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Kazuki Mori
Topic Started: Apr 28 2017, 01:19 AM (229 Views)
Connor Tavarin

Name: Kazuki Mori
Gender: Male
Age: 20

Class: Rokujima Student, Literary Arts Major

Clubs/Occupation: N/A

Personality: Kazuki is a relatively quiet, introverted young man who mostly tries to keep to himself as he goes about his day. Due to a life of overwork and strict expectations, he often feels he is under more pressure than he actually is, though now that he's a college student he's more or less free to pursue what he wants. He's not very savvy on pop culture aside from music that he's listened to while studying. This created a schism between him and most of his peers. Deep down, he likes to think he has a strong sense of right and wrong. He takes great joy in reading stories involving heroism and idealistic justice, wishing that such a thing was possible in a place like Nagashima, but believes he lacks the power to make a real difference.

History: Having lived in Nagashima his entire life, Kazuki is no stranger to the crime rate the city is notorious for. He grew up under strict guidance by his parents to make absolutely sure that he wouldn't wind up like the criminals out on the street. This included strict curfews, limited contact with his peers, and much focus on his studies. It didn't matter what he was studying, as long as he was distracted. The result left Kazuki as a quiet, stressed out mess throughout his time in Taiyoutono High School.

To boost his chances at getting into a good college, his parents had him join the Kendo Club. Thankfully, Kendo was a good stress reliever for the otherwise study heavy day and Kazuki took to it well. He never won any tournaments, but he managed to get close during one, only to be bested near the final match. Still, it was something he pursued during his entire high school career, leaving him with decent skill with a sword.

While he had acquaintances in the Kendo Club, Kazuki never really made efforts to bond with any of them simply because he didn't know how to. He'd often leave too quickly to connect with anyone and never accepted any offers to spend time after club since he had to be home as soon as possible. This led many other students to view him as antisocial, but the truth was he was simply too timid to disobey his parents and branch out to truly know others.

Despite his parents' attempts to shield him from the outside world, Kazuki inevitably saw examples of rampant crime around the city throughout his life via news reports and hearsay and school. Muggings, theft, violence...it was enough to make him think. Why is the city like this? Was there anything someone like him could do? He didn't know what he would be able to do in a place like this. He didn't think he would make an effective police officer or prosecutor. Another question that crossed his mind was why exactly commit crimes in the first place? Are they truly society's trash, simply delinquents, or was there something more? These questions haunted him for quite some time.

After graduating, he quickly transferred to Rokujima to study Literary Arts and moved into the apartments there just so he can have a little bit of freedom for once in his life. It almost overwhelmed him at first, but he grew to enjoy taking life at his own pace, though the upbringing did leave a long-lasting impact on his personality. He constantly studied and provided very little time to himself, leaving him out of the loop when it came to a lot of pop culture aside from music and the occasional novel. He grew to enjoy reading and writing stories about heroes who do their best to mediate problems before they occur and try to resolve a situation with as little damage as possible. The idea of someone growing as the story progresses and becoming a force of balance fascinated him. He wished he was capable of being someone like that, but for now he was content reading and writing about them.

Appearance:
Spoiler: click to toggle


He often wears very plain, flatly colored clothing with few if any distinguishing logos or names. He appears to favor the color purple, as his favorite hoodie is a shade of purple. He stands up very professionally and rarely slouches, making his 6'2" height all the more noticeable. He speaks softly, almost too softly at times, making it difficult to hear him if one isn't paying complete attention to him. When nervous, he breaks into a stutter.

Current Weapon/Combat Skill: Due to his experience in his high school Kendo club, he is somewhat skilled in the use of a blade and is often seen carrying a wooden sword with him.
Mask:
Spoiler: click to toggle

Persona: Kazuki's Persona is Power, an angelic warrior of Heaven known to be academically driven as they are concerned with ideology, philosophy, theology, and religion. It takes the shape of a humanoid with shining white wings. It carries a spear in its right hand, the shaft of which is a cascading mixture of silver and purple designs. Tied right under the spearhead is a set of scales constantly weighing back and forth in the same consistent motion at all times. In its left hand is a shield, shaped like a large tome with large metallic pages that are constantly flipping back and forth. Upon casting a spell, the shield turns to a specific page and glows a bright light. Its armor is adorned with swirling and flowery patterns in the same silver and purple color scheme as its spear, the designs bearing a similar appearance to Kazuki's mask. Power's skin is almost porcelain white with an unchanging warm smile adorning its features. Its eyes are always shut and its long purple hair gives off an otherworldly glow.



~Name: Power
~Arcana: VIII, Justice
~Drain:
~Weak: Elec, Dark
~Null: Light
~Reflect:
~Resist:
~Skills: Skewer, Hama, Rakukaja

Have you read all the stickies? Yes I have.
Edited by Connor Tavarin, Apr 28 2017, 03:52 PM.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
There are a few problems with this application. The most basic is the Persona. While videogame Personas aren't strictly forbidden, they are something that require some thought to be put into them, and there's an inherent problem in using the protagonist of a 2016 computer game for a Persona-user in the year 2014. I would recommend looking for a figure from mythology, history, or literature that fits your character before going to a videogame character, as a rule of thumb, but at the very least, try to pick a character that would exist as a prominent figure in humanity's collective unconscious at the time this game takes place: 2014 or earlier, and as another rule of thumb, characters that have existed for a longer period of time are more likely to be viable.

More pressing (to me) is the history. While I see the sort of character you're going for, I don't really think you fully understand what kind of society that Kazuki would have grown up in. It's highly unlikely that he would have taken an athletic club up that's so traditionally Japanese as Kendo Club and been met with parental disapproval; indeed, clubs at school are seen as functionally exactly what studying appears to be to his parents, a distraction from bad influences and an extension of a student's academic life, which is why Persona 3 and Persona 4 both made such a push to have the protagonist join both an athletic club and a culture club (while Persona 5 doesn't bother, since the protag has a bad reputation anyway). It's far more likely that such parents would pressure Kazuki to excel at his extracurricular activities and get a college scholarship or some other form of benefit for his overall academic life, but even besides that, participating in something culturally relevant like that would be seen as a sign that Kazuki is leaning toward Good Japanese Boy Behavior(tm) and probably win him points with his parents for being a son they can talk about favorably among any traditionally-minded friends they have, besides.

The issue of Kazuki's high school social circle is probably the most glaring problem, though. Put simply, it's at once too ambitious and too under-explained (why does Kazuki know so many people who got either arrested or expelled when he attends what is essentially the city's "good" high school?). A potential alteration here is that he just happened to know a few too many students who ranked low in exams and one or two of them later got into a single incident that landed them a criminal record they might not have entirely deserved, or else authority figures were just too harsh in dealing with his friends for Kazuki not to become disillusioned with them, dramatic criminal record or not. There's definitely room for you to play around with Japan's high school conformity complex but as it stands, it's too flat and undeveloped to really make up for its jumping-the-shark factor.

Other than these issues, the character application seems to be alright as far as I can tell, but these need to be addressed before we can approve you.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
The backstory's looking good now, although there's one point I'd like clarification on (what do you mean when you say he saw examples of rampant crime? do you just mean via the news?). I think you can safely get started on figuring out what a good Persona for the character would be, though.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
Approved.
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