Kamen Rider OOO/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• In the OOO portion of Movie Wars Core, Oda Nobunaga is after a descendant of Akechi Mitsuhide, who happens to be a ballerina. Now, recall how Nobunaga has a descendant who was a figure skater...
• OOO's Combo powers, if given some thought, make sense.
  • GataKiriBa's Doppelganger Attack brings a swarm of insects to mind.
  • LaToraTah's head is based on a lion. The Leo constellation is related to the sun.
  • SaGoZo's gravity powers bring to mind that the motif is on heavy animals.
  • TaJaDor's feather attack brings to mind a peacock's feathers, which is what part of it's motif is.
  • ShaUTa's ability to turn into water is obvious as the animals the suit's based off of life in the water.
  • PuToTyra's ability is to make ice. What was one theory about how the dinosaurs came to be extinct?
    • Cold is really just the absence of heat, similar to how the purple medals represent the absence of desire.
  • BuraKaWani's Healing Factor can remind one that quite a few reptiles are known to regenerate lost limbs.
• Why do we see Kougami baking but not eating his cakes? He likes beginnings and births if he himself ate the cakes that would mean the "end" or "death" of his cakes.
• The Batta Yummy has closed eyes because justice is blind
• An obvious one when thought about, notice how Kazari and Ankh have always seemed to be at one another's throats? Think over the animal groups both belong to, and you'll realize that it'd more odd for them to be friends.
  • Similarly, Kazari taking out Mezool, seeing as you know cats eat things from the water too.
  • Also, Uva's rivalry with Ankh also stems from their stance in the food chain.
  • Kazari ultimately becomes the Big Bad out of the first five. Of the five original Greeed, he's the highest on the food chain. Felines eat birds, fish, a great many land mammals, and fish. So it makes sense he'd become the most dominant of the original Greeed.
    • And his death at the hands of Dr. Maki points out what would happen if Dinosaurs were thrown in the food chain.
• Eiji is a guy with no dreams, no long term plans, no family, and no real driving desire. Sounds like a bad thing right? Well, not when you realize that the Greeed's Yummy's gain power by feeding off of people's desires. Which makes Eiji the perfect person to oppose them, since he has no desires of his own save for saving innocent lives FROM the Yummy.
  • On the other end of the spectrum, the King who sought to become the original OOO was described by Ankh as being "desire incarnate" and he was the one who created the Greeed. Also, his own desire for power ultimately caused him to go out of control and seemingly resulted in his death.
  • Its why he can use OOO, its also why the Dinosaur Medals came into him, they were attracted to his complete lack of any desire due to him being a Shell-Shocked Veteran.
  • This also makes sense when one notices what makes the original OOO and Eiji go out of control. The original OOO lost control due to using the normal Core Medals, which are desire incarnate, just like him. Eiji goes out of control with the Purple Core Medals, which represent a lack of desire, just like Eiji himself.
    • Remember what the Mantis Yummy said in #1? "You'll pay a price for using it." The meaning becomes clear after the revelation about the Original OOO. It's not because there's any particular danger with the Driver, but with the Core Medals. They thrive upon the user's desires, so even an average person can be expected to go berserk at some point. Luckily, Eiji has none. Instead, the Purple Cores react to him in a similar manner the other cores would have reacted to other people.
• Why does the Shocker Medal give Eiji golden Condor Legs? Because the Shocker symbol resembles a condor.
  • Also, the Cell Medal from which the Shocker Core was reverse-engineered, was one of Ankh's, who if you remember, is the Greeed representing birds, including Condor.
• The Eldritch Abomination formed by Gamel and Mezool's Cell Medals resembling a turtle. Not only does Gamel roughly sound like 'kame' meaning turtle, but a turtle is essentially a thick-skinned heavy creature and sea creature at once.
  • What's more, the Eldritch Abomination has the horns of a buffalo, or perhaps a WATER buffalo, so it fits both Gamel and Mezool's themes
• Maki is the perfect candidate for becoming the Dinosaur Greeed. He desires nothing more but everything obliterated into nothingness, which is exactly what the Dinosaur medals want.
  • Moreover, he creates his Yummies by using inanimate objects, which naturally don't have any desire, as Yummy hosts. In other words, he's using a host with no desire to create a Yummy which desires nothing.
    • To be exact, items representing a destroyed desire. As in desire that has "died out" and gone extinct, fitting in with the fact that the Purple Medals represent creatures which no longer exist.
• Giru's name makes a lot of sense in hindsight: As opposed to the ancient centuries-old Greeed who thrives on human desires, he is born in the modern times and is focused on the lack of desires. In other words, he betrays the very nature of the Greed themselves!
  • Moreover, his Animal Motif revolves around extinct and mythical creatures, i.e: those which do not exist anymore, thus the theme of "nothingness" or "void". Which makes even more sense as the objects he uses represent broken dreams, those which no longer exist.
  • It gets even deeper, when you consider how different breeds of this type of Yummy are produced. The Pteranodon Yummies, an extinct species, were created from the candle-holder Maki used to kill his sister, therefore representing death, and killed a lot of people. The Unicorn Yummy, a mythological creature that never existed, was created from the second-place trophy of Hina's fashion designer rival, representing her unfulfilled dreams and goes around destroying the dreams of others.
• CLAWS Scorpion seems like a pretty random ability, until you realize that Birth's original user was Oda Nobunaga from the movie, also known as the Arthropod Greeed, who had a Sasori (scorpion) Core.
  • It's for this same reason that the DX Kani, Ebi, and Sasori Cell Medals all come packaged with Birth-specific toys.
• After Uva is destroyed, his Kuwagata Medal comes back to life, his voice confirming he's Not Quite Dead. Nothing like this happened when Mezool and Gamel were killed, but it makes perfect sense when you remember his primary desire. Since Kazari and OOO got more powerful, Uva's only desire has been surviving and getting stronger. The Greeed were brought to life by the desire to be complete, Uva's own desire to survive is keeping him alive.
  • Also, The fact that even when fully killed, the bug Greeed still being alive leaves a reminder for the Cockroach.
    • Finally, Mezool and Gamel were killed after they had fused into a mindless monstrosity. It could be argued that their individual personas "died" the moment they fused together.
• A bit of Fridge Brilliance involving the Medagabryu. Keeping in mind the theme of the purple Cores, the shape of a dinosaur's head for the weapon itself and the fact it uses Cells/Cores, the Medagabryu can be seen as eating desire itself!
  • It's also the only weapon shown so far able to destroy Core Medals, which meshes well with its desire-consuming ability.
• In episode 36, the Unicorn Yummy tries to destroy Eiji's dream, but it proves too big for it to destroy. While at first this goes against what's been said about Eiji lacking desire but it makes perfect sense when you realize what he wanted. His dream, as said himself, is to make the world a better place for everyone. He desires nothing for himself (having no desire) but dreams for a better world for everyone else (having a gigantic dream).
• One that is overlooked and complained in the fandom: why doesn't the Kujaku Arms give Eiji the ability to fly and only arms him with the Taja Spinner? Because peacocks and peahens can't fly.
  • Actually, they can fly. They just don't do long distances.
• GataKiriBa's Image Song, Power To Tearer, debuted in episode 36 with Eiji gaining control over the combo for the first time. Some lyrics of the song don't make sense until this fight; "The Destroyer turns Guardian".
  • Likewise ReverseLaToraTahRe:birth debuted in episode 38 when Gotou becomes Birth after Date nearly gets killed by the Greeed, signifying the "rebirth" of Kamen Rider Birth.
• In episode 38, Gotou becomes Kamen Rider Birth for the first time and beats the tar out of three Greeed when Date had a lot of trouble beating one. Not only is he in Tranquil Fury at the time, he actually read Birth's instruction manual, something Date never did. So Gotou naturally knows the suit better than Date did and can use it more effectively.
  • Also, since Gotou isn't trying to build up Cell Medals for anything, he can use the add-ons for the suit much more freely than Date.
  • Shows up again in episode 39 when he not only used the Cutter Wing again, something Date never used on it's own once, he manages to use it as a weapon, showing that Date hadn't even touched a lot of what Birth could do.
• Earlier in the show Maki mentions it's not good for all 10 purple medals to be in the same place. In episode 38 Eiji seems to be in pain when Maki's eyes change color, signifying his use of the medals, which seems to prevent Eiji from using his own.
• Most of the ways the white Yummy turn into fully fledged Yummy, and general Yummy behavior, are based on their respective animals.
  • Uva's Yummies come out of the host (egg) as White Yummy (larvae), and shed off their old bodies (molting) after consuming enough desire (food) to build up Medals.
  • Kazari's Yummies grow from inside the host (pregnancy) by making them fulfill their desires (taking in nutrients for the child), until they grow out of their host (labor). And they grow into a layer around their host (hair/fur).
  • Mezool's Yummies are created in small schools (roe) and hatch at the same time.
  • Gamel's Yummies (mostly large mammals) are born already in their adult form, like how the young of many heavy land mammals are at birth.
  • Ankh's are hatched from an egg. And after they grow up (becoming adult birds), they keep the host isolated in a particular area (nest) and grants their desire away from the place (searching for food). Of course, they also defend it fiercely from strangers.
  • Giru/Dr.Maki's are made instantly, as if by imagination, since most of those things don't exist.
• It may seem strange at first that there are two different pterosaur yummies, but if you pay attention, you can notice that they have different head crests. This would imply that they are, in fact, based off of different species of pterosaurs. Specifically, the male one is a pteranodon, and the female is a pterodactylus.
• A more meta example. The real reason Eiji can't use the Dinosaur medals with any other medals? All of the other combos are modular pieces of armor on a black bodysuit, but the SaGoZo Combo is a single set of armor permanently attached to a white bodysuit. For any 'random' combos involving the dino medals to look right the costume people would have to make a whole new two-tone bodysuit based on which parts were Dino and which weren't.
  • An in-show example is that since the Purple Cores represent a lack of desire, it would be impossible to combine them with the Cores that represent desire.
• During the scenes with the Greeed, the screen becomes distorted, one may think this is just the show showing off the Greeed forms. But it's actually how the Greeed see the world.
• Why does the Dinosaur Greeed also have Mythic Motifs as well? From a storytelling standpoint, extinct could also correlate to being non-existent, which is the motif towards Giru. But from a Genre Savvy writer's standpoint it's to avert Sailor Earth and prevent people make a Greeed for Mythic animals.
• Ever since it was revealed that Eiji's turning into a Greeed he's been wearing a lot more purple.
• A few come in mind for the Combo Change Medley:
  • Before the chorus to Regret Nothing, the pre-chorus to Ride On Right Time plays. Before the chorus to Got To Keep It Real, the pre-chorus to Regret Nothing plays. Before the chorus to Ride On Right Time, the pre-chorus to Got To Keep It Real. This is to reflect the order of which type of Core Medal falls into the TaToBa Combo, with Regret Nothing replacing Time Judged All.
  • Ride On Right Time plays briefly before the chorus to Power To Tearer plays which may seem out of place... Until you realize that the Dinosaur Greeed is Dr. Maki, and the first Greeed he allies with is Kazari.
    • It could also symbolize that Kazari was the first Greeed that Eiji fought.
  • The reason why Power To Tearer plays after the TaJaDor chant may also be due to the fact that ShaUTa was the first Combo besides PuToTyra to use the Medagabryu.
• Kazari, the cat Greeed, is the first one of the original four to try new tactics and strategies. He is also the first one of the four to die for real. What's that old saying about curiosity, again?
  • He was the first one curious enough to take in others' Cores into his own, after all.
• Dr. Maki implanting the Black Cores in Nobunaga and sending him into an out of control rampage makes a lot more sense after his plan is revealed. To have an out of control Greeed destroy the world.
• Giru's first scene outside of the movie fits with his Meaningful Name oh so much. He betrays the first Greeed he made allies with.
• The 'rebirth' in ReverseBuraKaWaniRe:birth could refer to both Kamen Rider Birth be reborn by changing users and to Gotou himself being reborn via Character Development as someone worthy of being Birth.
  • In fact, Gotou's Character Development can be split into two parts. The first is the gradual loss of the pride, and ultimately the loss of desire to be Birth in the first place. That's his 'reverse', his regression into a being without desire. The second part is his realization his own lack of desire and finding a new reason to fight; namely to become the kind of hero he saw Date as. As Kougami said, desire is life, and so in finding a new desire Gotou has effective begun a new life as a different, better person; he has experienced a personal 'rebirth'. ReversePuToTyraRe:birth isn't actually about Birth at all, it's really Gotou's personal Image Song.
• It just hit me when reading the characters page. Why was Anhk able to throw the core medals so well? Because it was show he always had 2 Taka medals, one for OOO to use and another he could use to aim the medals.
• Why does Kougami, despite knowing everything about what happened 800 years ago, only reveal this information when people are looking for it? He values desire above everything else, he will only give the information to those who desire it!
• We find out early on that the Greeed were born when one of each of their 10 Cores were destroyed, and yet it seems near impossible for most weapons used by anyone that fights them to even scratch the things, much less any weapon existing 800 years ago. Then we're introduced to the Purple Cores, which can destroy Core Medals but were never used to create a Greeed, are different from the others in absolutely every way, and are incompatible with regular Cores due to being the antithesis of desire, which would make them completely useless to anyone attempting to use the Medals to become a God because that requires scanning a massive amount of Cores all at once. Since they were otherwise completely useless to his plan, what do you suppose the Ancient King/The First Kamen Rider OOO did with them?
• Ankh has a heavy bit of Phoenix symbolism to both himself and the form OOO obtains using his Medals. When Ankh (Lost) is destroyed, Ankh rises from his Cell Medals with his full power, just like a Phoenix rising from its ashes.
• The reason for the title of PuToTyra's Image Song, Power to Tearer, becomes blatant when you realize Eiji's desire for power.
• Why did Gamel's complete form have the Cell Medal equivalent of the Midas Touch when Gamel's Yummies could never generate a single Cell Medal? That's because Gamel, true to his name, always pilfered his ideas from other people. He never actually desired anything, he just imitated the desires of other people (like eating candy when he can't actually taste it). It was only when he found his own desire, resurrecting Mezool, that his powers as a Greeed became truly realized.
  • It's one of his powers upon being complete. There's no hidden revelation that Gamel much unlock in order to access it. This explains why his Yummy can produce just one Cell Medal. Because he could just turn things into Cell Medals when he's low on them.
• Gamel is the only Greeed who died happily instead of screaming about being unable to obtain what they desired.. Why? His last sight is a vision of Mezool happily accepting his offering. Unlike the other Greeed, his desire, to make Mezool happy, was something he was actually capable of doing. In the end, in his mind, he'd succeeded in obtaining the thing he desired, so he was able to die in peace.
• Uva's Meaningful Name (from ubau: to snatch away). The basic connotations of a Greeed named after stealing are obvious, the Fridge part comes in when you realize that Uva is the most materialistic of the Greeed. While the other Greeed all desired abstract things like 'life', 'love', and 'power', Uva never showed desire for anything other his own Cores.
  • The fact that his desire is something purely physical may also be why he's the most resourceful and Genre Savvy of the Greeed. While the other Greeed's inherent emotional instability caused them all to grab hold of the Villain Ball at one time or another, Uva realized fairly early on that his Hot-Blooded tendencies usually ended up costing him Medals. By focusing solely on the best way to retrieve his Medals he was able to plan and carry out long-term strategies that a more emotional Greeed wouldn't have the patience for.
    • Uva's ultimate fate as the Medal Vessel is really the ultimate Death by Irony. He never had any desire to be the vessel, and in fact was the only Greeed to never use another Greeed's Cores. Maki basically had to force-feed him the Cores. The Greeed embodying theft died by being forced to accept something he never wanted in the first place.
• PuToTyra's Image Song is called Time Judged All, which fits rather nicely as Eiji and Ankh use SaGoZo during the finale when it was finally time for Dr. Maki to be judged for all the crimes he committed over the course of the series.
  • It's lyrics also mention "the power of two wishes combined" which ultimately is what gives SaGoZo the power to defeat Dr. Maki.
    • Speaking of Dr. Maki, why is it significant that he inserted 2 of his own Core Medals into Eiji? Not only did it speed up Eiji's Greeedification, it also gave him the amount of Core Medals to fill up the Tajya Spinner, which gave Eiji enough power to defeat Dr. Maki in the finale.
• Dr. Maki giving Kiyo-chan to Chiyoko symbolized that he was confident to talk without a surrogate to talk to. But why did he give Kiyo-chan to Chiyoko of all people? Because she looked like his sister, and thus, it would feel to him like he's returning it to his sister.
• Why do the Full Combos make Eiji completely spent after using them if he lacks desire, and thus, shouldn't feel the effects of the Core Medals save for the purple ones? He actually does have a desire for something. The desire for more power, which is what the Full Combos grant.
• Any other destroyed Core Medal completely shatters into nothingness. When Ankh's Taka Core breaks, it only splits in half but still exists. Why? Well early Ankh explained that when the Medal containing a Greeed's existence breaks, it and the Greeed are gone forever. Ankh gained a spirit during the Final Battle which survived the destruction of his Medals. Ankh's Core only split in half because Ankh still exists.
• Why does Ankh have multicolored wings, a trait usually given to angels in Islamic art? In the Final Battle and onwards, he pretty much acts as Eiji's Guardian Angel.
  • It also relates to the Egyptian themes within Ankh, from his name to his background song.
• Why do Eiji and Dr. Maki have different sets of powers despite both using the Dinosaur Medals? The Dinosaur Medals have both sets of powers, as shown when Maki creates a Yummy with ice based powers and Eiji's Giga Scan with them produces a Black Hole. So why do they each only exhibit one of their aspects? Eiji lacks desire. Cold is the lack of heat, thus ice based powers. Dr. Maki desires the world to be nothing but a void, and so has the Power of the Void.
• BuraKaWani is the only Combo without an element. This is because Gara was sealed away by the first OOO before the set could be complete and thus couldn't be used to form a Greeed. This same logic could be applied to the Black Core Medals from Movie War Core, since there were only three and Nobunaga wasn't a true Greeed, not to mention that the set only gained an element AFTER they merged with the Memory Memory.
• In episode 22 Eiji gave a speech about how people will justify their actions when they believe they're right, and lose sight of everything else. Guess what happen to Eiji himself after he remembers his true desire.
• Not only a slight case of Foreshadowing, but also a subtle nod at the symbolism in the final fight when Mid-Season Upgrade PuToTyra ultimately beats the Dinosaur Greeed. Kougami displays this painting in #44, talking about how strong desire can even make lifeforms evolve. Yup, that's the evolved bird beating its predecessor, the dinosaur.
• A meta brilliance entry: One of the reasons the show's budget seems so thin isn't just because of the CG use, but also because of royalties due every time Kougami sings Happy Birthday.
• If the purple cores represent both mythological animals and dinosaurs, how come PuToTyra's form is all dinosaurs? Well, it's not, as the overall form makes a dragon.
• There's a good reason why the DX Lion Cell Medal was packaged in the Medagaburyu. The Medagaburyu shattered Kazari's conscious Core, which was a Lion.
• Why does OOO pull the Medagabryu out of the ground, instead of out of seemingly nowhere like the Medajalibur? It's a dino-themed weapon; it's in the ground like a fossil.
• A minor one with Chiyoko's Surprisingly Good English: she says "repeat after me", which initially was just a Call Back to Tendo saying the same thing in a Omake crossover with Boukenger, but if you think about it, it's really a very common phrase in any English-as-a-second-language class, and the first bit of English they'll usually learn.
• The arrival of all previous Kamen Riders in Let's Go Kamen Rider makes perfect sense when you remember something from Den-O. Memories are the past, anything that's remembered can be restored. As long as someone remembered the Kamen Riders, they could be restored.
• In Lets Go Kamen Rider, the Great Leader is far more powerful in the Bad Future than he originally was. Remember that it's been implied that he exists As Long as There Is Evil. Thus, in a future where Shocker has ruled the world for 40 years, he's far stronger.
• The Shocker Greeed is insanely powerful, even though he only has one Core Medal. Why? When they first arrive in the Bad Future, Ankh states that there's a desire so powerful it drowns out all others. What's the source of that desire? Shocker. As a being fueled by desire, it only makes sense that the Shocker Greeed would be extremely strong because of that.
• Ankh's name, while yes it is reference the egyptian symbol of eternal life there's also a deeper brilliance to it. There's an Arabic word Ankaa which is pronounced surprisingly similar to Ankh and it means 'The Phoenix'. They really did think of everything.
  • That or we're overthinking things.
• Why is Time Judged All a duet between Eiji and Ankh? Because in the final battle, Eiji becomes / using the Taka Medal containing Ankh's conciousness. So in a sense, Ankh became Kamen Rider OOO for that battle.
  • Similarly, the reason Power to Tearer is a duet with Akira Kushida (the voice of the OOO Driver) was to represent Eiji fusing with the Purple Core Medals.
• While some consider Ankh sleeping while still clothed and wearing shoes odd, one must remember that he isn't human and Greeed don't naturally wear clothes, so perhaps he just doesn't realize he's supposed to take them off to sleep.
• A Yummy seems to consume/pursue whatever their original human desires. This really makes sense in hindsight because the concept of value is purely subjective, and objects require a person to evaluate them.
• Kamen Rider Birth's name. It's rather unusual for a Rider, but fits with the secondary motif of beginnings and births.
• There's a reason why PuToTyra has white accents instead of black like the others. In Japan, white is the color of death. Basically, this means the purple Core Medals aren't just powered by empty desire. Its also being fueled by the dead desire of the wielder, as in when Eiji's desire died after his family used him.

Fridge Horror:

• The Greeed's methods of using Yummies are all scary in some way, shape, or form.
  • Uva's White Yummy are created from human desire and proceed to consume the thing that human desired. Imagine if said human desired children, or people in general.
  • Kazari's is even worse when you think about it, his Yummy force live inside the human and force them to eat/perform their desire. And the host has no control over the body while they're inside.
  • Mezool's method is as scary as the others, her Yummies, yes, Yummies, as in more than one, are gathered in a clutch and the host does not even know about the clutch until the last minute, when they burst.
  • Gamel's method is that he creates Yummies from himself. His desire is to mimic what ever he sees humans doing. Imagine if he saw rape.
  • Maki can make VERY powerful Yummies from ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
    • Specifically, the Yummies he makes release a black mist which appears to DISINTIGRATE people who come into contact with it. At the end of Episode 32, we never see the people who disappeared, reappear.
• One general to the Greeed: When they lose their Core Medals, their outer armor crumbles, revealing underneath what looks like dry, brown bulks of skinned muscles. ...Bless you, Yutaka Izubuchi^[1].
• Those scenes of the Greeed relaxing on a beach in the opening sure are silly, right? Wrong. It isn't a beach. Its the ruined wasteland of a planet that will result from the Greeeds having their way and consuming everything.
  • Makes you wonder why Eiji is walking there and relaxing as well right
    • Perhaps it's because he may also be a Greeed if the cards play out right.
    • Or perhaps Eiji just likes traveling to sandy places since he ends up in the middle of some desert in the epilogue. Chiyoko's picture in #3 also seems to be taken in a similar landscape.
• If being the carrier for the Purple Core Medals turned Maki and Eiji into Greeeds, then what's to say the other 5 Greeeds weren't humans implanted with Core Medals as well? Given what the Original OOO already did in his pursuit of becoming a god on Earth, this wouldn't be a stretch.
  • Doesn't really hold water when it's considered that Ankh's greatest desire is to experience life, and it's outright stated the Greeed are not alive.
    • The Greeed were driven to evil due to the emotional void within them that they can never fill, and one of the signs of Eiji becoming a Greeed was Sense Loss Sadness. It seems more than reasonable that a person forcefully transformed into Greeed would try to get that back. And regardless of if the Greeed are truly alive or not, Eiji and Dr. Maki are example enough to know that a human being can be turned into a Greeed.
  • As far as this troper remembers, it was always explicitly stated that the Core Medals were the results of scientists trying to create artificial life.
• In #46 Complete!Gamel can turn people DIRECTLY into Medals, and we never saw one of them change back. But what's even worse? Birth scoops up some of those medals for an ammo refill while fighting Gamel.
  • This got topped by the Medal Vessel, which turned EVERYTHING it could into Cell Medals. And while it wasn't shown, it's sort of obvious that there were hundreds of people in those buildings and cars (it's a miracle that Kougami's building wasn't turned into Cell Medals). Uva changing into the Medal Vessel wasn't very pretty either...
• So what exactly happened to all those mothers and children Mezool scooped up after becoming fullly restored and placed in her eggs?

Fridge Logic

• In Shogun and the 21 Core Medals, Tokugawa Yoshimune battles a swarm of Cell medal-animated soldiers with the back of his sword - this is actually from a well-known arc of Abarenbo Shogun, where he had to bring someone in alive and wound up Storming the Castle by dealing out nothing but nonfatal injury. Considering that he's up against Cell Medal-driven homunculi that aren't human to begin with, there's absolutely no reason to resort to nonlethal hits except as a Homage to that story.
• Also from Shogun and the 21 Core Medals: what the hell happened to the Orange Cores? They survived time travel and the final battle with the movie's Big Bad, but are never seen in action again outside of this movie.

1. ↑ The monster designer