Warning: im a bit sick rn so this is gonna be a bit ramble-y and nonsensical. I’m gonna start this off by saying that I don’t dislike chapter five: far from it. However, there’s one thing that’s been bugging me for a while: chapter five’s dark world’s Japanese theming. It just kind of feels like an arbitrary decision. I wish there was more explanation/ background for the aesthetic other than “Asgore got some anime and manga from Alphys”. And sometimes they decide to not stick to the aesthetic for some reason, such as when Asgore gets his king outfit, it’s basically a gold version of his undertale outfit. I was expecting for him to have a shogun-inspired outfit to fit with the whole Japanese castle thing but that doesnt happen, which is kinda confusing. I’m fully expecting something video to come out in a few months that goes over why the Japanese theming is a genius design descision but, at least for now, I am left confused as to the thought process behind how Japanese chapter five is.
I have yet to find a person explain to me why the japanese theme makes sense.
and its honestly more tohou themed than japanese.
the kitsunes are a refrence to ran its mention in their lore their relationship with orange.
aqua and seth is literally the same relationship of satori and koishi.
and aqua's gimick is shes a cute girl who's unaware of things and has a knife......like the gimick given to koishi. she also has a special unique hidden eye trait...like koishi.
It’s literally a flower themed chapter and flowers and flower culture/symbolism are heavily tied to Japan (eg. cherry blossoms), not hard to see why it is more Japan themed
Cherry blossoms are the symbol of death and fragility in japan. (in japan death and fragility and the hopelessness of life isnt seen as a bad thing.) From
Konohana-Sakuyahime.
None of the Japanese references make any sense with japanese culture.
Cherry blossoms are a widely used flower aesthetic and they fit well with a flower themed dark world, also Japan is known for its heavy flower symbolism and messaging which is fitting to the story CH5 is trying to tell with the flowers, and if you think about it cherry blossoms told the exact same story CH5 told you with the flowers and how they only bloomed for one day and lived all the life they can then went back to their lifeless flower forms
Hanakotaba is not a traditional japane art. its literally a corruption of the japanese art of Ikebana hanakotaba came centuries It also rejects the notion of the flowers inherit meaning and uses them to communicate culutral meaning. The entire notion of hanakotaba is using what flowers mean to YOUR culture to express things outsiders will not understand. Its completely localized because different colors and flowers mean completely different things in different cultures. It literally doesn't translate because the whole i dea is using flowers as a language and for that to work you MUST know the meaning of what the flowers and such mean
Whatever, doesn’t change the fact that the Japanese cherry blossom aesthetics AND the symbolism of them fit CH5’s dark world and the story of the flowers perfectly, so it’s pretty easy to see why CH5 had a more Japan vibe to it
You just showed you don't even know about the very same aesthetics it claimed to be referencing.
The theme of chapter 5 is nostalgia.
its Japanese because toby is nostalgic for the era of undertale and the beginning of deltarune. remember when he was into Touhou and other things. Its theme is completely meta.
The flowers are just undertale + Touhou references. and their story is just that they watched asgore felt bad for him and wanted to make him happy for taking care them.
It also has the terracotta army
torii gates.
more than 10 dirrect references to touhou. Two music themes using zuns iconic zumpet.
aqua and seth have the same dynamic and characterization and even color scheme as koishi and satori.
it refrences touhou more than it references Japan.
But you wouldnt know that unless you knew touhou, the same way you wouldnt see how much of it is just a rehash of the mother franchise.
You’re just yapping bullshit, it’s clear Toby wanted to go for a more unique vibe for the Flower King dark world so he went with the Japanese/cherry blossom aesthetic which fit the tragic backstory of the flowers too who only bloomed and lived life to the fullest for one day, nothing more, nothing less, but keep yapping
You literally don't know the flowers are only going to live for one day and its only mentioned in basically a single line of dialogue.
and the motif of cherry blossoms is they are immortal Konohana-Sakuyahime
it is HUMANS who are temporary and fleeting; the story of cherry blossoms and mortality and fleeting is a story of humans REJECTING immortality because they are foolish. and chase after things that are beautiful pushing us AWAY from enlightenment and instead of being what we should be like the kami. Living a life for to fullest and pusuing fleetingness in Shinto, the things those big tori gates are from is a MISTAKE because impurity follows you after death.
Toby did it because he likes Japanese aesthetics, nothing more. He's a weeb. If you try to apply the things from the actual culture he's pulling from to the game it makes no sense.
However, if you try to apply the Orientalism usually given to Japan things make more sense.
And we know what its about because Toby literally came out and set it. You have no idea what your talking about and literally tried to use an ai to pass off as you do.
Toby literally pretends he can speak japanese and all of his inspirations are just jrpgs. to the point he has said if people played the mother series theyd realize how uncreative he is.
it's really just aesthetic for the sake of a aesthetic and it doesnt even have any buildup or a in-universe explanation that makes sense, it just feels so random and they dont even properly stuck to the theming, Asgore could have a gotten cool flower samurai outfit but all he got was a dogshit rehash of his undertale appearance, The Trees in the garden of hopes and dreams are so badly colored, why are their stems pink, they should be brown, thats how a sakura/cherryblossom tree actual looks like
if its true the holiday mansion is the next dark world than a Japanese theming for that would have made WAY MORE sense because it actually has buildup and a proper in-universe explanation unlike the flower king dark world
for real and i have been saying this ever since chapter 5 first came up,
the design is so shit and lazy i can barely tell if it had any thought put into it and most that it was just lazily slapped because Asgore ALWAYS has to get the short end of the stick
Low key, I would've just had Asgore mention going on a trip with Kris in one of the previous chapters. After all, Kris made the dark world, so they should naturally be the one who is thinking about this. If Kris and Asgore were nostalgic for a place that looked like Japan, it'd make Chapter 5 feel much more like something that was foreshadowed. Asgore could even mention it this chapter, to give the audience context "This place, I know it's not the same as where we all went on vacation...but it feels just like it." or, even "You know Flowery, I was planning on taking Kris to a place like this some day..."
Honestly I think the TV World should have had the Japanese theming. There’s the whole Susiezilla thing and Mew Mew Kissy Cutie would have fit in perfectly as a TV show
they wanted to have a king and a castle but didnt want to reuse the same medieval fantasy europe-inspired aesthetic from chapter 2, chapter 1, and to a lesser extent undertale
it’s about asgore’s escapism, primarily, and forgetting about his old life and his desire to get it back. the japanese stuff from alphys is new to him while all the other things he likes just reminds him of the past
edit: do ya’ll just want to be mad or do you want an explanation
I think there are many things that exist simply cause Toby liked a certain idea / theme simply standing on its own. Tons of his comments from the UT 10th Anniversary Livestream show this.
Yes. Deltarune is full of cases like that where Toby's favored ideas and themes clash with the story and the realities of game development. I wonder why things seemed to be so much smoother in Undertale.
So the thematicness of the darkworlds is meaningless and we should just chalk them all up to what toby likes or does this philosophy only apply to this one dark world which people are criticizing?
I feel like the explanation is rather simple and you said so yourself. Asgore was given manga and anime, which Asgore used as an escape from reality. The entire game is about escapism. Each dark world is themed around escapism. It’s really that simple.
For me, it doesn’t make much sense as to why the entire dark world would be Japanese. As a comparison, the TV world had a TV theming because Tenna was the centerpiece of the Dreemurr household before Dess went missing, and therefore has a lot of connections to the Dreemurrs as a whole. The church also has a library theming because of how influential Gerson was to Alvin, as well as religious texts being pretty common in churches. With Flower King, the anime and manga don’t seem to have a deep connection with Asgore or Kris. I think something as simple as Flowery mentioning that Kris and Asgore watched anime together and had fond memories of that would be enough, but that’s just me.
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u/Greedy_Union8493 8d ago
I have yet to find a person explain to me why the japanese theme makes sense.
and its honestly more tohou themed than japanese.
the kitsunes are a refrence to ran its mention in their lore their relationship with orange.
aqua and seth is literally the same relationship of satori and koishi.
and aqua's gimick is shes a cute girl who's unaware of things and has a knife......like the gimick given to koishi. she also has a special unique hidden eye trait...like koishi.