free her guardian, Phantom, and settle the score with Terumi.

Apparantly. The poster didn't say it was the Sector Seven chapter until the end. He or she starts the Six Heroes chapter by specifically saying that's what it is. Well, there's the story branch they didn't take, too. And possibly a joke branch. It's more like the game's prologue, I guess.

Hakumen and Ragna have a bit of verbal sparring -- masked bastard this, dark one that -- when Hazama suddenly shows up. He does his usual Tsubaki bashing and then orders Phantom to take out the trash. Phantom uses a transfer spell and summons a giant coffin, which contains the Sword of Hades, Nu. Nu activates with that robotic voice and fights Ragna. After the fight there's an anime cutscene that has an ass shot of Nu. Ragna's not able to activate BlazBlue, and Hazama becomes Terumi with his hair standing on end, and taunts Ragna by explaining that the Imperator is using phenomenon intervention, and thanks to Takamagahara her intervention is more powerful than that of the Successor of the Azure. He says that the whole of Ikaruga is in the palm of the Imperator's hand. Ragna tries to attack him, and Terumi goes into a lengthy rant about how the banquest has begun, it's time to suffer and dance and die, to scream a miserable song, and open the Heavenly Cave (Nemesis Horizon). Sector Seven chapter: end. Edit: Seems that you are returned to the menu screen. Six Heroes chapter next.

Oh, okay. Good to know. Hmm, interesting that Zwei is the one with that term in her title. The Great Sapphire Magus, or however you want to translate it. She's probably Nine's ancestor, right? Maybe it's tied into the eventual formation of the Orbis Librarius Norma to collect the many grimoires... Anyway... Again, courtesy poster OpxfLGw.0 who posted the summaries. Ragna runs on and encounters Arakune. They have a jibberish encounter that I'm not even going to try and make sense of right now. Ragna beats him and then is spotted by Tsubaki. She's going to try and kill him under the order of the Imperator. They fight, he wins. Ragna says that the Sealed Weapon Izayoi was just the prototype for the mass production of the Murakumo Units, so it's no match for him. There's some exchange about why she is too weak, which I believe boils down to him saying that she's not fighting for something she believes in. She starts to mutter the names of her friends, Makoto, Jin, and Noel. Ragna raises his sword to try and destroy Izayoi, swings, but his blade is blocked by somebody. Hakumen.

Courtesy jbbs poster ID: OpxfLGw.0 Starts with Ragna and Tao eating at a restaurant. Ragna's thinking about the encounter with the Imperator and how she looks and acts like Saya. His wounds have apparantly healed, perhaps thanks to the Kaka hot springs. Suddenly Ragna is attacked by Bullet, who recognizes him as the Grim Reaper. However things suddenly take a turn due to Tao, who says Bullet is dressed like an exhibitionist and starts calling her "ass girl," and Bullet gets angry because she takes pride in the uniform of her squad and she runs off. Get options, choose "look outside." Outside, Ragna immediately encounters Tager. They have their usual exchange. Ragna wants to find Noel. Ragna vs Tager. Ragna defeats Tager and communicates with Kokonoe, demanding Noel's location. Kokonoe says that Noel and Makoto went to find Tsubaki to try and deal with her. Ragna is worried about Noel going after the weilder of Izayoi, so he rushes off. Kokonoe asks if he should be so hasty since his left arm is still healing.

Well, Trinity and Terumi were both already kind of dead, their souls were just inhabiting vessels. They'll probably be back somehow. Terumi, at least. Anyway, it seems that there's pretty much a complete summary of the game already on jbbs, I'll try and summarize it as best I can.

Here's a whole bunch of unsorted and incomplete information from the story mode, courtesy a friend of mine who got the game early and has been playing through and relaying info to me via lots of IMs: TONS OF SPOILERS The Imperator and Phantom attack Ragna and Rachel near the beginning of the game. Relius says that the Imperator is keeping Phantom alive. Kokonoe is the one who gives Noel and Makoto their new non-NOL outfits. She also built a new automaton named Minerva to protect Celica. Minerva looks pretty much identical to Nirvana, but with a black and white color scheme and red eyes. Tenjo was the previous Imperator of the NOL and his full name was Tenjo Amanohokosaka, making him a descendant of Mei Amanohokosaka from XBlaze. For those unfamiliar with XBlaze, the Amanohokosaka family are from Wadatsumi and were tasked with preventing the resurrection of the Black Beast, which had once ravaged the world in the distant past. Tenjo's soul is sealed inside the Nox Nyctores Phoenix: Rettenjou; he sealed his soul inside of it before Jin killed him, so all Jin killed was an empty shell. He did this to create an alternate method for activating Kushinada's Lynchpin. He left Rettenjou to Bang. Kagura was another of Tenjo's disciples, and he's the one who has been protecting Tenjo's son, Homura Amanohokosaka, who is the true heir to the title of Imperator. Homura has the same voice actor as Mei Amanohokosaka from XBlaze. Screenshot here. During the Six Heroes storyline, Hakumen and Trinity find Phantom/Nine and try to release her from the Imperator's control. Phantom's cloak is like a restraint, and when it's opened up she looks like a topless Nine, but covered in like a purple and black miasma with red glowing eyes. They aren't able to set her free. Near the end of the game, the Imperator unlocks her restraints and she fights Jubei. Near the end of the game, Hakumen kills Terumi using his Time Killer technique, but Terumi kills Trinity as he's dying and her last words are "Kazuma..." At the end of the game, The Imperator summons Amaterasu (that big, sattelite-like thing from the trailer) and tries to use the Nox Nyctores Highlander: Taka-Mikazuchi to destroy it. Rachel uses the Tsukuyomi Unit to shield it. The final boss fight is Ragna versus Taka-Mikazuchi. If you watched the latest episode of Alter Memory you got a really clear look at its true, humanoid form; that's what you fight. Saya floats around and attacks you as well. The stage is huge and reminiscient of the final boss in MvsC2. Probably won't ever be playable. The Imperator is actually an immortal being called Izanami, basically death incarnate, and it's possessing Saya. It's goal is to reduce everything to nothing. At the very end of the game, the Imperator uses the sin of the world to create something called the Embryo, a big sphere with the black and red Black Beast coloration, which is apparantly used to create the true BlazBlue. The final screen has the BlazBlue emblem in the background, Ragna's emblem on the left, and Nu's emblem on the right. On top of that is some Engrish which says: "End there is the beginning. I have enclosed a contradiction of all. I beginning all. I will destroy everything. Is "Blue" I am. THE BLAZBLUE." Behind that is the kanji 蒼炎の書, which says "Sapphire Codex." The kanji 蒼炎 literally means "Blue Blaze," and it's a term first appearing in XBlaze in relation to Zwei, one of the Ten Saints of the Magick Guild, and Nine and Celica's ancestor. And also, various stuff from Japanese boards: The Imperator and Terumi use the Spell of Crystalization to destroy Kushinada's Lynchpin. When using the BlazBlue, there's the potential that it will damage other parallel worlds. The Imperator apparantly feels Saya's devotion to Ragna. If I'm reading this correctly, the loop was apparantly Amaterasu's doing, as it (she?) was waiting for a hero to emerge. Relius apparantly wants to eliminate everything to create a world just for himself without any other 'human beings,' including even the Imperator. As I mentioned, Tenjo was the former Imperator of the NOL, however Hazama took advantage of an attempted coup de tat and manipulated things to turn them all around, and Tenjo ended up being the one who was branded as traitor. More coming shortly, I'm going through the threads now.

Yeah, I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. The fighting was still on the weak side, but the music was good, the exposition was handled well, and the growing cast is nice. Plus the 'behind the scenes' string pulling stuff with Terumi was cool to see.

Blue Sub 6, Basilisk, and Afro Samurai were good, but that was back in the day and I haven't seen any of their other stuff. Of course, what's really important is the directors, animation supervisors, and the almighty budget. Edit: It always bums me out that anime in general aren't all visually great. I mean, it's animation... you can do whatever you want. Good animation and bad animation is still going to be running 12-24 frames per second. I can forgive mediocre art because drawing is hard and not everyone at every pay scale has the talent, but boring cinematography and action sequences? There's literally no limit to what you can do with the genre, so there's really no excuse for that.

Standard, 23 minutes.

Unless you mean the screenshot from the Gonzo animated cutscene that someone posted in that thread, no, it's not anywhere near that level of bad. That version of Hazama actually looked like Gonzo the Muppet. On the whole, we've got it pretty good this time around.

The second episode ended with a post-credits scene of Rachel releasing Tsukuyomi to defend Kagutsuchi from Taka-Mikazuchi. Continuum Shift started in today's episode, which already aired in Japan (screencaps here: http://dec.2chan.net/18/res/23580498.htm). It also introduces Carl, Litchi, Makoto, and Relius, with Tsubaki getting her orders from Hazama in the post-credits scene.

始動, literally "starting."

Three stories. The Unseen Sign (Guilty Gear) is about Ky and bridges GG2 and GGXrd. The other two, Scarlet Rose and Evergreen Eyes, are for BlazBlue, and are about Rachel awakening after a long time and having a reunion with someone, and about Sister Celica and her relationship with Ragna, Jin, and Saya.

It's possible (though unlikely) that next week will have an actual, original opening sequence. It's not uncommon for premier episodes to have weird OP/EDs or none at all. Of course, and this is probably just me, I've come to be annoyed by OP/EDs in general. Anime have a really short runtime and OP/EDs are essentially stock animation that can be used to pad out a solid 3-4 minute chunk of every episode. Even if they put a lot of effort into the OP/ED, you're gonna be watching the same exact thing every episode of the season. I almost always skip them. Baccano! and Durarara!! are two rare exceptions that I never skipped.

I'm thinking your expectations were too high going in. It's not a top tier anime by any means, but the animation quality isn't bad at all. It's just resoundingly average. The characters were drawn consistently, the animation was relatively smooth, the shading was good. The painted scenery was probably the high point in the visual department. About the only negatives were that it lacked a proper OP and had mediocre fight scenes, which for an anime based on a fighting game is pretty damn disappointing. If it retains this level of animation quality through its 12 episode run, I'll be happy. It could certainly have turned out far worse than this, and this is better than I expected.

Or, "The Azure Successor," according to Funimation's slightly alternate localization. And yeah, seems like that's probably the case, as episode 1 ends with Ragna already about to fight Hakumen. Unless, of course, the anime actually depicts multiple time loops, or is an alternate timeline, or has some other weird stuff going on. The end credits show the cast members through Continuum Shift Extend, including Saya.

Nah, it's just a different (more literal) translation. Aksys really punches this stuff up for the English localization.

Yeah, given the pacing of this episode I expect we'll easily get through CS. Of course, given how BlazBlue goes, I'm not sure if this will be a direct adaptation or if it's going wind up being some alternate timeline. Given the "alter memory" title, I'm expecting it to have some sort of twist.