Ōkami/Headscratchers


 * Why for the love of dog, didn't they just hire voice actors dammit?! If they were too expensive, I'd have settled for Castlevania or Dragon Warrior style "text on screen" instead of the "wupu wupu wupo" nonsense.
 * Having voice actors would be expensive, yes. But Capcom is a very wealthy company, so hiring voice actors is most certainly doable. The only thing that makes it difficult would be the issue of bringing the game overseas. The game is very dialogue-heavy and there's a crapload of characters. Hiring voice actors in the US and other countries would be less doable since they'd have to translate and get people to say EVERYTHING. It's just a budget issue for overseas translators. I'm actually glad Capcom considered this issue and stuck with computer generated voices.
 * Amaterasu is god and dog. God, dog, god, dog, god, dog-- Get it?
 * Good dog, good dog.
 * Question is, however, if she's a Dog God, or a God Dog.
 * She's a solar deity in the guise of a canine. There, problem solved.
 * ...she's a hot dog?
 * * Dope Slap*
 * How Nechku and Lechku's time freeze cost Ammy three points of health but Shiranui is near death?
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation.
 * Maybe Shiranui didn't level up her Solar Energy stat?
 * Actually this troper is not confused about it anymore...
 * In the first battle against Nechku/Lechku (can't remember which), it bugged me how the battle can be won just by bringing up the paintbrush  Also, how come Ammy can't learn those abilities despite  ?
 * Ammy supposedly  How is it that Shiranui have those abilities, when no one even recognizes her in the time she defeated Orochi? Frankly, it just bugs me.
 * They didn't recognize her in wolf form. One can suppose the people of that time only knew Amaterasu as a beautiful woman (said to be her real form by that blind monk spirit). As to why she took the form of a wolf, maybe it was so that she wouldn't draw Orochi's attention. Also,
 * Ammy is female, so why when you use Golden Fury does she raise her leg?
 * Actually, dominant female wolves have been known to raise their legs when marking their territory, though not as much as males.
 * The original Japanese version was written with Ammy being non-gendered. This works in the Japanese language because it's gender neutral. However, the English language cannot do it without refering to Ammy as 'it' or doing using awkward sentences, so it was chosen to give Ammy a gender. If one had to choose between genders, female fits better then male. 'mother of all that is good' and stuff. But in the game, some npc's sometimes refer to Ammy as a he too, so they kind of kept the gender neutral thing.
 * You sure about that? I know you can't usually trust THAT much Wikipedia, but according to them, both the European and original Japonese version always refers to Ammy as a female. Which kinda makes sense seeing as the Amaterasu from Shinto mythology is female.
 * And it's funnier.
 * I think the real reason for the Gender confusion is that the villagers, who like most, are unable to tell the gender of a canine without lifting up it's rear leg and taking a close look, and naturally assume all animals seen are male. You'll notice they also all give Shiranui/Amaterasu their own name instead of accepting Issun/Ishaku's name for it, so it's likely the villagers of the past also thought she was male and thus the legend spoke of Shiranui as male. Most modern characters only know about Shiranui/Amaterasu from that misreported tale, so they speak of Shiranui as male, and assume her reincarnation is male as well. Only Waka and Ishaku always speak of Ammy as a female, because they've always known that she's both Amaterasu and female. Some writer/translator read Shiranui referenced as Male and Ammy as Female, and assumed there was either some post death gender bending (not putting it past the Japanese) or that Ammy was a sexless, androgynous wolf.
 * Hey wait a minute... Okamiden. Little ammy is chibi. Ammy is confirmed as female, due to chibiterasu.
 * And her true from being a fair maiden
 * Why do merchants act like "sending the dog to do the shopping" is an everyday occurrence?
 * Maybe it is in that world and era?
 * Dude, If a dog walked into my store, pointed at the most expensive item, and produced the money to buy it and then some? I would offer it a frequent customer discount card and not look a gift dog in the mouth.
 * And only half of that reasoning is because she might bite you if you don't.
 * And don't forget that all of the important dog characters you come across, such as Hayabusa and Ume, have shown degrees of intelligence. I don't find it that hard to imagine Mushi telling Hayabusa to go buy him something from the local merchant...
 * Maybe Okami's world is the same as all those dungeon crawler games, where you can send your pet dog out of the dungeon to sell stuff.
 * Queen Himiko has a Lava Pit. On the second floor. OF A WOODEN BUILDING. Wut.
 * Magic.
 * You get an amulet that renders you immune to flame. But then flame attacks start hurting you again anyway. I suppose this is understandable for Yami, but why do you have to freeze flame spiders to stand on them?
 * Actually, when wearing the amulet, fire doesn't do any damage. You react to being hit, but you don't lose any solar pieces no matter how much you get hit. Test it. Go put it on, jump on one of the flame spiders, and notice you don't actually lose health.
 * Still, you can walk through lava just fine (only worrying about air) but you flinch when touching a flame spider?
 * Because you flinch from touching non-flaming spiders in other places in the game.
 * Not ones with platforms on their backs. Which are the only variety that have ever been set on fire.
 * And because Flame Spiders immediately dump you off, so even though the fire doesn't hurt you, you still can't ride them.
 * Why do the imp merchants in the Moon Cave and Oni Island stock Holy Bones and Divine Instruments?
 * Some of them might be into that sort of thing.
 * You aren't the only person breaking pots for fun.
 * what exactly happens whenever Amaterasu applies the brush techniques? Does it stop time? Is she doing it really really fast? EXPLAIN, GAME, EXPLAIN!
 * When you are fighting with Ninetails she/it can use her brush too, so it must be some kind of time stop where Amaterasu leaves her wolf avatar form and watches everything from her goddess place.
 * But when you fight Yami's first form, he will close up his weak spot quickly, if it's open, while you're using the Celestial Brush. So, which is it?
 * I believe Orochi as well, moves even when the Celestial Brush is on, which can be kind of creepy. My guess is that it works in some kind of... higher plane timespan. Hence why these more powerful creatures are aware of it, but like Ammy, can't really move their physical bodies. To other people it will look like "A God's deed", something happening instantly. I have always like to "jump - brush - draw lily pad - land" because I imagine doing this would give the awesome illusion that lily pads are appearing instantly on the water where Ammy is about to land.
 * It might be a representation of a divine power at work - a type of hyper-focus where you work and think so fast that the surrounding world seems to stand still. Yami, Ninetails and other semi-divine beings are capable of the same feat - either influencing your divine powers (Ninetails and Shiranui), or react to them (Yami).
 * How was Ishaku able to see Issun's painting of Amaterasu? Isn't he supposed to be blind?
 * I thought the implication was that he couldn't see very well, not that he was completely blind. After all, he does have those huge eyebrows in the way. Or maybe Issun draws in Brail?
 * He isn't blind. He's just become nearsighted. After you beat the spirit gate, go talk to him and he'll mention that your deeds have allowed his vision to clear up a bit more.
 * When Himiko's soul ascends to the heavens, the game says she's praying for Ammy's safety. Spot the problem with this.
 * The gods have New Powers As The Prayers Demand -- if millions of people are relying upon her to save them, Ammy's powers increase so she can handle the workload.
 * Forgive me, but I don't see how that is relevant. Queen Himiko is one person praying for one thing, when the one who can provide it is sitting right in front of her so praying is redundant (because she can just come out and say it) and ineffective (Gods have wants and needs too, and would just give it to themselves if they needed it).
 * Himiko isn't praying to Amaterasu to ask for Amaterasu's safety. She's praying in Ammy's name to offer her own devotion, so that her faith empowers the goddess. It's the same as at the.
 * Is it just me or could Waka have avoided A LOT of trouble if he had laid everything out to Amaterasu from the start?
 * Well, it depends how you look at it. One way Amaterasu didn't know what was going on and Waka saying "Hey, this is what you have to do Mon ami" and telling her everything that she needs to do would have been pointless. I mean, she couldn't defeat anyone with just bloom. It would have been pointless to tell her since she had to go and get all of her powers back.
 * On the other hand, Amaterasu was aware of what was going on the entire time and knew what was going to happen in the future. Really, it depends on how you see it.
 * Perhaps he was afraid that if he didn't trick her, she would refuse to help him?
 * One thing. Many creatures from the game (except Yami, Nechku and Lechku) are based on monsters from the japanese folklore, including Oni, Tengu, Orochi, the Spider Queen (Jorogumo) and Ninetails. Yet, Crinsom Helm seems completely out of place here. I can't remember of a japanese equivalent for it (except, peraphs, the Ushi Oni).
 * Crimson Helm bugs you, but Lechku & Nechku and Yami don't?
 * I thought Crimson Helm was Orochi's fire head in a different form.
 * What gender is Ninetails? I'm assuming it's female, despite being called the Dark Lord.
 * If Ninetails is male, the implications of possessing several attractive--or not so--priestesses is... well...
 * Issun also refers to Ninetails as female. For the sake of our sanity, let's just go with that...
 * If Ammy is "mother to us all", what does that make Chibi? Our brother?
 * Amaterasu is "mother" to the brush gods only.
 * I had to get deep into the fridge for this one... If Ammy's power is based on the faith of the people at the time, then why isn't she powered up when she goes back in time? The same goes for Shiranui when she goes forward, she should be powered down!
 * Perhaps they are connected to their proper time period?
 * This is just a personal opinion, but I don't really see how the Ammy X Oki pairing came about. Sure he can turn into a wolf, but so what? It's not like they spend a good bit of the game together or anything like that. Most of the time after you meet him, he just runs around blabbering about how he has to kill demons to make Kutone glow silver. Now don't get me wrong, I think Oki is a very cool character, but... I just don't see him in a couple with Ammy. Possibly Kai, but not Ammy. And yes, I am a Waka X Ammy shipper. If you want to hear me explain why, go to the WMG page and find the heading "Chibiterasu's Father is Waka".
 * Trying to apply logic to shippers? Down that road madness lies.
 * I personally try to ship logically, so... Yeah.
 * How do you define logic? Every person seems to consider different things "logical", using differing reasoning methods that make perfect sense to them. What's logical for you is madness to many others, and visa-versa. Unless you can prove it mathematically, which would require a complex psychological and genetic profile along with pheromone analysis of both potential partners, the only factors we have to go by are interactions, which are extremely YMMV in terms of romantic subtext (text being wholly absent in most cases, and ignored when it does exist). Long story short... everybody's crazy and we have insufficient data for an inarguable logical analysis of Amy's love life.
 * Um... It's pretty illogical to pair two characters who barely know each other just because, no matter how you slice it. Logical pairing, would basically mean taking some facts or hints and using them as a basis. Yes, it can be called madness, but it's still makes more sense than "They just go together, end of story."
 * That still assumes that shippers act upon logic. Most don't. Just accept it.
 * You called Ammy x Waka your OTP...therefore, you're a shipper, and by your logic you make just as much sense (or lackthereof) than anyone else.
 * You called Ammy x Waka your OTP...therefore, you're a shipper, and by your logic you make just as much sense (or lackthereof) than anyone else.


 * If Himiko wanted help from Ameterasu then why did she order her guards not to let them in and put a lava pit in her palace?


 * Why on Earth are Ammy and Waka listed as the "Official Couple"? Nothing in the game suggests anything of the sort.
 * They're not, and I'm going to strike it. Fan Preferred Couple is the closest the game gets. The only Official Couple in the game is Susano and Kushi.
 * You're forgetting Mr. and Mrs. Cutter, but that's okay. I don't like to think about them either.
 * Ammy and Waka were friends before the whole Ark incident. Maybe they were a couple back on the celestial plain?


 * Did Ishaku fail? He was Amaterasu's Celestial Envoy 100 years prior (when she was known to the world as Shiranui), but now everyone sings the praises of Shiranui when they don't even know Amaterasu's name. Why wasn't he busy telling the world that Ammy defeated Orochi?
 * Same reason Issun was struggleing to find people willing to take his paintings in Okamiden. Once the dark times are over, people tend to forget or not care about them as much anymore. Since things are good, there's no reason to believe in the gods. In fact, I think that was the explanation used in game as well.


 * A God of Walls? Really?
 * Well it is the animal that got kicked out of the zodiac...


 * After Ammy helps Susano dice up Orochi, a cloud of miasma erupts from his corpse and floats off in four directions. Supposedly, the miasma empowers Crimson Helm, Blight, Ninetails, and Lechku and Nechku... but Ninetails' dialogue and the  suggests it's been around a lot longer than a few days. And Crimson Helm was supposedly Orochi's fire-head grafted to an undead centaur... thingy, no? He/it's the boss you fight right after Orochi, and the people have evidently been plagued by him/it for some time. How's all this work?
 * It is possible that some or most of those demons were still doing things before they're allegedly revived, just not to their full potential. Or not strong enough to be sensed by Ammy. I dunno. However the Crimson Helm comes before the fight with Orochi, not after.
 * My bad. Blight and the cyborg owls were stated to have just awakened - reawakened from a 100-year slumber in the case of Lechku and Nechku. Maybe Ninetails was at full power 100 years ago but lost the fox rods to the Dragon King and was sealed with the other demons at Orochi's defeat, and when it was released it killed Rao and went after the princess to get its power back?
 * Rao's body was in such a state that it was likely in the well for years. But according to everyone else, she had always been around. There was no gap beteen Rao's death and Fake Rao taking her place. This suggests that Ninetails killed Rao at least 3 years prior to the events of the game, but never missed a day pretending to be her. More likey, Ninetails lost to fox rods long ago, and other demons had been using them until the Dragon King tried to seal them away. Or, she'd picked a fight with the Dragon King and lost them then. The only way she could have kiled Rao recently would be if she could speed up time to make the corpse appear to be much older than it is.


 * Why is that snowball in Wep'keep??? You know the one I'm talking about... And why can it only be reduced in size once?


 * What did Ammy say to the Spider Queen?
 * Whatever it was, it seems to have been a The Reason You Suck Speech, based on the length and the spider Queen's reaction.


 * A minor Headscratcher, but why did Ninetails  Supposedly, it's to hide its actual lack of one, but couldn't it just claim that it was attacked by demons  and lost an eye?