#see how just one more character that regularly interacts with astral in a non-antagonistic way makes him more fleshed out? yeah

[keylimejuice]

the importance of cologne as a character

i hope tumblr doesn’t bug the images but oh well :’))

spoilers for the end of the zexal manga, please skip if you don’t want spoilers.

princess cologne is a character in the manga who yuma takes in after dueling her. although she really doesn’t have a major role after her arc, she definitely does help flesh out astral in the manga more than he could be in the anime.

astral is a character who is heavily limited in his interactions. because he is invisible to most people, he can’t exactly talk to them and so he’s forced to rely on yuma to communicate to others. this was clearly seen in the anime as astral was basically a satellite character attached to yuma, and couldn’t talk with most of the main cast. even when they could finally see him, it was already near the end of the show and valuable moments of progression for astral was already lost. this loss makes astral a character who is both connected and disconnected to zexal: he is important and central to the story, but he feels completely isolated from the rest of the cast and hardly has an interactions with them.

this one character changes everything about astral in the manga. now it’s not only yuma who is affected by astral, it’s also cologne. yuma is not astral’s only friend anymore, now there’s cologne. even though she doesn’t show much relevance to the general plot after being taken in and is really just there during downtimes when the boys are resting, cologne shows that she’s attached to both of them. this attachment makes astral’s death (permanently sealed, but it’s basically death) at the end of the manga to be much more impactful than his deaths in the anime. it’s even worse considering how his deaths were reversible in the anime, making them less impactful in the long run.

in the anime astral died twice: first to iii/trey when he snapped, and then to 96 when he detonated himself to end mist for good. his first death was quickly reversed and brushed aside, while his second death was heavier and more somber. however, even his second death was only limited to yuma mourning and the other characters didn’t seem too moved. yuma’s friend group even insensitively tried to throw a party in yuma’s room to “cheer him up” when kotori knew just how distraught yuma was over his partner’s death. she was there! she was horrified over what she saw! and yet she didn’t stop the rest of the number’s club from trying to drag yuma out to feel better. it felt so jarring to see how yuma was the only one who was really affected by astral dying, but it shows just how disconnected astral was to the rest of the cast. he simply never had that big of an impact on the rest of them.

in the manga, we do not see how cologne reacts to astral’s death. in fact, we don’t see how any of the characters other than yuma react to it at the end of the manga. but astral having that bond with cologne implies that yuma isn’t the only affected person this time. astral made an impact on someone else in the manga. someone else cared about him, someone else enjoyed his company. and him being ripped away from both yuma AND cologne hurts so much harder than the anime.

this is helped with just how much better astral was shown is in the manga. his goal is the same: collect all the numbers to regain his memories, but his little interactions with the world around him makes him a much more enjoyable character to read. he gets excited about amusement parks and superheroes, he makes light banter and jokes, and he’s far more expressive. overall, i was more attached to manga astral. there were so many moments where i had to stop and just hold myself thinking about just how more spirited astral is in the manga, compared to how he was so stiff and serious all the time in the anime.

overall, while cologne may not have a big role in the manga plot-wise, she definitely helped flesh out one of the more neglected characters in zexal.

tl;dr: i love cologne :D<