TALES FROM THE WORLD OF DARKNESS

The One-Leaf Clover's Tale: In Wonderland
Clem - Alice
Étienne - Mad Hatter
André - March Hare
Aliöth - Blue Caterpillar
Arya - Cheshire Cat
Douce - Red Queen of Hearts
Kanna & Kagura - Tweedledum & Tweedledee

The Two-Leaf Clover's Tale: Dance on a Volcano
(A Retelling of The Red Shoes and The 12 Dancing Princesses)
Douce - Karen/Main Dancing Princess (as Douceline)
The Colonel - the King/Karen's Grandmother (as the Colonel)
Arya - The Retired Soldier (as Arya)
Lilia - the Curse on the Red Shoes (as Lady Lilia)

The Three-Leaf Clover's Tale: Loulou la Souillon
(A Retelling of Cinderella and Iron Hans, with a Female Protagonist yet a Military Aid Motif)
Wiske - Cinderella (as Loulou la Souillon)
Rainer -
...
Étienne -
Clem -


The Four-Leaf Clover's Tale: The Twelve Artistes
(A Retelling of Cross-Dressing Tales, with a Gender Flip)
Claude - The Female Lead
Isabel Esquerdo - the King/General (as Lady Isabel)

The Five-Leaf Clover's Tale: The Little Needle Boy
(A Retelling of The Little Match Girl, with Drugs in a Parisian Christmas)
Laurent/Aliöth - the Little Needle Boy

The Six-Leaf Clover's Tale: The Snow Queen
Étienne - Kai (as Étienne)
André - Gerda (as André)
The Colonel - Grandmama
Isolde - The Snow Queen
Clem - Both Crows
Douce - Princess
Arya - Prince
Aliöth, Claude - Robbers
Wiske - Robber Maiden/Wise Woman

The Seven-Leaf Clover's Tale: A Trick for a Trick
(A Retelling of Several Tales, crosses over with the princess subplot in the previous tale, but also includes The Taming of the Shrew, Crystal the Wise/Sophia, and The Princess of Hide and Seek)
Douce - Princess
Arya - Prince / Aide-de-Camp

The Eight-Leaf Clover's Tale: The Travelling Companions
André - Johannes
André's mentor (what was her name?) - the Companion
Isolde - the Twilight Queen
Étienne - Princess (as Lord Étienne)
The Colonel - the King (as the Colonel)

"HOW MUCH WAS THIS ONE?"

In several of my universes, a Siglo-de-Oro-style dark group painting plays a lead role: "How Much Was This One?" At both installments of the Maison de l'Étrange (both the Darkness and Ayakashi Editions), as well as Hanged Men's Seed (El semen de los ahorcados), it hangs at the Gillenormands', for instance (though concealed behind a curtain or in a garret or a forgotten turret, as taboo for Marius). Though in Hanged Men's Seed it's donated by Luc Gillenormand to Hogwarts, as payment for surveillance on Marius, and hangs in the Slytherin common room --that of the Pontmercy boy's enemies/rivals!--, fascinating both 'Parnasse and 'Ponine, but making Enj feel uneasy. The painting itself is a gory tavern scene depicting visually, in a Siglo de Oro style, this scene from a subplot or vignette (like the flowers' dreams in The Snow Queen) in a Victorian fairytale by the Mayhew brothers:

Then the scene was changed once more, and men sat drinking in a tavern. As they laughed and joked, the door was flung suddenly back, and the huntsman entered, with the bloodhounds whining and jumping up about him. Advancing to the table where the drinkers sat, the huntsman dashed down among the wine-cups the bleeding head of the runaway, and demanded of one of the revellers the price that he had set upon it.

OH DIRE NEW WORLD, THAT HAS SUCH PEOPLE IN IT!!

Kirakira Pretty Cure à la Mode - Episode 47
My Own Review:
OH DIRE NEW WORLD, THAT HAS SUCH PEOPLE IN IT!!

In the previous episode, Elysio created a new world that would be devoid of conflict... by simply removing all emotions, both positive and negative, from everyone. Not even PreCures could escape from that, but Pekorin and the Elder were able to hide inside the KiraPâti before the world changed, at the last minute before Elysio's spell.

As such, Pekorin and the Elder are the only ones who remember anything about the world before it changed. They find the others, all of them with Empty Eyes and wearing grey, muted uniforms (for the record, everyone in Ichigozaka has the same eyes, fixed expression, and style of grey uniform), and discover that they have no recollection of the recent events. The girls even threw away their transformation trinkets.

 

PEKORIN: Couldn't you sing a little, please?

AOI (coldly): What does singing mean?

 The same goes on with the other Cures and their tastes.

YUKARI: A tea ceremony? I do not know what that is.

 YUKARI: We threw those "transformation trinkets" away.

Even though the girls lose their memories of being Precures, Pekorin does what she can do-by creating her special donuts to try reawaken the girls again. Although Glaive tried to burn the donuts however Pekorin's feelings create not one but three Miracles.

Elysio watches everyone through his hall of mirrors.

Glaive erases feelings that cause conflict


This operation leaves the targets utterly emotionless.

Glaivestapo Emotion Control Force. 
The emblem replacing the swastika is an interdiction sign for kirakiraru sparkles.

An argument starts nearby. However, Glaive shows up (in a Nazi officer's uniform!!) and says that their feelings of hatred originally spring from love (daisuki), so he will erase those feelings. Whilst Glaive has his Putting-on-the-Reich minions check everyone for any residual emotions (including the others), Pekorin opens the KiraPâti and prepares some sweet treats.

Pekorin believes the others will regain their memories if they eat her doughnuts

Pekorin is keen to get some kirakiraru into the others, but Glaive puts a halt to that. He captures Pekorin and the Elder, and takes them to a waste disposal facility so they are forced to watch the doughnuts disposed of.

Before the doughnuts can be incinerated, there is, quite unexpectedly, an explosion which sends large dollops of cream flying for quite a distance.

The cream happens to fall near the others, and they all start to remember something. They all decide to go back to the waste disposal facility as well where they see that Pekorin has managed to save her doughnuts.

However, Glaive refuses to back down. He smacks Pekorin out of the air. She still refuses to give up, though.

Huh, actual violence

Being smacked out of the air and kicked across the room still isn’t enough to deter Pekorin, who still intends to fight. The kirakiraru of her doughnuts react to her desire, and she regains her human form once more. It doesn’t end there, however – she gains transformation trinkets of her own as well.

Taste and Sparkle...

Let's la mazemaze!

Cure Pekorin! Dekiagari!

The first of these miracles was the great big explosion which rained cream all over the town. (Which is a call back to the first episode of how the girls saw a similar explosion) It brought the girls together and saw the second Miracle-Because of Pekorin's determination to protect those feelings, she became Cure Pekorin and even got her own transformation sequence. 

Cure Pekorin

Pekorin gains the power of a PreCure, and transforms into Cure Pekorin. She is a newly transformed Cure, so she doesn’t quite have a handle on her powers yet. Her attacks miss, but they do end up becoming fireworks in the shape of the PreCures' respective sweets.

Of course, this results in the others regaining their senses, and being reunited with their transformation trinkets – which conveniently happen to be located in the same waste disposal facility.

Cure Pekorin is really adorable and even come with her own Candy rod. What does it shoot out? Whipped Cream! Very explosive Whipped Cream! Finally the whipped cream that Cure Pekorin fired create the final Miracle-it create fireworks which resemble the girls' various sweets which finally reawaken their memories!

The old PreCures are back, and with a new member

Our PreCures make quick work of Glaive and his minions, trapping them in a net. When they step outside, they come face to face with Elysio. He is pretty much told to prepare himself (WINTER IS COMING...).

This is where the episode ends; going to have to wait until next time to see how the battle against Elysio unfolds.

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
Elysio is partially right, as all Well-Intentioned Extremists always are.
To quench all feelings, both positive and negative, as a way to erase conflict... that complete erasure of emotions makes up for an interesting thought experiment.
I was reminded of 1984 as I saw Elysio's dystopia. Aside from the obvious Third Reich parallels. We could talk about everything in between the mirror shards in The Snow Queen and the Imperius Curse. About the evils of free will. Remember that he used both the powers of Darkness and Light, of Noir and Lumière, to quench every feeling, positive or negative. The result is everyone and everything being stagnant... so is it worth it?
In that Hakkenden AU I had spoken of, the leader (Étienne, the Kenpachi character), who was pretty much the lovable eccentric and had a charming streak reminiscent of Gustavus Adolphus, is killed off at the end of the first arc and resurrected at the start of the next... He had left a sort of "last will and testament" that he wanted to be brought back from the dead using a method that would make him completely devoid of affect. I mean; there is even an affective dimension to potentially dangerous physiological threats such as pain, thirst... The result is Étienne becoming completely rational and inexpressive, devoid of any qualms, spending nearly all of his time in listless research, but putting his life in jeopardy time after time. Now, to become fully human, he needs to regain that affective dimension.
I am also brought back to a Snow Queen-like story I mentioned in the Advent calendar Reeling and Writhing, a few years ago:
The Stoics, enemies of the Epicureans and a great influence on totalitarianisms, said there were four passions to be shunned, and I think the strongest, and my personal favourite, is desire. To me, it has got a power that neither joy, grief, nor fear possess. Desire is the expectation of a future good, the wish for a future good. It can move mountains, start wars, lead to a signature at Runnymede, or to a victory at Breitenfeld, make an unusually intelligent princess meet her intellectual equal and become his partner, but also make a resented non-com betray the young lieutenant who "usurped" his commission. Yes, desire packs the most potent punch of all four passions, and it is also the source of positive emotions... but of disappointment, regret, ennui, fear of the inner emptiness... as well.
But... can a person bereft of emotions and passions be truly virtuous, or an empty shell? The case of Virginia and her guardian, from a literary tale by Josep Feliu i Codina (Belle Époque-era Spain) may illustrate the point: he made his ward, the orphaned only child of powerful nobles, emotionless, by replacing her seven-year-old heart with clockwork and keeping the heart in a jar. The reason why he has taken away her emotions: he wants to marry her to get a hold on her family fortune, and, when she reaches the age of consent, her guardian will be older than seventy. Virginia has grown up emotionless, indifferent to everything, into a beautiful yet callous and completely rational ice queen... until, thanks to some fairy magic, she is given a real heart during her adolescence, and she begins to see the beauty and the inspiration in the world around her: never were the flowers in her garden so colourful and so fragrant to her, never was the young man she met at the ball so dashing and so interesting... When her guardian finds out, he locks her away in a tower. And the now seventyish villain visits her and proposes to her every day, but she always rejects his advances. In the end, thinking that she rejected him because of his advanced age, the septuagenarian makes an unconscious wish for a younger heart... and realizes that he's already got one: his ward's child heart in a jar. So, obviously, our villain has his own heart replaced with Virginia's... and, suddenly, he transforms from a serious and realistic curmudgeon driven by ambition and greed... into a lovable eccentric with a lively and cheerful, quirky personality, who never denies himself any whim and completely lacks self-control. A seven-year-old heart has been transplanted into his seventyish chest, after all. No wonder that, after the literal change of heart, he sets Virginia free and lets her go with her suitor, giving them his blessing, when the young man promises his far older opponent a musical box for a present. Upstairs storms the guardian, with elation, as he opens the locked door and tells his ward, in a high-pitched voice, that she's free, adding: "I'll get a musical box!"


With that miracle of the eruption revived, the girls transformed again and even have a group pose with Cure Pekorin. They easily subdued Glaive and Elysio finally appeared. The final battle begins...

The Bad: Just that the battle with Glaive ended too fast once the girls got back their powers. Other than that, nothing much.

Elysio created a world without conflict by removing emotions specifically "Love (daisuki)." 

However it turned everyone into mindless drones. Without emotions or Will, (I am preaching Green Lantern's vow) nothing will move and the world will eventually reach a standstill. Creating a world without conflict is one thing but removing feelings like love or hate is a fate worse than death. 

Even Glaive who was revived is not the original Glaive but rather an empty shell controlled by Elysio. (But who cares about Glaive?! He is though and though a jerk from the beginning till his demise... Well, at least Elysio had good taste, the uniforms Glaive and his mooks wear being obviously Third-Reichy -so was the mook with the Hitler moustache some foreshadowing?-)

I was really cheering for Pekorin especially her determination to protect not just the donuts but rather the feelings and experiences she has with the girls. Sure, Glaive might call Pekorin a cheerleader. But remember, it was Pekorin that got the ball rolling since the first episode. Sure, she is one of the weaker mascots but her love and care for her friends (nakamatachi) gave her strength and created Three Miracles in this episode.

To get back on topic, not long now until the finale of KiraKira ☆ PreCure à la Mode. Next episode is the final battle...

IN NEXT EPISODE (48):

IT'S THE FINAL CONFRONTATION.

HAKKENDEN NEW WORLD OF DARKNESS AU

A story set in a world very similar yet very different from ours (for instance, with Nazis on the dark side of the Moon and within the hollow Earth, aside from all-steampunk or solarpunk (depending of the nation) transportation and other technologies; it's later revealed to be a Confederate States uchronia in which Europe retained its world supremacy, hence the country-esque, Ruritanian, steampunk and solarpunk aesthetic!) with my OCs, the Chronicles/New World of Darkness, and the inspiration being the EPIC Japanese nineteenth-century fantasy that inspired a four-parter in Season 20 of Detective Conan, the first season of the magical girl warrior anime Corrector Yui (fillers aside: only the episodes in which new correctors are introduced, and the finale), the first Digimon season titled Digimon Adventure, and a boys' love anime sharing the hypotext's title of Hakkenden.

Spiritus Mundi: Of Those Lucky Bastards tells the story of:

1. a perky and wealthy, yet at heart awkward Southern French Troubadour Heiress or Lightbearer who collects funny hats and loves to dress up and draw attention, yet with a dark secret insecurity concerning her loneliness and previous guardians' (Moon Nazis'!) sinister schemes (Two-Leaf Clover on left forearm: the Shino character -- Douceline "Douce" Kaleido),
2. a Byronic high-ranking Staunen officer of the Centre for Circumferential Navigation (and member of the Nine Vertex Devils Club thanks to his pedal-propelled skychaser, which is just like Sportacus's sky chaser!), who happens to be her guardian, the leader of them all, and the team dad/oniisama, aside from a sarcastic lovable eccentric (like his own guardian, a retired French colonel of the same catalyst and foundation); later on, this young man is killed by the Nazis and resurrected/emasculated as an emotionless yet equally snarky Osirian of the Refinement of Cobalt (Six-Leaf Clover on corner of left eye: the Kenpachi character -- Étienne Kaleido [also known by various aliases such as Staffan Storm or Csele István])
3. a Lützen-based Scholastic Wesley --also a Staunen-- studying at Leipzig University, yet commuting home to Lützen, who prefers using his wits to fighting, endowed with an extraordinary skill of probability (One-Leaf Clover on left shoulder: the Shinobu character -- Clément "Clem" Kaleido)
4. a hot-blooded 80s-style rockstar, formerly the keytarist and leader of Prüssiän Blüe with a troubled past -involving massacre of the acting troupe to which Douce and Claudine were also born- and difficulties in relationships (and a keytar that is actually a guntar disguised with the Invoke Conclusion, with the inscription THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS left untouched) who happens to be a Tropicana Siren affiliated to the Current of Dark Passions, with an acquired poison immunity that will soon come in handy (Five-Leaf Clover on nape of neck: the Dousetsu character -- Laurent Pascal "Aliöth" Kaleido)
5. a badass, charming and dashing dark-skinned/freckled blond tennis-playing heiress/ojou who blossoms as a Champion of Swords, and gets involved in an Othello-esque intrigue with her Moon Nazi lieutenant coach/guardian Rainer due to a misplaced wrist sweatband found by Étienne (Three-Leaf Clover on brow: the Daikaku character -- Louise "Wiske"/"Rapière" Kaleido)
6. the scarred and one-eyed owner of a macaron foodtruck --Meowcarons-- that is actually bigger on the inside (mansion-sized, like a TARDIS), a realistic titian blond with a soft spot for stray cats and a friendly demeanour, aside from a missing right eye and a dark secret involving flashbacks about drunkenly falling from heights on shattered glasses, which makes him bleed all over, even from his missing eye --he's a stray Messenger Happenstance wraith or Slip-Up (in his life, he was the beholden, adoptive brother, and muggle best friend of the Navigator leader, and practically began a bromance with Étienne that has officially developed into love)--... (Eight-Leaf Clover on left gluteus; the Kobungo character -- André (mortal name)/Secretkeeper (temporary, former wraith name) Kaleido)
7. a reserved Gothenburg-Valencian amateur otokoyaku/bifauxnen thespian (plays Cassio, Mercutio, Laertes) and type 2 diabetic, with recurrent dreams of drowning in outer space, who appears to be the sole mortal in the group and who serves, along with the Wesley, as a Lemony narrator... (She later becomes a Vaporia Siren with various electric powers, able to fly and change gender at will, a dutyborn of the Current of Conflict -even though, with her condition, her powers are limited)... (Seven-Leaf Clover on right forearm: the Sósuke character -- Arya Aleksandra Kaleido)
8. ... and a graceful and stubborn, gorgeous cajón drummer/backup singer, vying with her partner for the role of lead singer, which she has wrested from him after their breakup, of Prüssiän Blüe and in a presently-broken relationship with said keytarist; an M2F trans person raised by an actor troupe, with a heart of gold but a split personality that will come in handy, who will find their way into their group as well; actually an Oceanid Lahmasu (half human, half Oceanid) in the School of Fog, a bastard rejected/persecuted by her paternal family and coldly, convolutedly seeking revenge on them, aside from on some particular members of the enemy NWoD factions featured in-universe (Four-Leaf Clover on left pectoral: the Keno character -- Claude/Claudine Kaleido)
9. ...as well as a ninth person, not surnamed Kaleido, but still connected to the clan and who has been following their steps all the time; are they good or evil? (the Daisuke character -- ???)

They fight Loyalist of Thule Nazis and Stormbringers, the Cheiron Group, Ahabs, Letheans, and Flensers; in a world where these young people, all of them left-handed orphans and half-siblings with a birthmark of a differently-leaf clover on different parts of their skin, all have to stick together, accept the surname Kaleido --their mother's (Lilia Kaleido --also known as Csele Liliom, Lilianne von Wieduwillst, etc.--, an eccentric heiress without any special powers, but with an affinity to attract and bed supernaturals of both sexes!) surname-- and confront those who would like to cut them up and especially those Stormites --their rightful legacy being wrested from them by a Princess of Storms now resurrected as a half-human Lieutenant leading a sinister group of well-intentioned extremists (may of which, like creepy Shining-esque twins Kanna and Kagura (Credence and Cadence in their past lives), Isuzu, Ayame, Fumi, Ritsu... not to mention the leaders themselves, Yayoi and Uzuki, have names taken from months in archaic Japanese) who do not care about any collateral damage if it means taking down the Darkness --worth citing that some of the Kaleido siblings, due to their circumstances, are considered creatures of the Darkness by the Stormbringers! 

In between Debut Queue, Putting the Band Back Together, Dwindling Party, heist sagas like the Ocean's trilogy, and a first arc finale with Étienne kidnapped by stunning Thulean Baroness Ilse, rescued at the cost of his own life --the puzzle he was made to solve had been made by Ilse as a catch 22 scenario that would bring the solver to die from a volley of laser shots as soon as the puzzle was cracked--, and subsequently resurrected as an Osirian (following the instructions written in his journal as "MANNER TO PROCEED IN CASE OF ÉTIENNE KALEIDO BEING CLINICALLY DEAD;" to announce his status to the CCN as missing in action and take his form to some demiurge acquaintances of his), which can be read as a retelling of The Snow Queen with the team leader in the role of Kai and a team of seven Gerdas (including a brutal subversion of the Women as Reward and Paid Harem tropes in which gay leader Étienne snarkily tells bisexual Vamp Baroness Isolde during their brief stroll through her Den of Iniquity: "I don't want women. Not as reward, not to make love with. I would rather gladly appreciate a brand new pair of ice-skates. Number 40, so they fit.")... with a new twist or left turn at every corner, this saga is sure exciting... and even more when what we took for granted is turned on its head, revealing this to be not a clear-cut conflict of good versus evil!

EXCERPT I:
Wiske reeled backwards as the spherical ray of firelight gradually left her personal space.
The fireball struck Rainer right in the heart, opening a tennis-ball-sized hole in the middle of his chest, then evaporating after it had severed spine, flesh, skin, shirt.
Once he had pinned her to the ground, flushed with brandy and trying to stab her, no matter how much she writhed, while torturing her about giving the wristband to that bloody Frog... and now he lay on his back, pale and cold as ice, with an empty hole where his heart should have been.
She stood back, entranced, looking at the racket in her left hand --now a sword with a racket-sized and racket-shaped blade. Wondering whatever had happened right then and right there.
And if he really deserved it. The one who as a stripling --no longer a boy, not yet a young man-- had fled the Thulean outpost where he was born and raised, weary of his parents' expectations, the terrible physical and emotional pain from his tutors, the lack of friends, and the fate of a lamb led to the slaughter... the fact that the other cadets in his batch of freshly-baked lieutenants, all of them more physically developed, had always called him a "ladybug" in that mocking tone... and his back and limbs were rife with scars from slights that other young officers had committed... It was no wonder that Rainer, after literally fleeing for his life, had clung so strongly to Wiske. Because she had felt sorry, because she had seen the tennis prodigy and the self-made socialite, as well as the runaway outsider, where others saw the Nazi lieutenant; because they were both lonely young people, friendless and surrounded by liars; a stripling and a little girl who might as well have been siblings.
And yet, should her guardian have seriously tortured her, trying to drown his sorrows in brandy, accepting a French liquor in spite of his self-proclaimed hatred for Frogs and Slaves... ironic given the fact that his own society had always rejected his imperfect personality, and even considered discarding him altogether for being faulty?
And now he lay there, shot through the heart.
By the same force that had transformed her.
Just because she had misplaced her wristband for about an hour and another man had found it.
She looked down towards her own chest and saw the breastplate. Her tennis shoes turned to black or dark chocolate-coloured Wellingtons, her ponytail lowered into an eighteenth-century queue... and her usually freckled arms, lilywhite unless the sun made them red as crawfish, having become completely golden-brown, the colour of a perfect latte. Surely her face had changed phototype as well... but that breastplate? That glittering, dazzling breastplate, with those golden and scarlet trimmings?
"This cannot be true, Louise. You look just like your dream self."
Her dream of that battlefield, of looking like that warrior in her dream, the breastplated maiden that shot a Schutzstaffel-uniformed Rainer through the heart with a gun she usually carried flung across her back. She'd had dreams of storming fortresses and defending them from besiegers, of victory revels, and even of being left for dead upon the battlefield at a twilight clouded by carrion crows, or of limbs being severed and eyes gouged out; either at the surgeon's or on the war front.
She swallowed her welling tears, whispering to herself not to cry over and over again.
"Try drying up your tears," Étienne said, reaching out her wristband, his smile sincere and warm, now seeming far closer to her. "It wasn't the Thulean lieutenant, at the end of the day; she was the one..." he then muttered to himself.
Wiske took up the band at first hesitantly. The fireball then suddenly returned and lodged on her third eye, right between her eyebrows. A light shining brightly; she did not feel it sear her skin but rather as a kiss and a caress. The wristband, back where it should be on her right wrist, was now a compact-shaped silvery shield with a golden outline. Yet she took up her racket-sword to see her face reflected on the blade, and was surprised not to behold her transformed self's latte skin, but at the sign between her eyes: a floral pattern with three leaves or petals, instead of the six forming an ice crystal on the corner of Étienne's left eye.
"The three-leaf clover..." said both Étienne and Wiske at unison.

SPOILER ALERT: Rainer, after being laid in state, is also resurrected --endowed with a waterproof clockwork heart-- and returns to life as a supernal Siren Promethean with the Humour of Relationships!

The original Satomi Hakkenden, the Chronicles of the Eight Warriors of House Satomi/the Satomi Clan, an 106-volume epic and its days' counterpart of A Song of Ice and Fire when it comes to length and complexity, begins with the Warring-States-era story of Tamazusa Anzai --the rightful lady of the shire (or is she?)-- and Satomi Fusehime, Lady Fusé Satomi --the usurper's only daughter (or is she?)--. A curse (to only mother bastards) placed by the former on the latter's household after the coup causes Fusehime to take a bullet to the heart from her spurned suitor/intended fiancé Daisuke Kanamari, leading a detachment of her clan's own men; her heroic sacrifice and the purification rituals she had undergone before to free herself from the curse cause eight beads of her rosary to scatter and become eight children, each of them associated with a different virtue of confucianism and with a peony birthmark on a different body part. The bulk of the epic centers on the Debut Queue of these diverse characters meeting one another and learning about their shared destiny, and their subsequent struggle against a resurrected Tamazusa, who has wrested their rightful place --or is it?-- from the Satomis in a bloody counter-coup, since Kanamari abdicated as penance for accidentally shooting his bride down... and the climax is the confrontation of the leading ensemble against the villainess in the fortress tower that is the epicentre of all this legendary Anzai-Satomi war...

The original Hakkenden is a novel expansion of a motif which appears to have developed in parallel in the East and West. While Takizawa's main influence was the Chinese Suikoden, or Outlaws of the Marsh... Occidental versions exist as well, such as Mme. d'Aulnoy's Belle-Belle and the Baron von Münchhausen's adventures (the Baron has a super-strong servant who can uproot and shoulder pines as if they were carrots, a super-fast one who has to wear weights on his ankles to walk, a sniper who never misses the mark, a sharp-eared one who can hear the grass grow, and one with gale-force lungs; Belle-Belle has servants with the same powers, plus an omnivore who requires a cartload of bread washed down with a whole lake... just for breakfast). In the present day, classic heist series like the A-Team and the Ocean's Trilogy, to which this AU is partly a tribute, have drunk at the same source.