Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Yes, it was approved. It's in Visual Novels.

Yeah, one's on the AniManga page, the other Visual Novels.

As for Higurashi image, I believe so.

Nafumi is actually only on the Visual Novels page, since I think she does not appear in the manga.

Fortinbras.

...what an annoying to type name. He should keep just for that.

Well we've had worse. Theirs Yogoshimacriten and Phlegethonyarre.

to Bask

The manga ended before Nafumi appeared. Kanamori is in both the manga and VN.

Regarding villains from Folklore and Myth, is there a definitive text that solidifies these guys as truly evil bastards?

There've been some pretty nasty characters and entities throughout the world of folklore, but there's also multiple ways these stories are interpreted. How exactly do you determine if a character from Myth and legend qualifies unless you read a story that fleshes them out enough? I doubt most people have actually read the original texts that introduced these ancient characters.

It's tough. Primary texts, or secondary work to some degree I'd say. The repetition of the legends elsewhere helps a lot.

Bask Om.

I was planning on looking into a certain independent British action movie in the future, but I am not having an easy time finding anywhere to watch it, and it is allegedly out of print on DVD. Is it still worth a shot if I do end up finding a way to watch it? Or is it more trouble than it is worth?

Edit: The plot thickens. It is available for rental...from a South Korean version of an international website, for the equivalent of around a Canadian dollar.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Mar 29th 2020 at 8:22:46 AM

to Bask Om.

If you can watch it, I'd say go for it.

Weren't you going to do a Krake rewrite as well?

Edited by falcontalons on Mar 29th 2020 at 5:50:39 AM

'Yes' to Bask Om, Wellbourne, Sinclair and....hmmm, yeah, I suppose Athena as well.

I'll have an effortpost reevaluation for a candidate coming soon (he never got a proper one and some pertinent details haven't ever really been brought up; I still think he counts, but I think the aforementioned "pertinent details" might affect some's thoughts on him counting, so I think it needs to be discussed), but until then, my pending write-ups:

• Genocyber: Mayor Grimson Rockwell is the corrupt, smug leader of the City of the Grand Ark, using his influence to cruelly keep most of the citizens as abused, starving slave labor while his upper class elite throw hedonistic parties, engaging in torture and trafficking of lower class civilians. When a large group of people try to rebel against Rockwell, he orders them massacred and thrown into mass graves before executing his own security chief for moving too slow in carrying out the exterminations. Rockwell's greatest act of villainy comes when he learns of a church taking in orphaned children and spreading the word of God and, declaring them to be a threat to his rule, has them all slaughtered in machine gunfire, leading to dozens of defenseless men, women and orphan children being killed where they stand in the church.

• Chasing Butterflies: Mr. Hive is the sadistic operator of the looming Skycavity, travelling the endless time stream known as the Kinematic Envelope seeking those endowed with Steam. When Mr. Hive finds a lost xeno roaming the Kinematic Envelope, he offers them "deals" for one of the antiques onboard his Vanity Rail, tricking them into giving up their Steam while leaving out the fact that it will kill them and trap their essences in his Steam cane, powering himself up in the process. Taking the xenos Feyf and Croque as abused slaves, Mr. Hive treats them like property and kills Croque when he rebels, later breaking Feyf's legs when she escapes from him, promising her that she'll never leave his side again. When his attempts to steal the Steam of the young xeno Sal fail, Mr. Hive goes on a hunt across the Kinematic Envelope for him, wiping out a ship of sailors and torturing the survivor for information before recruiting the murderous "gentlemen" to his side and giving them free reign to go on a massacre of Xemidas. As Sal continues to evade him, Mr. Hive, killing his own minions and promising to murder Sal's friends in front of him, threatens to drop the Skycavity on top of Xemidas and wipe out thousands of innocents, refusing to let anything stop him from cowardly sacrificing as many people as it takes to escape the Kinematic Envelope himself for good.

Athena, X, Daniel, S O U L, Fortinbras, Sinclair and Bask

In terms of Fortinbras' presence, I would say that it is strongly hinted that Onimusha 1 and 4 Fortinbras were the same. The fourth game put the emphasis that Fortinbras needed to be resurrected by the Genma. This wouldn't have been the right word to pick if Fortinbras wasn't... dead in the past. The only time Fortinbras experienced death was after Samanosuke killed him. He was weakened after quite some time and were planning to let Nobunaga succeed his legacy of evil. The rest have been kept very vague, but it is one way to link the first and fourth game.

@miraculous: I do play Basara. But I guess the others answered it well enough. The game versions had slightly more opportunities to showcase their other traits beyond their evilness. It's a bit more complicated and my Japanese needs a lot of polishing. But I will give it some thought later when I... try to get deeper into the stuffs in SB.

Bask

I've always wanted to play Gihren's Greed, worst case of No Export for You.

@TBNY For the question of comedies, the best examples of C Ms from otherwise straight comedies I can think of are Ajax and Thrax.

Edited by nwotyzal on Mar 29th 2020 at 6:42:12 AM

Whenever ACW gets up, for Genocyber we can probably change the "In the anime" at the start of Kenneth's writeup to "From the anime", alongside the trope name on the first bullet point since both of the keepers are from the anime... I'll get around to torturing myself with the manga eventually to see what's up there.

Edited by 43110 on Mar 29th 2020 at 9:50:45 AM

@falcontalons: Ah yes, you are correct, missed slipping that one in as it was in a different folder, here we are:

• G.I. Joe (IDW): Krake is a brutal, vicious Cobra leader who carves a path of destruction straight into the position of Commander. Born in a war-torn country, Krake raised himself to be a cold-blooded mercenary, able and willing to kill anyone in his way in his path to power and survival. Upon joining Cobra, Krake carries out a bevy of missions chosen for him, notably leading an attempted massacre of a village detrimental to Cobra's operations, until he is chosen as a candidate for Cobra Commander, at which point he assassinates a fellow candidate and orchestrates the deaths of hundreds of G.I. Joes to secure his election. As Cobra Commander, Krake quickly orders the murders of the entire Cobra Council to secure his permanent reign, invades and nukes the country of Nanzhao, killing hundreds, and executes dozens of Cobra prisoners and any Cobra troops who have no usefulness to the organization any longer. Under Krake's more aggressive Cobra, terrorist attacks endangering civilians are faked to kill enemies of Cobra, an entire city is nearly destroyed to frame the G.I. Joes, and young children are taken captive to force their parents to do work for the organization, all of this working together to cement Krake's Cobra as the most evil the organization has ever been.

All that said, I've found a Youkai dating back to the Feudal era of Japan who just might be evil enough to qualify.

Story time. Remember those flaming wheel monsters in games like Castlevania and Ōkami? Well, they all have a common ancestor, and he is rightfully regarded by some as one of the most terrifying monsters in Japanese Mythology. This is the flaming wheel Yokai, Wanyudo.

Who Is He?

Dating back to the Heian Period, the most common origin is that he was once a Daimyo(Nobleman or Feudal Lord) who would callously mistreat the peasants under him. I don't actually have the full details, but apparently one of his favorite punishments was dragging his prisoners through the streets by an Ox Cart. The lord was so hated he was eventually assassinated(again, don't know how).

But of course you can't keep a bad man down, especially in ghost stories, and the wrathful spirit of the Daimyo was reborn as the Wanyudo, a giant spectral wheel with flaming spokes and the man's cruel face at it's centre. The Wanyudo is now famed for rampaging across urban areas, ruthlessly running down and dismembering anyone unlucky enough to cross him, burning limbs dangling from his spokes.

While he's sometimes said to be a servant of the underworld punishing evil, in general the monster is indiscriminate in who it crushes and kills. He can usually be encountered in dark urban areas, blazing through the night. When he rolls by, the best hope you have is to look away and pray he doesn't notice you, because apparently just looking at his bizarre self invokes his wrath. The very sight of him is also said to strike people with an often deathly fever. Another method is to hang a paper with the words "Kono-Tokuro-Shobo-No-Sato", meaning "This is the town of Shobo"(I don't quite understand, but apparently it's a reference to how a town was avoided because "Shobo" can mean "triumph over one's mother").

But that's not to say Wanyudo is a mindless engine of destruction. In fact, one legend shows he's the same cruel, vindictive sadist he was in his mortal life. According to the story, a woman was tending to her baby when she glanced out the window and happened to glimpse Wanyudo roll by in all his fiery glory. Wanyudo stopped to look in turn...and spared her. Instead, he bellowed, "If you have time to look at me, you'd better tend to your child!" and roared away. The woman turned back to her child's crib...and to her horror, discovered burnt stumps where the infant's limbs had been. So yeah. Wanyudo spared a woman so he could mutilate her baby. Just because.

Heinousness

Most Yokai, from what i've read of them, are nature spirits and creatures that can't be judged by human values. There are also quite a few Yokai born from deceased humans, but many are tragic victims lashing out. Wanyudo isn't either of these. He's wantonly homicidal, appallingly sadistic if you believe that story i recounted, and he was an awful human being even before his transformation into a fiery spirit.

I'm mostly going by accounts i've read in online articles and a book of Yokai (Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt, look it up if you can), but in all stories i've heard Wanyudo is a genuinely malevolent entity.

Verdict

As I mentioned early, there's usually not a definitive depiction for figures of myth and folklore, and I haven't found a full-fledged novel or anything about this guy, so I can't describe a lot of his cruel acts in detail, particularly how bad he was as a human. But he's still a nasty piece of Japanese legend, so I'll leave it to you guys.

Edited by Snailfish on Mar 29th 2020 at 7:47:55 AM

Abstain. I need a more specific description of his actions.

By the way, I will probably be AFK for the rest of the night watching that movie I mentioned earlier.

hmm...my main issue with Wanyduo...isn't it a species? Or is it an individual?

Edited by Lightysnake on Mar 29th 2020 at 7:38:40 AM

I don't think so? I've heard a few sites mention multiple fire-wheel guys but generally the accepted story is this one bad man who turned into a monster.

Edited by Snailfish on Mar 29th 2020 at 7:44:15 AM

Hmmm...it's a bit unclear, but I can give a tentative yes upon research for the daimyo, and while it's job is to gather up corrupt souls, it's sadistic in spreading pain and will target the innocent.

Edited by Lightysnake on Mar 29th 2020 at 7:46:00 AM

Wanyudo