how hoyoverse ruined kokomi's writing

it's not an unpopular opinion that kokomi is the poster child of a badly written character in genin not only did she have one of the most controversial releases in the game because you know she can't crit she also had a rough time in the archon quest story Quest and events and I'm sorry to tell you that after 2 years it honestly hasn't gone much better Fontaine literally just came out and kokumi is still the mess that she was when she first came out at least in terms of her writing I think her kit had its own Redemption Arc with the release of dendro so where did it all go wrong if you've blocked most of her story from your brain and enjoy her purely because you love her design and her play style like I do then you probably pissed or annoyed at how badly hoyu missed the mark when it comes to kokomi story but was her writing always as terrible as most of the community make it out to be so let's start there let's start with how hoyo introduces kokomi to the players what if I told you that kokomi actually had a pretty good introduction to this story I mean it's been two years and with all of the criticism towards her about her role in the archon quest which we will get into later on kokomi actually had a good introduction in my opinion I think a lot of people just forgot that the first two acts of the inauma archon quest was actually not that bad to fully explain what truly went wrong with kokomi we need to revisit the inauma Aron Quest at came out in 2.0 and 2.1 respectively so okay we get to inauma and the stakes are much higher than the previous two archon quests we meet Toma and aaka and we learn about the Vision Hunt decree and how it's affecting Vision holders and while the traveler was reluctant at first they inevitably agree to help after learning the devastating effects of having one's Vision taken away this is also the first time since launch that the game explains the nature of visions and how they're tied to ambition and how people losing their visions will ultimately lose their ambition and will to live they completely become a different person a shallow husk of their former selves if you will and then we as the traveler got to see all of that in great detail and adding to all of that we soon learned that the first person who befriended Us in inauma toma was going to be next he was going to be the 100th Vision holder to have their Vision taken away from them and because it's the big 100th Vision the Shogun and the tenal commission holds this s uni in front of the Statue of the omnipresent God we jump into safe Toma got our ass kicked by the raen Shogun and then Toma saved us in one of the most underrated moments I've seen in the game after escaping and reaching the Kori Tea House He suggests the traveler to head to Tatar rasuna and later yashiori Island to meet with the resistance the resistance founded by none other than sangia kokomi herself the resistance is also the only group in Inazuma brave enough to go against the Shogun and therefore the only one on who will accept the traveler now that we're on The shogun's Hit List and on the way there we learned through EES dropping that the resistance is vastly outnumbered which makes sense but somehow they're able to hold their own and win battle after battle thanks to their brilliant strategist kakomi and soon after that we meet teepe and eventually teepe introduces us to Goro up until this point I personally think the quest was fine we were getting to know the resistance and while I wish we got to spend more time with Goro instead of Tepe I still think it's okay like I get what hoyo was trying to do here after going around the camp with Tepe we learned that Goro went to the front lines because dun gujo Sara herself was there and then Sara herself says that despite being severely outnumbered the only reason the resistance was able to make it this far was thanks to kookomi and this is where the problem starts the game literally built so much hype around kokomi and her genius that that you can't help but feel excited to actually meet her in the quest and to see her in action and she does indeed appear in one of the most hype moments of the Inazuma Aron Quest at least in my opinion and that moment was when kokomi stepping in to save the resistance with backup two Vision holders at that forcing Sara and the shogunate Army to retreat and with that we end the first two acts of the Inazuma Aron Quest I mean there's a lot more to it but this is just a brief recap of what happened and I genuinely enjoyed the first two acts I can still recall the dread that I felt back then when I had to wait a few weeks for the 2.1 update I wanted to know what the resistance had in store for the story I wanted to know more about kokomi and guro and see more of them in action I was also excited that kazua was back in Inazuma up until this point the game also did a fairly decent job in establishing the political landscape of inauma and by that I mean we learned through several characters that the people of at Tatsumi Island used to worship the electro archon until she killed aashi who if you don't know was basically the Savior and creator of watatsumi island watatsumi island itself would not have existed if not for aashi like it's literally made from his corals so you can understand why the people of watatsumi would be upset at the Shogun for killing him and then leaving his remains on yashiori island and this created a lot of theories about why kokumi formed the rebellion in the first place but we'll get back to this later because oh boy the theories so back to the archon quest and kokomi and uh yeah unfortunately this is where the good part of her writing ends and it's all kind of downhill from here because unfortunately for kokomi she falls victim to the atrocious basing of the Inazuma archon quest which is mostly because hoyo forced to wrap everything up in like three acts the same way they did in monstad and Le and obviously this didn't work considering how much more dense and high stakes the inauma store story line was compared to the previous two regions granted a lot of the other characters suffered due to the story being rushed like Goro and even a herself as a victim of this but kokomi was just oh you did her so dirty after building her up so much in the first two acts so back to the quest after the whole thing with Sara we go back to watatsumi island with kokomi we get there and kokomi immediately informed us about the supply shortage that they're facing understandable because war is terrible and rough and atsumi isn't exactly known for its fertile soil she voices concern about how they quite literally couldn't afford any more losses hence why she accepted help from a mystery sponsor and for someone who supposedly thinks of every scenario and has plans for everything it baffles me how kokomi went through with this she only says that they had a common goal and that was apparently enough for her yes I understand that she was in a desperate situation and this wouldn't be a problem if the game wasn't trying to sell her as this genius War strategist every time she's on screen and she even says herself that it's suspicious so it doesn't make any sense that she has no backup plan just in case this mystery supporter sponsor threads out for the worst which it did I mean again I can't understand her not having any other options and this was the best that she can do but the whole point of her character is that she's supposed to be this genius who is always prepared and I'm not exact ly going to blame her for not having a backup plan just in case her soldiers start rapidly aging after using delusions of all things but because really how can anyone even think of that scenario but you think she would have something and I'm not saying that kokomi should be a Flawless and isn't allowed to make mistakes quite the opposite actually what I think makes a great character is how believable they are as real humans in this made Believe world and kokumi being a genius doesn't mean she's not not allowed to face hardships it's also the reason why I do these videos even if genin is ultimately a gacha game full of tropes it's full of well-designed characters with interesting lore to them which is what drives me insane when they're not being utilized or explored in the game's actual story so back to kokoi she's of course allowed to be wrong it's just that hoyo kind of forgot to show her being an actual genius in the archon quest and not only that Hoya also sort of forgot to show why why she's going against the Shogun in the first place I don't know if this piece of information is hidden somewhere because I've tried looking maybe I missed it so please let me know in the comments if I did yeah so my bad I actually missed it because they actually explained this in her vision character details or story and it's actually a really good read it talks about how kokomi doesn't really have any strong ideals of her own but she does respect the will of her people and it does show her willingness to help others and her desire to to protect people which is why she chose to lead the resistance during division hunt decree but what was her plan really the game tells you that she's smart and that the resistance is holding their own against Sara's Army and the Shogun it but what is she planning to do with the Shogun because if they're barely surviving going against the Teno commission and Kujo Sara how were they going to go against the Shogun herself the Ryden Shogun is supposed to be Invincible in the story not even the traveler who at this point in the story is Infamous for not only saving monstad but also being the big reason why lii didn't drown is expected to go one V1 her in combat like aaka doesn't tell the traveler to go fight the Shogun in order to repeal The Vision Hunt decree because the idea of defeating the Shogun in combat is that ludicrous and the traveler is supposed to be overpowered that's why so many people hyped them up for saving monad and leway even in the final confrontation The Traveler had to have this massive power boost from the collective ambition of the people of Inazuma to overpower a yet here we have kokomi the supposed genius strategist leading the charge against the Vision Hunt decree going against a literal God in order to do what exactly what exactly was her plan if she does by some miracle manage to defeat Sara and the tenure commission and make her way to tenuk Kaku kokomi is obviously someone who leans into diplomatic relations rather than Brute Force so you could speculate that she was going to negotiate a deal with the Shogun and reason with her which even as I'm writing the script for this the idea of kokomi trying to negotiate with the Shogun just sounds so ridiculous even more so because if she does somehow succeed she'll soon discover that the Shogun is in fact a puppet and I don't know how do you even reason with a puppet even a herself had to fight this puppet for hundreds of years in order to change its mind in her second story Quest granted we you can't blame kokomi for not predicting that Ina Zuma's God is actually a puppet but again even when grasping at straws The Narrative of kokomi being a genius or a master strategist just falls apart in the archon quest because why would this master strategist and genius sacrific her own people for award that she should know she can't win and on top of that the writers clearly didn't know what to do with her because after making a mistake with the mystery sponsor aka the fatou they just kind of forgot about her like legit we don't see her again until the end of the archon quest she doesn't even appear with Goro and Kaza in tanuk Kaku where was she and we know later on that this wasn't even kokomi that sent the resistance there it was ayat so was she dealing with the aftermath of the delusions I mean it when I say that kokomi suffered the worst from inauma poor pacing because hoyo is shown to be able to write solid intelligent characters like like naha and alham and even just writing Side characters that actually add something to the plot and story like Diya and Candice and unfortunately for kokomi this doesn't just end with the Inazuma archon Quest her story Quest was such a waste in my opinion hoyo had every chance to dive into the more interesting part of her lore and how her bloodline is tied to watatsumi and orobi but nope it's a quest about how overwhelmed kokomi gets and how she's tired from overworking herself and how she is also very introverted and very much is crushing on the traveler or at least it's implied that she has a crush on the traveler which again this is just a problem with genin's story quest in general not just kokomi I think albo suffers from this exact problem too but at least he got something from events even though they're time gated kokomi story Quest actually has an interesting premise like it deals with how a lot of her soldiers are struggling with the end of the war I like that it touches on darker themes of even if the war has technically ended there's just too much damage and that has just been done to the people of inauma and in the same story Quest they also showed how a lot of people in watatsumi Island just actively distrust the Teno commission and by extension the Ryden Shogun I think one of the Elder NPCs actually says this which is super interesting to me given their history and how with a murdered or obashi and it could have been such an interesting thing to dive into like kokomi struggling with not only her own personal burnout but also keeping the piece that was so hard-earned but then the quest took a turn focusing on how she needed to take naps and asking the traveler to read her books and later on negotiations with gujo Sara which was supposed to be this big brain moment for her but it really wasn't it was just her getting lucky that the rumors one of her soldiers started turned out to be true and Sara took another L for the sake of the story now I'm not saying that characters like kokomi aren't allowed to show that they're burnt out it's just that we already got that story line with Jean why not use this personal story quest to explore something unique to kokomi what the story Quest also highlights is that she is more of a Strater than she is a genius really and I think it would have been better if hoyo just sold her as this introverted nerd who was forced into this position as the Divine Priestess because of her bloodline and the leader of the island but now she struggles in balancing all of those things and especially because she's so young a lot of people underestimate her and all of this is I think what they were kind of going for too especially when you take a look at her character story because it's all there I think if they didn't focus on the genius part of her Trope so much she would have been a much more well-rounded character and she would have felt more relatable to a lot of players and I think that's my biggest gripe when it comes to ki's story and writing she has such an interesting premise but hoyu just does not nothing with it I personally think that a story about how this character who is an underdog earning the trust of her people by using her unique Advantage as an introverted nerd is at least a bit more interesting than what we got but unfortunately all of that is just kind of erased or at least put in the back seat so the game could tell you how smart she is and how she thinks of everything for the fifth time and her story Quest focuses on the least interesting part of her character which isi is an introvert again I'm not saying that she shouldn't have relatable qualities like being an introvert who's forced to do a really hard job of taking care of an entire Island but it's just not the most interesting part of her character and highlighting that just leaves an impression that she's overworked waifu number four which is a shame because she's a lot more than that they just don't show it now this problem is also isn't unique to kokomi at all but I would say she suffers from it the most still hoyo or at least in genshin has a tendency to only tell but not actually showing anything when it comes to their writing and characters one of the reasons why kokomi is more of a meme than an actual character at certain points is because of how hoyo is so insistent that she's this genius and they just keep telling you this over and over without ever showing you koki making smart decisions let alone be this big brain genius on screen I've looked back into past quests and events and the only moment to me that was a genuine smart move by kokomi is when she brought back up to the front lines when confronting K joara it lifted morale she got the element of surprise got the tenal commission to retreat and it was overall again a good introduction for kookomi but that was it as we've established she doesn't do much after her initial introduction most of the archon quest after that is focused on teepe or at least the attempt on making the players care about teepe kokomi makes the traveler Captain for no real reason after a bunch of time skips and I still hate the fact that they did this by the way because to the players it's only been 15 minutes so it's just it makes the whole thing even more ridiculous and then she messes up the whole thing with the foule and then that's it the game doesn't show anything else in regards to her being a genius both in the main quest and her story Quest don't get me wrong kokomi does make good observations but that doesn't really change anything she's still hasn't lived up to her title she thinks of everything Pon might say and she does she has this whole book of directions that she gives to her soldiers but if anything that just shows how well prepared kokomi is and again it doesn't really add to her being a genius it just shows how she micromanages her soldiers she reads a ton of military strategy books that's also something that doesn't really mean much other than she has a hobby and it does give her a unique Advantage but again again it doesn't necessarily mean she's a genius and that is entirely on hoo's end because her character is only as smart as the writers and for some reason the writers are so insistent on having a genius tactician but unfortunately they don't seem to know how to execute that concept like at all and kokomi is the product of that you could say that y Miko and ayat are also two characters who suffer from this telling and not showing problem and you would be kind of right yiko and ayato to an extent is the everything is going to Kaku Trope and they do have a lot of problems with their writing ayato especially but ayato and yiko to their credit actually did something in the quest well yiko did yiko saved the traveler from Scaro she trained The Traveler before their confrontation with a she's present in the final confrontation it's almost like y Miko A's oldest known friend was crucial when trying to reason with her about the vision hun decree who would have thought and ayat while he stays true to character and does things in the background gets his moment if you can even call it that by sending the resistance as backup to tanuk Kaku which in hindsight is obvious that it was a ratcon by hoyo because I guess they forgot to give ayat something to do in the Aron Quest or even just a good reason as to why he's absent the entire time despite being someone so important politically like there was a civil war where was this man was there a reason why aoto was missing the entire time I genuinely don't remember but anyway back to the point I'm trying to make like ay as terribly written as he might be actually fits his role as this schemer in the background at least we see some of his scheming in his NPC story Quest and also in some of the events where he and yay Miko are usually scheming in the background like during the irodori festival and speaking of events why doesn't Oyo fix kokomi in events listen I have complained a number of times about how time gated lore events are literally ruining the story for new players especially but I do consider them Canon like why wouldn't you consider them Canon because most of the interesting bits of the lore and story are revealed in events which is why it sucks that not everyone can play through them like characters like ALB would have been forgotten by now if not for the lore heavy events centered around him it's events like Shadows amid snow storms or that Shia Chasm Quest I can't pronounce that can add a lot to an otherwise boring character taking albo as an example his story Quest is boring and forgettable I'm not joking when I say I legit thought that the first dragon spine event was his story Quest because his story Quest was so boring in comparison same with Shia I mean his story Quest was slightly better than albos but his development mostly happened through the multiple Lantern ride quests and most recently the chasm so why can't kakomi receive the same treatment see kokomi is kind of similar to albo in some ways like they're both very low relevant like very very low relevant I would say kokomi is even more relevant at least at this point in time because she played or should have played a crucial role in the Inazuma Aron Quest while albo is super important with his kria roots I don't think this will become relevant again until we reach kria or we bump into ding sleeve while we're with albo or something but Kumi we had an entire patch related to what tatsumi's history and cania was right there it revealed so much about the history of or obashi and watatsumi Island in general but somehow we never got anything about kokomi being related to enomia but maybe hoyo is just saving the L for later because for whatever reason they like the slowburn when it comes to character lore but it's been 2 years most of the player based forgot in kumia even exists at this point and kokomi has had not one not two but four reruns Fontaine is literally out and somehow we've only gotten to see her in an event about genius invocation TCG and the obligatory CLE Summer Event nothing about her and her lore like even kazua and Ito has had more events centered around them and their backstory and Ito doesn't even have that much lore outside of being an Oni and the arataki gang but for some reason hoyu just refuses to give kokomi the spotlight or anything to redeem her writing they've tried making her look like the genius when playing genius invocation TCG because I guess being a good military tactician also means you're good at card games hoyo clearly messed up her writing in the Inazuma patch and now they don't know what to do with her and what frustrates me even more is that hu does know most of the player base hated the execution of the inauma archon quest because suu was so well done in comparison from the pacing to the central characters the buildup almost everything about suu's Quest was an improvement from inauma including the smart characters nahita was done particularly well because hoyo managed to sell her as being this wise character by making her guide The Traveler to reach their own conclusions instead of telling the players how wise nahita is every 5 minutes and they also did really well when writing all haam as this ult ra pragmatic guy who is too smart for his own good taking down the Academia is almost as high stakes as taking on the Shogun it granted there isn't any God out to get us unless you want to count scar but there was still high stakes villains involved like again Scaro and dor but hoyo managed to write a believable plan in taking down the main villains using alham as The Mastermind of said plan and it's believable when alham is the one who pointed out how the Academia has been predicting sinos every move it's believable because we've gotten the time to get to know him and his thought process and there's a clear end goal to his plan Infiltrate The Academia with the help of nilo and the others set naha free and Bing b boom villain defeated okay obviously it's not that simple but what I'm trying to say here that alham had a clear goal from the start he knew something was suspicious he investigated he came up with a very detailed plan involving the right set of people and the plan worked and the traveler was involved from start to finish it's what made the suo Aron Quest feel so well written because we got to see every aspect of the plan and its execution and there's no weird time skips and all of the things that alham did in the suo Aron Quest are things that kokomi should have done and shown in the Inazuma Aron Quest but unfortunately didn't instead she wins against Yim Miko in a card game for no real reason other than that's kakomi for you and it genuinely makes me sad to say that it leaves kokomi as this m potential of a character there's literally so much to her backstory and lore and even personality that hoyo failed to show over and over again I will now list down a few theories and fan interpretation that I personally find interesting so yeah let's start with the most popular theory on kokomi and that is kokomi being The Reincarnation of the Hydro Dragon or one of the seven sovereigns so if you're WR on enomia lore like I am here's a very brief recap without getting too much into the theory and enomia lore the seven sovereigns are the seven primitive elemental dragons that used to rule over tivat before the primordial one and for a long long time people speculated that kokomi was their incarnation of the Hydro Dragon because her constellation means sleeping Dragon and also there's that whole L about how the Hydro Dragon will be reborn as a human so there's a lot of discussion on this and how oo might expand kokomi story based on this Theory and I just remember seeing so many speculations about how this might be the plot of ki's Second Story Quest or how she will finally be tied to enomia but yeah since Fontaine is out I'm pretty confident that the Hydro Dragon is not really related to Kobi but I might be wrong but no but I'm including it here because people speculated this about kokomi for a long time another fun one is that some kokomi fans feel like she would have been a more well-rounded character had she been a bit more morally ambiguous it certainly will explain why she accepted the mystery supporter in the ronquest she would have been great as someone who struggles with morality and having to live with the burden of sacrificing people for the greater good the end justifying the means kind of character she doesn't have to be evil or cunning just someone who is forced to make a lot of tough decisions because she's been pointed as the leader of an entire Island against her will or simply because she's a descendant of a very important bloodline and because she's this military strategy nerd she also gets a bunch of beginner luck and wins a bunch of battles but now she's been put in this impossible situation of having to lead her people against an invincible God and not just any God it's the same God who killed the savior of her people killer of the god whose will lives through kokomi herself anything would have been more interesting than what we got but I guess hoo's given up on kokomi at least story-wise so yeah that is my very very long rant of kakomi I actually really like her design and I love using her in teamc coms which is why I'm annoyed that she has so much potential and she is so interesting lorewise and hoo just does nothing with her hopefully they will revisit kokumi sometime in the future and let her have her moment please just give this girl a break I hope you enjoyed the video and sorry this took longer to make because mental health and life but thank you so much for 2,000 subscribers that's so many of you I'm so floored by the response it's been amazing and I really really love hearing what all of you have to say please remember that all of the things I'm saying in my videos are my opinion and you are absolutely allowed to agree or disagree with them I love reading your thoughts so yeah subscribe if you want if not that's fine too and I'll see you in the next one bye-bye

Channel: otsuucurry

Views: 97,615

Keywords: genshin impact, kokomi, genshin impact analysis

Id: KCPkZlJ4w8g

Length: 28min 33sec (1713 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023