#Daisuke Ishiwatari

[guiltygearofficial]

Hey actual question. Do you think robo-ky will ever get his body back?

Not if I can prevent it.

[kiteazure2014]

MP3

[level1cleric]

we stay winning

[solradguy]

Guilty Gear XX Λ Core Plus Mission illustration by Daisuke Ishiwatari. From the Guilty Gear Strive Digital Artbook.

[elementroar]

Analysis behind the backstory and personal story arcs of A.B.A. and Paracelsus (part 1)

Sorry for the people who waited. Technical and real life delays and all that. On the positive, I happened to run into new resources in the past two days that have helped lining up the facts easier.

Anyway, I originally wanted to compress all the lore into a single post, but I find it’s so much more massive once you really dig into the analysis between the story across multiple mediums, the in-game animations and interactions etc. To make this more readable for you all and to make creating these posts faster, I’m going to separate them up into parts that focus on different facets of their relationship and lore as I progress through them.

This first part goes into their origins, and I hope this big post helps to thoroughly explain who/what A.B.A. and Paracelsus are, their backstories prior to STRIVE, and my own analysis sprinkled on top. I want to try to keep the info/lore dump minimal and focused, so if I mention a character without elaborating, I’ll leave a link but if I’m not elaborating more, it’s because they’re not relevant to A.B.A/Paracelsus' stories that much.

Related links:

Analysis of Paracelsus' initial bloodlust and its longlasting effects on A.B.A (Part 2)

This is the "Why ABA and Paracelsus can feel horny" lore/theory post

Flament Nagel - Paracelsus’ true form theory

The Red King and White Queen alchemical concept in A.B.A and Paracelsus’ relationship

The beginning with A.B.A.

First off, to introduce their individual origins, it’s easiest to start with A.B.A. She’s a homunculus, an artificial lifeform created by a scientist in his mansion, which was located in the mountains of a region called Frasco or Flask. But before she was ‘born’, her creator had been taken away by the military for his skills in creating artificial life, and so A.B.A. woke up alone.

Despite this, within the 10 years she spent alone in the mansion she was able to learn to read, write, and even create some alchemical magic (seen in some of her attacks in games before -STRIVE-). It’s assumed either she was created with a set of memories and skills, or she naturally learns very quickly. It’s probably due to reading leftover journals and research materials that she even learnt her creator’s name was Paracelsus.

Technically, A.B.A. could’ve left the manor quite easily, there was even a village not far from them. However, she understood that she knew nothing about the world outside and was scared to leave the safety of the manor by venturing outside to explore the unknown world. But she did yearn for freedom and to leave Frasco, so she took to fixating on keys, which she found fascinating in being able to unlock doors to different places.

In the last bit of her 10 years in Frasco, A.B.A would accidentally cross paths with the hidden the demon axe Flament Nagel (which she would later rename to ‘Paracelsus’ in honour of her creator, or just cos that’s the only other name she actually knew).

What’s a demon axe doing here anyway?

So what is Paracelsus? He is what’s known as a magical foci, which are objects or even people that get a soul or a collection of memories/emotions/desires attached to them, which eventually leads to them gaining sentience and often supernatural abilities. They draw from the Backyard, which is basically where the information that makes up all reality is stored in the Guilty Gear world, and also the source of magic. This is the origin of ‘demons’ within the GG world, like Paracelsus.

The story of how Paracelsus/Flament Nagel ended up in Frasco actually involves the ancient Nightwalker (technically not a vampire but he's basically a vampire without the bad stuff) known as Slayer.

Now Slayer is this incredibly old, incredibly strong vampire Nightwalker, who nonetheless is a very nice guy who doesn’t need to feed on regular people because his wife, Sharon, is a deathless woman that he can feed on indefinitely without worrying about her dying.

Because of his immense age (AFAIK he’s the oldest of the main GG cast) and overwhelming power (he always holds back in-game), he has very insightful observations of Paracelsus and A.B.A.

The following screenshots are excerpts taken from the English transcript (available here) translated from the Night of Knives Vol.2 audio drama CD (you can listen to it here), and are from the perspective of Slayer recounting his encounters with Paracelsus and A.B.A.

Sometime near the end of the 100 year long war between Gears and humans known as the Crusades, Slayer was roaming a battlefield and came across a mountain of corpses of both Gears and humans. In the middle of it was a wandering blood covered warrior that was swinging an axe wildly. After confronting the man, Slayer realized that it was the axe that was the true master, the man had already lost his mind and was under its full control.

That axe called itself Flament Nagel aka the Flaming Nail, or the Sanguine Gale. I'll still be referring to him as Paracelsus at this point in time though.

Now magical foci start off simple-minded, only repeating small word fragments, and evolve over time to become more intelligent and sapient. At this point, young Paracelsus was a demon axe who had just gained sentience on that battlefield. Hot-headed and hungry for blood, and wanting to prove his combat superiority, he challenged Slayer and got curb stomped. Slayer was disappointed in how primitive Paracelsus still was in mind and soul, so he left him there to rust.

However eventually, Paracelsus was picked up from that battlefield and was sent to the alchemist Paracelsus, creator of A.B.A. We don’t know if the alchemist knew what the demon axe was, or whether he even requested him specifically for research. But the alchemist ultimately didn’t let Paracelsus out, not letting him take control over him and hiding him somewhere in the depths of his mansion.

(Inaccurate information removed, updating with A.B.A.'s JP GG World entry from XRD)

It would be after A.B.A.’s 10 year long isolation that she decided for reasons unknown, to leave the mansion and explore the outside world. By pure chance, she comes across Paracelsus, who because kinda resembled a key, she immediately picked up and she fell in love with him and decided they were married from then on.

Becoming her key

It's always been known that Paracelsus has some form of empathic abilities, and that he could tell that A.B.A. was fixated on keys and assumed the shape of a giant key to entice her to wield him. This was also the first ‘manipulation’ that Paracelsus admitted he had done to A.B.A. during their heart-to-heart talk.

It’s been further clarified in this recent interview, that it wasn’t so much Paracelsus deliberately taking the form of a key to attract ABA, but because ABA had been so heavily fixated on keys that she saw Paracelsus as a key straight away. That image she had of him as a key seemed to immediately imprint itself on him the moment she touched him, because of his true nature as “an axe (that) transforms into the owner’s image” of what his wielder wants him to be.

Slayer actually did mention this was likely the case over 20 IRL years ago in the audio drama CD, when he observed Paracelsus behaviour with A.B.A. in their second encounter.

Because A.B.A. never sees Paracelsus as a weapon, Paracelsus began to change to fit her ideal of what she saw him as, to become something more than just a weapon, and allowing Paracelsus to truly change and evolve physically and emotionally.

It’s important to note, Paracelsus isn’t bound to his wielder, and he doesn’t HAVE to allow this to happen either. Despite being dragged around by A.B.A. and acting like he has no autonomy; he actually has all the power to stop her from the start.

As Slayer notes, Para still has the power to completely take over A.B.A. 's mind and force her to do what he wants if he is truly unhappy. However he has never even threatened A.B.A. with this ability, and if not for Slayer knowing his past, no one would know Paracelsus actually can do this.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, Para was becoming more than just a demon axe from the moment he met A.B.A., and in his heart of hearts, he was begrudgingly accepting of his then situation-ship with her.

Fast forward to STRIVE and it's shown that he still continues to evolve to fulfill her 'vision' of what he is. When described as becoming more key-like, it's more obvious when you place both his old and new design side-by-side.

Notably, the blade part of his axe form has gotten smaller by STRIVE, just as he has sworn off violence and bloodshed by STRIVE.

It's even shown in how A.B.A. wields him., especially when Para partially possess or influences A.B.A. in his Muroha mode in the old games (mechanically this is the Jealous Mode in STRIVE). A.B.A. would wield him like a proper 'axe' blade-first in XX/ACCENT CORE. In STRIVE, since A.B.A. is now the dominant one in Jealous Rage mode, she doesn't wield him like an axe and now wields him by...bashing his head into people.

(Also I'll be going over the in-game animations and what they convey in a future post, don't you worry! You can view the comparison compilation here first.)

This even is shown in how A.B.A. uses Paracelsus as an actual key in her Overdrive "Keeper of the Key", which is a new move for her.

If we go further, I have speculated in this semi-crack theory that due to A.B.A. also interjecting her ideal of Paracelsus being her spouse over the years, that him actually 'reacting' to her advances now could also be an example of his evolution.

Even if he's trying REAL hard not to.

Hope this was an enjoyable read, let me know if you have any suggestions for improving readability or other stuff. Feel free to ask me questions through the inbox in the mean time that I'm working on the next part.

The next part is going to be analyzing and comparing Paracelsus' XX/ACCENT CORE Muroha mode to STRIVE's Jealous Rage mode, which has quite a bit of detail from comparing their effects on A.B.A. in in-game sprites/animations, plus how it reflects on the change in their power dynamics between games.

Edit: Part 2 available here

[acquired-stardust]

Guilty Gear Playstation 1998

[brothslurper]

Always loved how Daisuke’s faces always look just a little fucked up and weird

[manybackflips]

Never say that Guilty Gear has bad advertising

[worldeaterthorn]

yall....

this is fucking huge ROMEO HAS A CHANCE TO COME BACK OH MY GODS

[vgtrackbracket]

Video Game Track Bracket Round 4

Children of the Omnissiah from Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus

vs.

HEAVY DAY from Guilty Gear Xrd Sign

Propaganda under the cut. If you want your propaganda reblogged and added to future polls, please tag it as propaganda or otherwise indicate this!

Children of the Omnissiah:

Don't know about propaganda, but according to my Spotify wrapped I averaged 1.2 listens of the song per day during 2023, and I only discovered it in like, April so. Good song.

I legit walked down the aisle to this song at my wedding, that’s how good it is to me.

That song LITERALLY got me into Warhammer 40k.

it was literally the song that got me into WH40k as a whole and got me attached to the AdMech in particular. Which led up to my falling in love with a particular character from said faction (yes, really! I'm a selfshipper and apparently my type is cyborg men in red). It's genuinely boosted my mental health; I am so, so, so grateful to have stumbled upon the meme video that featured a clip not even 10 seconds long alongside dozens of other game's osts. Changer of my brain chemistry fr

I have synesthesia and I feel sounds as temperatures, and this song feels like being shoved into a walk in freezer. The god damn bass drop is so bloody cold I legitimately start shivering. This song GENUINELY messes with my brain chemistry it is so good. I do feel temperatures from other songs but this is by far the most extreme. Song is so good I can literally feel it in my bones.

HEAVY DAY:

A theme so incredible, they incorporated it into all the super-cinematic finishers.

[guiltygearofficial]

Me and My Son Sol Badguy.

[mysticdragon3md3]

[strawberrypopstation]

—guilty gear xx the midnight carnival original soundtrack booklet.

[solradguy]

Dear Mr. Radguy,

I know that Daisuke was born in South Africa but I'm just curious why? It's rather odd that a Japanese dude was born in South Africa and lived there til he was like 7. I've tried fact checking this and everything is in Japanese.

With kind regards, Anon

Hello!

Daisuke doesn't really talk about it too much, but he mentions in the Artworks of GGX 2000-2004 interview that his parents moved to Johannesburg for work. Translation by fairymisao:

I was born in South Africa because of my parents’ work, and we returned to Japan soon after, but I ended up living over there again from 4th grade of elementary school till the second half of 7th grade.

He says a little more about his experiences in South Africa further on in the Artworks 2004 interview, too, through the link.

I ended up translating quite a big chunk of an interview for this ask, so I'm slipping that under a readmore (alongside some other stuff). It's mostly just bonus material since the Artworks 2004 quote already kinda answered your question lol

There was an interview at Tokyo Game Show 2016 where he says about the same thing as the Artworks 2004 quote above. I'll do a quick translation of the whole segment about it since a full translation of this interview doesn't exist for me to link to:

Katsuhiro Harada: That's enough from [Toshimichi] Mori-san for the time being. Ishiwatari-san, there's something I've wanted to ask you about for a while now. If I look you up on Wikipedia, it says that you were born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I thought this was part of the background for a character or something, but is it real? Daisuke Ishiwatari: People often say that, but it's true, yeah. It was simply because of circumstances for my parents. Harada: I think that Johannesburg is kind of a scary place, and I can't help but wonder if your father's job isn't something like Fist of the North Star. Ishiwatari: No, no [laughs]. When I was born in South Africa, there was apartheid and during those times there were areas where white people lived (白人圏). In those places, we were treated like honorary whites (名誉白人),* and security wasn't particularly bad. I came to Japan right after I was born, but due to my parents' circumstances, I lived in Johannesburg from the 4th to the 8th grade. *Note: During the apartheid era in South Africa, non-white Japanese were treated as "honorary whites" for economic reasons. [this note is part of the interview article, not added by me]

The Wikipedia article on "honorary whites" mentions Japanese people moving to Johannesburg specifically for business, but that a lot of people questioned why they were granted that status. (also yes that is Harada Tekken interviewing him lol)

During Anime Expo 2015, Daisuke talked about living in South Africa a little:

Jeremy Booth: You were born in South Africa, is that correct? What was your family doing there? Ishiwatari: Yes, in Johannesburg. They were there for work. [...] Booth: So are you technically South African-Japanese then? Ishiwatari: At the time, I had dual South African/Japanese citizenship, but when I was taking my tests for college, I got a conscription notice from the South African army. I threw away my [South African] citizenship then.

IIRC Daisuke was in college at the tail end of the '80s into the early 1990s.

Hope this is the information you were looking for!! Daisuke being born in South Africa interests me a lot, so I tend to mentally bookmark it when he mentions it

[elementroar]

This is Daisuke’s illustration of A.B.A just as she came to life alone in Flask, and interesting detail is that she has surgical stitches on her legs that her wraps usually cover. I don’t think we’ve ever really seen like scars or marks showing how she’s constructed like that much beyond this illustration.

She does have an extreme healing factor so I guess after she woke up, the stitches started healing and disappeared over time.

Also the mystery of what the key apparently being built into her head since ‘birth’ too.

The translation of the notes here actually says they were inspired by Frankenstein, even down to exposed wires being present on her forehead which didn’t make it to the final concept. So she was actually kind of a take on Bride of Frankenstein.

With that mind, the key in her head seemed to originally be a playful take on the electrodes in the classic movie Frankenstein monster design.

[acquired-stardust]

Guilty Gear - The Missing Link - Playstation 1998