Leiopelma

Mai in her trailer apologizes and says that she needs to go search for Relius. Seems like she's really out to get him.

Mai's trailer certainly emphasizes her hatred of Relius. I guess this might be triggered by specific events within the story, but Mai's attitude makes sense based on her background. Variable Heart shows that Mai detests people who that treat humans as objects due to the fact the villain of the manga treated her as a thing after her body had become a grimoire. Considering how Relius treats people it's natural that Mai will absolutely loathe him. I just hope that this won't cause her to bite more than she can chew. By the way, I also liked how upbeat Mai's theme is; it fits her personality since she's pretty cheerful.

Mai will be released as a DLC on the 27th of October, 3 weeks after the main game, and cost 800 yen. I used Bandicam to record the Mai demo and uploaded the videos on Mega in case anyone is interested (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). Also, here are some screenshots of Mai's alternate colors. And here is her trailer.

True. Considering how Mai despises people being treated as things, Relius' attitude would be sure to really piss her off.

Variable Heart, in which Mai gets really defensive when told she's not a human and worries that she might lose her humanity, made me think that we have quite a few characters in Blazblue who grapple with the issue of whether they're human or not. We have Ragna who knows he's not a natural human but has resolved to live and die as one, Noel who worried about whether she was truly human though she too decided that she is after taking inspiration from Ragna, Lambda and Nu who are slowly becoming more human in CF but probably aren't really capable of self-reflection yet and Izanami who questions what she is. Es also awoke to her emotions and humanity in Xblaze. Rachel has resolved to act like a human and struggle to create a better world. Also there's Arakune and Tager who have lost varying amounts of their humanity, though they don't seem to care. It certainly seems to be a common theme in Blazblue.

I took the liberty of saving, zipping and uploading the two chapters (including the credit pages) for people who would rather not read them on Batoto: http://www.mediafire.com/download/ywki9d0wkhoithf/Blazblue+Variable+Heart+01.rar http://www.mediafire.com/download/hjf120ymatio1ih/Blazblue+Variable+Heart+02.rar

Perhaps this could be explained by saying that she wasn't fully grown when she was shipped or maybe that they created a child Murakumo in hopes that she would be easier to control. My guess is that they'll explain that in the next chapter. Kajun also said that it's as powerful as an original Legacy Weapon though, which must put it at the same region as a Nox. Admittedly there's quite a bit of range in the power of Nox Nyctores, from Take-Mikazuchi which can level cities to Nirvana which was designed to be a bodyguard rather than a combat machine, but they're all pretty powerful. As far as combat capabilities go perhaps Mai is somewhere in the same region as Hazama, whose body is also a grimoire and who has a Nox as a weapon.

Thanks for the link. Mei-Fang's comment about Mai being able to remain conscious after receiving that blow being proof that she is a grimoire indicates that Mai has superhuman resilience as a result of her transformation. Speculating about power levels is fraught with peril, but I'd say that Mai's enhanced physical abilities, combined with the fact she now has a Legacy Weapon (which are equal in power to Nox Nyctores), suggests that Mai is probably somewhere around the middle of the roster as far as in-universe power goes. I too don't think that this is Platinum. The cowbell looks different from the one in both of Platinum's outfits and her hair is straight instead of being puffy. That girl looks like a younger version of Mu, which is what you'd expect from a Murakumo:

True, what Azrael said could simply have been an attempt to goad Bullet into attacking him. But it is a fact that he annihilated her squad even though they were too weak to actually be a threat to him. I suppose Azrael is rather like the Predator from the Schwarzenegger film; it wouldn't bother killing non-combatants but would happily slaughter anyone it considered a combatant, even if it was one of those non-combatants who happened to pick up a weapon that posed no real threat to it. I agree that Azrael is not stupid; he has a clear understanding of what's going on but he simply doesn't care about any of it. All he cares about is finding enemies to fight. I'll disagree with you on that. I think Azrael is quite clearly evil. He casually injures and kills people for no reason other than his personal pleasure, he feels no compunction or remorse over the way he treats others and he is intelligent enough to know the consequences of his actions. If that's not evil I don't know what is.

I agree that Terumi's origins are currently unknown and that his characterization is pretty simple. However he is also a schemer and is able to develop long-term plans as well as manipulate other people. This allows him to do more interesting things than Azrael, who instead just runs around punching people or things. Terumi is able to be the main villain and to be highly involved with the plot because of those traits which Azrael lacks.

I guess that in a story as convoluted as that of Blazblue, a character with a motivation that's this straightforward can be seen as a breath of fresh air. And the way he rampages through the plot like a bull in a china shop is rather funny. I don't think that this makes him an interesting character though and I feel it rather trivializes the other characters' struggles to have someone this strong running around doing whatever he wants. Comparing Azrael to Ragna and his siblings, we know a lot more about their backstories than we do about Azrael. As you say, we don't even know if he's human, though I really doubt it. By the way, I don't think he's against bullying or picking on the weak, since he obviously derived great pleasure from the suffering of Bullet's squad who were all much weaker than him. I find Nine to be more interesting because despite being really mean, aggressive and self-centered, she ended up being a hero because she wanted to protect her little sister. Her disposition was more fit for a villain, which is what she now ended up as. It will be interesting to see if Celica will be able to reverse this, since Nine no longer displays a shred of morality and is ready to kill everyone in the world, including her husband and daughter who she did honestly care for in the past, except for Celica.

I find it funny that Es' victory quote against Bullet emphasizes how weak Bullet is. Bullet truly is the Yamcha of Blazblue. I never cared for Azrael myself. He appears to be pretty one-dimensional; his only goal and interest is fighting strong enemies, which is as generic a motivation as a fighting game character can get. Also he has no backstory, the source of his powers is never explained and he has pretty much no connection to the rest of the cast.

Thank you very much for the link. PS: According to Zedar, Jubei thinks that Mai going berserk is due to her Legacy Weapon. This may well be the case, especially since we saw Jin going berserk due to Yukianesa in Remix Heart. However I'm wondering if there's a connection between what happened and the Murakumo Unit. Mai had felt as if it called to her, so there seems to be a link between it and Mai.

Chapter 4 of Variable Heart has come out. And here's Zedar's summary: http://amatsumugi89.tumblr.com/post/150125592768/variable-heart-chapter-4-it-begins-with-the-nol

The first chapter of Variable Heart has been scanlated and can be read here: http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/blazblue-variable-heart-r19721 People have already discussed the contents of the chapter in length. One thing that I noticed hasn't been mentioned is Mai's unwillingness to join the military. It doesn't look like she's interested in it and her father didn't appear to want his child to serve as normal soldier either based on what was said in the Remix Heart epilogue. It looks like that the fact Mai ended up staying out of the NOL actually worked out to her advantage since she avoided that fate.

That could simply mean that Nine didn't want to start an argument with Celica though. Considering her track record of ignoring Celica's suggestions and opinions, I don't think it's likely that Nine will listen to Celica until late in the story mode. Nine is prepared to kill her own daughter. I think that's a more significant indicator of how far gone she is at this point.

I think that Ragna is too well-liked to be killed off. He is the most popular male ArcSys character and after all the crap he has been through he deserves a happy ending. Rachel and Celica are both good, so I think it likely that they'll both survive. It should be trivial to come up with an excuse to overturn Celica's time limit. For example they could say that Noel as a super-observer added her to the structure of the universe so she's no longer a chronophantasma. I think it's likely that most of the cast will survive; one of the main themes of Blazblue is about overturning Fate after all. Terumi is the main villain so I don't see him sticking around; maybe he'll get tossed back into the Boundary. I think it's quite possible that Hazama will survive though. Nine seems pretty far gone at this point. I think she's going to die, maybe redeeming herself in the process sort of like Darth Vader.

This video shows a few seconds of Mai's playstyle at the 8:30 minute mark: https://youtu.be/F43QCQiuVcI?t=511 Mori then says that more of Mai will be seen at the Tokyo Game Show. I guess this means that they won't be putting out a preview video for Mai until at least after that event has concluded. From what we can see Mai's spear moves fairly fast when thrown and reappears almost immediately in her hand after it hits her enemy or misses and disappears from the screen. Also, there was some speculation that her normals might whiff if her enemy is really close in order to balance out the fact she's likely to have good reach, but it looks like she's able to hit her opponent even if they're standing next to her. And it does look like at least some of her attacks do have pretty good reach. Edit: This post has some better analysis of the footage. The Famitsu article announcing the addition of Mai to the roster said she'll be a paid DLC character. I don't know if she'll have a period during which she'll be free like Es.

Fair enough if her profile says she remembers those people and now that you mention it, her profile also says that she remembers pudding. It does look like her Nobody personality is gone though; unless she now only acts robotically when "on the job" as it were. Except that Nine has almost always ignored Celica's wishes and viewed her at too naive to be allowed to have personal responsibility. Celica had to escape Nine in Phase Shift 0 to go search for her father and Nine would have dragged Celica back to Ishana once she found her if Ragna hadn't intervened. She did temporarily back down when Celica volunteered to sacrifice herself with the lynchpin, but even then she had first tried to destroy it in order to deny Celica the possibility of making the decision to sacrifice herself. And of course in Phase Shift 1 Nine ignored Celica's calls to be nicer towards Kazuma. I guess that Nine might in the end decide to finally listen to her sister as a culmination of her character arc, but I don't see it happening until probably the end of the game. Also I see a high probability of Nine dying in the end along with Hakumen and Terumi. These are all dead people who have been brought back and who cannot survive without vessels/observation etc. And having them fade away would fit with the "letting the new generation take over" theme that has been previously mentioned in the games.

Here are a couple of photos that were apparently taken at a CF demo in Germany: Looks like Es has lost at least some of her memories, since she doesn't remember who Touya was. Also, her speech pattern makes it sound like she's back to having the robotic personality she had at the start of Xblaze Code Embryo. Since Es is the guardian of the gate to the Azure, it looks like Nine is talking to her after defeating her. I guess the fact that Es was Nine's friend once doesn't matter to her one bit since she wants to utterly destroy her. Then again Nine views her own daughter as an enemy and the only person she doesn't want to kill is Celica, so I suppose that this isn't really surprising.

Here's a screenshot showing Mai's idle stance: https://twitter.com/Shado_Onikkisu/status/772080492837531648 Also, there's not much there yet, but might as well post links to pages describing Mai's move list: http://blazblue.wikia.com/wiki/Mai_Natsume/Move_List http://www.dustloop.com/wiki/index.php/BBCF/Mai_Natsume

The following article includes the names and short descriptions of some of Mai's moves in Japanese along with screenshots: http://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/201608260081/

The Famitsu article announcing the addition of Mai to the roster said she'll be a paid DLC character.

I forgot to post this CG featuring Mai. I presume it's from Mai's fight with Hazama after she tries to defend Noel and prevent Hazama from capturing her: Did Trinity ever fight herself in the Phase Shift novels? She has always struck me as a support caster. I imagine that Muchourin would stay with Platinum so she'd need to fight in another way. The wiki says she specialized in barrier magic as well as reinforcement magic that allowed her to tear huge boulders with her bare hands. I guess it would be rather funny if her barrier and reinforcement effectively made her a heavy melee combatant.

From what I can gather, her profile section says that Mai is cheerful and forward-looking, sincerely sympathetic towards others, that she values her friends above all else and that she often neglects herself due to the strength of her feelings. The story section informs us that Mai's most important relationships are with of course with Noel, Tsubaki and Makoto and has a bit of background information regarding her. It says she's the heir of the Hazuki Duodecim family, that she was a classmate of Noel at the military academy, that she was transformed into a woman by a grimoire and went trough a variety of troubles, as well as that Mai has fully accepted herself as a woman now. It also says that Mai now rushes into danger armed with Outseal in order to defend an important friend. Both her profile and her story description suggest that Mai's principal motivation within the story will be to defend Noel. By the way, here are some higher resolution images of Mai's CGs from this site: