#forbidden beasts

Itadakimasu! 

Monstrous meals expertly crafted by Kumakoro @ Still Life Picture Book

Hate is a strong word. 

I just don’t particularly care for her gameplay and probably character lore wise. I have no issue with newcomers in fighting games as long as they have an interesting design and gimmick to their fighting style. 

Nagoriyuki’s design was enough to instantly draw me into him as a character and yearning to learn his backstory. Heck, we haven’t seen the story mode yet but he is already now my most favorite male character of the franchise. He’s just...so cool. <3

Giovanna’s case, like I said several times, the wolf, Rei looks very awesome, but Giovanna by herself to me looks very bland. I know that her design is supposed to capture her professional attitude, but I feel like it is still lacking a lot of interesting aesthetics that would make a Guilty Gear character stand out compared to others or being unique and original. 

Some people think Answer for example is boring, but honestly I was more hyped for him than Baiken years ago when they were announced. Answer is a ninja....in a business suit! Also, the man is talking on the phone throughout the whole match and multitasking. That makes him a very interesting and entertaining character. Giovanna isn’t really impressing me in anything. She’s too....’normalized’. 

Another thing I want to point out, we pretty much already have Forbidden Beast (lol Stand) users in the game. I know Zato and her play differently but somehow Rei, as cool as her (yes it is a girl) design is, doesn’t really stand out as much as any other one. All of these things make her pretty forgettable for me as a GG fan.

She’s okay, but I just can’t really get into her. 

Maybe I’m just too bias on Nagoriyuki but I wish they did better on Giovanna’s design as a whole. 

The Forbidden Beasts are another oddity in GG’s canon. There are a few details, but the nitty-gritty of it is kinda underexplained. From what we know, the Forbidden Beasts are a group of six forbidden magic techniques that exist in the form of parasitic organisms, though we have only seen Eddie and Angra while the other four are total mysteries. From what we’ve seen in canon, taking on a Forbidden Beast is your classic Faustian deal (lol) where someone exchanges something precious of theirs for the sake of power/knowledge. 

Eddie is the most developed narrative-wise, we know Zato gave up his eyesight to gain control over his own shadow, but even after the initial sacrifice Eddie continued to erode away his sanity and later puppet his corpse. He’s shown to have some kind of psychology of his own as an extension of Zato, but desires to continue living and find a new host before his current host’s corpse rots away. We know that Angra has some detrimental mental effects on Millia, but not to the same extent, and she appeared to find a way to control it. It’s unclear if Zato’s extreme degradation was due to Eddie himself or if his own mental unbalance was what did him in. A lot of behaviors of the Forbidden Beasts are kind of ambiguous, Angra lacks the same humanizing portrayal as Eddie does and its difficult to determine if a lot of Eddie’s traits and physical effects are individual to him or are characteristic of the Forbidden Magics overall.

It is canonically stated that there is some component of compatibility to them, as Venom was also a potential candidate for hosting a Forbidden Beast, but the details are vague on whether or not they physically rejected a fusion or if the Assassin’s Guild determined that his physical and mental state was unsuitable to properly host one- implying that they were aware of how detrimental the creatures could be.

Faust taking on Eddie throws a lot of spanners into an already complicated system. GG is known for its slightly odd non-canonical endings, for example one where Eddie decides he simply doesn’t want to die and leaves Zato’s corpse behind, despite frequently described as being a parasitic organism that needs a host. Faust hosting a Beast could potentially mean that Eddie goes back to eroding another mind, but considering Faust’s nature, it’s possible that something about him instills a greater sense of balance to their dynamic and turns it into mutualism rather than parasitism. Though considering how little we see of that ending, it’s pretty much entirely speculation.

It could be said that when Eddie moved over to Faust, he took something that could be interpreted in a joking kind of way, like his hair or his sanity. Something that he already lacks. Alternatively, something about Faust’s bizarre magical ability could be an alternative source of food for Eddie, so he can gorge on that energy without ever physically harming Faust himself. Or, in a third alternative, it could be that the action of taking something from the host is something a Beast voluntarily chooses to do, meaning that Eddie could simply not do when stuck to a host that he likes. Based on how easily Faust seems to control him right from the get-go, it appears they have some sort of cooperation.

Forbidden Beast #1

Smiling Cat appears as a common white or black cat. It runs from humans, but can be chased. If you catch this elusive feline you will realize it has a human smile and human eyes. The cat will speak to you (in a static voice) only twice. The first time it will give you a riddle. If you solve the riddle the cat will tell you the code to reality itself. However, if you do not solve the riddle you will go mad from the intensity of the riddle.

To understand that ending you have to essentially understand his previous GGXPlus "What-If" ending.

In that ending Venom tries to take Zato's place as the Host for Eddie, in order so that Zato would somehow survive.

However, as Slayer explained, Venom is incapable of being a "vessel" (a host for a Forbidden Beast parasite), so that ending never happened, or if it did happen, it basically killed Venom in the process.

Faust attempted something similar but for some reason Eddie was ejected from Faust’s body... it’s possible that Faust has a similar genetic makeup to immortals like Raven and Sharon (Slayer’s Wife).

Eventually Eddie died alongside what remained of Zato’s corpse... though the Conclave later revived them both in their experiments to revive Justice.

The experience seems to have changed Eddie’s physical form insomuch that he now has some kind of “glowing” glyph scars on his chest as a result...

Since people seem to be “new” here with regards to Dizzy’s backstory, I’ll first say this.

To understand Dizzy’s past, you have to understand the connection Gear research had on her past.  Illegal Gear experimentation conducted largely by the Conclave and the Postwar Administration Bureau.

The Bureau are by no means the only organization that tried to create their own “version” of Justice (whether that be a Robot Copy, Forbidden Beast Gear-derivatives like Eddie and Angra, imperfected Gear conversions like Testament, and other derivative bioweapons like Tyr)… other groups like Blackard Company also created their own “Justice” Gears like Solaria and Marina (a failed attempt).

The most notable connection to Dizzy is Eddie.  Or as Testament refers to him “A Ghost from the Crusades”.

Eddie is just one of many “Kinjuu” (Forbidden Beasts) that were created during the Great War as a means of subjugating Justice and her Gear Army.  Kinjuu literally worked alongside the Sacred Order of Holy Knights in the background as an “alternative means” of fighting off the Gears (Kliff knew of them, Ky was kept unaware at the time until he met Tyr by coincidence).

Unlike normal Gears created “after” Justice in the manifacturing process, Kinjuu are parasites born “without a body” inside a human host.

Because they’re born inside that human host, they have a natural immunity towards Justice’ Command Type ability to control other Gears.  This ability was VITAL as all previous attempts to create Gears that could resist Justice’ influence ended in FAILURE (Testament was one of those failures, as he ultimately fell under Justice’ power to control his mind and will).

Kinjuu (during the Crusades) were programmed with a limited life-span so as to be used as “disposable weapons” and were “programmed” to hunt Gears.

In other words, Gears and Kinjuu were “natural enemies” during the Crusades.

But just like Kinjuu are programmed to hunt Gears, Gears themselves have a “diagnostic combat defense program” that was installed in them as a way to evolve as they fight as living weapons.  All Gears, with very few exceptions, have this ability installed in their subconsciousness.

In Dizzy’s case, that “defense program system” is manifested as Necro and Undine, who act to protect Dizzy when she is threatened.  Necro in particular has taken over Dizzy’s consciousness in dire situations in the past (especially when I-No attacked Dizzy), and Sol had to use his powers to subdue Necro in order for Dizzy’s “real self” to resurface.

Back in the year 2181, Eddie (having taken over Zato=ONE’s body) was on the run from the Assassins and came across Dizzy in an altercation that spurred him to fight her for what was seemingly no apparent reason.

That confrontation allowed Eddie to become more “self aware” of his identity as a living weapon, though it would not be long before Eddie and Zato both died afterwards.

At the same time, it revealed that Dizzy herself was resisting the “influences” of her manufactured past.  This would all come to a head when Dizzy confronted a Justice Copy created by Crow Kuruwaba a few weeks later.  

It was thanks in part to Sol’s influence and teaching that Dizzy was able to resist the Justice Copy’s control.

Suffice to say that, despite the fact Dizzy has no “immediate” connection to the Crusades (she was born after 2175 when the War originally “ended”), her past “artificial memories” of that time were all based on the memories of Justice, which she found so “nostalgic”.

Dizzy is self-aware of this, so when she fights, she “fights against herself”… the self that is a COPY of Justice, a “killing machine”… the self that isn’t “Dizzy herself”.