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yuisdad · 9 months ago

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Review and Rerwite of Hiiro no Kakera's anime adaptation

Overly long post ahead.

Hiiro no Kakera, also known as Scarlet Fragments in English, is a 2006 ps2 otome game created by the then new Otomate sub-brand of Idea Factory, and was the company’s first flagship franchise that garnered over different ports and sequels. It’s 2 season anime adaptation came out in 2012, with an English Dub by Sentai Filmworks in 2013.

The story is about Tamaki Kasuga, who moves back into the countryside at her grandmother’s request. Upon arriving, she not only discovers that it’s filled with many spirits, but it also contains the Onikirimaru, a sword with the ability to destroy the world, and as the next generation’s Tamayori Princess, Tamaki must do her best to seal the sword in order to prevent the world being enveloped by unruly spirits.

Tamaki also has guardians with her, each of them representing different creatures that helped the first princess long ago. Tamaki and her knew found friends also need to fight off an enemy organization called Logos, originating from Germany and run by a 10 year old girl.

Characters:

Tamaki Kasuga: The protagonist and the next Tamayori princess. Is apparently the ‘Oujou-sama’ type character, where she’s a little stuck up and mouthy, but is otherwise kindhearted and a hard worker.

Takuma Onizaki: A descendant of an oni, he’s the first guy Tamaki meets and initially dislikes because he called her ‘clumsy’. He’s apparently the ‘tsundere’ type, and is the one Tamaki ends up with.

Yuichi Komura: A descendant of a fox spirit, he’s the 'kuudere’ type with the ability to cast illusions and fire. He also has narcolepsy, which the show thinking it’s funny that he sleeps at random times.

Mahiro Atori: A descendant of a crow spirit that can control wind, he’s hot-blooded and short for his age. One of the few instances where a main guy character is shorter than the protagonist.

Suguru Omi: A descendant of a snake spirit that can control water, he’s very mellow and is the oldest of the main cast. He seemingly turns on the others to join Logos, but his actual goal is to prevent another sacrifice to the Onikirimaru from happening.

Shinji Inukai: The shy youngest of the main cast who uses words to cast magic, he seems to be the descendant of the wolf spirit, but he’s actually a part of Logos working as a spy under the code name Funf. Thank God I watched the dub because I heard his original voice was really annoying.

Ryo Kutani: A mysterious character who turns out to be the actual wolf spirit descendant, and I believe he can control earth. The first thing he does is sniff Tamaki and she rightfully calls him a sexual harasser. He appears later into the first season.

Shizuki Ugaya: Tamaki’s grandmother and the current Tamayori Princess before her granddaughter takes over. Initially appears to have Tamaki’s best interest, but is later revealed to have been sacrificing other villagers (aka, drowning them) for the sake of the Onikirimaru, and attempts to kill Tamaki and Takuma as well.

Mitsuru Kotokura: A shrine maiden who takes care of the house and prepares meals. She initially has feelings for Shinji, but it’s later revealed that they are twins…The game makes this even weirder. She’s traumatized from helping Shizuki sacrificing the town’s villagers to the point where she disassociates and behaves like a doll following orders.

O-chan: A little fox spirit that appears out of the shadows. Has a human form in the games. He’s a cutie pie and I love him.

Kiyono Takara: Tamaki’s classmate who makes money from making straw voodoo dolls. She’s quite excitable and is weirdly into knowing Tamaki’s love life. She’s actually 23 and is a spy for a governmental bureaucracy, using her youthful looks to sneak into high school to keep an eye on the Onikirimaru.

Masataka Ashiya: A businessman who works for the government and likes eating rice crackers. Initially thought to be Kiyono’s uncle, he’s actually her boss and wants to control the Onikirimaru for the sake of world peace…and by world peace, he actually means controlling the world to his bureaucracy’s image.

Aria Rozenburg: The 10 year old leader of Logos who is believed to be a sacred maiden blessed by Gods. She’s only being used by Logos because she’s the only one who can break the barrier containing the five artifacts that weaken the Onikirimaru’s power.

Eins/Leif Helluland: An aid to Aria who wants the Onikirimaru to protect her. Has guilt over losing a child that looked like Aria.

Zwei/Hugo Stingrail: Another aid to Aria who wields a death sythe and eats his opponents’ souls. He’s actually a human being controlled by a spirit.

Drei/Magus Melchizedek: Another aid to Aria with ulterior motives. He’s the big bad and one of the founding four Wisemen of Logos. He killed the original Drei and took his place to better manipulate his way to wield the Onikirimaru. He’s also a mage who wants to control the world that outcasted him for his magical abilities.

Vier: The closest aid to Aria and was chosen by Aria herself out of all of her subordinates. Acts motherly towards Aria and has her best interest. Disguises herself as an English teacher named Fiona Ashiuma and converses with Shinji behind the scenes. She’s actually a homunculus of Suguru’s dead mother who was one of the many sacrificial victims that seals the Onikirimaru.

Thoughts:

The anime suffers from sticking close to the game’s story and pacing, leading it to have the same issue as the game it’s based on; the plot is boring and slow paced up until it’s later half with sporadic fight scenes sprinkled in. You would think the first season would use it’s time to develop the relationship between it’s main cast, but it only has the characters suddenly saying they’re close without actually showing them spending time together, outside of more comedic scenes. The worst offender is Ryo, who appears later into the first season and doesn’t have that many scenes with the main cast, but apparently they consider him a close friend by the end of the series. The show spends most of it’s time building things up that the second season pays off rather than character interactions that could help develop their relationships more naturally.

I’m also not a fan of how some of the guys treat Tamaki…er, the ones who actually have an established relationship with her, who are Takuma and Mahiro. The guardians are established to listen to the Tamayori Princess without question, but Takuma and Mahiro constantly question and berate Tamaki’s decisions and her capabilities of being a Tamayori Princess from the start, as well as dismiss her concerns about their well-being and self-sacrificial tendencies. Cue in my confusion where they say that they support Tamaki and will no longer die for her sake and instead work together in the last few episodes. These two are particularly bad with this because Mahiro’s ancestor knew the first princess the most and made a promise to die for her instead of letting her get killed, and Takuma’s ancestor was killed by the original princess along with killing herself for the sake of sealing the Onikirimaru’s powers. Outside of Shinji and Ryo, the others say they will die for Tamaki when she’s made it clear she doesn’t want that, ignore her wishes anyways and nearly get killed fighting Logos, up until the few final episodes of the first season where they decide to work together with Tamaki.

The first season also has an issue where they fill scenes with lore dumps, Logos sitting around talking about lore and the main cast also talking about lore. Lore is a good way to establish the characters and the world they’re in, but most of the dialogue revolves around the Onikirimaru and the five seals’ purpose that characters just hanging out and having fun together are few and far between. Thankfully, the second season not only has better pacing overall, but it actually has characters doing things outside of fight scenes and off-screen moments.

There are also moments where it seems like set up to important character work, like how the guardians are viewed as disposable monsters by the general public and the main cast going through generational trauma, but it’s all overshadowed by not only lore dumps, but the writers feel the need to make almost every main character as complex as possible. This is a problem the game apparently has as well, where they take focus away from the guardians and shift development onto Logos, leaving characters like Yuichi and Ryo to get very little screen time and moments with the other main cast members. Complex antagonists aren’t bad in theory, but it becomes a bad thing when the show also has to develop 7 main characters, which is why antagonists often work better as being one note. Outside of Aria and Vier, I don’t care about the others, and the only one who actually works as a villain is Drei because he’s the only one who has a set goal and is written in a way where the writers don’t want it’s audience to sympathize with.

I’m also not a fan of how the Onikirimaru is presented as malevolent in nature rather than it becoming dangerous to use based on it’s users’ desires. No matter who the user is, it just turns them evil. An example is how the Oni that Takuma is descended from wanted revenge on the Gods who killed his people. Not only does this paint revenge as an inherent act of evil, but it also establishes that the Onikirimaru’s powers came from another Oni who we don’t see until Hiiro no Kakera 3 rather than Takuma’s ancestor, because they wanted to establish a tragic romace between the Oni and the first Princess, and since Tamaki and Takuma are reincarnations of both of them, I guess they want to absolve Takuma’s ancestor being the possible creator of the Onikirimaru and just do a 'revenge bad’ backstory on top of it.

Rewrite:

In terms of lore, the Onikirimaru works similarly to the Elements of Harmony from My Little Pony’s fourth generation, where it’s fated user wields the item’s ability based on their desires. Any user that uses it for evil purposes, like Sunset Shimmer in the first Equestria Girls’ film, will corrupt the magic the item holds.

Takuma’s descendant, the god of the underworld, decided to become the Tamayori Princess’s guardian to work closely with the Gods for the betterment of demon’s reputation and to protect the world itself. However, he formed a twisted infatuation with the princess through the teachings of the guardians being sacrifices to the princess if she were in danger, leading him to commit acts that he thinks would be better for the princess alone, tarnishing the bond he made with the Gods and other demons, as well as the other guardians. This twisted love and paranoia causes him to use his sword and five artifacts protecting the world to kill the Gods and his people, as well as killing the other guardians when they tried to stop him. The oni only stops when he sees what he did to his world, Earth, and the world above, as well as seeing the princess in complete and utter misery.

The princess decides to seal the sword with both her powers and the Oni’s via killing both of them so her and the oni’s powers could be in balance so another disaster wouldn’t happen. This leads to future generations of the princess and the oni to share the power of the Onikorimaru rather than having powers themselves. The princess also sealed the sword’s powers with the remaining magic the artifacts have, leaving the artifacts in a weakened state to where it could only protect a village rather than the entire world. This leads to future generations having multiple princesses throughout the world that could support the ones originating in Japan.

Aria Rozenburg is the European equivalent of the Tamayori Princess, and she, along with other princesses around the globe, has the abilities to wield the artifacts and sword if their original wielders die. Her parents wanted Aria to live a fairly normal life to not cause her stress, leaving her to be sheltered off from the world and the guardians she only met in passing. These guardians were made up of the controversial Logos, whom Germany has a tenuous relationship with due to their tactics not keeping in line with the princess’s best interests and well being. The founder of Logos, Magus Melchizedek, kills one of the guardians to take their place as well as kills Aria’s parents to use Aria’s abilities to take control of the artifacts and sword. He also creates a clone of Suguru’s dead mother so Aria can have a motherly figure she can depend on after the 'unknown’ cause of death of Aria’s parents.

Tamaki moves to the countryside to become a shrine maiden under her grandmother, but learns that she’s the next princess in line, and direly so since the artifacts protecting the village and the Onikirimaru has been weakening over time. The cause of this is Tamaki and Takuma being reincarnations of their first ancestors, causing the sword’s powers to become unbalanced since they have regained their abilities that future generations weren’t capable of having.

The guardians were taught to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the princess, but seeing how fiercely loyal Aria’s guardians are to their princess leads them to start questioning their purpose in regards to protecting Tamaki.

In regards for overall characters, Tamaki is similarly spoiled and mouthy like Aria, but where they differ is how they were raised. Tamaki, aside from being more mature in general, is still kind to others and does her best to be a great princess, even of that means getting her hands dirty. Tamaki was also raised by loving parents who taught her life experience, even if they spoil her a little too much. Aria, on the other hand, is more selfish with her role due to literally being ten and being taken advantage of by guy who hypes her up to be the rightful owner to wield the artifacts and sword. Before that, Aria was sheltered due to her parents not trusting Logos’ protection, but it was at the cost of her not gaining enough knowledge about her role and how to treat others up until her current age, making her seem more immature than how a ten year old usually acts.

Takuma’s words may come off as a little harsh, especially at the beginning, but he’s ultimately sweet and a tad awkward, but has a hard time expressing his thoughts clearly, which led to Tamaki initially not liking him. However, the two of them eventually become close friends due to their shared interests in 'odd’ things, (Tamaki is a shrine nerd and collects ayakashi themed items, as well as seeing and interacting with spirits her whole life, while Takuma is into crossword puzzles and creates close bonds with the spirits in the village, even giving them names), as well as their initial abrasive attitudes causing some of their peers at school to think they’re know-it-alls. Takuma’s arc deals with him learning to be more emotional since it was ingrained in him to keep his feelings at bay for the sake of the princess, as well as learning to not feel guilt over using his powers from his first ancestor.

After an initial mix-up with Tamaki thinking Mahiro is much younger due to his height, the two of them hit it off and have a relationship similar to siblings who annoy others in their proximity. Mahiro dreams of traveling the world when he’s older, but he puts them aside to focus on protecting Tamaki. Ironically, it was Tamaki and the other guardians who helped him reignite his interest in traveling, even making money in bizarre ways to help him achieve his dream.

Yuichi is seemingly stoic and brutally honest to others except himself, and acts as the student council president and is the smartest in his class. He’s an intense rule follower, leading him to be the hardest to get through to not sacrificing himself for both Tamaki and his friends. He becomes more mellowed out when he learns to have fun and relax sometimes. This all comes to ahead when he learns of the sacrifice of the other civilians, leading him to snap and almost attacks Tamaki’s grandma, as well as having an existential crisis about his role on being a guardian. Cue him being comforted by his friends and found family, leading him to wanting to remain friends with everyone rather than acting as a shield.

Suguru acts as an older brother/parental figure to the other guardians and Tamaki, mostly due to the trauma of losing his mother at a young age and would often comfort the others after Shizuki’s harsh scolding. He starts working as a spy and pretends to join Logos to understand how they find the artifacts and their true goal. It’s here that he discovers Shinji was working for Logos and that his dead mother’s body was used to make a clone of her. He eventually reveals to the others about the sacrifice of the other villagers for the sake of keeping the Onikirimaru sealed.

Mitsuru and Shinji are twins who were born from a shrine maiden, but Shinji was stolen as a baby by Logos to create a spy that would replace the wolf spirit after Ryo and his family moved away. Both of them were given abilities by the bureaucracy Masataka and Kiyono work at. Mitsuru is able to create force fields and Shinji is able to materialize items using words that appear on his body. As the years went by and Mitsuru became a part of sacrificing civilians, she disassociates and only acts when given orders.

Shinji was raised by Logos into believing that Aria is the true princess, but he’s not fiercely loyal to her like the others, and often acts as the closest thing she has to a family member and giving Aria reprieve from constantly being praised by her guardians. Shinji starts to question both Shizuki and Logos after spending time with Tamaki and the others, ultimately deciding he wants to free everyone from their so called 'fates’. When Shinji met Mitsuru, the two automatically have a close connection that they initially couldn’t describe, as well as revealing their secrets to each other before anyone else. Once they realize they’re twins, both of them decide to abandon their initial roles to help each other as well as their friends.

Ryo moved with his parents at a young age since they didn’t want their son to be sacrificed for the sake of the princess. Growing up, he exhibited odd behavior due to being the wolf spirit’s descendant, such as sniffing and hearing things from far distances and eating more portions than the usual child, causing him to become a victim of bullying by his peers. He grew up as a loner and was emotionally distant aside from his parents.

Entering high school, his parents moved a little closer to the countryside, deciding to go to the same school as the next princess since he wanted to protect her on his on volition, as well as hoping to bond with her and the guardians. He was only able to make friends with Kiyono, making him seem even weirder to everyone else since he was hanging out with someone who has interest in the occultic arts. He especially became upset and confused when Shinji took his place as the wolf spirit guardian role, and even more angry that Shinji was working with the enemies. After some initial bad impressions, he becomes a part of the friend group and becomes more open to the others, to the point of putting his hatred of Shinji aside to help him question the situation he was put into.

Logos themselves, aside from Drei, are only semi-competent since they need Aria to steal the artifacts, although this leads to various results. Eins represents the oni and is willing to become as powerful as possible for Aria’s sake. When he discovers Drei’s true motives, he begrudgingly hands Aria to Suguru to protect her, and gets heavily wounded protecting Aria from Drei attempting to kill her. Zwei represents the crow and eats his enemies’ souls after defeating them…at least he would if he didn’t lose every time. Behaves oddly and cranky to everyone else except Aria, where he acts rather calm and collected so he wouldn’t scare her away. Tends to give her dirty toys in the forest as presents. After discovering Drei’s real motives, he takes Aria and nopes the fuck out with Eins and Vier following him.

Vier is the most level-headed of the group and is only working with Logos since Aria not only chose her to become the representation of the snake guardian, but also from a desire to protect Aria from vague memories of leaving a young Suguru behind before being sacrificed for the Onikirimaru. Unlike the others, she’s always been weary of Logos due to how they treat Aria as a messiah figure, and her remembering Suguru, as well as disguising herself as an English teacher, only fueled her hatred for how the Tamyori Princess is treated. After the final battle, she decides to raise Aria herself while occasionally visiting Suguru.

Drei was around during the first Tamayori Princess’ rule. After seeing the oni’s terror on the Gods and his friends, as well as discovering that the princess and oni’s powers were sealed inside the Onikirimaru, he wanted that power for himself since he believes he’s the true ruler that was robbed of his 'fate’. He created Logos to keep track of a German princess who has the abilities to take the sword for him, but up until recently his plans were always thwarted. When he figures out the sword was weakening due to Tamaki and Takuma’s gaining their past incarnation’s abilities, he finally sets his plan into motion. Almost kills Tamaki and Takuma to seal their powers in the sword, but ends up being defeated and killed. Hammy and deliciously evil as fuck of course>:)

Kiyono is Ryo’s only friend and is classmates with Tamaki, often giving her seemingly unimportant advice that later becomes relevant. Is mocked by her peers for her interest in occultic items and legends and usually sells them to make money. She’s 19 due to starting school a year late, but she looks a bit younger and often says she’s around 17-18 to mess with those who make fun of her.

Kiyono works with her boss Masataka at the governmental bureaucracy that overlooks the Tamayori Princess. Masataka created the bureaucracy to deal with the sword his own way and becomes a threat in Hiiro no Kakera 3, where he gets a god complex after discovering an unfinished project from Logos where they created mirrors that act as portals to alternate timelines. Views the guardians as disposable mongrels.

Shizuki Ugaya is the current Tamayori Princess and is training Tamaki so she can take her place. Raised to be willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of protecting the world from danger, she grew up isolated to not form any strong relationships with her guardians. As the Onikirimaru’s seal was weakening over the years, she was initially going to kill herself to seal it, but since she still needed to act as ruler, she reluctantly decided to sacrifice the villagers to keep the swords powers at bay until Tamaki can replace her. She acts cold and distant to others under the belief that she could hide her guilt and crimes long enough after Tamaki succeeds her. When she’s ultimately succeeded, she faces the consequences of drowning civilians.

The main themes for Hiiro no Kakera is how generational trauma effects others and protecting your loved ones by being their for them rather than acting against their wishes.

#Hiiro no Kakera #scarlet fragments #otome games #visual novel

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