#aos is so awful in every sense of the word lmao i hate it

[juriyuna]

Ranka?

oh god i typed way more than previously intented

Why I like them: It's always so hard to choose where to start with my faves! Funny enough, before I got into Arc 2, I figured she was gonna be a "token tsundere" character and that I probably wouldn't get very invested in her. How completely wrong I was on both counts...

She's crafty, has a sense of humour, and is a supportive friend to the few people she's close with. But she can be hard to get along with since she's abrasive and short-tempered, and she has trouble expressing more "vulnerable" feelings, like concern or guilt. Even simply letting her guard down to make friends is difficult for her. Some of this is her natural personality, but I bet some of it comes from the trauma she endured in Futatsugi's witch drought, too. She would've had to get used to lying, fighting, and putting up walls for herself just to survive. Trying to readjust to being a normal teenage girl would feel impossible after that.

(lmao @ the way her romance advice is "love is war, you know! if you don't go for it, someone else will snatch them up." as if she doesn't struggle with being honest about her feelings)

The way she hurts people (ie. Ao and Rena) and then later goads them into attacking her is-- "good" feels like a weird word to use here. Sad-yet-interesting? She pushes them into attacking her because she feels like she deserves punishment for making them suffer, which. :( rankaaa.......

... This could tie back into her messy family life, now that I think about it. Maybe a bit of a Yozuru-type mindset where she's used to getting punished for every mistake.......

and she's super cute with a nice voice, so +2 for those. it's fun that her normal speaking voice is kinda cutesy and then gets a lot rougher when she gets mad (which is often)

Why I don't: This isn't a criticism of Ranka herself, but man, why would F4 make her episode level up quote "That arcade that became a sacred ground… I’ve actually got something to do with it. Wanna hear more?" and then refuse to elaborate in either her MSS, an event, or the main story??? >:( f4 i am tapping on your window respectfully please give us the Ranka Lore

Favorite episode (scene if movie): Crimson Resolve! Perhaps I am biased for... reasons™️, but honestly she's just really good in CR anyway.

I can't decide if my favorite moment with her is when she's telling Juri "I won't leave you" when Juri is lying around their base feeling pathetic, or when she's baiting Ao into fighting her at Janomiya's base. Actually, I think I'll talk about the latter for a sec.

It's implied that Ao and Ranka were friends before everything went to shit, since they know each other's screen names. Then in Monzenbashi, Ranka was often ordered to violently punish the gang's weaker magical girls for their failures. This included Ao, regularly and repeatedly-- Ao herself talks about how many times she was beaten and robbed.

What a horrible situation all around. Ranka would've felt bad enough already for the things she had to do, but I imagine that having to hurt an old friend over and over again was excruciating. She knows Ao resents her for it-- but she probably resents herself for it even more.

Constantly telling Ao things like "If you really hate me, you should be able to do more than this...!" and "Keep going and show me just how much you hate me, Ao." in their fight, trying to get Ao to hurt her back (or flat-out kill her) for all the times she had to make Ao suffer... Even the Bat notices that Ranka is taking Ao's hits on purpose, to which Ranka replies "This is how it should be."

Just... God. I can't imagine how long Ranka's been bottling up all that shame. Despite all the awful things she's done, she herself is a good person at heart, as shown by her being so consumed by guilt that she would've let Ao murder her.

I love Ranka, man. ;_;

Favorite season/movie: Er, Arc 2 again. (she does show up briefly in the A New Beginning event from the end of Arc 1, but that doesn't count)

Favorite line: That'd have to be:

"Back then, I did everything the Bat told me to. Even things I didn't want to... Because I thought I couldn't make it without someone strong nearby."

... full disclosure, this is partly my favorite because I have terminal komoran brainrot. HOWEVER it also sheds some neat light on her personality? She often acts pretty cocky and self-assured, but similar to Rena, she seems to be very insecure under all of that.

Like I said earlier, she was regularly ordered to punish Monzenbashi girls who didn't live up to the gang's standards. We see this in a flashback in CR, as well as in Ao's MSS, where she hesitates to join the Bat in torturing some weak girls in their base. Originally, it seemed curious to me that Ranka chose to stay in Monzenbashi, despite what the Bat always put her through-- but perhaps she didn't think she was strong enough to join Ryuugasaki or Torayamachi? Or maybe some part of her felt safe under the Bat's wing, away from the Torayamachi/Ryuugasaki conflict. The Bat did work to protect her from rival gangs, after all.

Ranka might not be on the same level as Futatsugi's gang leaders, but she isn't a pushover, either. Learning that she saw herself as weak and incapable of surviving on her own (hey, another yozuru similarity) is interesting, as well as... honestly pretty depressing. She let herself get dragged around and used however the Bat saw fit because she thought she'd die without someone stronger to cling to-- because as much as this situation hurts, she's even more scared of what could happen if she was alone.

Yeah. This is a good line.

Favorite outfit: She only has her school uniform and her magical girl outfit at the moment, but between the two, I like her magical girl outfit best! The colour scheme is nice, and it gives that classic console/arcade vibe without being tacky. The ruffle necktie and the ribbons around her ankles are cute, too.

OTP: KOMORAN!!!! im going to fling myself into the sun im so [clutches my fistful of crumbs like a lifeline]

idk how I got this deeply invested in Bat (kōmori)/Ranka, but it's gotta be tied for my favorite magireco ship (the other one being juriyuna). The Bat only shows up in CR and a few flashbacks, and is... uh, kinda implied to have been killed by the end of CR (disregard that), but what we do see of her relationship with Ranka managed to strike a perfect chord for me anyway. Got that bad-good potential.

The Bat clearly likes Ranka, given that she appointed Ranka as her second-in-command. We never see her torture Ranka like she does with... uh, basically everyone else in Monzenbashi, which has to count for something. When Ranka was letting Ao beat her up, the Bat jumped in to protect her, knocking Ao away to put some distance between them. Although she'd expressed that she wanted to force Ao to work for her again, she was ready to kill Ao herself if it meant keeping Ranka alive.

That's... kinda sweet to me? Like. idk if the Bat's "I want to be at the top of the food chain" thing stems from a fear of vulnerability like Ao's does, but... She says that she doesn't regret the awful things she's done because she had to kill and steal from others, lest she be eaten alive herself. And yet, despite what could be taken as the Bat having some deep-rooted trust issues, she still trusts Ranka. She likes Ranka, to the point where it pisses her off to watch Ranka let herself get hurt. She doesn't want to lose her.

... listen, man, I'm weak for the trope of coldhearted, vicious, and/or jaded characters having one person they genuinely care for. It's cute!!! ;_;

On Ranka's end, her feelings are... more complicated. Despite the Bat putting Ranka through hell without the barest of apologies, Ranka never cut contact with her after Monzenbashi fell apart. They're still on good speaking terms in Ryuugasaki together. Ranka gets back together with her shitty ex teams up to fight with the Bat again in the second half of CR, so I guess the Bat doesn't hold Monzenbashi's downfall against Ranka, either.

(still kinda funny to me that ranka was literally in tears begging juri to save her from monzenbashi pre-CR and then i guess juri was like "ok. i'm gonna beat up your boss so she works for ME now" instead of killing the bat. thanks juri lol)

I feel like... for as much as Ranka hates what she had to do, and as much as she likely also resents the Bat for exploiting her, the better parts of their relationship make it hard for her to hate the Bat completely. She protected Ranka for a long time, after all; Ranka probably figures she would be dead by now if it weren't for that. I don't know if they knew each other prior to Monzenbashi or not (BACKSTORY...), but they seem close, so I choose to believe that they at least saw each other outside of gang time. Hung out at the arcade or smth. cute date stuff

Following Monzenbashi's downfall, I feel like Ranka would know that she should cut ties with the Bat, but... She's ended up with this sick sort of attachment to their relationship where she doesn't know if she wants to leave anymore. She both loves and hates the Bat, for many reasons-- but either way, she spent so long by the Bat's side that it's hard to picture not being with her anymore.

10/10 ship; has given me brain fungus for a year and a half now with no signs of stopping

Brotp: Since I answered Juri+Ranka for Juri, I'm gonna go with Ranka+Rena this time! They're similar enough that they were bound to either be best friends or absolutely hate each other, so I'm glad that they ended up being friends, haha. (Although they do still butt heads a lot.)

Their relationship starts off so fun in Ranka's MSS (do recommend giving it a watch, for anyone who hasn't yet!), with them bumping into each other and deciding to face off in various games to determine which one of them should apologize (neither of them do lmao). Ranka hangs out with Team KMR, has a good time, gets to relax and be happy for the first time in ages... and then you realize that it was doomed from the start because of the PB/KMU circumstances.

Ranka leaving Rena's last text on read makes me emotional. ;_; Poor Ranka having to break things off, but also poor Rena-- she has such awful self-esteem; she probably thought she did something to make Ranka hate her.

Their repeated fights through the main story chapters are good in a painful way (I can totally see why people ship them; "star-crossed" is an apt description for their relationship). My heart broke in ch.7 when Ranka couldn't bring herself to kill Rena, and instead shooed her off, hoping that if Rena had to die, it'd be by someone else's hand.

On the bright side, PB and the KMU are allies now!! So I hope we get to see Ranka and Rena hang out again... ;; (Sorry Momoko; you'll have 2 Renas to handle soon.)

Headcanon: Going by the advice she gave Ao about designing a swimsuit in a video game, I headcanon that Ranka's the type of person to put her character in a ridiculous outfit in games, especially if she's going online. One of those jokey mascot costumes that clips through everything, or a hideous MH clownsuit (now with layered armor for maximum ugly!). The kind of armor that makes other players go "lol nice" or "wtf are you wearing???" when she joins the hub. Probably beat BotW with Link naked in a Moblin mask.

Unpopular opinion: hm...... well, uh, I have trouble picturing ranrena romantically, somehow, despite it being probably the most popular Ranka ship next to juriran. _(:3 」∠)_ It's like, I can still appreciate art/fics for it, but whenever I try to imagine them as girlfriends my brain is like [TV static]. Just can't get into it myself, I suppose.

(lukewarm opinion on a popular ship probably doesn't quite count as "unpopular" but it's the best i've got here)

A wish: I really want her to get a nice homescreen outfit. The ideal would be something pretty and vampire-themed for Halloween because she gives me that vibe, but I'd take any other seasonal (or casual!) outfit too.

An oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen: please don't let her die ;_; Aside from the fact that she's one of my faves, PB and the KMU just formed a tentative allyship, meaning that Ranka and Rena can finally be friends for real. Don't take that away from them, F4...!

5 words to best describe them: okay okay i'll take this seriously now Conflicted, playful, stubborn, hotheaded, clever

My nickname for them: N/A; just "Ranka".