Leiopelma

I think that a link between Saya and Terumi would make sense. This connection explains why Naoto appeared in CF and it fits Mori's comment about Naoto's arcade having a big reveal. To be honest I think that Izanami being a product of Saya Terumi is a good thing. Having Izanami be some sort of death goddess that came out of nowhere would have been less satisfying than actually tying her origin to previous events in the storyline. My guess is that Saya has Saya's soul inside her and Ragna has Naoto's. No, Terumi specifically referred to Noel with that.

Tsubaki and Hakumen still think that Ragna is evil. But yes, I don't think that anyone else sees him as a villain.

Relius' sole intention is to create his "perfect doll". He only wants to destroy Amaterasu because it gets in the way of that. He is a sadistic monster with absolutely no good intentions. His plan did involve the extermination of humanity after all and there's no guarantee that he wanted to bring humans back. Even if he did, which is a pretty big assumption since he doesn't value humans at all, everyone from the current world would still be dead because of him. Ragna may be easily angered and prone to insulting others, but he spares the monster who made his life a living hell. He sacrifices his arm to save Noel. Even though he's hunted he makes sure not to kill the NOL personnel that's after him. Off the top of my head Ragna helps Mai, Litchi, Platinum, Noel, Taokaka, Celica and Nu with no ulterior motive and no thought of a reward. Unless you only consider someone who's completely sinless to be good I fail to see how Ragna fails to qualify. He's a much better person than the majority of humanity. As for Bang, his love with Litchi but it is presented as a childish obsession and he would never force himself on her. And he too avoids killing people and is more interested in helping his people survive than in revenge. Bang may be loud and stupid, but he is a good person as well. He never means ill to others.

How can you say that Relius can be seen as good? His sole stated objective is to create a perfect doll. There's no reason to think that anyone else would be better off if he turned himself into a god. He doesn't give a damn about anything or anyone else after all and turning all of humanity into seithr was actually part of his plan too. He only sees people as raw material or tools that he can use as he pleases and he'll happily torture them when it suits his purposes. Look at how happily he mentally tortured Makoto in order to shatter her psyche before extracting her soul to put in a doll in her bad end in CSE for example. Relius is a complete monster and only might appear like the lesser evil if you compare him to a genocidal goddess (but even that's debatable too since he too wanted to wipe out humanity as part of his plan). Stopping both of them would certainly be better than letting either of them win. Both Ragna and Bang are obviously good people. Ragna has a short temper and Bang is an idiot who ends up in unnecessary fights, but they both try to avoid killing others and neither of them enjoys inflicting pain. Instead they both try to help others when they are in need of aid. I think they're both clearly good people.

Just because something is natural doesn't mean it's good. I think an "artificial" world where people are still alive is preferable than a "natural" dead one. As a result I can't agree that Izanami's actions could be seen as good. As for Relius, he's a complete psychopath. He literally sees people as nothing but materials for his experiments and has no compunctions about inflicting both physical and mental torture on them in order to craft them into tools for his use. His sole goal is to create the perfect doll so I can see nothing good coming from a world where he's in charge. Same with Terumi. He's a sadistic monster that only appears to take pleasure in torturing others. Any world he created would be a living hell. Again I don't see how either of those characters could be seen as being morally ambiguous. Nine is a bit more ambiguous simply because we don't know much about what she wants. But she's definitely not nice and the only person she actually cares about is her sister. The rest of the world, including her daughter and husband, can all go to hell. As a result I don't think she could be trusted with overseeing the world. From all of those characters only Rachel appears to have a general concern for humanity and could be seen as good.

Mai actually also has that symbol on her clothing. You can see it on the glove of the outfit Mori drew her in after she graduates from the academy: In CP they were saying that they need Amaterasu to bring everyone back to life and it's been implied that without Amaterasu the world would be dead. I don't see how they could suddenly turn Amaterasu into the villain. All it seems to be trying to do is to preserve the world.

Makoto is bigger than Bullet. In a recent interview Mori had said that the big-breasted girls are ranked as follows (and also said that he'll never introduce a girl with breasts that are bigger than Litchi's): Litchi > Makoto > Bullet > Mai > Taokaka That was before CF though. Since Tao had said that Nine was about as big as Litchi, and considering what Mori had said about not surpassing Litchi, we can concluded that Nine must be in second place.

By the way, I found it a nice touch that they included Mai and Kajun in the CG illustrating Makoto's wish. Shows that they haven't forgotten about those two characters. Here's hoping that they'll be in the console release of CF.

That's my guess as well. Most of these characters don't stand a chance against Izanami, but if they all fight her then they might be able to wear her down. Nine might simply be planning a war of attrition. Trinity is responsible for everything that went wrong. Terumi mocked her by calling her a traitor in CSE because that is what she was. She was acting in good faith, but in the end of the day she did in effect betray the other heroes by unleashing Terumi, thus enabling him to throw Nine and Hakumen into the Boundary. It makes sense for Nine to resent her.

Fair enough then. This confirms that Relius retains the ability to use magic. I doubt that. Relius clearly makes it sound as if he had never seen magic before in That Which Is Inherited. I don't see how such a clear statement can be the result of a mistranslation. I think it's much more probable that Relius simply wanted to conceal the fact that he can use magic himself from others. This fits perfectly with what he says to Kokonoe.

Yeah, Kokonoe had planned to use the Burning Red grimoire to power Tager, which is why she sent Kajun to infiltrate the Military Academy in order to retrieve it. Since the attempt to create the Burning Red failed and Hazama retrieved its remnants, Kokonoe was forced to invent Artificial Causality Weapons as a power source for Tager. I have to say that Magical Tager sounds like a name for a magical girl.

By the way, I found it interesting that Nine's overdrive is called Burning Red, meaning it has the same name as the grimoire designed by Nine that appeared in Remix Heart. The completed Burning Red Grimoire was supposed have enabled its user to employ sorcery as if they were a true mage. So it seems that that grimoire was meant to replicate Nine's powers. No wonder that Kokonoe, Hazama and Seifer were all after it.

Relius however chides Kokonoe in CS for relying on science instead of using magic. It would be rather odd if he were doing the same thing himself. Maybe Relius has lost the ability to use magic. The Sealed Spear Izayoi for example had the ability to strip a mage of his power. If Mori wants to bring them in, it would be trivial for him to come up with an excuse to do so though. The Boundary and its effects are so vaguely defined that it can be used to justify pretty much anything.

I was expecting Nine to be playable in BB4, but I have to confess that Naoto and Hibiki caught me by surprise. Any ideas who the other playable characters will be? My guess is that they'll also include Izanami, Jubei, Mai and possibly Kajun.

Mai lost the ability to copy and transfer abilities to other people near the end of her manga, so I don't see that coming into play. This isn't an ability that Mai ever displayed in the source material, so it seems pretty unlikely to me. The fighting techniques she used are ones she had been trained in while at the Hazuki family.

It's speculation. However the fact that she is the protagonist of a spinoff manga, will be appearing in BBCSEX and the fact that a phone strap modelled on her has been produced along with Noel and Celica (two important and playable characters), makes it seem pretty likely to me that she will be made playable in the next game. This is also supported by the fact that Mori has produced a design for her at the time the games take place and that we find out in CP that her noble house is the only one that didn't ally itself with Kagura, giving her a reason to get involved in the story. She could use her power by tasting her opponent's blood, say off one of her blades. She was able to read Shiori's memories by tasting her blood, so there's no need for Mai to kiss or lick her opponent.

After she completed the fusion with her grimoire and was attacked while unarmed, she appears to have created a pair of blades in her empty hands. So it does look like Mai is the bone of her sword. That is her most unique ability, so I imagine that they will include it in some manner. Maybe she could taste her opponent and then get something similar to super armor to simulate her having knowledge of and being able to predict and evade her enemy's attacks? As you said, weak points are already used.

Shiori has not been mentioned outside of Remix Heart. I consider it very unlikely that she will have a role in the games. In that scene Mai had a variety of blades at her disposal, including multiple swords. However she specifically chose to arm herself with a longsword and dagger. When near the end of the manga she used her grimoire to create weapons for herself, she once again chose the same types of weapons. And in that drawing of Mai by Mori, we can see that she has one long and one short blade based on their positions. I therefore think that Mai's prefered fighting style does involve a longsword and parrying dagger.

She did have two katanas there, but that promotional piece of artwork is the only time Mai has ever been shown wielding katanas (or two swords of equal length for that matter). She never does that in the actual manga. In fights where she has the opportunity to us blades, she goes with a longsword and parrying dagger. The post-timeskip illustration that Mori drew of her indicates that she retained that fighting style after graduating. Cajun doesn't have an established fighting style and she never does battle in Remix Heart. She's a researcher/undercover agent for Kokonoe. I suppose that Mori could come up with a fighting style for her, but I think it is unlikely that she will ever be a playable character.

With Litchi providing the cleavage, Makoto the underbood and Mai the sideboob, it looks like BB will now be able to display partially exposed breasts from all angles. I think it would have been better if Mai had a more modest outfit since her character didn't seem like the type to show off. Then again, the same could be said about Noel and she's pretty exposed. Speaking of which, I think Mai's top looks pretty similar to that of Noel's outfit in CP. As for weapons, it looks like she favors western-style blades (though it doesn't look like she uses a rapier), since these are the weapons she created with her grimoire. Japan did have a two weapon fighting style employing a katana and wakizashi, but Europe had its own tradition involving a sword and parrying dagger. I presume that Mai is trained in the latter tradition. Since both Jin and Hakumen use katanas, I don't mind seeing Mai use another type of sword.

I was thinking of BB4 rather than CPE. I don't think that there will be any other new playable characters in the latter either.

You do realize that story about vending machines is an urban legend, right? And material aimed at otaku is seen as something that weirdos like; it's not mainstream. CP had a total of 8 new playable characters. This isn't a zero sum game; both Mai and those other characters (other than Amaterasu) can and probably will be playable eventually.

Personally I liked Mai as a character, so I am pleased that we'll be seeing more of her in the future. And, as you say, it's a good idea to make her presense known in the games; her being referenced in one dialog in the original CP storyline isn't really enough.

Maybe Mai's Drive will just be the Nameless Grimoire, just as say Celica's Drive is Minerva. As for what it would do, we see in Remix Heart that it greatly boosts her physical abilities, lets her regenerate injuries and allows her to project a magic shield, but all these are abilities that just put her on par with other characters in the franchise as far as fighting ability goes. We see that her grimoire lets her predict her enemy's moves in one fight and by tasting someone she can read their memories. Perhaps her drive could involve her tasting her enemy's blood and then being able to deal or receive less damage to simulate her learning what her enemy's abilties are and being able to predict his actions? Or I suppose it could be something more elaborate. (Comedy option: Maybe her Astral could work like Midnight Bliss and turn her enemy into a girl.) The future version of Cajun that the Hypnagogia Grimoire displayed did appear to use an Armagus to fight. Though it didn't seem like she had any unique abilities. Personally I doubt that she'll ever be made playable.

I guess that's the outfit that Mai will use after graduating. I imagined that a more modest outfit would fit her better considering her personality, but this is Mori we are talking about. I suppose that as μ-12 indicates, it could be worse. Could you give us a summary of what happens in it please?