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Giving Ajimu A Tier
I would like to replace Najimi Ajimu's profile with something more like this draft.For the more minor changes:
- Blackcurrant91 split her profile into two keys; sealed and unsealed.
- I've given her concrete speed ratings, in the first key she outspeeds base Medaka but is slower than light (I'll explain why outspeeding base Medaka is no longer SoL later). In her second key she scales to fighting Iihiko a hundred million times without dying; she should be comparable to him. EDIT: Earl thinks he unsealed speed should also get "possibly far higher", which I'm not against adding.
- I've given her Superhuman LS in her first key for lifting a soccer goal with one hand.
- I've reworded Stamina to remove mentions of her skill rushes, but kept the rating as it was justified anyway.
- I've reworded Range to remove mentions of her skill rushes, but kept the rating (and added Interdimensional for Alibi Block being able to bring her to metaphysical realms) as it was justified anyway.
- I've reworded Intelligence. It's not that she ignored the actions of one person, she just refuses to use the Omniscience she can legitimately tap into.
- I've removed her Weakness. We've for a long time held on the other MB profiles that the stuff about her losing to protagonists has more to do with their supernatural luck, rather than a legitimate weakness of her own.
And now for the flat-out controversial stuff. I recommend that her unsealed AP should be "At least 3-B, likely 3-A, possibly far higher".
To explain why I think this is justified now when she's been consistently put at Unknown in the past, allow me to give a brief history lesson from my perspective.
Why Is Ajimu Unknown?
I believe this mainly stems from people being unable to agree on a tier for her. This may seem obvious but, for a while, there were legitimate arguments that reasonable people could believe that would put her at 8-B, 5-C, 4-C, 3-B, 3-A, High 3-A, Low 2-C, 2-C, 1-B, and 1-A. As such there was nothing that people could agree on to rally behind, the low ends were too low, the high ends were too high, and the middle ends assumed too much or too little.So why do I think 3-B/3-A are acceptable now when they were too much of a reach before? I believe I've picked up on some details that were overlooked before. I believe there were three main reasons people disagreed with 3-B/3-A.
The Big Bang was an expansion of 4-D space-time rather than a physical explosion, so tanking it isn't a quantifiable feat. While this is accurate to cases like those, I don't believe Medaka Box's big bang was an expansion of 4-D space-time. While she was born before the universe into nothingness from nothingness, she continued to age and wait. It is literally impossible to age or wait 3 quadrillion years before time exists. With there being no evidence supporting MB's big bang being a 4-D space-time expansion, and there being this piece of evidence against it, I think we can reasonably put it as a physical explosion.
Ajimu has quadrillions of skills, including some on skill rushes that would make her non-corporeal, so we can't say she tanked it physically. Putting aside my massive grievances with the skill rushes, we have a strong but subtle indication that she didn't have her skills at this time. These two scans from Chapter 140 (particularly the last panel of the first scan, and the first panel of the second scan) make it clear that Ajimu acquired her skills after the universe was created.
After the universe was made her philosophy was changed and she started seeing reality as fictional, from then she tried to find something impossible to prove that it was real (her logic here makes more sense if you reread the chapter), and during that journey for the impossible she accumulated these skills.I was "gifted" for having been born from nothing, and I was even more "gifted" when the universe was made. For such a wish to have been fulfilled, there was no way this could be real. I thought that since it was all fake, the people, the masses and events were all irrelevant. From then on, my goal was to find the "impossible"... And during my journey I accumulated all these skills. Everything I thought I couldn't do, eventually became easy to do.
Thus, I think it's fair to say that she survived the Big Bang physically.
Even if she did survive it, it's a durability feat; it doesn't scale to her AP. During the fight against the Doppelgangers, perfectly matched copies of the main cast, we see Ajimu multiple times with minor scratching/bruising while fighting her copy. I think this should scale her dura to her AP.
SoL/FTL Should Be On Far Fewer Characters
It seems like the profiles as of right now scale all characters at all times from the Class -13 arc onwards to SoL because of Kuudou Hinokage's Theme Song. The issue is that people don't really scale to it. Gagamaru's the only person who fights him when using it, and he doesn't react to and dodge the individual punches, he just passively reflects them.Medaka has Kurokami Phantom: Proper Version which utilizes Theme Song, but she can only use it 3 times a day; most of the time she's far slower. That's an important part of the last trial in the Kurokami Successor arc. Hell, we know from those chapters that Kurokami Phantom outspeeds Kumagawa.
So who does scale then? I believe there's a looser interpretation and a stricter interpretation.
The looser interpretation has Iihiko scaling to Kurokami Phantom when he calls it "slow". This scales to Nienami as Kakegae could fight Iihiko when copying Nienami. From scaling to Nienami, it scales to pretty much everyone, all the suitors and all the other combatants, from the Jet Black Bride arc onwards.
I think this causes some major weirdness with the fight between Medaka and Iihiko. During that fight she uses Kurokami Phantom while in End God Mode, which is stated to be faster than Kurokami Phantom Complete while barefoot, which is stated to be faster than Kurokami Phantom Complete while wearing shoes, which is stated to be faster than Kurokami Phantom Proper Version, which Iihiko called slow... Yet Iihiko was able to dodge Medaka's fastest technique here from very close range.
So are we really supposed to believe that everyone in the past 3 arcs is faster than Medaka's technique here? Everyone, paradoxically including herself, is faster than a speed boost which is faster than a speed boost which is faster than a speed boost which is faster than a speed boost on base Medaka?
I have an alternative explanation; what if Contradictory Conjunction lets characters overcome speed differences like that? We know that it lets characters overcome AP/Dura differences, and the description of the ability is so incredibly broad (literally letting the character manifest impossible outcomes) that I think it'd be really strange if it couldn't affect anything besides AP.
From this reasoning, Nienami, Fukurou, Kakegae, and Zenkichi would only scale because of Contradictory Conjunction, meaning it doesn't end up scaling to the other characters or suitors. Leaving the people who scale as:
- Kuudou Hinokage scales to SoL while using Theme Song.
- Medaka scales to SoL while using Kurokami Phantom Proper Version, FTL while using Kurokami Phantom otherwise.
- Iihiko and Ajimu scale to FTL.
EDIT 1: Because of this scan which Iapitus pointed out earlier, everyone from the end of the Kurokami Successor Arc onward should probably have Relativistic speeds. This would be Medaka, sealed Ajimu, all the suitors, and Kumagawa/Emukae/Naze should get new keys.
More Specific Changes
Dealing With Hanten
With Ajimu getting a tier, what should we do with Hanten? Frankly I'm not sure, the current profile has him scaling to Ajimu but I'm not sure if that's accurate. Hanten was created by Ajimu to act as a backup, but if it weren't for her choice to stall Iihiko she likely would have outlived Hanten. I feel like this means he's somewhat below Ajimu, at least in regards to AP/Dura. We haven't really seen him perform anything in combat either, the closest things we have are him helping Medaka when she destroyed the moon (possibly scaling to Medaka/the moon) and probably being somewhat weaker than Ajimu (possibly scaling to 3-B/3-A). There's also the weirdness of him following Ajimu around; he never follows her into the dream world/people's hearts so he likely doesn't have an equivalent for Alibi Block, so how does he follow her around in reality? We never really see Ajimu darting around from location to location at full speed, so it's hard to say if he'd even need to scale to her to follow her around.Thus, I think Hanten should stay at Unknown stats, with the ambiguity I've brought up replacing the current descriptions of "Comparable to Ajimu" and "Capable of following Ajimu everywhere she goes".
Also I think Hanten should have Unknown Intelligence, idk about saying he's intellectually comparable to Ajimu. Hansode worked as Medaka's backup for a while and we don't give her comparable intelligence.
Kakegae's Note
I believe we've misunderstood the nature of Kakegae Yuzuriha's Metonymy because of the obscure word-choice, the description on the Medaka Box wiki, and its limited use canonically. Metonymy is a broad figure of speech where something is referred to by the name of something closely associated with it. Considering how broad Mogura Kugurugi and Sui Kanaino's figure of speech Styles are, I find it hard to believe that Metonymy would exclusively be an ability that lets Kakegae transform into others; it should likely be able to replace other things with associated concepts. Now, I'm not asking to have this other application added to her profile, but a broader power like this makes little sense to be treated as mutually exclusive with 800 Lies. We've seen Fukurou use multiple different Styles in close succession.But why didn't she use them both against Iihiko? All the other Suitors were heavily weakened from Iihiko's earlier attack, giving them all limited uses of their abilities. Joutou could only de-age one person temporarily, the vibration Nienami passed on would soon fade. I think her not using both could be chalked up to not having enough of a voice left to use both (or PIS).
But why didn't she use them both against Medaka? This is a bit bigger of a reach, Kakegae can only copy people not improve upon them, so maybe she thought that her own skillset would have at least had a chance of overpowering Medaka; if she just copied Medaka it could have reached a draw. This makes less sense when you consider that it'd be 640,000 Medakas vs 1, but maybe this could be chalked up to CIS?
EDIT 3: After discussing it with DontTalk, I think it's fair to say that the clones may not be able to use all of Kakegae/Fukurou's abilities, just Metonymy for Kakegae and all of Fukurou's for any clones he makes, so the note should be reworded in line with this. This would still change functionality a substantial amount, as Kakegae herself can copy someone else, and fight alongside 639,999 clones of herself.
Volume Extra Additions
Discord user persia_n recently did a translation of the Medaka Box Volume Extras. The English grammar/spelling is a bit off, but I think I get the gist enough for various character upgrades/downgrades/clarifications.- Oudo Miyakonojou's Unreasonable Taxation works by subtracting an opponent's electromagnetic signature. This makes more sense than the current explanation of "He projects electrical waves into the opponent's heart", so I'll reword its description. Source.
- Since Gagamaru Chougasaki's Encounter redirects the effects of the damage not the damage itself, skills like Scar Dead can hurt him, but he can also redirect the damage made by it somewhere else. On top of this, as a matter of principle he doesn't redirect the damage to the cause of it. I'll need to reword his Weaknesses section to include both of these. Source.
- EDIT 1: Earl brought up that this should likely let Gagamaru redirect higher-tiered attacks, and also to negate durability when redirecting them, as he's only moving the effects of the damage.
- EDIT 3: DontTalk brought up that we still give limits for healing abilities, so I think the note should be kept for what Gagamaru can survive, but that he should still be able to negate durability when moving the effects of the damage.
- EDIT 4: Earl showed me this scan where Hinokage says that Gagamaru could push away his death, since that's pretty much as good as healing can get, I don't think a note is necessary; Gagamaru should be able to push away any damage.
- Misogi Kumagawa turned Hundred Gauntlets, a harmless ability that swaps cause and effect, to All Fiction, the ability that denies the existence of cause and effect. I should clarify on Najimi Ajimu's page that Hundred Gauntlets is a harmless ability like that, and Kumagawa should get Limited Power Modification for being able to turn an ability into a different one. Source.
- Aoki Aka's skill Five Focus lets her fix wounds, injuries, and fractures. This was pretty well-known but hasn't been included on Medaka Kurokami or Najimi Ajimu's profiles, so I'll add it. Source.
- Iya Renpei has the skill Zapping Study, that lets her control intelligence, lowering the target's IQ at will. Usa Hannyaji has the skill Erotic Pierrot, which lets her control lust, stimulating the target's libido at will. If Medaka had them, she would be able to decrease or increase both at free will. Ajimu suggests here that she may introduce Medaka Kurokami to someone who's experienced those skills so Medaka can learn them. We don't have any confirmation or denial about whether this happened, so I'd like to give Medaka Mind Manipulation and Empathic Manipulation under a "possibly". Source.
- Wanizuka observes that Sui Kanaino likely used her Style to land on their plane's wing. As such, I would like to add to her NA&T section a brief mention that she has an unnamed application of her style that let her land on a plane's wing. Source.
- Momo Momozono can only seal people who she knows the name of, massively nerfing her power. With this restriction I think all of her matches may need to be removed. Source.
- Hanten Shiranui says that he's not a human, and that a more appropriate definition would be "the will of the world to preserve good things", and that he's comparable to phenomena like "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest". I'm not quite sure exactly what this implies, maybe Abstract Existence? I'd like some help with hammering out this one. Source.
EDIT 1:Earl thinks "possibly Abstract Existence" would work, that sounds fine enough to me.- EDIT 2: DontTalk pointed out that this sort of thing usually isn't enough by itself to give Abstract Existence, so I guess this weirdness just won't result in any ability.
- Iihiko Shishime currently has broadly applicable possession because of this scan saying that if Medaka succeeds in defeating Iihiko she'll become the target of the legend. This was believed to be the same phenomena that made him possess Hansode when he initially died. I used to argue against this interpretation, as broader context in the chapter implied this was talking about the Shiranui Village manually preserving Iihiko, and that they'd start preserving Medaka instead if she won, but the exact wording in the former scan made people doubt this interpretation. However, this extra material ends up spelling out my interpretation. "Because a common man like Zenkichi defeated Iihiko, the imperative that pushed me to preserve Iihiko has decayed... If Medaka had defeated Iihiko, then the Shiranui Village would have had to start preserving her." The details of the possession aren't mentioned on the profile, so I want to add a brief description that it merely lets him inhabit the next Shiranui Village backup. With this significant nerf many of his matches may need to be removed.
- Kakegae Yuzuriha could've become a copy of Medaka and Iihiko. I think it should be explicitly mentioned on her profile that she could become a copy of them and Nienami, and I think this transformation should be usable in matches. Source.
- EDIT 1: After talking about it with Earl, I think some wording in line with the following should be put in Metonymy's description: "This gives her the potential to transform into anyone she knows, including Namanie, Medaka, and Iihiko, becoming their equals."
Manga Reread Additions
I'm part of my way through a reread of the manga and I've noticed some things that are missing from profiles. I figured I'd lump a few here and leave the rest for a later CRT.- Medaka Kurokami and Zenkichi Hitoyshi can both resist Oudo's Weighted Words, which he could use on the entire freshman body of his middle school. So Medaka/Zenkichi should resist Body Puppetry on that level.
- Illusions and feints don't work on Takachiho because of his reflexes. As Medaka copied these, she should have Resistance to Illusion Creation.
- Medaka Kurokami, in turning her reflexes off, can suppress pain, so she should have High Pain Tolerance listed.
- Munakata Kei has shown us more weapons than are listed on his profile. He also has scythes, axes, spears, and gatling guns.
- Misogi Kumagawa should have Power Erasure as his attempt to erase Emukae's power only failed because of the resistance Minus abilities have to being erased.
- Abilities created by Hansode Shiranui's Real Eater don't work against her, including abilities that only seem to affect the user, like a transformation that empowers the user. This should be mentioned on her profile.
Future Revisions
While I may never get around to these due to the tremendous workload involved, this series is in dire need of an AP revision, the 8-B feat that everyone scales off of isn't actually 8-B, Medaka and Zenkichi's profiles are frankly awful with the way their keys are organized, some other profiles need key changes, and I know there's many more changes that will come from my reread. I would appreciate other people picking up/helping with some of those if they can.Edits
Whenever I change my mind on some part of this during the thread, I'll edit my new position into this post with a bolded EDIT notice. So far I've done 3 waves of these edits.
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