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beyondthebladePlayer Information
Name: Ken
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
mugennoken
Age: 34
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: Tsubasa Kazanari
Canon: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Canon Point: After AXZ (Season 4)
Age: 19
History: Episodes and summaries.
Tsubasa’s wiki entry is incomplete, and I’m not sure if episode summaries are enough. Thus, a series summary from her perspective:
Born to the noble and influential Kazanari family, Tsubasa was conceived with the intent to become the family's heir by Fudou Kazanari, who impregnated his son’s wife out of dissatisfaction with his eldest son’s suitability for such a role. As a child, her song, which attuned with a special wave form, awakened the soul of an undying being named Finé at a young age, who overtook the body of a woman named Ryoko Sakurai. Finé created a weapon known as “Symphogear” using the power of ancient artifacts called “Relics”, which Tsubasa was capable of wielding, while secretly acting as Ryoko. This allowed Tsubasa to fight monsters called the Noise, who were secretly being propagated by Finé, as part of an organization that could come to be known as S.O.N.G. With her partner Kanade, she fought hard against the Noise, while simultaneously acting publicly with her as an idol as part of the group known as Zwei Wing, until a Noise attack caused Kanade to lose her life.
Tsubasa fought alone for several years, performing as a solo unit professionally as well, until Hibiki Tachibana, a girl Kanade had died saving, appeared with Kanade's Symphogear. Through a series of hardships and battles, what starts out as animosity towards Hibiki became understanding, and confrontations with Finé's ally Chris Yukine also led to that girl joining them. Together, the three of them worked together to stop Finé’s ambitions to destroy the moon, exposing her true identity and ending her ancient machinations once and for all.
Later on, an organization named F.I.S. and a treacherous scientist named Dr. Ver sparked an incident that began with holding countries of the world hostage with their power, and ended with Ver threatening to obliterate most of the life on the planet by causing the moon to collide with planet Earth. While during the previous incident there had been disorganization and subterfuge to hinder them, this time, the “Mobile Disaster Response Corps” (as S.O.N.G. was originally named), was able to act far more efficiently, with Tsubasa taking the role of the senior Symphogear user and serving as the trio’s “leader”. This didn’t stop her from having to fight Chris again, thanks to a combination of her friend’s poor decisions and the machination of Doctor Ver, thereby saving her from a path that would have ended in Chris’s death and solidifying the bond between them. Together with the F.I.S. Symphogear users, Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika, they were able to stop Ver’s schemes, close off the gateway from which Noise emerged forever, stop the moon from falling, and ultimately save the world a second time.
The third major incident happened some considerable time later. An alchemist named Carol Malus Dienheim and her servants, the Auto Scorers, struck out against their organization, now named S.O.N.G., in order to "dissect the world." She used the Symphogear users to her own ends, setting up a situation in which their powers were destroyed and reconstructed in a way that would only further her plans via a crafted, yet convoluted, sequence of events that involved throwing the lives of her servants away. In the process, Tsubasa was forced to confront the reality about her family and ultimately came to terms with the man she considered her father. The six united Symphogear users managed to defeat Carol... even if it came at the price of destroying nearly all of Shinjuku District. Tsubasa returned to her singing career, but obviously things could only remain quiet for so long…
While she was singing in Europe, Tsubasa and Maria (who Tsubasa was convinced had followed her out of loneliness), became involved in a matter known as the “Alexandria Incident”. While they had no idea at the time, it would prove to be a precursor to what would soon come to pass.
A few short months later, S.O.N.G. was brought in to intervene in a war torn South American country named Val Verde, the ruling part of which had been using a kind of Noise called “Alca-Noise”, which Carol had created. This also happened to be the country that Chris’s parents were killed in as a child, leaving her to be captured, sold into slavery, and ultimately up under Finé’s influence. Understandably, this heavily weighed on Chris, leading to both Tsubasa and Hibiki picking up on it.
While there, their group was confronted with a trio of Alchemists like Carol, named Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, and Prelati, who collectively belonged to an organization called the Pavarian Illuminati, who had supported Carol from the shadows. They also came across Chris’s former caretaker Sonia, who had been separated from Chris after her parents’ death, and the woman’s younger brother, Stephan. In the process of battling the Alca-Noise, the current dictatorship’s army, and the Alchemists, Chris was forced to shoot Stephan’s leg off in order to prevent him from being dissolved by Alca-Noise. While Chris assured Tsubasa she was fine, Tsubasa was unconvinced
After returning to Japan (with a detour for Tsubasa and Maria that involved a mid air battle over the ocean after diving out of an exploding plane), the Pavarian Illuminati instigated more battles with S.O.N.G. for the purposes of the seeking something called “divine power.” In the proccess, they attracted the attention of a being known as Adam Weishaupt, the organization’s leader, who effortlessly destroyed a Kazanari Institute facility while they were in the midst of uncovering information important to thwarting them.
To overcome their new, more powerful enemies, Genjurou focused on training the girls to synchronize with different members of their team than they were used to, with Tsubasa’s partner being Shirabe, who initially pushed back against these attempts. In the midst of this training, Sonia and Stephan visited Japan in order to get him a new prosthetic leg. Tsubasa urged Chris to meet with them despite the gulf that had grown between Chris and Sonia, and bore witness as Chris combined her powers with Maria’s to stop an attack by Cagliostro while coming to terms with her old friend and the burdens of her past at the same time. Shortly after, Tsubasa recreated Chris and Maria’s success after reaching out to Shirabe, finally bonding with her after they both started to see themselves in each other, and together they used their newfound power to defeat Prelati.
A series of battles between Hibiki, Kirika, Saint Germaine, Adam, and his servant Tiki, led to Saint Germaine joining their side and Adam unleashing the divine power he’d been seeking, only for it to ultimately consume Hibiki instead. Tsubasa and the others, along with their unlikely new ally, spent days afterward trying to find ways to free her, with Tsubasa even choosing to stand up to her biological father’s protests in order to do so. They were inevitably able to not only free Hibiki with the help of her close friend (read, “girlfriend”) Miku, and defeat Adam, who revealed himself to be an artificial being created by an alien race Finé once opposed. In his dying moments, Adam warned of the inevitable approach of these beings, known as “Custodians” by Finé, but truly called the “Annunaki”.
Afterward, Tsubasa and the others celebrated Hibiki’s birthday, which had been long delayed by the ongoing crisis. However, in doing so, they remained blissfully unaware of the coming crisis, and how much members of their group had been changed by their long journey.
Personality: Tsubasa has come a long way since the first series. She’s gone from a shy and introverted girl, to a near-suicidal loner, and finally to a mature, if somewhat socially awkward, role model. As she was conceived and brought up with the express purpose of being the ideal heir for her clan, Tsubasa has been a victim of the system and circumstances around her ever since birth. When she was found to be able to resonate with the relics that would go on to be used in creating the Symphogears, she was molded into a weapon and tool. When she lost the person she was closest to, Kanade Amou, she withdrew to become someone harsh and cold. It was only after being pushed to her absolute limit and nearly dying did she start to come into the woman she would become, and take charge of her own destiny.
What kind of person is Kazanari Tsubasa now?. Most of the time, she’s a very serious minded and focused sort of person. She is usually short and to the point, with her mature and confident tone inspiring a certain amount of respect from her peers as well as those older than she is. The considerable experience she has amassed in her short life and the conviction with which she generally speaks also tends to carry a lot of weight with her comrades. Unless it's something she's lying to herself about, Tsubasa does not speak anything that she does not fully believe in, and she is incredibly honest about what she thinks about something when she’s speaking about it.
This is contrasted with how, due to her very peculiar upbringing, she tends to have a strange sense of social graces. For example, when the group visited Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe in prison, she took note of how well “well rounded” they were (with Tsubasa stating that Maria seemed especially so). It never for a moment occurred to her that her words could taken as her calling the three of them fat, as the group was talking about how well they were being fed, and she was completely oblivious to the perceived insult. This obliviousness and general awkwardness often results in Maria saying “this sword isn’t cute”, or the opposite, depending on whether she finds Tsubasa’s latest bit of weirdness to be charming or not.
Yet, despite her tendency to be awkward and dense, Tsubasa is largely warm and friendly to all of those she calls friends, even if she has odd ways of getting it across. It’s not her fault her view of the world is a little weird.
Her lack of social graces extend further than her accidentally insulting her friends. For as learned, skilled, and experienced as she is, she has also been very sheltered from the “everyday life”. When first coming out of her shell, she was taken very much by surprise by Hibiki and Miku treating her like an ordinary girl, instead of as a soldier or a famous idol. This is the sort of interaction she rarely experienced with her family, as all her role models kept her at a distance, either out of obligation or by standing on ceremony. She does not often get to engage in “normal” activities, and her inexperience tends to become evident when confronted with them. It can make her seem, in spite of her being smart and generally being very smart (she was at the top of her class prior to graduating), sort of dim at times. This also manifests in her missing social cues or seeing things through the lens of her unique perception of the world, which both comes from her being a famous idol and something of a modern day samurai in terms of how she behaves.
She is also completely terrible at domestic matters like cleaning. Really, she’s just a total disaster in this area. It’s so bad that her father took great pains to keep her childhood room a mess, because that’s how she personally tends to keep it. Seriously, do not room with this woman.
The "peculiar" upbringing that’s been mentioned was a mix of traditional Japanese values combined with a clear militaristic influence, courtesy of her biological father, Fudou Kazanari. Fudou, and the Kazanari clan by extension, operate in the shadows of the Japanese government, essentially running it and making its most important military and defense decisions. Though the rest of the world sees Fudou as her grandfather, the reality is that he chose to he impregnate her mother, the wife of his oldest son Yatsuhiro, in order to keep the bloodline "pure" and unencumbered by the weakness he perceived in his oldest son, Yatsuhiro. Yatsuhiro then acted the part of her father, treating Tsubasa in a cold, distant manner, which informed a great deal about the kind of person she became. He didn’t intend to be cruel in doing so (his intent was to push her away from her obligations towards the clan), but it caused her to not receive a great deal of fatherly guidance in her youth, and thus, has a skewed view of social niceties and familial affection.
It had further impact on her development. For a good deal of time, Tsubasa struggled with her identity, considering herself to be both a “sentinel” and a “sword”; a living weapon to be utilized towards defeating the Noise that threatened their world and related threats. However, in spite of this view and the distance her role models kept from her, she discovered deep affinity for and appreciation towards music from an early age. It inspired her, and she wanted to use her songs to inspire and bring joy to others, rather than as weapons of war. As the Symphogear is powered by the phonic gain produced by music, however, that line was quickly blurred. The loss of Kanade did not help this mindset, and she even continued to struggle with it until as recently as a few months before her most recent canon point. Even as her mindset has changed, in no small part thanks to Maria’s encouragement and the realization of her father’s true intentions for her, she carries a perception that she brings death and destruction to those near her. In spite of having to cope with it, and even appearing to overcome it numerous times, it’s a worry that remains fresh in her mind, which means it tends to resurface fairly often. At the same time, it allows her to empathize with people like her friends, Chris and Shirabe, who struggle with similar worries. At the very least, however, she has come to terms with her roles as both a protector and an idol, with her father helping her to realize she can achieve her dreams while still fighting, and she now refers to herself as a “wing”, capable of soaring higher, rather than as a weapon or protector.
Tsubasa largely keeps the circumstances of her family private, with it being one of the few things she keeps to herself - Maria only knows about it because she happened to be there when Tsubasa was being made to deal with it. This continues to be a source of pain and conflict for her, which ultimately belies another issue of Tsubasa’s; her tendency to keep her problems to herself. To everyone else, she appears strong and confident, and a source of advice and support, she does not tend to practice what she preaches. So while she is honest in how she shares with others about their problems, and despite having evolved considerably from the cold and callous loner she once was, she has an unfortunate tendency to bury her own problems in favor of helping everyone else.
As for how Tsubasa actually relates to her family, instead of them to her, she’s come to understand and forgive Yatsuhiro for his perceived coldness towards her, with her knowing that he wanted what was best for her, even if his station didn’t exactly afford a good way to give it to her. In their everyday interactions, she shows him proper familial respect while also acting with appropriate decorum befitting his role as her superior. She highly respects her “uncle,” the S.O.N.G. Commander Genjurou (who is also actually her brother) and tends to more often refer to him by his title rather than in a familial way. The fact he was always there for her in ways that neither Yatsuhiro wasn’t able to be, or Fudou simply wasn’t willing to shines through in how much she seems to hold him in high esteem.
Fudou, however, is a much different story. She knows exactly what kind of person he is and what he expects of her. Despite doing everything asked of her and at great personal cost, she has received nothing but dismissal and disdain from him, with him judging her for not measuring up to the image of an ideal heir. In spite of Fudou being her biological father, and all the expectations put upon her, it is quite apparent that Tsubasa loathes him, or at the very least does not respect him, the latter of which is probably a greater insult in Fudou’s eyes than outright hatred could ever be. While Tsubasa has shown great ability for forgiveness with the likes of Chris, Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika, all of whom did or were party to very terrible things, she is unwilling to give Fudou the same “courtesy”, even in spite of him being her patriarch and superior officer. This shows a limit towards her appearance to traditional Japanese values, her sense of honor, and sense of forgiveness, with her both openly disagreeing with him and even denouncing their link by blood to his face.
For Tsubasa, who states that she cares “not for blood”, the most important things in her life are actually her music and her friends. As stated before, she has loved music since she was a child, and has been singing all her life. Being a famous pop idol seems for her to be more of a side effect rather than the goal of getting her music out into the world, and she believes she can touch people’s hearts and lives with it even beyond language barriers. While protecting the weak is extremely important, she does not want that to be all there is to her life, and really, combat is more a means to an end for her to help create the kind of peaceful world where she can sing freely.
For a long time, the only person Tsubasa trusted was Shinji Ogawa, a member of an old, powerful ninja clan that serves the Japanese government, and thus the Kazanari family. He acts as her personal assistant and manager, while at the same time watching over her, and has even taught her at least one of his ninja techniques. She would trust Ogawa with her life, as well as those of her comrades. She sees him as something of an older brother figure, though it has had the unfortunate effect of contributing to her inability to keep things clean, as Ogawa tends to handle such matters for her. Nevertheless, he occupies an important place in her life as the person who opened the door to relying on and trusting other people.
Amou Kanade was extremely important and inspirational to her when she was younger. Someone as spirited and alive as Kanade was what she ultimately needed to pull herself out of her the shy and uncertain person she once was. In turn, her death changed her into someone hard and cold. It wasn’t until she met Hibiki, and by extension, Miku, that she had people reaching out to her in friendship again. This, along with her coming to terms with Kanade’s death, allowed turn her to turn into the warmer person she is today, and impart the lessons she learned onto rivals-turned-friends like Maria and Chris; she sees Maria as both a peer and a colleague, while treating Chris as a very close friend to which she offers a strong and guiding hand. She related to Shirabe’s tendency to define herself by her relation to others, as she once did with Kanade, and became like an older sister figure to her after reaching out. For anyone else in S.O.N.G., including Kirika and Elfnein, Tsubasa would clearly do anything in the world she could to help or protect them. This goes beyond physically fighting alongside them, as shown when she pushed Chris towards entering a singing competition at their school, in order to get the girl to open up and do what she wanted to, instead of being held back by how afraid or embarrassed she was by it.
In short, Tsubasa is a character defined by loss and perseverance, and shaped equally by isolation and bonds. Through the years she has experienced loneliness and friendship in equal measure, and has grown as a result. This allows her to be a source of strength to others, and in turn, they have given her the strength to be her own person and reach out for her own dreams.
Abilities: As a baseline, Tsubasa is someone who is clearly very athletic and in top physical form. Even before invoking the abilities granted by her Symphogear, she's displayed the capability to perform combative and gymnastic feats that are far outside the norm. She's a skillful warrior ,adept at using whatever is at hand to dispatch her foes, be it the sword at her side, or the multitude of motorcycles she tends to… employ as makeshift weapons. Please think twice before you lend yours to her, as she’s crashed quite a few. She’s actually quite good at riding - she’s just fighting monsters, you’ve gotta understand, and things just happen. That being said, she’s also a handy mechanic, though that’s a toolset she doesn’t get to use very often outside of performing maintenance.
Beyond her status as a particularly exceptional specimen of humanity, Tsubasa has the ability to don her Symphogear armor, created from an incomplete fragment of the relic called Ame no Habakiri. Tsubasa is naturally adept at using the armor, where others, such as Kanade, have to inject dangerous drugs into their system in order to be use it at all. In order to enable her relic’s transformation, she sings a specific, instinctive song in an ancient language that carries something called the "Aufwachen Waveform." After transforming, another song will rise from her heart, and singing it will continue to further empower her Symphogear as she fights, an act which is called "Phonic Gain." This can be increased by focusing her song, or amplified even further at times by joining and synchronizing with other Symphogear users, their shared songs leading often to even greater output. Of course, in turn this can be disrupted by other means, such as anti-Symphogear technology or even weaking her confidence. While it will not prevent the Symphogear user from fighting, it can interrupt the rate of their Phonic Gain and cause her compatibility levels to drop, making her Symphogear harder to use.
Tsubasa's armor is befitting her build, in that it is light but serviceable, and allows her to move fast and strike hard. The most notable features of it include the blades on her legs, which she can utilize as weapons at all times, but the most important weapon in her arsenal is her Armed Gear, the primary tool of any Symphogear user not named Hibiki Tachibana. Tsubasa's weapon typically manifests as a long katana, but as with anything involving a Symphogear, it is prone to changing. For her, it often will morph and grow into a giant cleaving blade, or split apart into a double bladed weapon, or even a double bladed naginata. In either form she can summon the powers of both lightning and fire, manifesting them in a variety of both melee and projectile attacks, such as - for instance - a tornado of fire, flaming wings, or a rain of energy blades.
Outside of these, she can also shape her katana into an enormous blade (“Heaven's Dragon Scale”) that stands dozens of feet into the air, which she has utilized to drop on enemies or even forcibly kick and send it rocketing towards an opponent. More often though, it’s used defensively as it’s incredibly unwieldy to try and hit someone with it. If her Armed Gear is physically destroyed, Tsubasa can infinitely replace it until her Symphogear sustains so much damage she detransforms, so she’s also capable of spamming her various attacks in the form of a rain of giant, and occasionally normal-sized blades. Her armor is also capable of minor propulsion that may not allow for complete unrestrained flight, but is fully capable of boosting a giant sword down a Noise’s throat.
Basically, one of the most important aspects of the Symphogear is that it changes. It is always steadily evolving and changing shape in accordance with Tsubasa’s development and growth as a warrior. However, Tsubasa has a unique ability called “Early Silhouette”, which allows her to access earlier iterations of her Symphogear. While this technically makes Tsubasa weaker, it also puts less strain on her body, and diminishes the harmful effects of anti-Symphogear technology. And of course, her armor also increases her natural strength, speed, and dexterity, all traits of are already exceptional for Tsubasa.
All Symphogear users have the ability to perform what’s known as a "Climax Song" (or however else you wish to translate "Zesshou"), which will massively overclock her power at the cost of causing severe backfire that damages the user. Tsubasa once used it carelessly in order to significantly damage Chris in battle (they were enemies at the time), yet was hospitalized and barely able to walk for weeks afterward. To date, Tsubasa has never been able to safely use her Climax Song alone without suffering damage. It is certainly possible, but given that Tsubasa's mental state at the time was questionable at best, and suicidal at most, she was not able to use it while in the best frame of mind. Nevertheless, she most often she utilizes her Climax Song with the other Symphogear users, allowing the backfire’s damage to be spread evenly across the group instead of individually, allowing them to perform outstanding feats. Even then, they generally have to use Hibiki Tachibana a focusing point to perform this unscathed. A less extreme version of this technique is called “unison” and “resonance”; normally, it involves two Symphogear users singing their battle songs at the same time, with the song of their hearts being the same. While this usually only makes the participants stronger, it can also help them combine their attacks, and to this date, Tsubasa has harmonized individually (as in, outside of a group of three) with Chris and Shirabe, with her achieving a unison attack with the latter.
When a Symphogear user achieves enough Phonic Gain, they activate their "ultimate forms," the X-Drive. Every activation of their X-Drives throughout the series has so far resulted in a form unique to the situation, with Tsubasa's most recurring theme being that she gets MORE swords and they get a LOT bigger. Under the effects of the X-Drive, their powers run on overdrive, with the users being able to do things like take out entire armies of Noise and deflect an entire chunk of the moon hurtling towards the planet. Of course, there is a drawback, in they are extraordinarily difficult to activate, requiring massive amounts of Phonic Gain not normally attainable, usually with bonus requirements that typically involve a lot of hot blooded yelling. Essentially, they are the "season ending" final battle powers, unable to be utilized without at least both Hibiki and Chris present, but generally also with Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika as a necessity. It nerfs itself by simple factor of the fact that you’d need a fully complete main cast and a nearby apocalypse to even start thinking about using it.
In the third season, the girls all obtained an upgrade to their Symphogears called the Ignite Module. At the risk of initiating a berserk form and further stress on their bodies, they could upgrade their strength and output, but in the fourth season finale that was lost. Unable to achieve their X-Drives against Adam, Elfnein effectively sacrificed their Ignited forms to “rebuild” their Gears into new forms that retain their abilities but operate at a higher base power.
Finally, Tsubasa has one “supernatural” ability that has nothing to do with her Symphogear. As Ogawa is a ninja, he taught her a technique of his known as “Shadow Weave”, which allows her to halt someone’s movement after she throws her blade into her opponent’s shadow. Tsubasa typically utilizes this in conjunction with her Symphogear, but she’s perfectly capable of using it without being transformed, as Ogawa can do the same, she’s just never been observed doing it on screen.
Strengths: Diligence, loyalty, honorable, selfless, bold.
Weaknesses: Oblivious, a slob, stubborn, repressive, old fashioned.
God/Shinki: God
Why?: Tsubasa has fought for her independence for years, making being a shinki an ill fit from the start. However, beyond that, she has wavered between two roles in her life, acting either as a “sentinel” whose sword exists to strike down those would do harm to the world at large, or as an on-stage idol, who sings to bring joy and light to anyone who would listen to her song. Thus, you could say that Tsubasa’s presence is a self-made larger than life figure already. Her desire to both reach out to and protect the world around her also makes her a much more suitable to the role of a God.
Top 3 Choices: Susanoo, Ame-no-Uzume, or Hachiman.
God Type: Almost as if it were something instinctual, Tsubasa would gravitate towards acting as a “sentinel”, even as a God, perhaps even more so. She would be tend to give answer to prayers for protection, from those in dire straits or danger, and those unable to defend themselves. The weak and the helpless would be the sort she’d especially make an effort to look out for. Additionally, in spite of what her chosen God may represent, and the type of role others have tried to ingrain into her throughout her life, she would still aim to be true to herself as a musician. As such, she would also be inclined to hear and answer those seeking encouragement or inspiration, and be particularly in tune with people suffering from family problems. She would want to find some means of using whatever influence or power she can have here to better people’s lives and improve upon them, if at all possible.
Power: “Song of Healing” - Tsubasa can channel her singing into bursts of healing and rejuvenating energy for any allies in an area immediately around her. It would able to energize the tired and heal some non-fatal wounds, but it has diminishing returns the longer it lasts. More significant injuries or those near death would be too much for it, and it cannot account for lost limbs or significant blood loss.
Writing Sample
Sample: TFS Test Drive link.
Other
Anything Else?: Intending for MaxSalsa’s Rita Mordio (blahblahblah) to be paired with Tsubasa as her shinki.
Name: Ken
Contact:
Age: 34
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: Tsubasa Kazanari
Canon: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Canon Point: After AXZ (Season 4)
Age: 19
History: Episodes and summaries.
Tsubasa’s wiki entry is incomplete, and I’m not sure if episode summaries are enough. Thus, a series summary from her perspective:
Born to the noble and influential Kazanari family, Tsubasa was conceived with the intent to become the family's heir by Fudou Kazanari, who impregnated his son’s wife out of dissatisfaction with his eldest son’s suitability for such a role. As a child, her song, which attuned with a special wave form, awakened the soul of an undying being named Finé at a young age, who overtook the body of a woman named Ryoko Sakurai. Finé created a weapon known as “Symphogear” using the power of ancient artifacts called “Relics”, which Tsubasa was capable of wielding, while secretly acting as Ryoko. This allowed Tsubasa to fight monsters called the Noise, who were secretly being propagated by Finé, as part of an organization that could come to be known as S.O.N.G. With her partner Kanade, she fought hard against the Noise, while simultaneously acting publicly with her as an idol as part of the group known as Zwei Wing, until a Noise attack caused Kanade to lose her life.
Tsubasa fought alone for several years, performing as a solo unit professionally as well, until Hibiki Tachibana, a girl Kanade had died saving, appeared with Kanade's Symphogear. Through a series of hardships and battles, what starts out as animosity towards Hibiki became understanding, and confrontations with Finé's ally Chris Yukine also led to that girl joining them. Together, the three of them worked together to stop Finé’s ambitions to destroy the moon, exposing her true identity and ending her ancient machinations once and for all.
Later on, an organization named F.I.S. and a treacherous scientist named Dr. Ver sparked an incident that began with holding countries of the world hostage with their power, and ended with Ver threatening to obliterate most of the life on the planet by causing the moon to collide with planet Earth. While during the previous incident there had been disorganization and subterfuge to hinder them, this time, the “Mobile Disaster Response Corps” (as S.O.N.G. was originally named), was able to act far more efficiently, with Tsubasa taking the role of the senior Symphogear user and serving as the trio’s “leader”. This didn’t stop her from having to fight Chris again, thanks to a combination of her friend’s poor decisions and the machination of Doctor Ver, thereby saving her from a path that would have ended in Chris’s death and solidifying the bond between them. Together with the F.I.S. Symphogear users, Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika, they were able to stop Ver’s schemes, close off the gateway from which Noise emerged forever, stop the moon from falling, and ultimately save the world a second time.
The third major incident happened some considerable time later. An alchemist named Carol Malus Dienheim and her servants, the Auto Scorers, struck out against their organization, now named S.O.N.G., in order to "dissect the world." She used the Symphogear users to her own ends, setting up a situation in which their powers were destroyed and reconstructed in a way that would only further her plans via a crafted, yet convoluted, sequence of events that involved throwing the lives of her servants away. In the process, Tsubasa was forced to confront the reality about her family and ultimately came to terms with the man she considered her father. The six united Symphogear users managed to defeat Carol... even if it came at the price of destroying nearly all of Shinjuku District. Tsubasa returned to her singing career, but obviously things could only remain quiet for so long…
While she was singing in Europe, Tsubasa and Maria (who Tsubasa was convinced had followed her out of loneliness), became involved in a matter known as the “Alexandria Incident”. While they had no idea at the time, it would prove to be a precursor to what would soon come to pass.
A few short months later, S.O.N.G. was brought in to intervene in a war torn South American country named Val Verde, the ruling part of which had been using a kind of Noise called “Alca-Noise”, which Carol had created. This also happened to be the country that Chris’s parents were killed in as a child, leaving her to be captured, sold into slavery, and ultimately up under Finé’s influence. Understandably, this heavily weighed on Chris, leading to both Tsubasa and Hibiki picking up on it.
While there, their group was confronted with a trio of Alchemists like Carol, named Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, and Prelati, who collectively belonged to an organization called the Pavarian Illuminati, who had supported Carol from the shadows. They also came across Chris’s former caretaker Sonia, who had been separated from Chris after her parents’ death, and the woman’s younger brother, Stephan. In the process of battling the Alca-Noise, the current dictatorship’s army, and the Alchemists, Chris was forced to shoot Stephan’s leg off in order to prevent him from being dissolved by Alca-Noise. While Chris assured Tsubasa she was fine, Tsubasa was unconvinced
After returning to Japan (with a detour for Tsubasa and Maria that involved a mid air battle over the ocean after diving out of an exploding plane), the Pavarian Illuminati instigated more battles with S.O.N.G. for the purposes of the seeking something called “divine power.” In the proccess, they attracted the attention of a being known as Adam Weishaupt, the organization’s leader, who effortlessly destroyed a Kazanari Institute facility while they were in the midst of uncovering information important to thwarting them.
To overcome their new, more powerful enemies, Genjurou focused on training the girls to synchronize with different members of their team than they were used to, with Tsubasa’s partner being Shirabe, who initially pushed back against these attempts. In the midst of this training, Sonia and Stephan visited Japan in order to get him a new prosthetic leg. Tsubasa urged Chris to meet with them despite the gulf that had grown between Chris and Sonia, and bore witness as Chris combined her powers with Maria’s to stop an attack by Cagliostro while coming to terms with her old friend and the burdens of her past at the same time. Shortly after, Tsubasa recreated Chris and Maria’s success after reaching out to Shirabe, finally bonding with her after they both started to see themselves in each other, and together they used their newfound power to defeat Prelati.
A series of battles between Hibiki, Kirika, Saint Germaine, Adam, and his servant Tiki, led to Saint Germaine joining their side and Adam unleashing the divine power he’d been seeking, only for it to ultimately consume Hibiki instead. Tsubasa and the others, along with their unlikely new ally, spent days afterward trying to find ways to free her, with Tsubasa even choosing to stand up to her biological father’s protests in order to do so. They were inevitably able to not only free Hibiki with the help of her close friend (read, “girlfriend”) Miku, and defeat Adam, who revealed himself to be an artificial being created by an alien race Finé once opposed. In his dying moments, Adam warned of the inevitable approach of these beings, known as “Custodians” by Finé, but truly called the “Annunaki”.
Afterward, Tsubasa and the others celebrated Hibiki’s birthday, which had been long delayed by the ongoing crisis. However, in doing so, they remained blissfully unaware of the coming crisis, and how much members of their group had been changed by their long journey.
Personality: Tsubasa has come a long way since the first series. She’s gone from a shy and introverted girl, to a near-suicidal loner, and finally to a mature, if somewhat socially awkward, role model. As she was conceived and brought up with the express purpose of being the ideal heir for her clan, Tsubasa has been a victim of the system and circumstances around her ever since birth. When she was found to be able to resonate with the relics that would go on to be used in creating the Symphogears, she was molded into a weapon and tool. When she lost the person she was closest to, Kanade Amou, she withdrew to become someone harsh and cold. It was only after being pushed to her absolute limit and nearly dying did she start to come into the woman she would become, and take charge of her own destiny.
What kind of person is Kazanari Tsubasa now?. Most of the time, she’s a very serious minded and focused sort of person. She is usually short and to the point, with her mature and confident tone inspiring a certain amount of respect from her peers as well as those older than she is. The considerable experience she has amassed in her short life and the conviction with which she generally speaks also tends to carry a lot of weight with her comrades. Unless it's something she's lying to herself about, Tsubasa does not speak anything that she does not fully believe in, and she is incredibly honest about what she thinks about something when she’s speaking about it.
This is contrasted with how, due to her very peculiar upbringing, she tends to have a strange sense of social graces. For example, when the group visited Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe in prison, she took note of how well “well rounded” they were (with Tsubasa stating that Maria seemed especially so). It never for a moment occurred to her that her words could taken as her calling the three of them fat, as the group was talking about how well they were being fed, and she was completely oblivious to the perceived insult. This obliviousness and general awkwardness often results in Maria saying “this sword isn’t cute”, or the opposite, depending on whether she finds Tsubasa’s latest bit of weirdness to be charming or not.
Yet, despite her tendency to be awkward and dense, Tsubasa is largely warm and friendly to all of those she calls friends, even if she has odd ways of getting it across. It’s not her fault her view of the world is a little weird.
Her lack of social graces extend further than her accidentally insulting her friends. For as learned, skilled, and experienced as she is, she has also been very sheltered from the “everyday life”. When first coming out of her shell, she was taken very much by surprise by Hibiki and Miku treating her like an ordinary girl, instead of as a soldier or a famous idol. This is the sort of interaction she rarely experienced with her family, as all her role models kept her at a distance, either out of obligation or by standing on ceremony. She does not often get to engage in “normal” activities, and her inexperience tends to become evident when confronted with them. It can make her seem, in spite of her being smart and generally being very smart (she was at the top of her class prior to graduating), sort of dim at times. This also manifests in her missing social cues or seeing things through the lens of her unique perception of the world, which both comes from her being a famous idol and something of a modern day samurai in terms of how she behaves.
She is also completely terrible at domestic matters like cleaning. Really, she’s just a total disaster in this area. It’s so bad that her father took great pains to keep her childhood room a mess, because that’s how she personally tends to keep it. Seriously, do not room with this woman.
The "peculiar" upbringing that’s been mentioned was a mix of traditional Japanese values combined with a clear militaristic influence, courtesy of her biological father, Fudou Kazanari. Fudou, and the Kazanari clan by extension, operate in the shadows of the Japanese government, essentially running it and making its most important military and defense decisions. Though the rest of the world sees Fudou as her grandfather, the reality is that he chose to he impregnate her mother, the wife of his oldest son Yatsuhiro, in order to keep the bloodline "pure" and unencumbered by the weakness he perceived in his oldest son, Yatsuhiro. Yatsuhiro then acted the part of her father, treating Tsubasa in a cold, distant manner, which informed a great deal about the kind of person she became. He didn’t intend to be cruel in doing so (his intent was to push her away from her obligations towards the clan), but it caused her to not receive a great deal of fatherly guidance in her youth, and thus, has a skewed view of social niceties and familial affection.
It had further impact on her development. For a good deal of time, Tsubasa struggled with her identity, considering herself to be both a “sentinel” and a “sword”; a living weapon to be utilized towards defeating the Noise that threatened their world and related threats. However, in spite of this view and the distance her role models kept from her, she discovered deep affinity for and appreciation towards music from an early age. It inspired her, and she wanted to use her songs to inspire and bring joy to others, rather than as weapons of war. As the Symphogear is powered by the phonic gain produced by music, however, that line was quickly blurred. The loss of Kanade did not help this mindset, and she even continued to struggle with it until as recently as a few months before her most recent canon point. Even as her mindset has changed, in no small part thanks to Maria’s encouragement and the realization of her father’s true intentions for her, she carries a perception that she brings death and destruction to those near her. In spite of having to cope with it, and even appearing to overcome it numerous times, it’s a worry that remains fresh in her mind, which means it tends to resurface fairly often. At the same time, it allows her to empathize with people like her friends, Chris and Shirabe, who struggle with similar worries. At the very least, however, she has come to terms with her roles as both a protector and an idol, with her father helping her to realize she can achieve her dreams while still fighting, and she now refers to herself as a “wing”, capable of soaring higher, rather than as a weapon or protector.
Tsubasa largely keeps the circumstances of her family private, with it being one of the few things she keeps to herself - Maria only knows about it because she happened to be there when Tsubasa was being made to deal with it. This continues to be a source of pain and conflict for her, which ultimately belies another issue of Tsubasa’s; her tendency to keep her problems to herself. To everyone else, she appears strong and confident, and a source of advice and support, she does not tend to practice what she preaches. So while she is honest in how she shares with others about their problems, and despite having evolved considerably from the cold and callous loner she once was, she has an unfortunate tendency to bury her own problems in favor of helping everyone else.
As for how Tsubasa actually relates to her family, instead of them to her, she’s come to understand and forgive Yatsuhiro for his perceived coldness towards her, with her knowing that he wanted what was best for her, even if his station didn’t exactly afford a good way to give it to her. In their everyday interactions, she shows him proper familial respect while also acting with appropriate decorum befitting his role as her superior. She highly respects her “uncle,” the S.O.N.G. Commander Genjurou (who is also actually her brother) and tends to more often refer to him by his title rather than in a familial way. The fact he was always there for her in ways that neither Yatsuhiro wasn’t able to be, or Fudou simply wasn’t willing to shines through in how much she seems to hold him in high esteem.
Fudou, however, is a much different story. She knows exactly what kind of person he is and what he expects of her. Despite doing everything asked of her and at great personal cost, she has received nothing but dismissal and disdain from him, with him judging her for not measuring up to the image of an ideal heir. In spite of Fudou being her biological father, and all the expectations put upon her, it is quite apparent that Tsubasa loathes him, or at the very least does not respect him, the latter of which is probably a greater insult in Fudou’s eyes than outright hatred could ever be. While Tsubasa has shown great ability for forgiveness with the likes of Chris, Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika, all of whom did or were party to very terrible things, she is unwilling to give Fudou the same “courtesy”, even in spite of him being her patriarch and superior officer. This shows a limit towards her appearance to traditional Japanese values, her sense of honor, and sense of forgiveness, with her both openly disagreeing with him and even denouncing their link by blood to his face.
For Tsubasa, who states that she cares “not for blood”, the most important things in her life are actually her music and her friends. As stated before, she has loved music since she was a child, and has been singing all her life. Being a famous pop idol seems for her to be more of a side effect rather than the goal of getting her music out into the world, and she believes she can touch people’s hearts and lives with it even beyond language barriers. While protecting the weak is extremely important, she does not want that to be all there is to her life, and really, combat is more a means to an end for her to help create the kind of peaceful world where she can sing freely.
For a long time, the only person Tsubasa trusted was Shinji Ogawa, a member of an old, powerful ninja clan that serves the Japanese government, and thus the Kazanari family. He acts as her personal assistant and manager, while at the same time watching over her, and has even taught her at least one of his ninja techniques. She would trust Ogawa with her life, as well as those of her comrades. She sees him as something of an older brother figure, though it has had the unfortunate effect of contributing to her inability to keep things clean, as Ogawa tends to handle such matters for her. Nevertheless, he occupies an important place in her life as the person who opened the door to relying on and trusting other people.
Amou Kanade was extremely important and inspirational to her when she was younger. Someone as spirited and alive as Kanade was what she ultimately needed to pull herself out of her the shy and uncertain person she once was. In turn, her death changed her into someone hard and cold. It wasn’t until she met Hibiki, and by extension, Miku, that she had people reaching out to her in friendship again. This, along with her coming to terms with Kanade’s death, allowed turn her to turn into the warmer person she is today, and impart the lessons she learned onto rivals-turned-friends like Maria and Chris; she sees Maria as both a peer and a colleague, while treating Chris as a very close friend to which she offers a strong and guiding hand. She related to Shirabe’s tendency to define herself by her relation to others, as she once did with Kanade, and became like an older sister figure to her after reaching out. For anyone else in S.O.N.G., including Kirika and Elfnein, Tsubasa would clearly do anything in the world she could to help or protect them. This goes beyond physically fighting alongside them, as shown when she pushed Chris towards entering a singing competition at their school, in order to get the girl to open up and do what she wanted to, instead of being held back by how afraid or embarrassed she was by it.
In short, Tsubasa is a character defined by loss and perseverance, and shaped equally by isolation and bonds. Through the years she has experienced loneliness and friendship in equal measure, and has grown as a result. This allows her to be a source of strength to others, and in turn, they have given her the strength to be her own person and reach out for her own dreams.
Abilities: As a baseline, Tsubasa is someone who is clearly very athletic and in top physical form. Even before invoking the abilities granted by her Symphogear, she's displayed the capability to perform combative and gymnastic feats that are far outside the norm. She's a skillful warrior ,adept at using whatever is at hand to dispatch her foes, be it the sword at her side, or the multitude of motorcycles she tends to… employ as makeshift weapons. Please think twice before you lend yours to her, as she’s crashed quite a few. She’s actually quite good at riding - she’s just fighting monsters, you’ve gotta understand, and things just happen. That being said, she’s also a handy mechanic, though that’s a toolset she doesn’t get to use very often outside of performing maintenance.
Beyond her status as a particularly exceptional specimen of humanity, Tsubasa has the ability to don her Symphogear armor, created from an incomplete fragment of the relic called Ame no Habakiri. Tsubasa is naturally adept at using the armor, where others, such as Kanade, have to inject dangerous drugs into their system in order to be use it at all. In order to enable her relic’s transformation, she sings a specific, instinctive song in an ancient language that carries something called the "Aufwachen Waveform." After transforming, another song will rise from her heart, and singing it will continue to further empower her Symphogear as she fights, an act which is called "Phonic Gain." This can be increased by focusing her song, or amplified even further at times by joining and synchronizing with other Symphogear users, their shared songs leading often to even greater output. Of course, in turn this can be disrupted by other means, such as anti-Symphogear technology or even weaking her confidence. While it will not prevent the Symphogear user from fighting, it can interrupt the rate of their Phonic Gain and cause her compatibility levels to drop, making her Symphogear harder to use.
Tsubasa's armor is befitting her build, in that it is light but serviceable, and allows her to move fast and strike hard. The most notable features of it include the blades on her legs, which she can utilize as weapons at all times, but the most important weapon in her arsenal is her Armed Gear, the primary tool of any Symphogear user not named Hibiki Tachibana. Tsubasa's weapon typically manifests as a long katana, but as with anything involving a Symphogear, it is prone to changing. For her, it often will morph and grow into a giant cleaving blade, or split apart into a double bladed weapon, or even a double bladed naginata. In either form she can summon the powers of both lightning and fire, manifesting them in a variety of both melee and projectile attacks, such as - for instance - a tornado of fire, flaming wings, or a rain of energy blades.
Outside of these, she can also shape her katana into an enormous blade (“Heaven's Dragon Scale”) that stands dozens of feet into the air, which she has utilized to drop on enemies or even forcibly kick and send it rocketing towards an opponent. More often though, it’s used defensively as it’s incredibly unwieldy to try and hit someone with it. If her Armed Gear is physically destroyed, Tsubasa can infinitely replace it until her Symphogear sustains so much damage she detransforms, so she’s also capable of spamming her various attacks in the form of a rain of giant, and occasionally normal-sized blades. Her armor is also capable of minor propulsion that may not allow for complete unrestrained flight, but is fully capable of boosting a giant sword down a Noise’s throat.
Basically, one of the most important aspects of the Symphogear is that it changes. It is always steadily evolving and changing shape in accordance with Tsubasa’s development and growth as a warrior. However, Tsubasa has a unique ability called “Early Silhouette”, which allows her to access earlier iterations of her Symphogear. While this technically makes Tsubasa weaker, it also puts less strain on her body, and diminishes the harmful effects of anti-Symphogear technology. And of course, her armor also increases her natural strength, speed, and dexterity, all traits of are already exceptional for Tsubasa.
All Symphogear users have the ability to perform what’s known as a "Climax Song" (or however else you wish to translate "Zesshou"), which will massively overclock her power at the cost of causing severe backfire that damages the user. Tsubasa once used it carelessly in order to significantly damage Chris in battle (they were enemies at the time), yet was hospitalized and barely able to walk for weeks afterward. To date, Tsubasa has never been able to safely use her Climax Song alone without suffering damage. It is certainly possible, but given that Tsubasa's mental state at the time was questionable at best, and suicidal at most, she was not able to use it while in the best frame of mind. Nevertheless, she most often she utilizes her Climax Song with the other Symphogear users, allowing the backfire’s damage to be spread evenly across the group instead of individually, allowing them to perform outstanding feats. Even then, they generally have to use Hibiki Tachibana a focusing point to perform this unscathed. A less extreme version of this technique is called “unison” and “resonance”; normally, it involves two Symphogear users singing their battle songs at the same time, with the song of their hearts being the same. While this usually only makes the participants stronger, it can also help them combine their attacks, and to this date, Tsubasa has harmonized individually (as in, outside of a group of three) with Chris and Shirabe, with her achieving a unison attack with the latter.
When a Symphogear user achieves enough Phonic Gain, they activate their "ultimate forms," the X-Drive. Every activation of their X-Drives throughout the series has so far resulted in a form unique to the situation, with Tsubasa's most recurring theme being that she gets MORE swords and they get a LOT bigger. Under the effects of the X-Drive, their powers run on overdrive, with the users being able to do things like take out entire armies of Noise and deflect an entire chunk of the moon hurtling towards the planet. Of course, there is a drawback, in they are extraordinarily difficult to activate, requiring massive amounts of Phonic Gain not normally attainable, usually with bonus requirements that typically involve a lot of hot blooded yelling. Essentially, they are the "season ending" final battle powers, unable to be utilized without at least both Hibiki and Chris present, but generally also with Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika as a necessity. It nerfs itself by simple factor of the fact that you’d need a fully complete main cast and a nearby apocalypse to even start thinking about using it.
In the third season, the girls all obtained an upgrade to their Symphogears called the Ignite Module. At the risk of initiating a berserk form and further stress on their bodies, they could upgrade their strength and output, but in the fourth season finale that was lost. Unable to achieve their X-Drives against Adam, Elfnein effectively sacrificed their Ignited forms to “rebuild” their Gears into new forms that retain their abilities but operate at a higher base power.
Finally, Tsubasa has one “supernatural” ability that has nothing to do with her Symphogear. As Ogawa is a ninja, he taught her a technique of his known as “Shadow Weave”, which allows her to halt someone’s movement after she throws her blade into her opponent’s shadow. Tsubasa typically utilizes this in conjunction with her Symphogear, but she’s perfectly capable of using it without being transformed, as Ogawa can do the same, she’s just never been observed doing it on screen.
Strengths: Diligence, loyalty, honorable, selfless, bold.
Weaknesses: Oblivious, a slob, stubborn, repressive, old fashioned.
God/Shinki: God
Why?: Tsubasa has fought for her independence for years, making being a shinki an ill fit from the start. However, beyond that, she has wavered between two roles in her life, acting either as a “sentinel” whose sword exists to strike down those would do harm to the world at large, or as an on-stage idol, who sings to bring joy and light to anyone who would listen to her song. Thus, you could say that Tsubasa’s presence is a self-made larger than life figure already. Her desire to both reach out to and protect the world around her also makes her a much more suitable to the role of a God.
Top 3 Choices: Susanoo, Ame-no-Uzume, or Hachiman.
God Type: Almost as if it were something instinctual, Tsubasa would gravitate towards acting as a “sentinel”, even as a God, perhaps even more so. She would be tend to give answer to prayers for protection, from those in dire straits or danger, and those unable to defend themselves. The weak and the helpless would be the sort she’d especially make an effort to look out for. Additionally, in spite of what her chosen God may represent, and the type of role others have tried to ingrain into her throughout her life, she would still aim to be true to herself as a musician. As such, she would also be inclined to hear and answer those seeking encouragement or inspiration, and be particularly in tune with people suffering from family problems. She would want to find some means of using whatever influence or power she can have here to better people’s lives and improve upon them, if at all possible.
Power: “Song of Healing” - Tsubasa can channel her singing into bursts of healing and rejuvenating energy for any allies in an area immediately around her. It would able to energize the tired and heal some non-fatal wounds, but it has diminishing returns the longer it lasts. More significant injuries or those near death would be too much for it, and it cannot account for lost limbs or significant blood loss.
Writing Sample
Sample: TFS Test Drive link.
Other
Anything Else?: Intending for MaxSalsa’s Rita Mordio (
blahblahblah) to be paired with Tsubasa as her shinki.