#vrains asks

This is super duper late, and I have no idea if anyone else has already talked about this.

I suspect the areas they all ended up actually match up with the opponent they are going to face there.

Spectre ended up in a sunny canyon, which at first glance is easy to think must be because of Earth, and Spectre’s role as his origin. But Earth’s regions and associted areas were always very rocky and mountainous. And there was always an additional association with plants; how he used wood to create an assistant, and how vegetation grew alongside his feelings. 

But here there’s was no plant life in sight, and it wasn’t mountainous. It was a desert canyon. 

This kind of area seems to really suit Lightning, as it gives the impression of blazing sunlight. 

Meanwhile, Takeru in plane land got matched up with Windy. The association between Windy and planes is obvious, in terms of both element and deck. (Though, before this match up, I couldn’t help but wonder if the planes foreshadowed Blood Shepherd’s return. They may still be doing just that, we’ll just have to wait and see.) I’m still of the thinking that Blood Shepherd is heading to actual Vrains to take on Go and retrieve Earth, but there’s no evidence of that yet. 

Aoi ended up in a purplish city that actually reminds me of the inner, combined city of the Cyberse, which had a similar color scheme.

The combined city around the Cyberse’s tower, surrounded by each Ignis’s individual territories, seems like a perfect representation of Bohman. 

And the building’s behind her right now are yellow and purple, which are obviously Bohman’s colors. Lightning already suggested that that will be the next matchup (in which case, Aoi is going to be absolutely destroyed).

As for Ryoken, we’ve only seen plants and flowers associated with two Vrains characters before: Spectre, and Windy.

Windy is currently facing Takeru, but Spectre just got captured by Lightning, who clearly intends to put him to use. If Windy survives this duel, he and Spectre teaming up against Ryoken would be wild, but more likely Windy is going to lose against Takeru and Ryoken will face brainwashed!Spectre. But I’ve also seen some theorizing that Spectre vs Go might happen, in which case those flowers might be heralding the “return” of the Earth Ignis. 

Yusaku’s set up is by far the most ominous, with the red and purple color scheme and the almost post-apocalyptic atmosphere. It suits the Dark Ignis most, but I don’t think he and Ai will be having a falling out. Notably, his area is the only area with water, and because of that, his reflection in most of his shots. I don’t think he’ll be facing Miyu or Aqua or Aoi either, but he will definitely be facing Bohman again at some point, who just so happens to have been based on him and the Dark Ignis. So Yusaku’s reflection may foreshadow his and Bohman’s next, and possibly final, duel.

If not, then they’re setting up some internal conflict or Yusaku vs Jin. Like, maybe Yusaku will have to duel Lightning, all while seeing the reality of Jin’s trapped consciousness in the reflection underneath them.

But I couldn’t help but notice that the color scheme of this area perfectly matches Flame’s city in the Cyberse, underneath his floating castle.

Which just so happened to have gotten…

…stomped flat.

Obviously, we know they aren’t in the Cyberse. But there might still be an association here. Will Yusaku and Takeru be forced to duel? Or will the monster that destroyed the Cyberse make another appearance?

I don’t see how she could possibly be Ryoken’s mother, as she’s visibly much younger than Kogami and we’ve been given no indication that they ever even met. Going by the use chess-pieces and code-names alone, it seems pretty likely SOL’s upper echelon are pretty isolated from lower faculty like Kogami. I’d guess that Queen’s only so out in the open and active now because SOL’s lesser employees have all failed so miserably up to this point. They’ve suffered loss after loss and defeat after defeat, so the boss’s are sick of the incompetence of Akira, Kitamura, etc. 

I do think Ryoken’s mother may have been involved with SOL in some form or fashion, because that would put her and Kogami in the same social orbit, but that means they were probably in R&D together (if they met through SOL at all); she probably wasn’t an executive. And considering Kogami and Ryoken look nothing alike, Ryoken must take after his mother. We’ve already seen that in Vrains kids tend to really resemble their parents, so I don’t think Ryoken is going to be an exception, unless he’s actually adopted. (Also unlikely; why would Kogami adopt one unrelated kid and treat him well, then kidnap a bunch of equally unrelated kids and nearly torture them to death? If he had the capacity to care for children that aren’t his own blood, he’d never have been able to even conceive of the Hanoi Project.)

While Queen being Yusaku’s mother could be interesting if done right, I think there’s also little to no chances of that happening. They have similar attitudes, both being goal-orientated and extremely stubborn and unrelenting about it too, and yet completely different priorities. Any character interactions between them have the potential to be interesting. They’re both very “cool” (in terms of both attitude and coloring) characters, and both very hard and seemingly spartan. 

But while there are similarities between their characters, those traits are also shared with the original “Blue Angel”; that seems to be just par for the course for blue-haired Vrains characters at this point. It’s the byproduct of simple color association.

Thanks!

If you’re looking for vrains analysis, you can find just about all the ones I’ve done here. There’s a lot there, haha.

More specifically, I’ve done… a lot of Ryoken analysis. Like, an embarrassing amount. I think this just about covers it:

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/174675444456/what-are-your-thoughts-on-revolver-and-how-did-you

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/171972765231/revisiting-the-scene-where-ryoken-checks-the

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/175555038081/12-a-hot-debate-is-starting-in-the-fandom-about

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/175575812351/did-ryoken-know

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/175783646946/almost-everyone-i-follow-as-well-as-a-youtuber-im

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/175953620421/i-saw-some-theories-going-around-about-how-ryoken

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/177567269271/why-do-you-think-ryoken-decided-to-name-himself

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/177925480156/i-dont-understand-if-ryoken-cares-so-much-about

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/178155317756/do-you-think-revolver-stayed-in-vrains-during-the

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/181542044981/ryoken-and-83

As for Ema, I have much less stuff specifically about her. If you go through my episode discussions (which should all be under the general analysis link at the top) I talk about her a fair bit in those, but as for posts just about her I think I’ve only got this short one:

https://scratchface.tumblr.com/post/172841408531/so-on-ema-and-not-making-all-her-decisions-based

Playmaker - Do you like Yusaku as the main protagonist, or do you think he’s too stoic/different from the friendship loving predecessors?

I love Yusaku, to be honest. I think its almost refreshing to have a more asocial protagonist compared to the others; I hope that his arc culminates with him becoming more friendship loving but I don’t think he’s a bad protagonist. In fact, he’s probably my one of my favourite protagonists.

OP - Favorite opening

So, anon asked: 

“It kinda irked me the wrong way though how Revolver actually tried the same "I understand"-route with Soulburner as Akira did with Playmaker about the Lost Incident and the trauma of the victims, but I also can't help but wonder if I've missed something. So I'm just asking for gaps to be filled about it.”

It is reminiscent of Akira, but Ryoken has the advantage of actually having been involved, as opposed to reading some documents and then deciding he could tell Yusaku how to deal with it. Ryoken was about the same age, witnessed the torture, and his father had even made him a part of it. He knows exactly what the kids went through and how each one reacted to it. He understands why Takeru is upset, and clearly doesn’t feel like Takeru’s being unreasonable. He’s trying to show that he’s not invalidating Takeru’s feelings. 

But he wasn’t tortured, starved, or kept isolated from the world in a tiny cell, not knowing if he was going to die there or not. Ryoken “understands” what the victims went through, but he doesn’t really understand. And its pretty presumptuous to not draw that distinction. 

And we know that that distinction is important to Takeru; Takeru feels a particular kind of kinship with Yusaku because they experienced the same pain. That’s why he’s so confident on speaking on Yusaku’s behalf: he assumed they’re of the same mind because of their shared experiences. 

Ryoken saying he “understood”, well, that was probably the worst thing he could have said to Takeru. But I don’t think he knew that; I think Ryoken was saying whatever he felt would ease things over and cement the alliance. It’s all empty platitudes, and I’m sure Ryoken knows it. He’s knows what Hanoi did to the victims is unforgivable, and knows how it ruined their lives even long after the project was ended. Their creations from that time are still making the victims suffer, too.

Ryoken also knows what its like to lose a parent, possibly two.

But Ryoken is also prepared to say what he has to say, do what he has to do, to win against Lightning. If their best chance is getting Playmaker’s side to join forces with them, then he’ll say what he has to to make that happen. He’ll offer out some empty words, he’ll accept the duel, he’ll take everything Takeru throws at him.

But compare this reaction to the last time a victim blew up at him, when Playmaker revealed he was the victim Ryoken reached out to.

 At that time, Ryoken was shocked, defensive, discomfited. He almost seemed betrayed, like he couldn’t believe that former test subject would “side” with SOL and the Ignis over him. Compare that reaction to his reaction in 83, and it becomes abundantly clear Ryoken has matured a bit in his perspective of the incident and its victims. He’s more empathetic, and seems to be taking their perspectives into account.

Ryoken, behind closed doors, has been shown to be a little protective of the Lost Kids. But to their faces, he always comes off as cold and uncaring as possible, just like he does with everyone else. He doesn’t really speak honestly with them, probably because he doesn’t feel like he has a right to. 

And let’s not forget, Ryoken’s recent actions do seem to have some ulterior motives. Takeru, Yusaku, and anybody else protecting an Ignis are all going to be enemies. In the last recap, he and the knights clearly talked about coming up with a plan to take down Playmaker.

Positioning himself as a sort of benefactor, forcing Yusaku to reveal a least part of their connection to his understandably dubious allies, so easily riling up Takeru...

I’m pretty apathetic to most vrains pairings, honestly. 

Kengo and Takeru is a popular one in parts of the Japanese fandom, and that’s a big No for me, on many levels. I usually love pairings based on antagonism, but definitely not that one. Angelmaker too, I’d say. It feels forced to me, like they’re paired up just because they’re the male lead and the most prominent female character. All their interactions are really awkward, there’s no chemistry, and it feels like they aren’t important to each other. During the ToH, Yusaku had either a dramatic or compelling reaction to each of the others’ deaths, except for Aoi’s. He kind of just shrugged hers off. Spectre and Ryoken too, I think its called Respectfulshipping or something? They seem too brotherly to be romantic. While we’re on that, Ryoken and any of the Knights is an absolutely NO. 

Well, that’s nothing recent; it is something he said right before Gou got digitized in episode 40:

There certainly is no recent revelation here, nor does it have anything to do with Takeru or the others. Yusaku has always been one to give credit where it’s due (and even when it isn’t); Yusaku’s tendency to feel immense gratitude to people is at the core of his character, due to Ryoken and the Hanoi Project. 

I bet all my best cards and my soul that Flame wins. No question about it. Just imagine an army of THIS: