Kantai Collection: A Miserable Little Pile of Attributes

You know, a lot of times I find myself wishing that I was good at art.  Historically, my skill with arts and crafts is such that it takes me three times longer to do what everyone else already has…only instead of having something of insane quality to show for it, my products look like something made by a curiously-intelligent two-year-old covered in baseball mitts.  It’s a problem for sure, but that hasn’t stopped me from at least trying; what’s in my head will never match what shows up on a page or screen, but I can at least get close.

I pretty much have to, because I’ve been trying to redesign (and have redesigned) a bunch of my characters.  Plenty of them are in a good spot, but there’s one I’ve struggled with for a while -- to the point where she’s both the one who’s been iterated the most and the one who’s in the direst need of it.  So for a while now, I’ve been scouring the internet for images, art, and resources to give me some ideas.  Inspiration -- a sort of loose guideline to help me nail something down before I go insane.  I think I’ve come up with something, actually…buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut there’s an issue I’m more aware of than ever.

Which brings us -- however randomly -- to Kantai Collection.

Let's discuss Binbougami Ga!.

Weird punctuation in the title.  This is gonna be a good post.

Anyway, have you heard about that game J-Stars Victory Vs.?  I’m guessing that if you’re reading this blog, you have a faint idea of what that is; for the uninitiated, here’s a primer.  Characters from the much-adored/ballyhooed Shonen Jump, a premiere Japanese comic collection, come together to fight it out in 3D arenas via 3-on-3 tag battles.  So you can have famous heavy hitters like Goku, Naruto, and Luffy on one side going up against new blood and/or old friends like Joseph Joestar, Medaka, and Kenshin.  I’m hoping that the game makes it over to the U.S. -- and, you know, is good -- because with the semi-recent announcement that MAH BOI Tsuna is in the game, my body is slowly but surely becoming ready.

But you know who I really want in the game?  Ichiko from Binbougami Ga!.  It makes perfect sense; people have complained that there’s a dearth of female characters in the game, so she could fill it easily.  She’s got more than enough inspiration for some special moves, so she could translate into the combat space pretty easily.  She’s got MORE than enough personality, so her moves could either be ridiculously over-the-top, or outright comedic (think Faust from Guilty Gear).  Or if nothing else, putting her in the game would certainly put a smile on my face.

Why?  Probably because for one reason or another, I really friggin’ like her anime of origin.  And by extension, probably because I think she’s one of the best Jump characters to pop up in a while -- because there's a lot any given writer can learn from her.