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baddyzarc · 4 years

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3/7 Ruins: Legend of Souhachi Kiraku

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So the reason I wanted to group Gilag and Alito together is because Alito has plenty of substance in his ruins while Gilag is just,,, Hnng they would've balanced each other out but nope, heres Gilag's Ruins

So uhh Gilag is supposed to be a joke Barian Emperor. I get that. He’s the first to be fully revealed and he starts off as an imposing threat for, like, two episodes. Then he goes off???? draws manga and watches anime and lives in the school gym and he has no brain cells as clearly evidenced by the Friendship Game episode but also he kills.

Being such, Gilag has the shortest stick of the Emperors (almost on par with Merag but she has a prominent connection to the main Barian Emperor narrative). I’m not being figurative by-the-by. He has ONE episode to cover the legend of his ruins while the others get two episodes minimum, Nasch got like five total or something, so I can see that the writers,,, did not really care about Gilag. Which is unfortunate, but this is going to be my most out-there analysis because of the situation.

Unlike the other Emperors who have new settings for their ruins, Gilag’s ruins is the Duel Lodge.

This isn’t a new location nor does it reveal that much about his character (after all, the Lodge was meant to develop Yuma and Astral’s character during their first visit in season 1 and nothing new happened to this place during the Mythyrian Arc.)

But this means he should have the closest connection to Rokujuro and Yamikawa, but to my knowledge, the writers didn’t do anything with this aside from Gilag being the one who kills them during the Barian Onslaught Arc. Maybe there could be a connection to how Yamikawa felt betrayed by Rokujuro during the first season of Zexal. He attacked him, and then they made up soon after. This is similar to the story of Ponta and Gilag, but there isn’t much parallelism besides “two close persons becoming distant before making up”.

The most important outcome of the ruins is the reveal of the Mythyrian Guardian, Ponta the Tanuki, and Ponta is what this essay is going to be mainly about.

Like most of the Emperors, the Guardians often play a role in their legends. More often than not, the Guardians are the Mythyrian Numbers; they are tasked with protecting the Emperors (Mach, Abyss, and Jinlon are the clearest examples). Ponta is the strangest one because he is the only Guardian to exist as his own physical entity. This is seen in the show’s finale. He’s able to exist as himself without being attached to the Number card, and this may seem strange until you consider what happens in the Legend of Gilag (or Souhachi Kiraku if you want to get technical)

Gilag’s legend is a bit tough to grasp because there isn’t a single narrator.

In the text of the show, Rokujuro reveals that Gilag was a benevolent, smart, and powerful warrior during the Sengoku Era (which is characterized by military and social conflicts). He distributed his wealth from his conquests with the peasants rather than horde it with his vassals.

From Ponta, we find that Gilag found Ponta in the battlefield, saved him, and they formed a friendship. Ponta became his Kagemusha (a doppelganger/shadow warrior) and helped him win his battles. He was the one responsible for all of Gilag’s fame and fortunes. He says that Gilag was jealous of his strength, got rid of him,and then perished in the battlefield. Keep in mind that Ponta isn’t omniscient, and he clearly resents Gilag when he says this, so this source should be taken with a grain of salt (The episode is called “Yuma Confused!? The Unreliable Account of Gilag the Tanuki”).

From Gilag, it was discovered that the vassals were unhappy with him distributing the wealth, and they were going to rebel against him. To protect Ponta, Gilag forced him to leave so he could deal with the rebels. He ends up presumably dying in a burning building.

Finally, upon freeing him from the curse, it is revealed that Don Thousand influenced the vassals to rebel against Gilag, and in order to fill him with hatred over the betrayal, he placed the Over-Hundred Number “Number 106: Huge Rock Palm - Giant Hand” in his heart, allowing him to pass onto Barian World. It ended with Gilag perishing in a burning building with the rebels cornering him.

So what happened here?

With the Emperors, I strongly believe that the personalities they have as Barian Emperors are an extension of true personalities as humans (compare this to when Gilag and Alito got an extra dosage on Don Thousand, for example). With Vector, a major personality-changing curse was embedded into him at such a young age that his evilness is part of his true personality (or as said by Yuma, the “kind” Vector still exists as Rei Shingetsu), while most of the other Emperors inherit their curse shortly before their death. What we see now is most likely how they were originally, plus maybe a thousand years of them as Emperors.

So Gilag is, according to Yuma, “a despicable bastard, stingy, and an annoying jerk”. From his schemes in the show, we clearly see that he is not smart. All of his plans fail, he lacks foresight, and he gets distracted very easily. But he also cares deeply about his bond with Alito. This bond was strong enough to knock Don Thousand’s curse out of him. So this makes it tough to decipher the actual story because the Gilag of the present is nothing like the Gilag of the past.

Using this information, I can say that each narrator has elements of the truth. I believe that Gilag is strong and passionate about things he loves (idols, manga, and his country I presume), but he’s arrogant and has more brawn than brains. Gilag is only as strong as his plans are (under the orders of Nasch and Don Thousand, he usually gets the job done without an issue. When he has to make his own decisions, yikes). Meanwhile, I believe that Ponta is the one holding most of the wisdom, strategy, and brains.

Together with their strength and wisdom, they balanced each other and created the Legend of Souhachi Kiraku.

Also, bear in mind that Gilag has the only legend that has a non-Barian name attached to it (Legend of The Cursed Royal Palace, Legend of the Gladiator, Legend of the Dragons, and Legend of an Ancient Hero). The Legend of Souhachi Kiraku isn’t the product of Gilag or Ponta, but Gilag and Ponta.

From here, the rest of the words spoken by Gilag should be true. He said he “completely made it up”, but he also muttered “how did I know about the legend?” afterwards to tell the audience that what he said is indeed true. The reveal of his actual memories reaffirms this.

So the true story is that Gilag and Ponta worked in unison to defeat their enemies. They distributed their wealth among the peasants. The vassals were angry that they weren’t receiving the spoils from the battles, and with the influence of Don Thousand, the vassals plotted to betray Kiraku (as in Gilag and Ponta). In order to protect Ponta, Gilag banished him and sent him away. Gilag perishes in the rebels’ fires. Ponta later dies of old age.

With Don Thousand, he interjects into the story at two points. First by influencing the vassals to turn on Gilag, then again by placing hatred in his heart.

Why I think Don Thousand comes in twice is because the first instance wasn’t enough to alter Gilag’s fate as a Barian.

For Gilag, the satisfaction of saving Ponta meant he could still ascend into Astral World; as long as his best friend was safe, he was unfazed by vassals rebellion. Don Thousand went in one more time to induce hatred into him, sealing his Barian fate as he perished. This is most similar to the fate of Mizael (influenced the people to turn on Mizael and Jinlon, and then implanted hatred into his heart as he died) opposed to, say, Vector whose single personality swap set him straight for Barian World, or Nasch who didn’t need to be injected with hatred or altered like Mizael or Gilag; his entire life sucked so badly (due to Don interfering with Vector and Merag, yes, but he did not touch Nasch at all) that he chose to go to Barian World.

Enough about the other Emperors though, let’s talk about the Guardian of the Mythyrian Number, Ponta.

Like most of the Guardians, Ponta is both the Guardian and the Mythyrian Number “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu”. And although I try to keep the discussion in the realm of the original/OCG, it should also be noted that in the TCG, this card’s name is “Number 64: Ronin Raccoon Sandayu”. Veteran means experienced fighter, and Ronin means wanderer, or a warrior without a master. In both cases, it describes what Ponta represents in his relationship with Gilag.

To those unaware, Ponta is based on an extant animal known as the Japanese raccoon dog, or tanuki.

Ponta himself is not a regular tanuki as he is based on the yokai, Bake-danuki. Bake-danuki are known to be the cunning, trickster type whose main trait is transforming into other apparitions. Despite this, they are also associated with good fortune (which they carry in their massive fucking gonads), virtue, and strength. Most of these traits can be seen within the Mythyrian Number that represents Ponta, or more importantly, the tokens that it spawns.

These “Kagemusha Tanuki Tokens” hold most of the Bake-danuki traits which I am now taking from Wikipedia because they summarized better than I can:

These tokens also have the ability to turn into the strongest monster on the field (appropriately transforming with a leaf) too. Anyways, Tanuki legends are really fascinating and there is a lot of information on them, go here if you wanna learn more (this is a really cool site in general, especially if you wanna read about yokai and other neat things).

Despite being his Guardian, Ponta loathes Gilag, blaming Gilag for his own death as well as Ponta’s fate as a Kagemusha. He hates that Gilag got all the credit for the Legend of Souhachi Kiraku while Ponta was banished and locked away in a statue with Gilag’s face on it. All in all, Ponta wants to be his own being. He no longer wants to be a Kagemusha, a shadow, for a man he despises.

Instead, and hear me out, I think Ponta wants to be the actual Gilag.

This can be seen in how he treats the Mythyrian Number as well as his interaction with Gilag. Ponta’s first action upon meeting Gilag was, ironically, stealing his body. This is strange for a creature that doesn’t want to be remembered as someone else, and then he becomes that exact same person. However, it should be noted that Ponta’s name isn't revealed until the very end of the episode, so perhaps he isn’t interested in letting people know that he’s “Ponta” at all.

He was content going forward in life as Gilag.

And remember, Ponta died during the Sengoku Era (1400s-1600s), so he was trapped in the statue of Kiraku for at least 400 years. During this time, he was referred to as only Kiraku, never as Ponta. After so long, after 400 years of never hearing his real name or being recognized as himself, it isn’t a stretch that Ponta doesn’t see himself as “Ponta” anymore. He sees himself as a shadow of Gilag, and so he made it a plan to be the real Gilag if he ever gets the chance, or at least, be in his body. Hence, he took over Gilag’s body.

Even when he hijacked Yuma’s body, he preferred being in Gilag’s body so much that he swapped back after he finished cheating.

You can see this in how he uses his Mythyrian Number, too. Like most of the other Guardians, Ponta is the Guardian and the Mythyrian Number, “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu”. During the duel, Ponta utilizes “Veteran Tanuki Sandayu”, the true warrior, while the “Kagemusha Tanuki Tokens” are Ponta’s shadows. This is made more apparent when the tokens (which normally turn into any monster on the field with the highest attack points) turn into copies of “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu“, mimicking his relationship with Gilag.

Ponta wants to see himself as an actual warrior with Kagemusha of his own, rather than the other way around. He even becomes concerned when Yuma attacks his Kagemusha.

Personally, I see this sequence as Ponta having a sudden detachment from his dream of “being Kiraku”. Deep down, he still sees himself as a Kagemusha, and so when he sees the destruction of the Kagemusha Tokens, he also sees this as a destruction of himself.

When he finally loses, he mutters, “I’m not a shadow, I’m not a shadow,” almost as though he internalized this perception of himself while desiring nothing more than to reject it.

Ponta knows that he isn’t the true Gilag, but after half a millennium of being a Kagemusha to Gilag, I don’t think he knows who he is anymore.

This changes when Gilag gets his human memories back and approaches him. Upon telling Ponta that “you’re Ponta”, Ponta appears surprised to hear his actual name. By hearing someone speak his name after 400-something years, Ponta finally sees himself as his own person again.

And believe it or not, this idea falls into why he exists as his own raccoon dog after the show ended.

Ponta decides that he can be his own person. He doesn’t need to be tied down by Kiraku or anything else. This is why he willingly leaves Gilag’s body and detaches himself from the Mythyrian Number.

This is evidenced when Astral absorbs the Number first, and then Ponta emerges from the body; at this point, Ponta is no longer a Guardian but simply a Tanuki.

Also, if Ponta is still the Guardian/Mythyrian Number, then Gilag should’ve received the “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu” when he eh-hem,

swallows Ponta.

Ponta comes back later, of course. Along with the Mythyrian Number, Alito and Ponta, Gilag’s two best friends are used to free Gilag from Don Thousand’s curse.

They even make up afterwards.

And before anyone starts, I do not know why Ponta is still friends with Gilag after all of this.

Like really im not joking. im not saying that ponta is that type of raccoon, but if my friend ate me, id be kinda pissed ngl

like maybe these scenes?? Gilag sent Ponta away under the pretense of hoarding the fame for himself. After finding out Gilag died, Ponta was devastated. He cried for a moment, saying that Gilag would still be alive if Ponta wasn’t banished. But then he convinced himself that Gilag deserved it.

Ponta obviously cares for Gilag despite how big of “a despicable bastard, stingy, and an annoying jerk” he is. Ponta also says that he would’ve preferred dying with Gilag in battle rather than be sent away. Ponta clearly sees something in Gilag that makes him worth fighting for.

Maybe Gilag has a good heart under his questionable tendencies.

When Ponta loses the duel with Yuma, the immediate reaction of Gilag tells us that he is very concerned over the safety of Ponta, but then he retracts himself, like he remembers he’s supposed to be tough and emotionless.

And to be honest. Ponta could be like, like “hey, my buddy Kiraku, getting mind controlled by Don Thousand really sucks, might eat me because he’s a little grumpy-grump, it happens you know, no big deal”.

They get drunk together.

It’s the Sengoku Period. They probably do a lot of stuff off-screen like Gilag usually does with Alito. Maybe having an occasional fallout or all of that is normal. I truly don’t know.

What I do know is that Ponta is able to complete his arc at the end of the show. Without being tied down as a Kagemusha, a Guardian, or a Mythyrian Number, he is able to exist as a physical being in the modern world.

So Ponta has a complete character arc. Not complaining, but I do wish that the ruins has more to do with Gilag himself. The information on his past life is interesting enough, but the story is more about Ponta than Gilag. And what we found out about Gilag’s current life is... alright.

The connection between his Mythyrian Number and Over-Hundred Monster is minimal. Aside from being both Earth Monsters, I do not see any connection between the two nor why its a giant hand. “Number 64: Veteran Tanuki Sandayu” kinda features Gilag and Ponta as a warrior and a Kagemusha, which I thought is neat.

The most disappointing thing is that the writers didn’t do anything with the concept of Gilag being possessed by Don Thousand. I mean, Alito went absolutely berserk. Like from baby child to unhinged bloodlust. Gilag is—he’s just Gilag, that’s just regular Gilag i swear. Like, maybe Gilag on steroids the second time, but Don Thousand looks at this guy eating live raccoons and said “ssssshyyeah, I don’t need to fix this one.”

#long post #my hc is that don was supoosed to grab ponta but he made a mistake and ended up with gilag #like that raccoon wouldve wrecked as an Emperor #zexal #gilag #girag #dyzarc writes #barian biology

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