#daisuke watanabe

Camille Desmoulins/カミーユ デムーラン and Lucille/リュシル (渡辺大輔/Watanabe Daisuke, 則松亜海/Norimatsu Ami) 1789 Les Amants de la Bastille Jp Toho 2018 (3/3, 4/4)

Desmoulins: 1, 2

Developer: Jupiter

Publisher: Square Enix

Director: Tetsuya Nomura/Aguro Tanaka

Music: Yoko Shimomura

Namely, this moment on Destiny Islands:

Namine: You won't fade. You can't fade. No power can defeat you---not the light, not the dark. So don't run from the light - and don't fear the darkness. Both will make you stronger.

Riku: Darkness too?

Namine: Yeah. Strength that's yours. (GBA: Especially darkness. Because that power is yours alone.) The darkness in your heart is vast and it's deep...but if you can truly stare into it and never try to look away, you won't be afraid of anything again.

Riku: All this time I've tried to push the darkness away...

Namine: You've gotta just remember to be brave. Know that the darkness is there and don't give in. If you do that, you will gain strength unlike any other. You'll be able to escape the deepest darkness...

Riku: ...and I'll be able to see through the brightest light.

Namine: Follow the darkness, Riku. It'll show you the way to your friends.

Riku: Can I face them?

Namine: You don't want to?

Riku: You know I do. Of course. And I will! With my strength! My dark strength! (GBA: The darkness - MY darkness - will show me the way!)

There are three MAJOR problems with this exchange.

1. The fixation on “strength”, as though the seeking of power to use aggressively as Riku does on Zexion (with Zexion not fighting back at all in the original GBA version!) is a positive development for Riku.

2. The notion that by “not being afraid” will allow Riku to use his darkness without being corrupted by it, and that in turn his darkness will allow him to never know fear and that this is a good thing.

3. The moment amounting to “a witch tells Riku he can use darkness for the cause of good without his heart being corrupted and that it will guide him to reuniting with his friends”. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I get that Watanabe needed Riku to accept the darkness because DiZ wants him to and Riku needs to be working with DiZ in KH2; that was a plot point that was already decided upon when development of CoM started. But I am baffled that he screwed up this badly and produced such a mixed message given that he wrote so much of the original KH! This scene does not clarify what Riku is now doing differently than what he did last time. It’s trying to say “hey, darkness doesn’t have to be bad if you don’t let it!”, ignoring that Riku didn’t think he was letting it be bad when he used it KH and that’s what ended up corrupting him. It just ends up making Namine and Riku look awful (DiZ too, but he’s supposed to be seen as awful.)

It’s sad because there was such an easy fix: have what Namine says and what Riku learns be that rather than fixate on the darkness, whether that be in using it or trying to get rid of it which is self-defeating, fixate on the light, even while using darkness. Using darkness while in mental and emotional states of anger, aggression, pride, self-righteousness, jealousy, desperation, power hunger, and basically every mental and emotional state Riku was in during KH is the problem; if Riku can use darkness while in a positive mental and emotional state (which would mean no more Dark Mode, I don’t care how sweet it is for gameplay, it’s emblematic of darkness used negatively), then he will ultimately be able to transcend darkness and obtain the power of in-between / twilight. It makes Mickey’s “light and dark, back-to-back” and Riku’s ‘the middle road is the Road to Dawn” lines make so much more sense in the context of the story. 

Sure, it’d still be kind of botched when Riku goes full-on dark anyway in KH2, with the in-between / twilight power just being the thing that saves his heart from being corrupted in the process, but it’s better than what’s actually there right now, which is just a hypocritical mess.

The Capulets putting on their masks for the ball 

Bonus: 

@soetpotatis​ Look at this wonderful OT4 . The babies all goign along and Tybs even smiling.

(Well, maybe except for the first one up here... That was my fault, but i wanted some tea and I paused the video, I just didn’t expect Daichan to -- to do whatever he was doing. Imitating a turtle that fell on its shell...)

(Shhhhhhhh!!)

(double shhh-- aaaaaaaaa!!!)

(uhm... Romeo actually trying to have a nice little chat while Cutio and Ben just check him out. Cutio seems to approve what he’s seeing. A lot.)

Takumi Kun Series 10th Anniversary

Kyosuke Hamao and Daisuke Watanabe