Kamen Rider Hime Vol. 1

The following is a summary of the first - and only - volume of Kamen Rider Hime. There was only a single, short print, leaving possibly - at most - one-hundred copies. Estimates are difficult to make due to the non-euclidean method of procurement practiced by the Manga Carta collectibles shop.

~

Welcome to Bridge City! Anyone familiar with The Underground will recognize it as the Former Capitol except with a bright, blue sky, fluffy clouds, and a shining sun. There are also more paved roads. The narration establishes the city as a hub of activity, the largest city underground (there are visible cave walls and ceiling in the distance despite there also being a visible sun) and a really nice place in general.

A small explosion is heard! A bank is being robbed by the infamous Kappa Mob led by the equally-infamous Kappa Boss Ni. As the narration explains, they're a small gang that specializes in stealing technology and, when they're broke, money to fund Ni's sinister experiments.

Police arrive at the bank to stop the gang, but the right-hand Kappa, Mi, pulls out a bazooka that launches a giant ice cube, freezing the cops in their tracks as Ni, Chi, and Ki run out with huge sacks of cash. The gang begins to flee, firing more ice cubes as more squad cars pull up.

Maneuvering through the streets, Kamen Rider Hime arrives on her rider machine, a motorcycle called Envy Driver, and begins bantering with Ni. The other Kappa back into the van while Ni uses the bazooka. Kamen Rider Hime weaves around the shots until she's close enough to kick the front driver's side wheel to crash the van.

Three Kappas are flopped around the crash site with spiral eyes while Ni climbs out, shaking her head. Kamen Rider Hime taunts her foe and she climbs off her bike and then looks a little surprised when Ni suddenly sprouts robot armor that resembles Hisou Tensoku. The two come to blows until Kamen Rider Hime manages to trip Ni onto her back, trapping her like a turtle as the police arrive.

Kamen Rider Hime gives a quick speech and rides off. From a nearby tower, the infamous "legitimate businessman" Satori watches the scene with interest as another panel establishes two more enemies making their way into Bridge City: the Shine Maidens Raymu and Sunae.

~

After the real Kamen Rider Hime lost her Fite against Hecatia on live television, the publisher immediately ordered the current printing of Volume 1 ended and all copies destroyed, then canceled future volumes, citing predictions that the target market would not materialize.

Plot Wrap-up Season 6

Dracoplot

Dracoplot 2016 is the amalgamation of five years of characters and plot points established in prior seasons but never followed up on for one reason or another throughout the years. After getting the confidence to think I could do a better plot after 2015, I decided it was time to finally wrap up these things in one big plot. Particulars of the plot, like Cobra and the Metal Wolf Chaos inclusion, weren't conceived until they were needed.

MALP Draco: The "Mammals Are Lazy Patrol" universe was established by Jumpropeman in the first season as an alternate universe where the group formed by Draco, James, Jumpropeman, Air Man, and Erebus became a Kobber-esque group after finding James' trainer and continued solving problems and fight villains until they went their separate ways. I don't remember if each of them forming an empire was in the original plan. Oh well.

Upon learning of this alternate universe, Draco Prime got furious at his counterpart abandoning business for heroics (later proven a mistaken assumption) and began forming plans to travel to the MALP-verse and slap some sense into MALP Draco, sparking the trip to Dimension X to get the Technodrome (also when Air Man picked up his claw) and preparing a corporate takeover of a company called Studio Nue (the animation studio behind Macross) to acquire their spaceship. This plan was put to a halt by his Fite and (at the time) permadeath at the hands of Sarah. The plan was confirmed abandoned when Draco Prime and his mate Fergie was reincarnated during the finale of Zoofights 7.

Unbeknownst to him though, the MALP-verse was planning a counter-invasion, leading to...

Hyde: In Season 3's half sci-fi/half fantasy setting, I briefly introduced a group of characters who walked in a trio and traveled Porphyrion in search of antiquities. It was briefly revealed that this group was actually a Hydra using magic to disguise most of his body, but after that reveal he never appeared again that season. Still the son of MALP-Draco, he would've eventually gathered up an arsenal of anti-dragon weaponry covered in hydra venom and challenged Draco Prime to a fight. The plan at the time was that Draco Prime would hire Hyde and use him as a source of info on the MALP-verse.

Verne: Introduced late in Season 5 selling Metal Gears to interested corporate groups, Verne was created to be the right-hand man to MALP-Draco, interacting with potential buyers and the hired help. Basically the second-in-command of the MALP-Dra Co. Some backstory I never got around to in RP is that he is both the greatest success in MALP-Draco's breeding program and the second-biggest failure, cloned by combining MALP-Draco's DNA with a humanoid's to create Wyvarans, the most intelligent and cunning of Draco's progeny. It was to MALP-Draco's shame that he was only able to create a worthy successor by introducing mammal DNA.

Beth: Beth was created to be a big, dumb warrior. A cross between MALP-Draco and a Final Fantasy-esque Behemoth, she came out of the iron womb as a loyal, bloodthirsty brute with no interest in business at all. She was kept around as an enforcer, which she was good at, but always essentially kept on a leash because she couldn't be trusted with anything that didn't involved intelligence. She appeared a few times as Dra Co muscle, but fell out of sight due to not being, more or less, trusted on the furniture until Dracoplot DLC when there was nobody left but her and Levi.

Levi: A spur-of-the-moment creation, Levi was made up when Parsee was accidentally sent to a deserted island by Dawn after showing off her Persona. I'd intended him to be the least Draco-like dragon I could think of: aquatic, amiable, and a bit dopey or foppish. Slow to anger and more interested in actual business than economic domination. I think I briefly touched on him being considered the biggest failure of MALP-Draco's breeding program for his lack of aggression combined with, as a result of combining Draco and giant squid DNA, being only barely amphibious, requiring vast amounts of moisture to keep his gills moist out of water.  He and Verne being MALP-Draco's least favorite children made an alliance between them feel kind of natural.

And there IS a naming convention to the names of the Dracolings, even the non-canon Gwen that appeared in one barpost: all the names are based on what kind of dragon each is supposed to be. Wyvaran, Hydra, Behemoth, Leviathan, and Duinuogwuin (a race of sentient space dragons from Star Wars).

Labrys: Admittedly, I was kind of scrambling for a reason to bring Labrys back after she'd gone to Washington DC to try out politics and making her formerly a tool used by MALP-Draco to cross into other dimensions that got lost seemed like a good way to do it. Coming up with the Alternate Dame alias was mostly for fun and a thin kind of way to hide her identity. I liked the idea so much I had a picture of Alternate Dame drawn.

She got a lot of random backstory to tie in how she's related to MALP-Draco and giant robots buried underground and I have been using the reality-manipulating powers she displayed in the Persona 4 Arena game is a lot of weird ways, I'll admit.

Draco Prime: As soon as I came up with the idea that Dra Co had been taken over by MALP invaders, I knew I needed to think of something for Draco Prime to be doing in the meanwhile. Figuring that he wouldn't just sit back and let someone else run his company, I began coming up with ways for him to be trying to take it back. My original concept was that he would use magic to disguise himself as a Kobold grenadier leading a resistance group that was actively bombing Dra Co facilities. In this original idea, Armor, Cloak, and Goggles the Kobolds would've had a bigger role in fighting this resistance group to prove that Kobolds still had a place in Dra Co. Around Christmas '15, I received Fallout 4 and was introduced to the in-universe fictional character of the Silver Shroud, a radio serial hero who gunned people down, so I eventually molded the Kobold resistance group to being Draco Prime as the Silver Shroud and Labrys as Alternate Dame.

The resistance group concept spawned a second group: the anti-Dra Co group that Yamame was a member of.

Mecha Kobbers: Over the years, I've made pictures of Gundam versions of several characters, either on my own or as Christmas requests to y'all and I wanted to find a way to use them in RP. An early concept for Dracoplot '16 became that MALP-Draco would have recruited Robotnik to make robot versions of Kobbers to use as weapons against the real Kobbers. The Robotnik angle seemed unnecessary and yet another bad guy to talk about when I already had so many to use and not a lot of time. They were used mainly to pad boss fights except for the last and most dangerous of them all, Mecha Tut-Tut, which almost didn't appear at all.

Dracoplot DLC: One day, RubyChao joked that Dracoplot and Deceptiplot were actually connected, so I began plotting the end of Deceptiplot around the idea that it would also set up Dracoplot DLC two weeks later. I literally rewrote that ending at the last second; I had the post typed up and ready to hit Post when, as a result of the controversy surrounding Cornwind's Aggie plot, I decided that the original ending of MALP-Draco taking over Deus and going to Luxendarc was no good and improvised the "we gotta get Spongebob back destroy Deus before it wakes up" ending.

This necessitated a lot of reworking to Dracoplot DLC. I couldn't cancel, especially after having established that Dra Co invaded the planet with local help, and I scrambled to find a reason why the invasion would still be happening without MALP-Draco to push for it. This also meant I needed a new opponent for Kamen Rider Parsee to fight at the Great Chasm, so Mecha Tut-Tut was brought out of storage.

One thing that had been planned from the beginning was that, like Yamame, Levi would've been able to be talked down if anyone really tried.

Parsee:  I enjoyed RPing her in '15. Wish I'd thought of more things for her to do.

Kamen Rider Hime, Parsee's new Kamen Rider form, came about as a result of me wanting to actually give her some cool to do after more-or-less having her serve as a butt monkey on my cast. Originally, she was going to take on MALP-Draco by herself, using her Touhou canon powers, Kamen Rider Double (somehow obtaining the Heat, Metal, Luna, and Trigger Gaia Memories so she and five clones could each use a Kamen Rider form to fight), and the Envious transformation I'd introduced in '15. Having her use so many powers and transformations felt like it would've been a huge, bloated filler.

So I conceived of the Henshin Device being broken and her having to jumpstart it with her own power, commissioned an artwork of Kamen Rider Hime, and spent a week writing the speech she gives when transforming.

Yamame: Yamame's role in Dracoplot went through a lot of writing and rewriting. I think I'd decided in December I was going to include her in RP if only to give Parsee someone to talk to. Originally, she was going to be more like Sarah and she turned out to be not much like her at all. When I hit on the idea of having Dra Co-sponsored terrorists blowing up Dra Co stuff, she seemed a good fit, joining for thrills. The sponsored-by-the-enemy angle was part of the plan all along, but the original idea is that eventually Verne would reveal himself and order the team to keep the Kobbers from attacking Dra Co. That particular idea got modified extensively. One draft had the entire squad refuse and be mind-controlled by MALP-Draco. Another had Yamame get recruited to fight Kobbers as MALP-Dra Co's Greed shrine maiden (based on the Touhou concept of gods getting power from worship). None of the scenarios I initially came up with seemed likely since Yamame cares more about friendship and her pals than money or power.

Talking about her backstory in RP gave me the idea of having her be kidnapped after the Brawl and bribed into fighting the Kobbers with the promise of perfect children. I had plans for that event if there'd been a fight or talking; a fight would've been Yamame doing only defense rolls due to realizing that it was wrong of her to destroy the Calico family in exchange for one of her own. In the end though, there was no fight because nobody but Raspberry tried attacking.

Glorimame was not planned from the start, but grew from Gloria beating Yamame at arm wrestling. As it developed though, I deliberately wanted to avoid mentioning Yamame particularly liking boobs or butts; her natural form is an arachnid, which has neither or those, so she instead likes Gloria for things she can relate to: enjoying cookies, friendship, and intelligence. The other things are nice bonuses though and Parsee writes her best flirty lines for her.

Some of Yamame's backstory and the image for her spider form come from a translated doujin I saw on Danbooru. Long story short, Yamame is heading to the underground when a firefly asks her to help an insect youkai that turns out to be Wriggle Nightbug. Yamame is impressed with the power this insect youkai and gives it a cloak that allows it to hear the appreciation of all the insect souls for caring about them.

Deceptiplot

I wish I had given this plot more attention this year, but the blogpost I'd written before the season started put me in a bit of a corner: Decepticons wouldn't go to Earth and Kobbers wouldn't be asked to join the war effort against them. So the war itself went mostly unmentioned and the Sealanders made few appearances prior to the end of Dracoplot. This was intended to be the Sealanders' send-off: finish destroying all the Decepticons and go back to how things were before crazy robots got involved in their lives. This plot got to combine a lot of random things together: some OCs of mine, Tenchi Muyo (no relation to Tenshi), Transformers, the Bolo book series, and Xenogears, a mecha RPG from the 90s.

Borodan: For years, I've had a picture of a Gigan-styled Transformers sitting on my computer and I decided I wanted to do something with that, so he got to be the guy who actually enforced the Brandes/Scourge treaty forbidding Kobbers from going to the war and Decepticons from coming to Earth. The position of "Duly Appointed Enforcer" comes from IDW's Transformers comics; Ultra Magnus is an appointed enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, which enforces certain codes of military conduct between Autobots and Decepticons. He got to be an honorable, law-abiding warrior - something rare amongst Decepticons - to get him out of the way of Scourge's less-than-honorable plans and because a jerk-ass would've gotten himself blown up ages ago.

Gigatron and the Predacons: Aka Megatron from the early 2000s "Robots in Disguise" cartoon given his Japanese name because ZFRP already has a Megatron. I brought them in because Scourge and Team Ruination also came from that show and Scourge had tried to overthrow Megatron in the show. Intended to show that Dra Co was trying to move into space in exchange for supplying the Decepticons with technology, it ended up being the only crossover between my two plots. Gigatron's appearance as a King Ghidorah Predacon also came about because I had a picture of such a thing on my hard drive and one of his original forms was a two-headed dragon.

Scourge: Not a lot to say about this guy. Rather ordinary Decepticon tyrant. Even allying with humans isn't unprecedented in Transformers history. The biggest changes I'd made to plans involving him were adding in the Space Godzilla transformer I'd found a few days before and, at RubyChao's request, Kiss Players to give Scourge a little extra energy to kill folks with!

Lumen and Baffle: The last two members of the Beatbox crew ended up getting diminished roles compared to what I'd planned, but then I realized I didn't have time to really do much with them. They'd both been fought in Season 4 as part of the Deceptiplot finale then and showed up briefly at the end of Deceptiplot in Season 5. Since they didn't take over the army like Quick Fix and Breech had, Lumen became a glorified errand girl and Baffle became the heart of the Decepticons' flagship, Pia Decem, which I picked because it'd been King J-Der's evil counterpart in the GaoGaiGar FINAL OVA. They each got their chance at fighting during plot events so they didn't just disappear. Lumen had originally been planned to survive her Kobbering in her original Minicon body so she could backstab Scourge for marginalizing her and Baffle, but then Utsuho made a point of vaporizing her body. I was pretty satisfied with their endings though.

Deceptiplot Finale: Originally conceived off as just a one-day thing. That changed when I realized that two boss fights was too much for one day. The original ending of this event, as joked by RubyChao, was that MALP-Draco would've planted a Phylactery on the Siebzehn before selling it to Scourge and would've had it inserted into Deus somehow, giving him a new body to terrorize Luxendarc with. I had the post for it all written too, including an image for the new Mecha MALP-Draco: https://youtu.be/BTMgFynIrC0 , but decided to scrap that because it would've cheapened the ending of Dracoplot and there would've been some grumbling over this guy showing up and not being able to punch him for two weeks.

And The Rest

Zeldoten and Nibbles: The dynamic duo was originally conceived for a Pathfinder game that ended up not happening. I didn't have any particular plans for her besides being a less-than-heroic figure, someone who went on plots for the sake of finding loot and not helping folks and actively talked about her illegal activities and other things. Then she somehow won the Big Bar Brawl and started appearing slightly more often. The only things about her I really changed for ZFRP were some of her abilities that didn't translate well to freeform RP and I gave her a Cadillac that was retconned with RubyChao into being stolen from the Elvis Impersonator.

Aside from the Brawl, her most significant contribution to RP was being used as a victim for Mulcifer, an act I do regret because I try not to deliberately torture my characters and she stopped being relevant to events once Mulcifer ditched her. It felt to me like no matter what happened to Zeldoten, it would have literally no effect on how the plot turned out.

DeMonde and Nurse Teacups: Another Pathfinder character, except one that is actually in a game. I brought her in to give Zeldoten a way to revive after the Brawl, sent her home after Zeldoten won, and then brought her back for Mulcifer because I felt nobody else had a good reason for wanting to find Zeldoten. She ended up sticking around to poke at all the weird creatures in Las Vegas, including Pteron. She never went on any plot with the intention of combat because she's a Level 16 character and there was no way the tractor would allow her to be as badass as I think a level 16 character should be. She went looking for Zeldoten and to keep Pteron from getting himself killed looking for Armstrong.