#help list

The Fandom:

Tourabu is the most welcoming fandom that I had ever came across. Some months (more than one year, by now) ago I was very, very hesitant to dive into because I was invited by my awesome friend @odigcs even before I watched the Hanamaru anime. Of course I had a good experience and I’m still amazed (and ultra glad) how this fandom in the rpc is incredibly welcoming. To be honest: I never had a bad time in this fandom.

On “all I’ve seen is the anime”:

I highly recommend you to look up some anthologies (there’s plenty of them at mangarock) if you wanna see more of a specific character. On my own experience who started with the Hanamaru anime before actually playing the game, Hanamaru isn’t so welcoming to new fans since there’s almost no explanation about the setting or the character’s backgrounds (save Okitagumi and Odagumi).

(I’m assuming you only watched the Hanamaru anime due to being more popular)

The Katsugeki anime is a bit “newcomers-friendly” on the point of explaining the setting and I also enjoyed the characterization. However, is UFOTABLE, so be prepared to fast-pacing story.

There’s the musicals and stage plays which I hadn’t the opportunity to watch (yet) as many players out there, but people said that they are good to understand the characters more in dept. However, some songs are available and they are awesome.

Playing the game isn’t necessary, the official wiki serves so much as a translator that most people that never played the game are able to grasp the idea. (Myself included, playing the game just gave me a new meaning to the word “despair” when I almost broke my Taikogane) However, the game currently has much more characters than in the anime, so it’s a good idea to look on the wiki.

Personal Tips:

I myself have no confidence to rp a canon character (in any fandom) because of the varying headcanons and stuff, but I guess that the Tourabu fandom will welcome you with open arms!

I only have ocs, but this is also a valid tip to the ones who play was canon characters: make a research about the sword’s past and their former owners, it’s a huge addition! I had seen some canon players which did their research and their portrayals are uniquely beautiful! After all, Tourabu relies A LOT on history.

And if you are interested in making an oc which isn’t a Saniwa (since the saniwa is an human being, it’s easy-peasy-lemon-squezy to make one) I’m gonna say just one thing: You’ll probably need to jump from site to site do map a sword’s story. Of course, I like to go in depth, but a small research also works. The main problem is when the sword has more than one name (Hizamaru’s sword official name in expositions is Usu Midori) or there’s two swords with the same name (A wakizashi and a tachi, both called Junkei Samonji).

On the topic of blades which are missing, burnt or broken to the point of being irreparable, thrown at the ocean and melted, some canon characters are under this category. To name a few: Hotarumaru was (possibly) thrown at the ocean, Otegine became a block of melted iron, Horikawa Kunihiro is missing (probably is also in the bottom of the ocean) Yagen Toushirou disappeared during the Honnouji Event, probably burnt completely, Kashuu Kiyomitsu broke and was discarded. So it means that using swords which doesn’t exist anymore is completely fine.

A small thing that I wasn’t gonna mention, but I decided to:

And because I know that someone will ask me it someday: “Touken Ranbu has a exclusively male cast, why do you have female tsukumogami?” Well, I’m not the only one to have this kind of ocs (usually I see a lot of naginata girls because naginata were used mostly by women) but as you may have noticed: none of my girls are swords. (With the exception of Naomasa and Ibarakinaibou which has pointy parts that can pierce skin.) They are essentially blunt weapons (and with the exception of Ibarakinaibou, concealed weapons).

人妻な刀とかいないかなぁ～。　… はぁ、いないかぁI wonder if there are any swords that are married women~! … Huh, there aren’t?

The quote above is (Kiwame) Houchou Toushirou’s smiting line. I never thought too much about it before, but since it was mentioned: he said specifically “sword” (刀) but not “weapon” (武器) as whole… And, you guys who follow me for a while might have noticed that I work with the “why not?” question a lot.

I had heard about the kanabo that Ibarakinaibou is based on, since it was considerably a “legendary” one I thought: “that’s gonna be a GOOD thing to try”. However I didn’t added her before Naomasa and Rashinbansaihai because I had NO SOLID INFORMATION about this kanabo before I came across these two war fans. And I must confess, it was A PAIN to get a BIT of information.

I did this, and until now no one seemed to be think it’s a bad idea, also no one sees nothing wrong with sword girls. After all, Houchou specified “married women”. This last section is just a thing that I wanted to share.

I hope this was helpful for you!