Lindsay

I always wanted to see a Chronos business simulator. You start off in the age of sail, discovering Archanfel’s temple, and getting your exposition about the Creators. You then have to go and find Relics, recruit Zoalords, etc, in a semi-open, semi-procgen world (I’m thinking of Daggerfall). Eventually, you have modern technology, and are ready to try to institute a world government dedicated to global defence, and are able find deeper buried relics in which you find intact Units, but you also have ambitious officers, and rebellious scientists, and desperate test subjects, and wildcard bystanders...

I think there’s interesting distinct gameplay possibilities playing as Sho, Agito, Genzo, Risker, Guyot, and Aptom. I think the way powers are learned and developed in the manga is really close to how abilities unlock in many AAA games. I think there’s elements to call upon in Assassin’s Creed, Arkham, Hitman, Syndicate, GTA, and Jade Cocoon. A common theme throughout Guyver is subterfuge. For most of the series, Sho and Agito have effectively been guerillas. For the first part, Chronos was a secretive organisation infiltrating governments and covering up its experiments - and Agito was himself trying to infiltrate it. Genzo’s downfall follows his failed attempts to clean up his mistakes, Risker and Guyot are consumed by ambition, and once Aptom evolves past Zoalord control he becomes a rogue stalker trying to sneak his way up the food chain. Really, though, the question is - how authentic to the manga should it be? How many surprises should there be? How many options to break continuity should there be? When you already know that Sho can regenerate from the medal, that Agito is a bastard, that Chronos win - what would you get from playing any of the roles? I’m not sure it could work - not for existing keen fans, anyway. If there’s scope for us to fight the scenario - to skip school as soon as Sho recovers from the lake, go to Max Pharmaceuticals head office, bio-boost, fire one megasmasher downwards and the other upwards - then it could feel a bit like those Breath of the Wild speedruns where a naked Link flies into Hyrule castle then the credits shortly roll. Alternatively, if it follows a levels structure with a fixed narrative, it’s going to feel constrained. Thinking on it, here’s some approaches that could be interesting: - Chronos business simulator. Like a Jurassic Park sim, but you’re digging for Relics, not amber. - Playing as Agito, trying to get promoted up the hierarchy whilst also setting up ops to fail. - a Bio-Boosted Battle Royale. Set in an alternative timeline, kind of like Mutronics, where the scale of Chronos is built around the constraints of the game. A load of players are put in a map, one of them has a Guyver, one of them is a remote Zoalord, the others are Zoanoids. (Could also just be two players, Guyver vs Zoalord, with bots or directly puppeted Zoanoids.) Additionally, there are loads of NPCs, including a bunch of family and friends of the Guyver. The Zoalord can directly order Zoanoids, giving them map pins and switching POV from a world map to any Zoanoid’s POV, and can leave their control centre to personally join battle. The Guyver wins by either killing all the Zoanoids or killing the Zoalord or exposing Chronos. Chronos win by capturing the Control Medal. The deaths of the Guyver’s friends and family causes debilitation, like the emotional trauma that prevented Sho from summoning the Guyver, so the Guyver has reason to avoid exposure. NPCs can be witnesses that increase Chronos’ exposure, however their deaths cause some debilitation to the Guyver and Chronos’ network of spies means that a highly credible witness may be identified to the Zoalord. Once a friend or family member has witnessed a Chronos attack, they may use what skills they have to help the Guyver. Amongst the Zoanoids is a Gelpess, who can try to imitate a family member. There are Chronos facilities on the map that serve as spawn points for Zoanoids - Chronos can respawn players by abducting and processing a non-Zoanoid. There is a chance they may abduct the Guyver, who will have a chance to play possum and invade Chronos - or, perhaps, become a Guyver Zoanoid; this increases their power level, but it makes them permanently traceable by the Zoalord, who can use mental attacks to distract (but not control) the Guyver. Also, there’s a film director NPC whose monster movie shoots provide opportunities to transform in broad daylight with plausible deniability, and one of the Zoanoids can r

Oh, was he not? I’d got it into my head he had to evolve Kryptonite resistance in a story after Death of Superman.

Is thread necromancy ok here? As I understand it, Doomsday (comics) is an forcibly-evolved Kryptonian who, whenever he dies, revives immune to whatever killed him. And wasn’t on Krypton when it died. So by my reckoning, the Guyver’s got one chance to find a big Kryptonite Crystal, and filter a Mega Smasher through it and vapourise DD. Absoltely any other strategy ends with a Control Medal getting turned into a pancake by the first punch that hits it.

First thought: well, what do you think the Advents were trying to develop weapons to counter? :D Second thought: wait, who do you think the Engineers were? D: Deeper thoughts: it comes down to two or three factors - how the Guyver unit copes with Xenomorphs, how Chronos (and Zeus) cope with Xenomorphs, and how the Guyver unit copes with Xenoids. So. Seven questions come to mind, regarding Guyver versus Xenomorphs: - Can the armour withstand Alien blood? Probably. Chronos had to specifically develop anti-Guyver corrosives to neutralise the armour. The Guyver seems to be intended for use in a warship which seems to flood itself with corrosive fluid - against which Chronos haven’t managed to engineer a counter - as a first-line defence against boarders. It can even breathe the stuff. - Can the HF swords withstand Alien blood? Maybe. They’re going to be agitating the stuff, making it hotter. An ultrathin edge is like the ideal thing to attack with corrosives. - Can the Control Medal withstand Alien blood? Maybe not. A simple handbomb critically damaged one that was being carried in a case. On the other hand, when Enzyme plucked Sho’s medal, the Guyver’s helmet offered no protection - the claws went through it like warm butter - but Enzyme had to use a lot of force to rip the Medal out, and it was not damaged in any noticeable way. It seems unlikely that no Enzyme juice got on it, so maybe it’s virtually immune to corrosion? A Guyver engaged in desperate battle against Xenomorphs could therefore fight to exhaustion, rip off their own Medal, throw it to safety, and then let themselves be consumed by the Guyver whilst executing a banzai charge at even more Xenos. Not a terrible tactic if your goal is to support human survivors. - How many Xenomorphs can a Guyver kill before the unit powers down and disengages? - If a Guyver unit disengages, leaving the user submerged in powerful acidic blood with the Control Medal not present, what happens? - If a chestburster kills a Guyver user whilst they are unconscious, what happens? - What is the critical mass of Xenomorph population at which their daily reproduction rate exceeds the Guyver’s daily kill rate? As for how Chronos would cope: which Chronos? Chronos, the secret organisation that goes to great lengths not to be spotted? Chronos, the world government challenged only by scattered guerillas and used to having Zoanoids disappear here and there? Chronos, the desperate crumbling regime losing a Zoalord every few months and negotiating with a Guyver who can now apparently become a Kaiju? As for Xenoids - the prospect of a Xenolord is pretty horrific, though TBH one of the most frightening aspects of Zoalords is their ability to compel any number of Zoanoids to execute a banzai charge. It’s bad enough that the bigger ones are essentially walking tanks, but the fact that a good sniper could perhaps pop a few Gregoles in the eye or mouth with an anti-material rifle and the rest of them would keep coming without caring that their comrades are now melting puddles is pretty decisive in what is essentially a Warhammer battle. This fearless battle frenzy is already pretty standard to Xenomorphs? I’m more concerned about the scope for a modest number of Xenoids being able to bring down and infect Hyper Zoanoids. Chestbursters popping out with superpowers like invisibility, Guyver-class strength, HF swords? And if it’s a Queen, and that capability can be passed down, and Xenoids can’t be controlled - or at least, confused - by a Zoalord... we’d be in troub.

A comparison can be made to Alan Moore's Watchmen - it is set in a historic time period, but superhuman intellects within the fiction have accelerated the development of technology and society to a level whereby much of what we see in the fiction rings true today. The social impact of a Zoanoid population and a unified world government makes attempts to deduce specific years pretty much impossible, especially as the main historic progress that the story is concerned with is the development of the central characters. I did appreciate the retconning of the time period for the 2000's anime, but I prefer for the manga to stay locked into its own timeline. As real-world tech and culture develops, Chronos R&D and Zoanoid-inspired pop culture can keep pace so new readers aren't going to be laughing at Murakami's attire and the size of mobile phones - which is a fortunate narrative tool, given Takaya's rate of output.

@TricoBren - oh, I agree, translators should mainly interpret and honorifics should mainly inform tone of language - like for instance "Konnichiwa, Sho-kun" as "Ayup, mate*" and "Konnichiwa, Barcas-sensei" as "Welcome, venerable one". I personally prefer it when stories specifically set in Japan retain honorifics without making a big deal of them, but I don't especially mind whichever as long as I can understand the story. Here I'm just interested in knowing how it was originally written *(I leave it to US English speakers to interpret my rate good norvern dialect, learn to talk proper like what I do yoff)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics I've been wondering lately how the various major characters address one another in the original text. In the English dubs, translations and fanslations, we see Sho and his friends address one another as peers, whilst Agito is more of an acquaintance - the high-achieving older student from a wealthy background. Chronos soldiers and officers frequently denigrate Sho because of his age and civilian status, whilst Odagiri's team - especially Hayami - speak to him respectfully, almost in awe. Meanwhile, Agito goes from being the aloof union president to a comrade in arms, and then to a contemptuous bully and even a murderous foe - but then, following a humiliating duel, positively grovels before Sho's mastery of combat tactics and the Guyver unit. Elsewhere, he's the commander of a paramilitary force consisting of foreigners he shows no hesitation in sacrificing, be they mere humans or formidable Zoanoids - except for his priceless Zoalord lieutenant and their pet scientist. Also, we have Tetsuro and Mizuki, now adults who've been in spectacular battles, playing video games with a frail foreign kid they don't realise to be one of the most powerful entities on Earth. Finally, there are times when powerful individuals are known to their enemies and observers (including the news media) only in their battle form, which does not always reveal their gender. Without denigrating the sterling work that's been done by those who have interpreted the original text into English, I'm wondering if there's a load of depth in character relations depicted by hierarchical honorifics that have been approximated in tone and turn of phrase. Do we have any bilingual readers who could illuminate us?

I make miniatures for a living. If you post pictures of the damage, with a ruler in shot to establish scale, I might be able to advise on repairs.

"Aeons ago, America was great…"

When fighting Archanfel, Guyot creates a "seven thousand exaton" synthetic black hole. An exaton is a thousand million million tons. Now, I've not studied maths or units since high school, so take all this with a pinch of salt… The Earth's mass is about six thousand million million million tons. This rates his black hole at a bit more than a thousandth of an Earth mass. To convert energy into seven thousand exatons with perfect efficiency, Guyot would have to wield six hundred and thirty million million million million million million Joules. How much is this? Well, the most powerful weapon ever manufactured was the RDS-220 'Tsar Bomb' detonated by the Soviet Union in 1961. It had a fifty megaton yield, which equals two hundred and ten thousand million million Joules. To create the synthetic black hole, it seems that at the bare minimum Guyot had to wield the equivalent energy of three thousand million million million Tsar Bombs. What if we account for inefficiency? Atomic weapons convert mass to energy with an efficiency of about 0.1%; for every kilogram of uranium, one gram is turned into ninety million million joules of energy. To create a mass of seven thousand exatons with this degree of efficiency, Guyot would need to wield the energy of a hundred and fifty million million million million million megatons of TNT. The density of TNT is 1.65 grams per cubic centimetre. That's a bomb the size of sixty million million Suns. Guyot's Zoalord form is twice as tall as an adult human. A strong man's volume is about 80 litres. Applying a scale factor of 2, Guyot's Zoalord form is about 640 litres. Assuming Guyot's body is mostly made of water, it therefore takes about two and a half million joules to raise his body temperature by one degree Celsius. Creating a seven thousand exaton object from energy with the efficiency of a nuclear weapon would therefore raise his body temperature to a quarter of a million million million million million million Kelvin - equivalent to two hundred and fifty million Big Bangs. So, we can safely assume that Guyot's energy-mass efficiency is better than a nuke by a factor of several million! And, of course, Archanfel can take this hit and come out of it able to kill two Guyvers with a wave of his hand. Who else in fiction has similar capabilities? In Star Trek, Romulans use artificial black holes as power sources. In Transformers, Megatron is capable of opening a miniature Space Bride that ends in a black hole and deposits its matter from his optics. In Super Mario Galaxy, Bowser weaponises miniature black holes as obstacles. Lumas are capable of pooling their power to dissipate supermassive black holes, presumably making their collective power several degrees of magnitude greater than that of Guyot and Barcas combined. In Doctor Who, Rassilon and Omega created a black hole to use as a power source for Gallifrey and TARDISes. In DOTA, Enigma can wield black holes and may himself be a sentient singularity. In Metroid, Samus Aran can wield Dark Aether to create miniature black holes. In Warhammer 40,000, Vortex weapons create a rift to a parallel universe with the result of creating a localised and unpredictable event horizon.

Thank you! At this scale, a human is 28mm tall - though I've made Sho a bit too tall for this. Still, it's a learning experience Part of why I chose to sculpt from The Guyver is because of the mixture of civilian, military, and monster characters it'll entail. So expect to see Zoanoids before long

So! I'm big into tabletop games and I'm trying to expand my portfolio to start a career as a sculptor. After giving it some thought, I've decided to set about a long-term project: to sculpt every character from The Guyver! I'm going to work through the cast - pretty much every named character I can think of - in rough order of appearance, working from the Manga and the OVA and the TV series. I might well tackle the Western live adaptations as a side project, maybe even do an Out Of Control offshoot. I'm going to be interpreting the characters in a fairly realistic style, but hopefully they'll be recognisable. All will be sculpted at a scale where a human is 28mm tall, unless otherwise stated. If anybody happens to be equipped to give detailed crit, then please go ahead! My goal with this project is to improve my skills. Progress will happen as and when. So, here's my first two completed sculpts: I think his eyes are a bit too sunken for a seventeen year old, but a Games Workshop manager remarked that he reminds him of Bruce Lee. So, he's already been recognised as East Asian. I had a go at painting a chrome effect without using pearlescent paint.

I'm going to indulge in a wee necro to bring a new tangent into this. The Generation 1 Transformers comic starts in the Marvel universe. Symbiote-enhanced Spider-Man has a run-in with Megatron whilst rescuing a hostage (1), and the Dinobots' Earth forms are informed by an expedition to the Savage Land (2). As well as guest appearances from Marvel superheroes, TFG1 introduced a team called the Neo-Knights, led by Circuit Breaker (3), whose battlesuit conferred on her Magneto-style abilities of such magnitude she could cripple Unicron, a literal god (4). If we take into account the content produced by Marvel UK, TFG1 also added to the Marvel pantheon Death's Head, a robot freelance peacekeeping agent (never call him a bounty hunter). His accomplishments include assassinating the Decepticon leader, Shockwave; fighting Unicron in the astral plane and destroying his mortal remains; and surviving a duel with Galvatron. He was scaled down into the Marvel universe in a chance encounter with The Doctor (5); both he and Circuit Breaker remain Marvel properties. A few years ago, the TFG1 storyline was picked back up, under the title Regeneration One. In the twenty-one year publication gap, Megatron conquers Earth and drives humanity into an underground resistance movement. Megatron's Decepticon army has been lobotomised to ensure obedience. Now, this series was not a Marvel publication, however Circuit Breaker's tech is still in use, and in the accounts of the fall of Earth, there's not even an allusion to super-powered individuals even slowing down the invasion. A narrative exists, therefore, in which an Earth that is defended by the Avengers, the X-Men, and Doctor Who, (and G.I. Joe, aheh) with all their adversaries present and with an obvious interest in uniting, and are all defeated by mindless Cybertronian zombies. Cybertronian tech is very different to the Uranus, and it's difficult to gauge Megatron's power relative to a Zoalord (Though could possibly take on Draglord - he does have a high-risk black hole attack), but if there's a conceivable timeline where Magneto fails to smash their scissors with his rock after being briefed by The Doctor, one can envisage a timeline where Archanfel defeats Dr Strange and Thor and The Hulk. Why, there's even a 'What If…' story titled 'The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe'. If Uatu the Watcher has seen that come to pass, it's not hard to imagine Chronos overcoming S.H.I.E.L.D.

Guyver Warriors would be pretty awesome. Though I reckon Arkham City would be an ideal platform for building a Guyver game.

As an artist with mental health problems, I am entirely familiar with how output can fall short of demand. I'm grateful for what Takaya content I get to enjoy, especially as a fan who can't buy or order his work in a high street shop. I don't see it as any of my business whether his peak output of sixteen pages per month is due to his personality or his work ethic or his health or any other cause. If someone complained on one of my project blogs that they don't get regular large updates to look at for free on the Internet, it certainly would not inspire me to pull my socks up and hire an assistant sculptor.

You know what I like best in the 2005 show? The HZT5. Time and again, the episodes I return to are the ones where they're investigating and so on. I'm a big fan of procedural detective shows, and seeing them examining the scene of Aptom's fight with Sho never gets old for me. Conversely, the fight itself was a disappointment. I can do without Aptom sexually assaulting Mizuki as in the OVA, especially as he's building up to his eventual face turn and heroic redemption, but the 'camera work' when Sho finally regains the Guyver and when he counters Aptom's blast were perfect in the OVA.

I can't seem to find an episode where Murakami explains to everyone how come he's a Zoalord. I'm sure I recall him telling about the other prototypes, and I'm sure it was't in the OVA. Anyone?

Hmm. With regard to Agito's speed when bio-boosted, I've just watched episode 13. When he kills Thancrus, he dodges a laser attack by changing direction downwards in mid jump. That's not acrobatics, that can only be the gravity controller in action. So, it seems correct to say that Guyver III has the innate potential to move and change direction fast enough to deliver a decapitating strike with the front blade and then move so that the second blade does not follow through into the corrosive blood. We've seen Sho shoot a bullet out the air to save Tetsuro before he was aware of the gun firing, so it's also true to say that a Guyver either piggy-backs or supplements the autonomous nervous system to make defensive moves beyond simple evasion. The question therefore is whether or not that evade was deliberately performed by Agito or if was an autopilot dodge. He did get several ultra-fast kills in Tokushima, no footsteps heard, so he can definitely perform very agile flight manoeuvres. Even if it's all performed by the Guyver for him, he's smart enough to realise that and incorporate it into a fighting style. This is a man who cuts his own leg off and beats you to death with it, I can see Takaya penning a scene where he does a one-inch-slash in the confident assumption that knowing the target's blood is corrosive will enhance his subsequent pirouette. Alternatively, it could be that the Guyver's precise capabilities are largely determined by narratological necessity, like how the Walking Dead can't decide if they are shambles or runners

I honestly don't mind anything about Guyver. I'm an artist myself and struggle with mental health issues. I'm not unusual amongst my peers in that respect. I consume their blogs and galleries as and when they are updated, I'm just happy when they finish something and if they lose their mojo for a few months or even years I'm no poorer. I dunno what the difference is between Takaya and creators who pump out dozens of pages a month, but I'm no more entitled to an eight side Guyver update every four weeks than I am to a bunch of dakkadakka thread update every time I log in, and as the spectacle unfolds I feel privileged to observe it That said, I totally get that it's a difficult series for new, Anglophonic readers, accustomed to series with release schedules more akin to Batman & retail shelf space in larger cities. I do readings and voice acting for some dyslexic friends as a vocal exercise, and over the coming weeks I'm going to try some Guyver advocacy on one who fondly remembers Mutronics

I can't remember the last time I saw something as brutal as OVA Genzo's transformation, let alone the fight that follows. If the scene had been realised as is with live action and a moderate FX budget, it'd have been rated 18 for sure. Warhammer 40K has literature that far surpasses in terms of ultraviolence, but the franchise's on-screen action has mostly been cartoonish.

Well put!

He's wearing armour that enhances bodily control to bullet dodging-level and he clearly trains with it and experiments with its capabilities, he's had multiple encounters with Enzymes, and the blade does not rely on swinging momentum to deliver a severing strike. And he's got levitation capability that can carry his and a passenger's body weight, easily enough to counter his forward momentum after making a fast forward strike. So, he's got a strong incentive and the capability to develop a fencing style where a foreblade strike is followed by drawing back the arm, thereby decapitating an Enzyme type without plunging his second blade into the wound and unnecessarily exposing his arm to the spurting jugular.

Four swords instead of two is a pretty significant advantage when dealing with foes that are vulnerable to but can destroy swords. Agito could individually decapitate four Enzyme types if needs be.

Perhaps we could have a sticky thread that maintains an up to date 'the story so far', following the sort of protocol you see in a Wikipedia article 'plot synopsis' section?