A Word From the Author

Hey Guys I'm Kenton Barks here, And I welcome you all to this special afterword I have to say to all of you. A lot of you guys should know that I thank each and everyone of you for sticking around with me till the end of this story I created to the best of my abilities. So Allow me to enlighten you, ladies and gentlemen, on why I wanted to write Senran Kagura: Youma May Cry. First off I would like to ask each and everyone of you: Please be as supportive of me as you can because of my talents, and also please don't people tell you different about me. Because if there's one thing I've learned from Kate Mulgrew, Captain Kathryn Janeway herself, "I'm really easy to get along with most of the time, but I don't like bullies and I don't like threats."

Let's start from the very beginning. After Watching Senran Kagura: Ninja Flash and it's second Season, Senran Kagura: Shinovi Masters: Tokyo Youma-hen. I was compelled by how some of the girls looked and had to make sure that their personalities matched that of the characters that had been conceived by the people of XSeed, Marvelous! Entertainment, INC, and it's creator Kenichiro Takaki who wanted us to see how a kunoichi would live in the modern world after the age of ninjas and samurai had become ancient history. A number of people who were filmmakers, tv show writers, and authors of both the 20th century all the way up to the 21st century brought the ninja and the samurai onto our screens in the form of Movies, TV shows, books, audio dramas, and video games of various genres.

When Senran Kagura was created by Mr. Takaki, we soon saw how some of the kunoichi of that franchise can be both badass, attractive, but also cute at the same time. The games however, were also pretty epic, and we even got a chance to kiss any of the girls when in the dressing room for certain games of that franchise. Of course there were certain guest characters from other franchises like Dead or Alive, Ikki Tousen (Battle Vixens), Hyperdimension Neptunia, and Super Sonico. Sadly though we couldn't really kiss any of the guest characters, but we could interact with them by being giving them a gentle pat on the head, or just be completely perverted with them.

The transformation sequences of both the games and the anime made us think that Senran Kagura felt like a Magical Girl type of franchise, but as we know it was a hack and slash fighting game. Very soon we'll see more of the Senran Kagura games as they become more interesting and intricate at the same time. I actually liked how most of the english voices of the girls seem to fit them pretty well, especially Felecia Angelle's performance of Asuka due to her upbeat personality, as well as Monica Rial's voice for Homura who starts off as a nice girl, but then starts to act like a (Please excuse my language everyone) hardass. Mallorie Rodak's voice for Yumi in the second season seemed to fit the character pretty well for her kind and caring personality, after her grandpa Kurokage said that she and her friends, must not go completely about justice being the complete and eradication of evil. After all, you can't blame that old timer for learning his lesson before he passed away, leaving Yumi to continue to honor his memory after everything that transpired.

And now my original characters. For the character of Danzo, I was inspired by the way Capcom and Hideki Kamiya made Dante a human/demon hybrid, for the game Devil May Cry. For this reason, I envisioned Danzo with black hair that Dante from the crappy reboot had, but still keep the same length that the original Dante had by having a guy who likes to show his stuff, very witty yet traditional for a fighting man, and someone who doesn't like smoking all that much. Now about Danzo's clothes they had to be a bit similar to Dante's clothes that he wears in Devil May Cry 3, but for the sake of completeness, I felt it would be interesting to add a shirt onto Danzo when he transforms into his ninja outfit which had to be very consistent as well as complex for him. He needed to look a bit like a rock star with that biker vibe. Ryuki was inspired by Vergil due to his lust for even greater power. I wanted to make Ryuki's clothes be a bit consistent, and make them mirror what Vergil wore in the games. Miyabi's role had to be a bit similar to the character of Lady (Who lost her mother to her crazed dad, Arkham, before he events of Devil May Cry 3) so I took a bit of a careful look and had to make her a bit of a vengeful ruffian who lost something that was also irreplaceable for her and make her seek revenge on the one who took that away from her. Akira and Trickster were inspired by Arkham and Jester who have this split personality and bipolarizing glare that made them extremely terrifying when they kill someone who is related to their child. Since Arkham killed his wife Kalina Ann to obtain demonic power, I felt it would be interesting if Akira was Miyabi's brother who killed their father to obtain even greater power to turn into a youma. For the boyfriends of Daidouji and Rin, It would be interesting for them to have them be from another land but also be able to understand Japanese while also teaching them English as they served in the US military's army branch, while their friends were from the Navy, Air force, and Marines. The Kaiju sized Youma was inspired by Godzilla who was originally created in 1954, and continued to be a very iconic creature for almost 70 years and was shone pretty briefly in the Battle of Asakusa. (LONG LIVE THE KING)

I noticed that even though some of the girls are shipped with others by the fans, I decided that Danzo and Gekko would truly be an awesome couple. But I felt that they should express their love for each other in a PG-13 setting by having Danzo pull the covers over them as they kissed each other. And yes, even though there was a bit of fanservice, Gekko wasn't angry at Danzo when he turned quickly around and chose not to look at her, just like how he didn't look at Yumi when the top half of her kimono slipped off her, and when he gave Miyabi some clothes that she chose to put on after her ninja outfit got destroyed. (Just like in Senran Kagura: Estival Versus where you could destroy the girls clothes and send them flying into various objects as they tried to cover themselves up with their bare hands, after being beaten by their friends or their rivals.) Even though Kagura is the destroyer of youma, she does have moments where she starts to care for those around her.

Now the part where Danzo's mother, Emika had been killed after she put him in the closet, told him to flee from their home, start a new life, and be someone else before finding her other son Ryuki, was heavily inspired by the flashback sequence from Devil May Cry 5 where Eva does just that. I started to extend the scene slightly by adding Kagura into the flashback, as she gazed down sadly at Emika's lifeless body, until young Danzo reeled with shock and ran into her arms, bury his tear stricken face in her chest, and make Kagura feel sympathy for the young orphaned hybrid and raise him like a son. As for Fubuki, I was inspired by how Jedah stated that Dante was viewed as a traitor to both human and demon in Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, by having one of the youma stating that she is a traitor to both human and youma. All of this was enough for me to ensure that any of the kunoichi from Senran Kagura would know that there are some guys who deeply care about different women in any universe.

But the time will come for Danzo to face the Emperor of all Youma with the help of another unexpected ally who resembles his late mother, Emika.

Until next time, stay gold. BANG!

Kenton Barks

May 19th, 2019