Shugo Chara/Headscratchers

• Amu's charas. I see how she would be physically stronger, having more than one, but it's also implied it's supposed to make her stronger in non-physical ways. Just how the indecision that gives birth to so many potentially conflicting 'future selves' lead to greater strength? Am I missing some point here?
  • Maybe the greater strength comes in when she finally reaches the decision of who she truly wants to be or develops a way to juggle all of them without going overboard?
  • Yup, your twisting it. Hard. Charas are supposed to help you to fight your problems, and be who you want to be. She just had a lot of problems, and a lot of thing she wanted to be.
  • Amu actaully acknowledges that her having too many Charas implies that she is very hesitant during her final fight with Utau.
• Can someone please explain when the motive of the manga devolved from "follow your dreams" to "how girls can fight?" Maybe I'm just silly, but I'm pretty sure she'd been fighting for 37 chapters before this. Albeit in a very sparkly way. Apparently though, the only way for a girl to fight is....to hug people, dress everyone within arms reach in silly clothing, and give it a cute costume name? This is at least a personal Wall Banger.
  • It never did. The moral still stands. A lot. She may have been referring towards how some - one as "gentle" as her, who doesn't like fighting, can fight. Of course, using gender nouns within reference towards it is a rather odd term for such a thing, but meh. And she didn't just make costumes.
  • It's even worse in the anime where it has been 99 episodes with lots of extra magical girl style fighting. I can see how Amu would be hesitent in reacting to the Ikuto/Tadase fight and the hug was clearly long overdue but questioning a girl's role when she knows that she is the heroine of a magical girls series just comes off as needless angsting.
  • Not to mention, that Ikuto, most likely didn't want to fight, but he was kinda Brainwashed and Crazy at the moment. But, apparently, Ikuto and Tadase are only fighting because they're boys.
  • Hell, the whole rhetoric sounds like Amu took a trip to the kitchen.
• What happens to the Charas if their owner dies... well that's obvious, but are we talking His Dark Materials daemon-style or what?
  • They apparently return to the Road of Stars when their eggs are inside their owner so I guess that would apply to death of the owner too.
• How was Kiseki able to retain his personality and appearance for such a long time after his egg was Xed? Snopee lost hers imedientally and was transformed right after, and Diamond didn't seem to struggle like this as well. (But, then again, Diamond was testing Amu all along, so her transformation was probably voluntary...)
  • Both Snoppe and Dia were relatively newborn. Kiseki had been with Tadase for quite a while, so it's possible he just had a stronger personality. Also, Kiseki is pretty hardheaded...
    • Also Kiseki's egg was BEING Xed, not actually Xed.
• I understand why they did this, but it still bugs me that Amu's transformation with Suu is called Amulet Clover. If it's a deck of cards theme, then it should be Amulet Club!
  • The suit called Clubs in the international (French) suit system is called Clovers in many places, due to it's resemblance to a clover leaf. Clover is also one of the Hanafuda card suits.
• The Black Diamond CDs. They're made from X Eggs and when the Guardians confiscated them in school, it's clear that a whole shit load of them were made. Whatever happened to them? I don't think the Guardians were ever told what they really were and we're never shown what they did with them. If they just threw them out or something...
• Dia. How the hell does being born from the feelings of wanting to shine out give you the power to time travel? Important to the plot, yes, but way too over-powered here. Personal little bugger.
  • The Road of Stars already exists. I find it more questionable that Future!Tadase somehow has free access to it.
• Dia's name. I mean, all the other Shugo Charas get individual names, even Amu's (they're not called Hea, Spa and Clo). Was it so difficult to think up a real name for Dia that they just gave up and decided "Dia" would do?
  • Perhaps her name was originally intended to be "Diana", but they kept it at just "Dia" because of the Unfortunate Implications?
    • It's not spelled Dia in Japanese. It's spelled Daiya, giving it a different idea. "Dia" is the fansubbing name.
• Dia, is my personal Scrappy. She has the personality of a wet blanket, comes around every 20 episodes for 10 minutes, babbles about "radiance" for 7 of those minutes, and is gone just as fast. And also, she's somehow the strongest Guardian charcter of them all.
  • And then I met Rikka. The constant shilling, isn't helping either.
    • I say Saaya is Peach-Pit's scrappy. She really could have been a main character, but she gets X-egged, X-charad, and even ?-charaed.
  • You guys have Dia and Rikka, and I have Yua. C'mon, her whole character basis just screams Mary Sue: extremely popular model, loved by everyone, knows Amu from kindergarden, and her song gets to be on the Character Song Collection even though she only appeared in two episodes and had no plot significance whatsoever. To me it sounds like something out of a bad fanfic.
• Tadase and Amu. No, not the couple (Although Amu's squeeling is enough to bug me after a while.) It's just, why they got their charas. Both of them are supposedly shy and insecure, when they really have no reason to be. They're both good looking, popular, smart, and are part of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council. Tadase has legions of fangirls, while Amu can get him, Kairi, Ikuto (A high school student with at least 2 confirmed fangirls, 3 if you count the scientist lady from one of the Doki episodes) and her legion of fanboys. Amu grew up in a normal household, and for some reason Tadase had his parents killed off and replaced with a dying Grandma in the anime, which basically screwed over the ending, but his family in the manga is pretty normal too, except for when Ikuto lives with him. But he seems to bring angst with him wherever he goes, so there were a few problems there. But for the most part, I don't see how either one came to be so shy or insecure about anything.
  • Tadase had a scene as to why he got Kiseki, and Amu was insecure for a LONG time before hand. Shyness is an innate quality so even if you were as handsome as Adonis or as beautiful as Aphrodite you still could have trouble being yourself and want to change. Tadase dreamed to be king of the world, and most of his dream is what a king lacks, and Amu was in a big "split-personality" kind of deal where she couldn't be herself.
• During their respective Transformation Sequences, Amu and Yaya have their hair let down magically. Why doesn't the same happen to Utau?
  • Rule of Cool
    • Rule of anti-sexy teen girl? The pigtails longer than her arm might scare off guys.
    • Maybe something to do with how Utau's chara transforms don't change her hairdo? Amu and Yaya wear hats during their chara transforms, so they can't have their hair up.
• So.... If the Guardian characters are supposed to represent a child's hopes/dreams for their future.... Does that mean Ikuto wants to be a cat when he grows up?
  • No, the Charas represent the personality a child hopes to have, Yoru have a free spirit and does whatever the heck he wants, so Ikuto want to be like him: Free (from Easter).
  • The words "what the child hopes to be" seem to have two meanings. As seen with numerous Charas of the week, as well as most of the Guardians, the thing they hope to be can be actual occupations or hobbies, like pro soccer player or king of the world. However, what they hope to be can also be character traits or other mental aspects, like Ikuto's cat dynamic (the desire to be free like a street cat), or Amu's three personalities (upbeat and active, calm and creative, docile and helpful).
  • And whatever the heck Dia is supposed to be.
    • Dia represents Amu's wish to shine and be noticed by everyone. That's why she only talks about "people's shine" and says to Amu "to find her own radiance".
• What did the Guardians do to the X-Eggs before Amu appeared? She is the only one able to use the "Open Heart" ability. Were they breaking the eggs... even tough they gave all that talk about "breaking people's eggs is destroying their dreams and this is wrong"?
  • It's fine. The Manga says that they capture and "contain" the X eggs, rather than break them. From this, it's probably good to assume that they, from the form and themes of that X character, decided to look around the town for people with Dreams that fit, and, there - fore, convince them to not give up on said Dream. or, alternately, used the Humpty - Lock to purify it.