#GouEn

[bobgoesw00t]

It’s that time of year again…

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BIGGEST SAKKA BAKA IN THE UNIVERSE/MULTIVERSE ENDOU MAMORU!!!!!!!

Oh, and Happy 16th Anniversary to Inazuma Eleven xD

[fys-ohrrpgce]

Today I continued working on the addition of more Octoberish foliage to the tree maptiles...

The bigger trees are now orangey-brown rather than green! There's also a few scattered leaves with a more reddish-purplish or a more yellowish color to them.

All of the larger trees are on a ledge along the borders of the map that you can't actually get up onto in-game, but you can get a pretty good look at this one if you walk all the way to the lowermost edge of the school map (...where this unlucky AHS student has wrecked her car, whoops.)

I've also made some minor little changes to the game's text last night and today -- a couple of students' names were changed a bit (so as to be further away from their real-life equivalents), and Joguo's surname is now updated to the current spelling, "Gouen-Zu."

Previously I had been spelling it "Goueng-Zu," which I think was at least partially inspired by the Guangzhou River in China -- a name I remember standing out to me on a map of the world we had hanging from the wall in my Boy Scout meeting room back around the time I first made him up (2001, probably.)

Oddly enough, when he first appeared in one of my many never-finished game projects (titled Spuduf Splorchers), Joguo didn't actually have a surname specified. He was the leader of a group called the "Goueng-Zu Splorchers" which were headquartered on "Goueng Island"... but the only implication that the name related to Joguo in particular was that I planned to rename them the "Meju-Zu Splorchers" (after another member of the group, Mejuai) after this early version of Joguo died in an attempt to fight the game's main villain alone. It wasn't until my RPG Maker 2003 project Uggy Barfoo several years later that he was ever called "Joguo Goueng-Zu."

Anyway... since Joguo's family originally came from Japan, it made more sense to make the name look a bit more like something that could be Japanese even though it's completely made up -- so, I ditched the "-eng" (which is a thing you see in a few other Asian languages, but notably not in Japanese) and switched to "-en."

[fnrrfygmschnish]

I've had a random idea bouncing around in my head pretty much ever since I drew Greengrad a month or so ago... what if, after defeating Gurivyo and claiming the sword, Joguo was able to call Gurivyo out to help in a fight? Rather than just using the sword as... well... a sword.

And then earlier today while taking a shower, the thought came to mind of Joguo using some forbidden ninja technique to become one with Gurivyo as a way to give him a huge power-up so he can keep up with opponents that should be too much for him based on what he's been capable of so far.

[bobgoesw00t]

Soft fluffy kissy kissy FTW…dear GOD how I want someone to look at me the way these two boys do at each other…and has a solid relationship like the Sakka Baka and his REAL lover, Gouenji Shiuya :3

Art by うみ (Umi)

Twitter: @umiinsao || Pixiv: users/4740629

art source:

https://twitter.com/umiinsao/status/1564991528132435969

[twin-chains]

See images of the bosses below the cut

Based on any criteria: whoever was the most fun to fight, the coolest or most clever design, the hardest battle, general vibes, etc.

Big Manhandla, Dera Zol, and Gouen

Vaati, Stone Arrghus, and Helmaroc King

Big Poe, Big Moldorm, and Frostare

I never played FSA so let me know if I forgot anyone. It’s been a long time since I’ve even touched Four Swords too, so I don’t really have an opinion on any of these.

I was so confused with Dera Zol though so that brings it down for me. Manhandla was kinda cool I guess, I liked having to fight my own color petals and pulling the handles and stuff. Then Gouen was just Ganondorf’s volley but with colors so nothing to write home about. I love Vaati but can’t remember how his fight went so I’m impartial

[dooniichez]

What if Maxie had a giant form?

Inspired by Wukong's Gouen form, I wanted to draw Maxie having a kind of giant form. When she loses control of herself, and goes into more of a destructive state.

Wukong's Gouen form:

[toxicanza]

i lvor them... so much

[chocowhimsy-wonderhoyy]

gouen-鸡 I ＣＡＮＴ

pov youre gouenji being called chicken man by the mukata triplets:

[shuuji-chan]

豪炎寺修也誕生祭2020 🎉🎉

[bobgoesw00t]

Have some MOAR FLUFFY AND WHOLESOME HUSBANDS BECAUSE GOD DAMN IT LOOK AT THEM!!!!!!!

[inazumine]

Reflections on EnGou - Ultimate BROTP and Otherwise

So, I’ve been rewatching bits and pieces of the old series and reflecting on a lot, but… can we just talk about Gouenji and Endou for a second?

(Warning, long ass post ahead. Read if you dare)

GouEn is the first ship I ever shipped in Inazuma Eleven, and whether or not you see them as an OTP, more of a BROTP, or even a NOTP (that would be real hard but to each his own), you can’t really deny how important they are to each other and Endou’s role in Gouenji’s character arc.

I’m no master analyst and I really can’t form coherent thoughts worth a damn, but I just really wanted to write this and get my feelings out about them so here we go!

In the beginning of the series, Endou’s primary reason for interacting with new people is recruiting people for the soccer club. Raimon’s future looks bleak and Endou won’t let it just fall to pieces, so he’s aggressively recruiting anyone he can to fill their roster. Soccer is something that Endou loves, and ultimately he’s trying to find people he can play and enjoy soccer with, but there’s some desperation to his recruitment too. He really doesn’t care how interested someone is, or how much they’ve actually played soccer, they just need to be there as a warm body and he’ll make them like soccer and things will work out somehow.

Then, Gouenji comes in.

Forewarning, I’m trying to only put observations of canon in to this, but I have some headcanons about Gouenji and his mental state so bear with me.

Gouenji, I’d say, is a loner by nature. It’s not that he doesn’t like having friends or doesn’t want to make them, he just doesn’t actively push for it. He’s a man of few words and only speaks when he feels necessary. However, on his introduction, he seems pretty closed off from interacting with Endou, and pretty much everybody. It’s mostly Endou’s mention of soccer that tips Gouenji off, but I think context is important here. Gouenji’s a teenage boy who’s experienced the passing of his mother, believes that he’s guilty of putting his sister in an indefinite coma, and gets little emotional support from his increasingly distant father. He has very little in terms of a support system (thank God for Fuku-san), and has just abandoned his team in one of the biggest matches of the season, while moving to a new town where he knows no one. On top of all this, most of these events happen within what has to be a few months of each other, and Gouenji’s made to deal with it pretty much all by himself.

Soccer should be an emotional outlet and a way to have fun, but for Gouenji in the first part of season 1, it’s something that causes him to feel guilt. It’s his fault that Yuuka’s in a coma. He left Kidokawa for no good reason without telling anyone, so it’s his fault they lost. So, Gouenji decides to punish himself, and stop playing soccer. Why should he be able to have fun and play soccer while Yuuka suffers?

Gouenji’s depressed, and he internalizes a lot of negative emotions. He’s prickly, not willing to open up to people or make friends, and isolates himself on purpose. He has a thing for punishing himself, and as we see later, he doesn’t have the wherewithal to come to his own defense, not necessarily because he doesn’t care what people say, but because he doesn’t think they’re wrong.

Okay, so back to Endou. Endou meets Gouenji, and while Endou is a friendly person and genuinely cares about people, I daresay he doesn’t really act very empathetic towards Gouenji, at least initially. This is definitely not on purpose, more of a result of Endou’s one-track mind and general tactlessness in the beginning of season 1. Endou goes on and on trying to bring Gouenji back in to playing soccer, because if he can kick a ball like that, of course he should be playing, despite Gouenji being standoffish and uncomfortable. He doesn’t know anything about him, and ends up treating Gouenji like a phenomenon, some dude who’s going to come in and help solve the soccer team’s problems. This is quickly subverted when Endou and Gouenji start to see each other differently.

Gouenji see’s Endou as less of a nuisance and more a guy with a lot of passion and a good heart. He sees what he loves about soccer, and someone who enjoys it to the fullest, and it’s hard to keep denying himself. Endou accepts that Gouenji has his reasons for not playing and starts to see that Gouenji is a good guy that deserves to be left alone when he says he wants to be, but he wants to understand Gouenji and help him where he can. The key here is that Endou knows Gouenji isn’t happy not playing soccer, so while he doesn’t try to recruit him, he still tries to nudge Gouenji back towards it.

And that’s the beautiful thing. Because of Endou bringing soccer back in to Gouenji’s life, and giving Gouenji someone to lean on, Gouenji finally begins to lift a lot of those burdens off his being. He makes friends in Raimon, smiles a lot more, and opens up to others a lot more. Gouenji starts to feel happy again, and it’s because Endou is willing and ready to care about him.

(I almost damn cried when I saw this opening again and caught this, because it’s Gouenji and Endou and it’s Endou’s casual kindness that pulls Gouenji up and starts all this waaaahhhhhhh)

It’s this emotional investment in each other that grows in to a deep friendship built on trust and care. Later on in the series, Gouenji gets confronted with being pulled away from soccer again and again, and each time we see that it tears him up inside. He doesn’t let anyone know what’s really bothering him, except for one person: Endou. During Aliea, Gouenji can’t tell Endou what’s up, but he feels bad enough that he’s leaving again that he says sorry, and even tears up. None the less, Endou hides his sadness and tries to cheer Gouenji up, because he trusts that he’ll come back no matter what. Gouenji trusts the others to carry on and keep winning until he comes back, and he trusts he’ll have a place to come back to.

The real kicker is in season 3, when things get so much sweeter. Gouenji’s almost ripped away from soccer one more time, and we see how much this means to Endou. Gouenji hides his emotions because he doesn’t want to make anyone worry, but Endou’s so in tune by now that he notices something’s up, and Gouenji almost leaves without telling him anything, but he just can’t lie, not to Endou.

Now, we see Endou emotionally distraught, for a lot of reasons, and I kind of want to compare this to when Kazemaru left in season 2. During Aliea, Endou gets monumentally depressed because not only does Kazemaru leave, but Kazemaru leaves of his own accord, and Endou’s questioning his ability as a friend and as a captain. This, a long with the pressure, breaks him down and leaves him without direction. Here, instead we see that it’s clear Gouenji doesn’t want to leave, and that he’s trying to convince himself and everyone else that this is okay, but it’s not, not to Gouenji and not to Endou. Here, Endou is sad, but he’s frustrated on his and Gouenji’s behalf, and this has less to do with leaving Inazuma Japan, but more the fact he’s leaving Endou and soccer behind while trying to act like it’s not hurting him.

Endou goes as far as trying to appeal to Gouenji’s father, and it’s heartbreaking to hear Endou’s voice crack while he struggles not to cry, and this is the only time something like this happens in the series. What’s important is that while he’s talking, Endou doesn’t bring up how much Inazuma Japan needs him, but how happy soccer makes Gouenji and how he can’t take him away from the thing he literally lives for. Endou wants Gouenji to be happy, and he wants him there when they take on the world. So, it’s not a one-way street, and you can see that they appreciate and rely on each other through the rest of the season.

Gouenji goes through a journey from season 1 to season 3 of opening himself back up to people and soccer, and Endou is the catalyst for it. You can see how Gouenji becomes more talkative and expressive as the series goes on, and we have Endou to thank for it. This isn’t to deprive Gouenji of agency in his own mental affairs, but to emphasize how important Endou was in helping Gouenji start this process of healing.

It’s also why I think we see Gouenji play such a big role in helping others solve their problems. Gouenji by himself is really observant and cares about others, but he notes that it’s because of Endou that he makes it a point to look in to others issues. With Fubuki in season 2, his and Gouenji’s talk really says a lot. Gouenji flat out says he’s scared and imperfect; he lives with the fear of not being enough and hurting others along the way, and even though it’s something he can’t get over super quickly, he knows Endou and the team will have a place for him, no matter how many times he’s abandoned them or not been enough. And in season 3 when Gouenji gets all prickly again and starts not being himself, falling back down in to the Gouenji rabbit hole? It’s Endou who notices what’s up and decides to confront him. Gouenji learns from Endou’s habits, and he becomes someone who speaks up to help his team.

“You’re the one who taught me that.” - Gouenji being sweet as hell

Just in general, GouEn moments in season 3 are really sweet. The fist bumps get real emotional, and Gouenji starts initiating emotional GouEn moments a lot more as the episodes go by, which just rips me apart internally. In season 3 especially you see a lot of Inazuma Japan trying to help Endou block the goal and carry some of that burden, and Gouenji, more than once, tells Endou he’ll score goals to do just that. It’s not just to help them win, it’s to make sure he helps Endou carry that responsibility. He could have just not said anything, as we know Gouenji’s a man of few words, and could’ve just let the goals speak for themselves, but he chose to say it out loud and reassure Endou, so you know to Gouenji it means something more.

I think it’s easy here to say Endou is Gouenji’s rock, but I think Gouenji is more Endou’s rock. Gouenji is someone who brings Endou back to earth (the irony) when Endou starts thinking too deep and not being himself, and is the constant Endou relies on to keep going in a lot of aspects.  I’d rather call Endou Gouenji’s buoy. Throughout the series, Gouenji threatens to and does slip off the edge back in to deep water, his guilt, his shame, and his tendency for self-punishment, but Endou is always there to pull him back up and keep him afloat and let him breathe new air.

Anyway, I think I’ve done enough rambling about things everyone already knows. I won’t go in to Go but long story short, it’s another situation of Gouenji punishing himself to set things right his own way, but trusting Endou (and the others) enough to hold down the fort, and no matter how guilty Gouenji feels after all is said and done, Endou welcomes him back immediately with open arms.

This was really messy and dumb but I had to get my thoughts down somewhere. We don’t have a whole bunch of GouEn moments in Ares/Orion as of yet, but I have hope and I’ll keep waiting for them. It’s almost impossible to keep these two apart for too long, so it’s only a matter of time.

[bobgoesw00t]

I think the “it’s about being gay/also about being gay” aspect applies to almost EVERY SINGLE SPORTS ANIME EVER…not all of them of course but most…I’m looking at you Inazuma Eleven I MEAN YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT ANY MORE OBVIOUS THAT ENDOU MAMORU AND GOUENJI SHUUYA ARE HUSBANDS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU FUCKING TRIED!!! xD

Me describing sports anime, a series:

Free: It’s about swimming, but really it’s about being gay and having a rival

Yuri on Ice: It’s about figure skating, but really it’s about being gay and having a mid-life crisis in your 20s

Sk8 the Infinity: It’s about skateboarding, but really it’s about being gay and in love with your bestie

Haikyuu: It’s about volleyball, but really it’s about… volleyball. It’s literally about volleyball. (and also being gay)

[fnrrfygmschnish]

Arkusazzo, and how her design changed over the past 20ish years.

A while back I did one of these for Joguo, but since the oldest Joguo drawing that I had a scan of was from 2008, his wasn't nearly as "complete" as this. Even though I made him up around 2001, Joguo was never really a character I drew all that often until 2008 when I started working on Alleghany Hell School and expanding on his backstory and family a bit more.

2004

The Weird Early Design!

I'm not sure exactly when I first made up Arkusazzo, but I know it definitely had to be after the summer of 2003 and was probably before the spring of 2004. This particular drawing is from a notebook I had in late spring/summer of 2004, but I know I had drawn her a couple times in a previous notebook before that.

This early design was, uh... very different from later versions. Some of the basic features are present of course (dark hair, blank glowing red eyes, wearing a robe with long sleeves) but there's a lot of other random bits that are not present in any later design.

Her looks weren't the only thing that was different. She didn't have any real backstory yet at this point, and was only vaguely defined as a guardian of the "Tree of Arkusazzo" who would lash out at anyone she saw as threatening the tree in some way.

There's some sort of symbol on her robe's chest. No idea what that was supposed to be! I think I used it as an identifying symbol for her in the 2004 notebook this drawing came from (every character in there was arranged into a fighting game style "select your character" screen kind of setup, and all of them had an associated symbol next to their names... which meant one got made up in the moment for anyone who didn't already have a symbol.) But I'm not sure what it was supposed to be. Kinda looks like a spiky skull face sort of thing...? I dunno.

I'm also not sure exactly what her color scheme would have been at this point, since I don't think I ever actually drew her in full color (I tended to draw with mostly black pens or plain pencils back then, only occasionally breaking out the colored pencils.) I'm pretty sure the three random blobs floating around her head were black, white, and gray and her eyes were glowing red, but it's hard to say what color her robes might have been originally.

The weirdest part of this design, of course, is the three random blobs floating around her head. One has a single eye, one has two, and one has three. A lot of her attacks listed in that old notebook involved one, two, or occasionally even all three of the blobs either launching at opponents or firing energy blasts. I think I remember that each one was associated with a fragment of her name ("Arku," "Saz," and "Zo") but I don't have that old notebook on hand to check for sure. Looking back now, the blobs having her name fragments... kind of implies that maybe the humanoid body isn't actually "Arkusazzo" at all, just some unknown person being controlled by them like a puppet? I don't know if that's what my 17-18 year old self was going for at the time, though. It's entirely possible that this was a "draw neat character design now, come up with actual story for it later" situation, which happened a lot back then. And still happens every now and then even now, haha.

2008

New Hairstyle! Actual Backstory!

2008 was the year when I first started working on Fnrrf Ygm Schnish: Alleghany Hell School. Between that and ideas for an RPG Maker XP project (titled Legend of the Barfoo) that never really got off the ground, I ended up expanding on Joguo and his story, establishing him as a ninja from a clan that had been exiled from their homeland and settled in southwest-ish Virginia a couple centuries ago.

And along the way, Arkusazzo ended up becoming a totally different character than before... and became a major part of the backstory of the Gouen-Zu ninja clan, rather than a random oddball from out of nowhere with no connection to anything or anyone else in my various story ideas. The "Tree of Arkusazzo" was now a tree that the demon known as Arkusazzo was sealed away inside by one of Joguo's distant ancestors, rather than an ancient giant tree of vague importance that she protected.

I think this was around the time that I established that every now and then, Arkusazzo's seal would grow weak and she would break free from the tree she was imprisoned in and go on a rampage, and that this had already happened at least once before Joguo was born (with Joguo's father performing the seal that time.) I can't remember if I had already come up with the idea that she was, in fact, Joguo's great-great-great-great-great-grandmother (and the ancestor of his who sealed her away was her husband) or not... but I want to say that I'd already decided on that backstory detail by the time I gave her the "meatball/dumpling" hair buns, so probably. Since she was planned to appear as an optional boss battle later on in Legend of the Barfoo, it seems likely that I'd already decided that her going mad and rampaging was a side-effect of some unknown power within her clashing against the power of the Uggy Barfoo when she stumbled across it and picked it up.

I'm noticing now that her robe's trim (at the bottom and on the sleeves) seems to have little bells or some other decorations hanging from it, which is kind of a neat detail that seems to have been dropped at some point after this. There's also a lot of excess detail on the trim of the robes, which has gotten simpler and simpler with every further iteration of the design. It's not shown in these drawings (since her hands are either hidden in her sleeves or not present at all), but she already had the claw-like hands in her 2008 design rather than normal human-like hands as in the 2003-2004 version.

I suspect there might have been another "in-between" design that I don't have a scanned drawing of somewhere in the 2006-2007 timeframe -- similar to this one but without the hair buns, since I'm pretty sure I redesigned her robes and made her hair longer before I added the buns to her design. But until I have a chance to dig through my community college notebooks and possibly find it... it's hard to say for sure.

2016

Simplified Robes! More Backstory!

This isn't really the "2016 design" so much as the "maybe 2014ish until 2022" design, but the drawing I had as an example just happened to be from 2016. Not much has changed looks-wise, aside from the excess detail along the trim of the robes being toned down from the 2008 version. I think this might have been around the time that I came up with the idea that she is actually very small (5'00" in height) but she often appears much larger and more imposing to observers due to the state of fear and panic caused by... being anywhere near her when she's broken free and started rampaging again.

I mostly picked this drawing because it shows off her "tentacle hair" more than any of the other full-body drawings I had -- there were some 2008-era drawings that featured her using her hair as prehensile tentacles, stretching it out and wrapping it around things and using it to strangle people and stuff along those lines.

As for the "more backstory" part... if her status as Joguo's great-great-great-great-great-grandmother hadn't already been decided upon by 2008, it definitely had by this point! Sometime in the later 2010s I actually drew an entire family tree of the Gouen-Zu ninja clan, with "Arkusazzo, but before she went all glowy-red-eyes and started wrecking everything around her" at the very top alongside Joguo's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Gaitou Gouen-Zu.

...I still haven't come up with what her name actually was before she became known only as "the demon Arkusazzo." Maybe I never will. That might be one of those things that I just leave unanswered.

2023

Redesigned Outfit! Blue Hair!

The biggest change here, of course, is that for the first time her outfit isn't this vague baggy "wizard robe" sort of thing but instead actually has more of a shape to it. Sort of kimono-ish, I guess. The random red gem attached to the chest area on the gold trim of her robe is gone. She's got a belt for the first time, with dangly rope-ish bits where it's tied! And red bead bracelet thingies!

And, uh... no eyebrows? Hmm. I can't remember if that was an intentional change (the 2003-2004 design doesn't have them either, so maybe I figured I'd bring back that feature? but then again... that might have only been because I hadn't even started drawing most characters with eyebrows yet back then!), or if I was drawing her last year and just outright forgot to give her eyebrows but didn't realize until it was too late so I decided to just go with it.

The blue hair, on the other hand, is definitely an intentional change! Previously she'd always had pitch-black hair, but at some point in the late 2010s/early 2020s, I had come up with the idea that the reason why Joguo's hair is naturally blue is connected to Arkusazzo. Rather than just shrugging and going "Arkusazzo's just so weird that if some of your DNA comes from her you might inexplicably be born with blue hair," I ended up deciding to make Arkusazzo's hair actually be blue so the connection is more obvious.

I think this drawing is the first time I've ever drawn Arkusazzo with her feet visible. Or one of them, anyway. Previously they'd always been completely hidden beneath those long robes. She goes barefoot everywhere because thanks to her unexplained superhuman strength/durability (which she had even before going berserk), nothing she might step on is going to hurt her feet in any meaningful way anyway. And also because, y'know... having gone into a mindless rage, she's not going to stop and think "maybe I should at least put on a nice pair of fuzzy slippers before I go out to slash and tear down everything around me." 😅

[toxicanza]

still thinking about them

[shuuji-chan]

Happy Valentine’s Day 💓