Granblue Notes pt. 7 - Stan
Exploring character design through the art of Granblue Fantasy, while never actually playing it
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I realise this series is about not playing Granblue Fantasy but lately I have been really not playing Granblue Fantasy. My period of free spins has run dry and so also has my motivation to even open the app. Daily login bonuses are for suckers who are cucked enough by this game to actually figure out the market value of Soul Berries, or whatever. I am not that gamer.
I've stored maybe 30 draws in a picture folder on my laptop so that will keep me going for half a year! What will happen after that remains to be seen. Perhaps I'll move onto another Gacha game and exploit their on-boarding cycle. Perhaps I might *gasp* actually play Granblue Fantasy. This last one seems unlikely since, I'm not really gaming much at all at the moment. At the risk of turning this into an embittered millennial spiel, let's just say they don't make them like they used to anymore.
They don't make them like Vagrant Story (2000).
For the longest time my ESL ass did not know what the word “vagrant” meant and just took it as a synonym for “cool person.”
When Vagrant story was released on the PS1, the beloved Playstation 2 was only a couple months away from hitting store shelves and selling out just as quickly. Not the best time to push a new game perhaps, but absolutely the best time for devs to push some hardware boundaries before trading in a comfy, familiar development platform for a shiny, and coolly unfamiliar one.
As such, Vagrant Story was sweeping and cinematic in moments. Featuring poorly compressed yet, somehow, still mesmerising FMV sequences beside competently shot and framed in-engine cutscenes. There was a directorial voice running through this game, one that drew attention to itself. The colour palette on display was gritty, the settings were gothic, the characters spoke florid faux-Shakespearian.
At the time I was coming off of the high adventure of clashing kingdoms, airship heroism and world-ending calamity of Final Fantasy. Imagine my delight at the novelty that Vagrant Story offered from the same fantasy vantage. A story of repressed memory, small-scale political strifes, obsession and grudges. It was more akin to a spy thriller with a medieval fantasy exterior. And the characters! Morally grey? More like morally gay. Lead boys and bitter rivals, Ashley Riot and Sydney Losstarot (😂) were absolutely made for obsessing over in the rampant fanficcing sense. Add to that the fact both boys are deathly allergic to t-shirts, and you've got my teenage attention. My compliments to the chef; one Akihiko Yoshida, who you might recall from Granblue Notes pt. 5 - Eso.
Clearly this was back before he was too good to draw noses. There's a distinct through line here that we can trace all the way to Granblue Fantasy. The simple yet emotive faces, the minute surface detail of armour and other apparels and a masterful integration of theme and story. Crafting a pair of agonists as rivals and opposites must be so much fun. Notice the contrasting palettes of earthiness versus all black everything. Though close on the colour wheel they are worlds apart in meaning. Even thematically the rough and practical gladiator’s attire of Ashley is contrasted with the gothic industrial techno-freakery of Sydney. Man's got a cape, but only for the lower half of his body. I… love it…
These images immediately convey a couple of things or leaves you to make some imaginative inferences: who's the bad guy, who's the good guy, how do they move, what are their preferred fighting styles, what are their value systems, what could their voices be like? Watch enough anime, play enough video games, and it all writes itself in your mind. That's the power of good character design!
This isn't a review of Vagrant Story but I suppose I should warn that the gameplay is not as strong as the art direction. It's by no means bad bad but expect box pushing puzzles and platforming from a 3/4th perspective. Boy, those were the days.
In a way there's a bit of proto Dark Souls in here. There are obtuse systems and big stat sheets, varying damage types, a lock and key weapon system. Even the setting has some of that forlorn Dark Souls energy.
Most importantly, this was a Square Enix game, from back when they were called Squaresoft. An important link in the evolutionary chain that leads to modern day Squeenix as well as Granblue Fantasy. We'll be diving into more of Yoshida's designs in future updates.
Lastly, if anyone at Squeenix is listening please do a Vagrant Story sequel, and don't make it a mobile game.
Now, onto my latest draw at rarity level R - it's Stan!
Stan set out into the great wide world, cursing his shaking legs. He wants to run back home on occasion, but always manages to keep pushing forward. He holds his ground even when the enemies frighten him, to become a man capable of protecting those he loves.
- in-game journal
Cat boys, cat boys
What you gonna do
What you gonna do
Etc.
Poetry. Yeah I still got it. But I think that I will never see a poem as beautiful as a cat boy. Okay, I'm pandering somewhat since cat boys are kind of having a moment. It's a shame I could not get a more exciting cat boy review. Stan is just a bit generic, a bit blah. Worry not, however. I've seen the future and it holds many cat boys still.
Cat girls are still at the top of the litter as far as kemonomimi designs are concerned, but cat boys are winning hearts and minds. Why is that? Let me proceed to expend 800 words that prove nothing conclusively beyond my own sexual pathology.
So kemonomimi is the subset of anime style character designs with animal ears. Kemono means beast, mimi means ears. So really this moniker covers horse ears, dog ears, fox ears etc. But arguably the most popular is cat ears or Nekomimi. Kemonomimi characters can also have other traits associated with their animal selves but usually it is limited to ears and sometimes a cute tail. There's a reason for that, and you can bet that reason is a horny one.
If you're online, you will inevitably have come into contact with furries. This is not that. I'm not even going to begin to psychoanalyse furries here but let's set a boundary between furry and kemonomimi for a sec. I think furries, through their fursona, seek to project a sense of wildness, being untameable, feralness. The fursona exists outside the bounds of polite society and is more in tune with nature and their own kin. The Kemonomimi character on the other hand is about pethood, subservience to a (human) master or companion. They may seem familiarly human but their nature is that of a pet.
One trope that recurs for the Kemonomimi character is that they have sort of an “off button”. Being part human, they display full autonomy and self-control except for when you scratch them behind the ear for example or throw a ball. Suddenly they revert to their animal selves and become controllable and predictable. You can see what kind of fantasy this speaks to, and I should restate this is not always sexual… but it often is.
This is one reason why kemonomimi designs hew so much to the human form rather than the anthropomorphised animals of furry art. The dynamic of pet and pet owner is thus projected onto a more familiar canvas; that of a partner, a friend, a younger brother perhaps. People seek control over their unpredictable surroundings, to be able to exert their influence on the unpredictable other. This is a desire that exist even when sex and sexuality is eliminated from the equation. We learn in time that this want of control is unhelpful or even unhealthy in some cases. But this is a video game so we get to live out the fantasy of control all we want.
So where exactly does that leave us with Stan? I don’t know. He’s so boring I’d rather continue making aimless, baseless assumptions about the psychology of furries and furry adjacents.
Stan seems like a bit of a starter cat boy. For those who are unsure and would like to give cat boys a spin. As I’ve stated there is a certain generic quality to his appearance. He’s a sword swinging lad kitted in basic adventurers gear. He’s got sidekick energy and probably a rash, impetuous streak. His outfit has a lot of buckles, many of them presumably used to fasten the straps that keep his shirt on his body. That shirt is missing a lot of fabric where there should be fabric!
This is by no means an offensive design, just very plain. There’s the prerequisite fantasy art trope of having asymmetrical armour placement. I’m sure you’re equally as capable of deducing that having just one pauldron is impractical, uncomfortable and kind of silly. Perhaps they’re supposed to complement the characters “just rushed out of bed and put on whatever” kind of vibe. A vibe that is far more prominent in Tidus from Final Fantasy X for example. Stan can’t even do that right.
If I had to guess at Stan’s in-game role based on his design I would say all-rounder with glass cannon DPS elements. His waifish build represent his low HP pool and the rest of his boring appearance could betray sort of jack-of-all-trades utility. But honestly, I don’t think Stan is meant to be a party mainstay. Merely a hint at greater cat boys to come.
Even the cat ears in this case feel very much tacked onto this design with very little else going for it. You can tell this is merely an R level draw. They saved their more interesting designs for the higher tiers. Can you think of anything else to say about Stan? Why do so many people have a fursona but practically no one I’m aware of has a kemonomimi alt?
Join me next week for another spin on the Granblue roulette wheel.
