Matthew Meleady

Takuji Kawano Soul Calibur Lead Character

Illustrator
Takuji Kawano is the lead character illustrator for Namco and has worked on several Soul Calibur games as well as a large amount of
the Tekken series, most notably he has worked on the Soul Calibur 2/3/4 era version of the game. This character interests me the
most due to his character defining weapon, which is alive and the character itself (in this version) is the human incarnation of it. So in
a sense the sword is controlling the person holding it.
The sword is stunning in size and would be very difficult for a normal person to hold and use, I think this gives any character holding a
visual advantage as their opponent would already be in awe of their strength. It also means that it would move slow however, which is
why everyone who uses this kind of weapon is extremely muscular. The use of colour on these swords is very effective, red makes
sense representing evil and as www.colour-wheel-pro/colour-meaning.html puts it: Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is
associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love. Red is a very emotionally
intense color. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure. It has very high visibility, which is
why stop signs, stoplights, and fire equipment are usually painted red. In heraldry, red is used to indicate courage. It is a color found
in many national flags. Then dark reds used by Soul Edge when held by Nightmare (on the right) and similarly by Algol (below)
extend this by representing anger, rage, power and thrist (this would make sense as the sword requires the weilder to kill people in
the cannon of the game).
When analysing the weapon, it does become apparent that it may not be actually possible to hold a sword that long and thick, that
said, similar swords were historically used such as the Claymore in medieval Europe or Changdao in medieval China. The main
difference seems to be that these swords are not as thick as those used in the game. I will soon look at more historical swords so I will
be able to compare more to that of the game. One final thing to consider would be that the sword Soul Edge (in the images) can
change size and shape depending on the size and shape of what the person using it would prefer, for example another character from
the game could use it as a one handed sword, and it would apply itself as such. Taking this into consideration it means that it would
be possible for anyone in a sword like discipline to use, and therefore the weight wouldn't matter as it would be interchangeable.

Takuji Kawano, (2004), Nightmare [ONLINE]. Available

at:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080206041254
/soulcalibur/images/d/d2/Nightmare-soul3-2.jpg
Unknown (screen shot) , (2002), Finding the shards of
Soul Edge [ONLINE]. Available at:
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/10/100757/
1914552-nightmare_sc2x2.jpg [Accessed 01 October
15].
Takuji Kawano, (2007), Algol [ONLINE]. Available at: http://kenjisan23.deviantart.com/art/Soul-Calibur-IV-Algol-138341505 [Accessed 29

Matthew Meleady