Well, this sums up this crossover perfectly!
Being the crossover fighting game equivalent of Avengers: Endgame in terms of the sheer amount of characters and hype (until Super Smash Bros. Ultimate came along, that is), it doesn't take long for fans to set the entire internet on fire with memes.
Please add entries in the following format:- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme. [[/labelnote]] Explanation Like this.
- I'm still alive!/Yu Narukami never dies! Explanation With Persona 5 being the newest game in the series, many fans thought that the Persona 4 era was over and done for good. The fact that Yu Narukami will be the main representative of said series created many jokes on how he's not dead yet.
- What's Under Night In-Birth? Explanation While Cross Tag gave it a massive publicity boost that helped land the original game on the EVO stage, Under Night In-Birth is generally considered to be the least popular of the franchises shown in the West. Many people don't even know who Hyde Kido was. This has resulted in many jokes on Under Night's existence, much in the vein of the "What's a 'Tatsunoko'?" meme for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.
- I'm getting really tired of your shit, Mori! Explanation Ragna is an infamous Cosmic Plaything and is established as The Chew Toy who has been forced to deal with a ton of crap since childhood and has had his ass handed to him by nearly every playable character in his home series before he Took a Level in Badass, plowing through the aforementioned playable characters like nothing, and given a heroic, peaceful send off. The fact that he has been brought back to the limelight must mean that the devs aren't quite finished with making his life hell just yet. Mori did note, however, that the game is purely a spin-off and not meant to be related to the plotline of BlazBlue's main games... which only has fans questioning in what ways Cross Tag Battle will make this incarnation of Ragna suffer.
- WHAT ARE YOU SAYING!?!? Explanation Ragna, Jin, Yu and Hyde all speak Japanese in the reveal trailer, while Ruby speaks in English. Many people joked that if the game left the RWBY characters as the only English speakers, this would be Ruby's victory quote to the rest of the game's cast, but with later confirmation of the entire roster being dubbed into English, the joke then started to die out.
- Jin, the filthy casual. Explanation During the Arc System livestream where they revealed Yosuke and Linne, there was a small segment where they showed the characters stats. Jin's level of casual was 7 stars. Jin is already infamous for being a beginner-friendly troll thanks to his infamous ICE CARZ, dating all the way back to CT. This implies that Jin will—yet again—be easy to pick up and play, but EXTREMELY broken.
- Ruby Rose's English voice is tournament banned. Explanation Even in her home series, Ruby's English voice has earned a lot of derision for how artificial her squeak is. Less than positive reaction to Ruby Rose's English voiceover during the first gameplay video reveal caused some fans to joke about it being banned from tournament play. This was especially prominent after a preview video of Ruby fighting herself, with both English voices combining to create a high-pitched nightmare.
- RIDE TEH WEISS CARZ! Explanation A team name for Jin and Weiss that picked up popularity soon after her announcement; combining Jin's infamous ICE CARZ with a pun that would make Yang proud. It became an Ascended Meme in Version 2.0 with Weiss actually riding Jin's ice car
◊. - Ice Queens. Explanation A smaller joke that spawned due to the fact that both Jin and Weiss are LITERALLY this. (Jin is more of an Ice King, though, but that's close enough for most.) Now people want Mitsuru Kirijo in the game JUST for the sake of having THREE Ice Queens. As of 2.0, we technically have four Ice Queens; Jin, Weiss, Mitsuru, and Yumi.
- In a continuation of a recurring joke amongst the Persona fandom, numerous comments have been made about how Yu Narukami, user of the Pimp Arcana, will go on to steal all the girls of BlazBlue, Under Night, and RWBY. Explanation The player characters in all Persona titles starting with P3 are designated as users of the Fool Arcana, which gives them extraordinary powers such as the Wild Card (the ability to access and summon more than one Persona at a time). Fans have also noticed how, due to how the Social Link/Confidant mechanic works, the protagonists of these games can woo every possible romantic option at once if the player so chooses, sometimes without the expected comeuppance for two-timing. Now that Yu is included in Cross Tag Battle, the fandom has pretty much run away with the idea of him romancing the non-P4 female members of the cast, whether inadvertently or not.
- "Too many BlazBlue characters." Explanation With the fifth release trailer, the total number of characters is brought up to 20, and half of them are from BlazBlue. This has made people joke that there are too many of them (even though it's a spin-off of said series), in a similar vein to the "too many Fire Emblem characters in Super Smash Bros." meme. The matter isn't helped by the fact that this 1:1 split of BlazBlue characters to characters from every other franchise is the actual base roster. It's already been confirmed that there will be sixteen BlazBlue characters in the game, making the roster 40% BlazBlue.
- New RWBY characters where? Explanation A common complaint amongst RWBY players, mostly due to the respective rosters of BlazBlue, Persona 4 and UNIB getting two digits worth of characters.
- Team RW. Explanation The announcement of Blake being a DLC character made people joke that ArcSys split the team in half with a paywall. Note that this was before Blake and Yang were confirmed to be free DLC. Was later ascended when more gameplay footage was unveiled and players got their hands on the beta; after winning a match, Ruby announces "Don't mess with Team RWBY!" and Weiss responds with "Or at least Team RW."
- You were the chosen one! It was said that you'd destroy bad DLC practices, not do it! Bring salvation to the FGC, not leave it in darkness! Explanation After the DLC announcement fiasco, many disgruntled fans who previously claimed ASW to be one of the more fan-oriented fighting game companies started making comparisons between the game and the heartbroken speech by Obi-Wan Kenobi after Anakin Skywalker's fall to the Dark Side in Episode III. Those who are disgruntled further usually continue with "You were my favorite, ASW... I loved you..." Thanks to many Author's Saving Throws, it seems that this meme and the below offshoot may have died out. Unfortunately, we don't have a reprisal equivalent from Star Wars as a response.
- WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB Explanation This picture◊ from ArcSys USA's press event slideshow immediately became a meme for quoting Rick and Morty in regards to announcing there would be an English dub for the game, mostly because of the negative reactions to the reference due to the show and its fanbase having a divisive reputation.
- "I can't wait for Naoto." "Which one?" Explanation A joke that spawned thanks to there being a Naoto in both BlazBlue and Persona 4. What's more is that they almost avert the One-Steve Limit in terms of surnames, too: P4's Naoto is Naoto Shirogane, while the BB Naoto is Naoto Kurogane, incidentally setting up some Colourful Theme Naming between them in the process.
- Now that Naoto Shirogane has been confirmed for the game, jokes have been made about how people thought that Naoto Kurogane was confirmed instead, and vice-versa when Naoto Kurogane himself was later confirmed, despite Shirogane being in already.
- "JUBEI BEFORE HAKUMEN?! BLASPHEMY!!" Explanation An exclamation of disbelief and ire that has resulted from a large amount of fans still waiting for Hakumen's inclusion in the roster. The fact that Jubei, who didn't become playable until BBCF (as a DLC character to boot), came before him has caught a lot of people off-guard, to say the least. Naturally, the cries began to die down when Hakumen was confirmed to be in the game in the character showcase immediately after Jubei's.
- This image◊ of Chie from the 3D chibi lobby to represent regarding more news of the game with disappointment or anger... or both.
- The BlazBlue characters are jokingly referred to as the "Senpais" of the Persona 4: Arena, Under Night In-Birth, RWBY characters since from a series standpoint they're the oldest when it comes to the fighting game scene. It helps that the BlazBlue characters in the game itself are almost exclusively adults in contrast to the number of high school-age characters from its contemporaries.note To compare: in the BlazBlue contingent, the only teenaged/child character on their side is Platinum. Those edging on the younger side like Ragna, Makoto, and Jin are at least 19 years old and at most in their mid-20s, though Noel and Nu are Younger Than They Look. The Persona 4 characters, in their Arena incarnations, range from 16-18, while the Persona 3 cast would be 19-20, sans Aigis and Labrys. Team RWBY are younger at 15-17. Under Night has 6 teenagers (Hyde, Orie, Mika, Yuzuriha, Seth and Carmine), with almost the rest of the cast being literally decades old (Linne, Waldstein and Vatista); Gordeau is the only normal-aging member of their cast who is an adult.
- Button jamming. Explanation The rather infamous interview with Mori, Ishiwatari and VentureBeat no doubt has spawned a good number of controversies, especially with misconceptions about the Western fighting game scene; Mori in particular described Westerners as "people who mainly enjoy jamming down buttons", which was his supposed way of calling them Scrubs. Whether or not he really meant to actually imply Button Mashing isn't too clear due to the number of ways the interview would've been translated, as some state he was merely talking about fast-paced actions per minute.
- Cross Tag Battle is the Dark Souls of BlazBlue confirmed. Explanation A comment left on a video uploaed by YouTuber JROKGaming featuring an exclusive 5-minute preview of the Story Mode, wherein the player—actually an ASW staff member and not JROK—promptly loses to the first tutorial boss.
- Yukiko the Punching Bag Explanation Because the open beta didn't include Training Mode, the "next best thing" was going into Versus Mode and beating up on Yukiko, since her healing ability let players get her back to full health so they could practice as long as they wanted.
- CAN'T ESCAPE FROM CROSSING FATE! Explanation The line said before each match and the accompanying visuals have been edited into other video clips, with several examples, including this combination with the similarly memetic "This is America" music video from Childish Gambino.
- "Blake, I don't feel so good..." Explanation (Avengers: Infinity War Spoilers!) Blake's Astral Heat ends with her opponent disintegrating, referencing RWBY's Black trailer that introduced her character. At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, half of the universe's population disintegrates thanks to Thanos. Because the film was fairly recent when her Astral was revealed, people have been using the "[X], I don't feel so good" meme from Infinity War to describe Blake's Astral. As Ragna's Black Onslaught provides the same effect (but predated the film and this game by nearly a decade), he also gets subjected to this to a lesser extent.
- "Go drink some river water." Explanation Ragna's scathing reply to Rachel's request that he start preparing her a cup of tea if they're paired up and win a match, notable for how hilariously yet unnecessarily edgy Ragna is acting.
- "MORTAL SLUT!" Explanation A mishearing of Ian Sinclair's delivery of "Mortal Slide!" during Gordeau's attacks. Came from Maximilian Dood's coverage of the game and spread all over YouTube by Gordeau fans.
- Flying Beyblade Explanation A common fan reaction to seeing footage of the final boss for every episode, which resembles the eponymous spinning tops of Beyblade.
- Blake needs to go on a diet. Explanation Blake's chibi lobby model is noticeably fatter in comparison to her model from RWBY Chibi. This has caused people to joke that she should stop eating so much fish. For comparison.
- Yang Install. Explanation An evolution of "Bang Install", a BlazBlue meme about Bang Shishigami's Super Mode, "Fuu-Rin-Ka-Zan", and its Background Music Override (with Bang Install itself being a meme based on Sol Badguy's Dragon Install). Bang isn't in this game, but Yang's Rage Semblance automatically replaces the background music with her theme, "I Burn".
- X doesn't interact with X, disappointing. Explanation Pretty much anyone's reaction to when certain characters don't interact with each other. For more, see They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot on the main YMMV page. However, version 2.0 seems to recitify most of these, how many though, will have to be looked over.
- Kanjibrella Explanation Upon meeting with Rachel in Episode P4A, Yosuke comments on how Nago's flamboyant nature reminds him of Kanji (probably moreso his Shadow than the actual Kanji), proceeding to call him a Kanjibrella". This sends Yukiko into an absolute laughing fit.
- Kermit Flailing Explanation Merkava's Distortion where he flails around his arm has been referred as such by Ben Diskin, his English VA, no less. This caught on pretty quick, especially when Merkava has several moves involving flailing his arms.
- Lord Noodle Doodle Explanation Again, a Fan Nickname coined by Ben Diskin, Merkava's English VA, for his character.
- Protect the innocent Noodle! Explanation Popped up shortly after the nickname was coined. Merkava has a very sympathetic backstory, and many members of the cast offer him their support, as does the fandom.
- Taco Bell/Paco Bell! Explanation Another mishearing, but it also comes from Cassandra Lee Morris's delivery on Mika, technically, its called Pachelbel, but some people may mishear it as such, with hilarious results.
- Yuzuriha's motivated. Explanation Many fans have compared Yuzuriha to Vergil, due to both of them being Iaijutsu Masters, being older siblings of some sort (While Vergil is Dante's older twin, Yuziriha only acts like a big sister to Hyde), constantly saying "Here I am" during gameplay, and being broken in gameplay. Yuzuriha's even has a palette swap of the Velvet Siblings, who's white hair and blue clothing make Yuzuriha look even more like Vergil.
- TANK/Cross Tank Battle/BBTANK Explanation Blitztank being in the game has caused a lot of hilarity due to how starkly different is. This caused him to become a Fountain of Memes.
- *TANK NOISES* Explanation Blitztank's lobby stamp has this quote.
- Sheer Heart Attack Requiem Explanation Another Blitztank meme, referencing Sheer Heart Attack from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which looks like a bomb on wheels with a skull face similar to Blitztank's, and Requiem referencing the Requiem arrow that can upgrade Stands. When Adachi was confirmed, many joked that Yoshikage Kira was playable in the game (both Adachi and Kira are serial killers beneath suspicion in a quiet town).
- CHESTO/B-Tatsu Explanation Akatsuki's Armor Piercing Kick in general, however, the fans refer to it as B-Tatsu, as it hits 3 times (by performing the move Quarter Circle Back [or 214 in keyboard notation] and the B button) with the affirmative sound clip CHESTO in both UNI and BBTAG. In his home games, though, it does two hits with the B button, when the C button actually does 3 hits. Fans have also made animated gifs of said move on repeat and hilarity ensues. While it is absent from the English dub, Kaiji Tang provided his own CHESTO takes on his Soundcloud.
- Akatsuki is an honest character. Explanation This line appeared when the English version of Akatsuki's character introduction trailer dropped. Akatsuki himself is anything but honest, however, fans have reacted to this and went their way with it and hilarity also ensued.
- Susano'o hates Neo. Explanation Susano'o's interactions with Neo are nothing but his disdain for her, mostly due to the fact he considers her illusions to be making light of his presence. Fans have taken it to the point where Susano'o hates Neo for her mere existence, and some joke that Ragna's found his true love since Neo annoys Terumi to no end.
- Vibin' Naoto. Explanation While all of the chibi avatars dancing have been memetic to some extent, Naoto (Shirogane) gets the most love. In fact, similar to the Joker Gun memes, there's an entire account dedicated to Naoto dancing to different music.
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