/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>36581030
Everything about the redesign works great except the head, although looking at the Meltan promo art makes me see what they were going for more than the VN, where the character just looked cooler with long hair.

SHIKI-Roa's design seems to me to be an attempt to merge a contradictory refinement and feralness, like Roa's original refinement as a high-ranking clergymen and archmage is showing through SHIKI's grunge, pieced together from whatever was on hand by what is essentially a homeless teenage boy who never got the chance to grow up because he was too busy having a mental breakdown. He's supposed to look a little wild and unhinged, yet still has a sense of foppish composure and... slitheriness.

He's got a lot of elements you'd expect in an ikemen anime villain/vampire design, but there's something unseemly about him that makes him not quite attractive the way, say, Gilgamesh would be - kind of similar to Cornelius Alba, whose attempt at youthful beauty is a façade. Incidentally, Gilgamesh, Alba, and SHIKI-Roa actually occupy similar roles in their respective stories - they're more emotive, smug, rape-y villains than the Jouji Nakata antagonist they're partnered with and tend to be motivated in part by their entwined resentment and admiration for a heroine (or Touko). Though, the original Roa is more like Kotomine or Satsuki Kurogiri (they even use the same book metaphor for their interaction with Akasha, although so does EMIYA as a counter guardian).

The new design's hair looks like some compromise between Gil's slicked back hair and Agravain, or even Gilles de Rais... Which still fits, really, but it honestly just looks awkward, and is less unique than the hairstyle he originally had, which made his character design significantly more distinct. Combined with the bitchin' belt, though, he does kinda look like a rock star now, which still gets across the same paradoxical feeling of wildness and finesse. There was a meme back in the day in the Japanese community that Roa looked like a piano teacher, so maybe they were trying to make him look less fruity while still being flamboyant in a different way. By far the coolest new addition to him is the Serpent of Akasha crest, which is totally badass looking.

The long black hair of the old version served to contrast with the white of his dress shirt and give his silhouette more volume, like a cape would, which is probably why, in the manga, Sasaki Shounen gave him a long coat to wear over his shoulders like a mantle while his hair was white like SHIKI's. That's the coolest version of his design to me, and I don't think the new design surpasses that, which is a shame. It seemed like a no-brainer to just give him the coat in the remake, but I guess he's intentionally supposed to look a bit dweeby? Him tossing that coat away in the manga was a fucking death flag, and so was his hair shortening in TsukiR lmao.