BlazBlue/Fridge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Fridge Logic

  • How is it possible that Makoto wears shoes with short socks with her jacket on, but suddenly ends up wearing stockings going up to her thighs the moment she throws it off?
  • ok, let me get a few things straight. Jin is Hakumen. Hakumen is one of the six heroes. Hazama is an Asshole. Hazama is Terumi. Terumi was one of the six heroes. Terumi betrayed the six heroes. Now, considering that Jin is is Hakumnen and knows that Terumi is an asshole who tried to kill him and destroy the world....He did absolutely NOTHING to stop hazama before anything could be a problem at all!
    • In that Time Line, Jin would not have known that Hazama could be Terumi. He might have known a Hazama, but he would not realise that the two were the same. Besides, they were fighting the Black Beast at the time. Your priorities would have to be kind of skewed if you went after one man, rather than a world eating serpent.
    • It's also hinted, if not outright stated that Jin lost his memories when he went back in time, just like Ragna did as explained in the light novels.
    • Also worth noting that Jin only finds out that Hazama is Terumi after the continuity shift - i.e. where he should have fallen into the cauldron to become Hakumen - so the Hakumen that we all know and love never got the big reveal
  • When playing in Arcade Mode, if Relius Astral Finished his event battle opponents (Makoto, Tager, Carl or Hazama)... how did they all get out of Relius' lab after being sealed there along with him to have their post-battle banter?

Fridge Brilliance

  • Ragna hates ghosts. And guess what the Big Bad of the story happens to be? A freaking green ghost!
  • Platinum the Trinity happens to hate snakes according to her official profile, and take a guess who happens to fight with snake-like beings...
  • Jubei's advice to Ragna? Don't ever assume the power of the Azure is yours. Guess what happens to Terumi? Inventor of the Grimoire or not, Evil Is Not a Toy.
  • In the stage where you usually fight Unlimited Hazama in story mode, the stage's quote is "The devil is not as black as he is painted." Hinting that Terumi might not be the mastermind as previously thought.
    • Turns out he is, but considering Terumi is more green-and-black than straight black, it still works.
  • Ever since the bosses from Calamity Trigger were unlocked in arcades, Jin has been asking Hakumen who the hell he thinks he is, and Hakumen's response has been to level his sword at Jin.
  • Bang is a NINJA. People aren't even supposed to be aware he exists.
    • Also his ninja-ness shows that the game seems to hammer him down and never let us forget that he's the Joke Character and of no consequence, even Mori Toshimichi consider him weaker than Carl as a vigilante. However, with him possibly getting the Phoenix Rettenjou, Kushinada's Device and fighting Hazama and live to fight another day unbroken, his 'Joke Character Butt Monkey' status may as well be an extreme cover of the ninja to show how deadly he is in actuality.
  • It was confirmed that one of Relius defining traits is his lack of emotion. Now read the quote at the top of Carl's character page.
  • Nu's theme music "Awakening The Chaos" has an opera in the background. She was created by Relius, who was listed to have "opera" as one of his interests.
  • Late in CS' story mode, Terumi reveals that he's managed to correctly calculate every single possible outcome of the Continuum Shift. An impressive feat, to be sure, but knowing that, look back at all the different story mode paths. Notice how he always shows up at the most convenient moment every single time, without fail. Someone tries to grab Noel? He's there. Someone getting too close to his work? He shows up. Someone needs some persuading, he's there. Just however could he know when, exactly, to show up?
    • This is exactly the reason his plots with Noel and Tsubaki went off so perfectly. Due to promoting Noel into a combat position alongside Jin Kisaragi, Tsubaki became envious of the surprise promotion, which would normally lead into increased aggression between them... except for Makoto, who was friendly with both and prone to stopping their arguments [1]. Terumi realized that his plans couldn't go anywhere as long as she was in proximity to them, so he had her redeployed to Ikaruga. Unlike many of his other plans, he had to improvise, as she broke off her assignment due to finding the cache of clones and assembling the facts (there are very good reasons she was in the Intelligence division, after all) - the all but broken Noel that Makoto found was a result of Terumi forcing Noel and Tsubaki into yet another pointless fight, and he'd have done a better job at hiding it if he had the time. Considering Makoto escaped with Noel and Tager after the madness of the endgame, either Terumi had some form of backup plan involving that escape or there may be a crack in his omniscience after all - we are talking about a girl who not only knows something very dangerous to his future operations, but who also happened to sneak her allegience to Sector Seven right underneath his nose! Whatever Makoto could do from here poses a chance of doing a LOT of damage to Terumi's schemes and ambitions if he doesn't plan for it... convince Noel to toughen up without Bolverk? Snap Tsubaki out of her Heel Face Turn? Figure out how to starve the Troll? Leak the coordinates of the clones to Ragna? Any one of those outcomes could make him regret letting her go...
  • It's a minor one, but this troper noticed a Stealth Pun-esque Title Drop in Noel's, Jin's, Tsubaki's, and Hazama's battle quotes if any of them is pitted against one another. They claim they're knights of the blue flame, now, read the title and remember what a blaze is.
    • There's another Stealth Pun in Hakumen's intro. He says "I am the white void. I am the cold steel. I am the just sword" which is "我は空、我は鋼、我は刃" (I am void, I am steel, I am blade) in Japanese. Blade(刃) is pronounced "Jin", which makes it sound like Hakumen is saying "I am void, I am steel, I am Jin".
  • Hakumen's Distortion Drives start with the phrase "Empty Sky Form". Jin was afraid of the moon as a child and hates it as an adult, thus his Distortions are named after the new moon.
  • The irony/symbolism of Jin's love intrest being Tsubaki: Izayoi is a Japanese word related to the Moon.
  • In Continuum Shift Nu- 13 is no longer kill crazy towards Ragna. Why? Well, it's simple: She no longer possesses her incomplete Grimoire, which drove her to try and absorb Ragna's grimoire and create the Black Beast, thus causing her to be far less insane around him. For added irony points, think back to what she does in her dying scene: She completes Ragna's Azure, without him transmuting into the Black Beast.
  • Rachel never really acts like a vampire and would rather drink tea than suck blood. In fact, she always seems to have tea or ask for it in every appearance. She does this not just because she is being classy, but she is displacing her self-disdained vampiric urge of blood for tea.
  • Most people who have played BlazBlue and watched Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann will know that Jin and Simon have the same Japanese voice actor. It had already occurred to me how vastly different these two roles are, but what really hit me was the realization that they're literally polar opposites. Simon is a Hot-Blooded Badass, and Jin spends a good portion of the series as a cold-hearted Jerkass! --Crazed Ninja
  • In a "Teach Me, Miss Litchi!" segment of BlazBlue, Taokaka reacts to being described as a different species from that of humans with this quote: "So I'm special!?" (@ 6:14). At the time, I didn't pay this remark that much mind; it seemed pretty ordinary, if not completely unnecessary statement. It took me another watch for me to realize that Tao was connecting the words species and special (maybe not on purpose, but I saw the connection), bringing up something I had never thought about before.I felt like an idiot right then; I could imagine Taokaka in a scholarly hat looking down on me and teaching me this somewhat useless, but "what-should-have-been-obvious" fact: "Species and special, as words, are close to each other in meaning and basic construction from Latin, nyasu~". That lovable dimwit of a cat girl ACTUALLY taught me something new... Teach Me, Miss Taokaka!
    • Also on the subject of Tao, I realized that she's not, strictly speaking, stupid. She's a kitten. They say it throughout story mode and the omakes. Kittens, generally, are vastly different in demeanor from normal cats. As kittens, they're probably all like Tao.
  • Taokaka's nickname for Ragna, "Good Guy", suddenly becomes that much more hilarious when you realize that Guilty Gear's (another game by Arc System Works) protagonist was named Sol Badguy.
  • Continuum Shift would get depressing with the fact that someone as nice and good as Litchi pulled a Face Heel Turn and seemed to be unresisting or happy with the fact that she works with an evil group, even if she's just aware that there's just two Complete Monster. The battle against Rachel seemed depressing to see how committed she is into evil and even puts up an angry, hostile face... but then it dawned that... Litchi wasn't really using harsh words and telling Rachel to GTFO like a hated enemy, rather using excuses with 'The place above further is dangerous' as in to show concern (until she piqued about Arakune). And strictly speaking, if Rachel did obey Litchi's words, she wouldn't get caught with Phantom's trap that lies ahead and had to wait until Ragna bailed her out. In short, it dawned to me that even when she's with NOL, Litchi is probably trying to protect Rachel from harm... Much of the stress about "Litchi has been completely EVIL" afterwards have been removed after the revelation... or at least reduced even further.
  • Also in Continuum Shift, if one just skims around to the True End and just bothers with the necessary stories, then Litchi being that easy to sway to do a Face Heel Turn due to Arakune may make her look like an idiot. Until you realize that in Litchi's story, she went into bigger turmoil into making that decision not very lightly. That very light 'acceptance' happens in Hazama's story, in which told from Hazama's POV. And in Hazama's POV, very possibly that everyone else looks like a gullible dumbass for him to toy around, so Litchi looks like a complete dumbass in the eyes of Hazama only, while the player is given how things take from her POV thereby making her look more sympathetic than completely an idiot.
  • How many times have children's stories been revised over the ages? As kids, we witness events as they are told to us with a literal mind and form opinions based on what we view. As adults, sometimes we look back on those early opinions and try to see them in a different light, to understand how things happened and why, and it changes our view of the story overall. So what does this have to do with BlazBlue? Slight Hope created a lot of controversy within the fandom and sorely fractured Makoto's fanbase. Zealots on both sides act on what they see on the surface and shill or bash her accordingly, the latter going so far as to call her a Creator's Pet despite the fact we're still only two chapters in and she's been significantly active in a mere fragment of one. Everyone thinks of her birthdate of April 2nd as "the day after April Fools' Day", but in reality Mori slipped a very vital warning sign beneath our noses. For those of us who research the story and figure out why those events transpired, the significance is even clearer - Makoto's birthday is International Children's Book Day.
  • A nice bit of foreshadowing: Jin and Hakumen are the only two characters whose move names are left in Gratuitous Japanese.
  • Each characters fighting style fights perfectally with their characterisation. For example:
    • Ragna, who's fighting style is to attack first and try to survive by using his soul draining powers whenever he is in danager as he leaves himself open all the time. In conversations, he is always aggressive and leaves himself open to ridicule (or verbal attacks). Also, whenever he every gets in any real danger his first impulse is to use the grimoire's powers.
    • Jin, who's fighting style utilising ice and attacks from a distance, also finds it hard not to use Yukianesa's attacks as he is prone to using them when other characters pressing the same buttons would be doing normal attacks. Jin himself is a generally cold person and keeps everyone at a distance from his emotions which are being suppressed because of Yukianesa, also he is very prone to using his Nox Nyctores because it is influencing his actions and actually forcing him to use it even when Jin wouldn't want to.
    • Noel, who's general tactic is to spam attacks without thought and hope to hit as many times as possible. She herself is rather ditzy person who doesn't think before she does something and isn't in her current position because of skill but luck of the draw as Hazama says.
    • Rachel, who seldom ever attacks herself, always using her familiars or lightning to fight for her. She herself isn't allowed to interfere directly as such she must simply observe. The closest she is allowed to interact with the world is making other people do things for her.
    • Litchi juggles between her two styles of using her staffs and her bare hands, which is very similar on how she tried juggling between catering for every of her friends' needs and looking for Arakune. She also exemplifies Difficult but Awesome, which also implies to how fans would take her after Continuum Shift: Take things in face value and you'll just dismiss her as a self-serving, stupid, obsessed Horrible Judge of Character. Try to dig into her character even further, then you'll realize that she is a much more conflicted, tragic Anti-Villain and a candidate of the biggest Woobie of the cast. Her Astral consist of a 100-hit kicks ending with... kicking them off-screen. When compared to others (be it shattering people with ice, getting people eaten by a giant snake, or punching the enemy so hard they break away moons) Litchi's look very tame and survivable by the standards of World of Badass. This can speak on her kindness and how she'd try her best not to kill or overly and unnecessarily harm people when she doesn't have to.
    • Similarly, Makoto's fighting style is to rush headlong at the enemy, without much thought for strategy or defence, preferring to use her raw power and determination to win over opponents. Makoto herself is a Book Dumb ditz who charges into situations without thinking them through, preferring to do what she feels is the right thing over what is logically sound, like betraying the NOL. However, Comet Cannon is laid out as a mine, Corona Upper and Space Counter come out of nowhere, and Asteroid Vision can be followed in a variety of manners - all of these, meant to punish careless approach and surprise and confuse opponents, indicate that beneath the Book Dumb Ditz lies a very crafty and unpredictable opponent capable of catching even Hazama off guard.
    • Bang's fighting style is an array of Awesome but Impractical looking moves that are surprisingly effective at second glance. Bang is a larger-than-life Hot-Blooded character with hidden potential to be something truly great. Also, his lack of magic or any augmenting powers and his Incorruptible Pure Pureness go hand-in-hand.
  • In hindsight, in CT, when Bang encounters Litchi in his story, trying to converse with Arakune, Bang claims that Litchi has been a Damsel in Distress. Cut to CS, while at first it just looks like Litchi is forced to pull a Face Heel Turn, it became apparent that she's more closer to a deconstruction of Damsel in Distress, she has no one to help and save her and must face her turmoils alone. In other words, Bang is completely right about her in distress.
  • Relius' Astral is revealed at EXTEND, in which Litchi pulling a Face Heel Turn is nothing but a Foregone Conclusion. However, when hit with Relius' Astral, rather than the other playable 'villains', like Hazama (just sitting down bored) or Tsubaki (being let to say her prayers inside a magic circle), Litchi is instead tied up and restrained, just like other would-be betrayers of NOL (Jin and Makoto). This would mean that Relius is also aware that even if she's on his side, Litchi has the highest chance to pull a High Heel Face Turn, and she's not exactly so blindly worshipping them on the promise of the cure that he could rest easy and think she'll just submit on the experiment if goaded with "We have the cure".

Fridge Horror

  • Phantom is heavily implied to be Nine, who was betrayed and killed by Terumi. Phantom doesn't seem to have any arms and doesn't speak at all. Terumi works with Relius Clover, who converted both his wife and his daughter into dolls.
  • Speaking of Relius, his Astral Finish is easy to make sexual jokes about... Until you realize that it implies that the victim will soon suffer the same fate as Ada and Ignis. Jeez.
    • Again, involving Relius, the majority of his actions have a single motivation besides evil's sake. When one thinks about the real world, no small number of humanity's greatest scientific achievements came about as the result of some of its greatest atrocities. When one thinks about the Mad Puppeteer in that light, it magnifies both the genius of his actions (rapid scientific advancement) as well as the inherent grotesquerie (the mass number of casualties involved cannot be overlooked).
  • Every fight starts with The Wheel of Fate is Turning, how many of billions of battles played by us are yet another time loop? Thousands? Millions?
  • How many people think that Litchi's Bad End was actually better than in True End where she pulls a Face Heel Turn, no matter how forced? Well, assuming we take the universe to roll on after her bad end, it means Arakune only ate her memories of him... NOT her corruption. Which means, even if she stopped corrupting herself more, the current corruption were enough to degenerate her, at best she'd just be a vegetable, at worst, she'll still turn out to be the next Arakune, and all of Kokonoe's efforts would be for naught since she probably moved her ass to help way too late, because before she stepped in too late, Litchi would've made no effort to try to cure herself because she lost her drive for the cure in the first place. And if it's the latter, imagine who will be her first victims... the Kaka clan AND the Orient Town people. All that, and Litchi would've been bereft of her sane mind with zero chance to think of even redeeming herself. At least by being a sane Heel, she'd have chance to think of a future Heel Realization and once again turns Face again, rather than doomed with an Alzheimer's disease-like symptoms to death. There's a reason WHY the game designated it the BAD END for her, folks.

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  1. in the Extend intro, the two girls are fighting each other extensively, only to come to a halt when she interposes between them