Gonna go right off the bat by saying that
if you don’t like this design for Shikanoin Heizou, that's cool. The purpose of me making this video is simply
to contribute to the discussion by explaining why I personally like this design, and why
I think it fits very well with the personality of Heizou that has already been minorly established. The main criticism I’ve seen floating around
is about his color palette, and I get it because honestly I felt the same way upon my first
impression, but it grew on me a lot. For a majority of Genshin’s playable characters,
their color scheme resembles the element of their vision. And while I think most agree that having all
characters divided into these colors will get stale after a while, it’s hard to deny
that it just looks really good when the character matches with how their attacks look. Now, there’s actually a bit of leeway in
terms of adjusting an element’s color, which I think is most evident with Yae Miko. Electro is obviously purple, but Yae’s abilities
lean more into pink to represent sakura petals. But of course this can only go so far, so
at the end of the day, Heizou’s colors are going to heavily contrast Anemo no matter
what. However, Heizou certainly isn’t the first
Genshin character to go against the typical matching, and while yes, red and green are
complementary colors, meaning that they are as contrasting as you can get, he’s not
the first in that either. So when we look at designs like Kazuha, Yun
Jin, and Gorou, what is the difference between them and Heizou? If I had to pinpoint one thing, I would say
that it's the uniformity of the complementary color across the character. From head to toe the color is present, making
it feel like a bold but very deliberate decision. On the other hand, Heizou’s non-neutral
colors are very isolated, with a lot of red on top with his hair, and a lot of mustard
yellow on the bottom with his pants. This is where I feel most people find his
design to be off putting, because of the combination of the steep color contrast and color isolation. I think it’s a valid criticism against the
design, but at the same time I feel the effect is slightly exaggerated by the way the english
twitter crops character art. If we go to the Japanese twitter, this art
gives us the full picture, and we can get a better idea of how the whole design becomes
just a bit more cohesive. The gold trimmings and red highlights become
much more apparent, better complementing the main colors than the subtler detailings around
the torso. So while this doesn’t necessarily fix the
color isolation, I do think it helps alleviate some of its impact, and I think most will
find his look much more appealing once we get to see him in game. The second aspect of the design some have
been skeptical about is the fact that there isn’t much to signify him being a detective. First though, we need to remember to get into
the mindset that as an Inazuman character, he wouldn’t be modeled after the Western
conception of a detective. This is super clear when you look at his Jitte,
an Edo period Japanese weapon used by policemen. Because in feudal Japan it was a crime punishable
by death to bring a sword into the shogun’s palace, they were forced to use non-bladed
weapons. And so when the jitte grew to be synonymous
with police authority, it was essentially equivalent to a badge, representing someone
on official business that you should be wary or respectful of. So that’s a really great detail to include,
but other than that there’s really nothing that stands out besides maybe the rope on
his shoulder for I guess tying up criminals. Is that sufficient enough though? Well by Genshin’s standards and design philosophy,
it definitely is. It seems that character designs in this game
tend to heavily prioritize establishing the tone of a character, rather than telling you
everything there is to know about who they are and what they do. Like just by Lisa’s design you would never
know she’s a librarian. But for every single character in this game,
you can tell just by their design which ones are playful and which ones are serious. For Heizou it’s no different at all. NPC Kano Nana mentions Heizou to be her distant
cousin, and states that “he doesn’t like to abide by the rules and always gets himself
into trouble.” Other character voice lines about him further
characterize him as a successful detective, but a very unconventional one. “Shikanoin and I may be colleagues, but
I have few positive words to say about him. He seems preoccupied with his personal schemes
while official duties take second place. The only reason I have not sought to bring
him into line so far is that his investigations deliver results...*sigh* He is such a headache.” So yeah, I feel that his loose, open clothing
aligns very well with his seemingly hyperactive and carefree nature. This may be anecdotal but I feel 4 star characters
across the board have less extravagant designs when compared to 5 stars, so there’s that,
but also the “plainness” may be an intentional nod to him going undercover for the sake of
doing investigations. One quote from his announcement even describes
him by saying “Heizou seems like an ordinary young man, but he is actually the undisputed
number one detective in the Tenryou Commission.” I feel like this video may give the impression
that I will defend the designs of any Genshin character, but for the record there are ones
I don’t like. It just so happens that I really like Heizou’s
and it seems that quite a few people don’t. So whether you think my points are valid or
not is up to you, but either way thanks for watching.
