#gotta give it up for the A3! writer's room they sire know how ro make the most characters ever

[haru-desune]

CHARACTER BINGO!!! Gimme your thoughts and feelings on Juza, Chikage and Sakyo! ^^/

Oh... Oh boy... Okay here we go

Like a brother to me wanna take him out for sweets and also to therapy. I just want nice things for him he's such a good boy and he's struggling so hard. I also get that he's got something to prove to himself as much as too the people around him like I feel that. Plus okay purple and gold color palette??? Letrerman jacket?? Soft baby smile when his guard is down? Peak character design baby! In other news I was gonna put the dynamic one down because he's got so. Many interesting groupings (his role as Aki's guiding light, how he fits in within the Hudosakisaka family, o-high shenanigans, his whole deal with Tenma, HIS WHOLE DEAL WITH BANRI). But ultimately he's so interesting on his own it felt unfair to mark that one.

Look the man thought KIDNAPPED THE MC was a valid expression of grief. Bastard cabbage energy. Horrible person (affectionate), if he were real id marry him (derogatory). Chikagr is fascinating to me because his introduction is where A3!'s plot really begins to go off the rails, but it's somehow still believable??? Like don't get me wrong this man is unhinged but he loves his family so much???? And once he realizes there's people he can count on he channels all that energy into keeping them safe and happy and I can vibe with that. But also please put him under a microscope for my personal entertainment.

Ahh our resident old man jfc.. I know this doesn't look like a lot on the card but honestly most my thoughts towards him don't really fit neatly into these categories. I LOVE how he started as an antagonist and genuinely threatening one in the first half of act one, and how he didn't lose that edge after joining the Mankai troupe. Like everything that made him formidable is still there, but now you get to see him be soft and dorky and find a proper channel for his regrets 🥺

I will say that while I like him on his own I like him SO much better when playing off other characters, especially since he personally knew the OG Mankai members. Of course there's his relationship to Sakoda, Azami, and the Ginsenkai group, but he also wears the hat of semi-reluctant troupe dad, and his whole deal with Izumi is so funny it's almost painful. But I think my favorite dynamic is hearing Yuzo and the other old troupe members call this grumpy 30 year old team dad with the heart of an octogenarian "kid" 🤣.

Despite all this I really admire Sakyo's role in supporting Izumi in her goal, even when he had to be the bad guy in the scenario. He's also very interesting to me because he embodies a very clear distinction between regretting your past and being ashamed of it, which is a journey he himself is on through the course of the game.