Touken Ranbu "what-if's", the rant in prose

If you know me personally or have frequented literally any of my streams, this is a topic of mine that I’ve exhausted many times before. However, since SpaceHey is really good for long blog posts and discussions on things, I’d like to use this space to tell people about this game that’s meant a lot to me these past few years. I don’t think anyone on this site has talked about this game super extensively, so I’d like to be the person to do that.

I also want to preface this by saying that this isn’t hate on TKRB at all. A lot of this “man I wish I could fix this” attitude comes from a place of love for the franchise. TKRB has one of my favorite casts of all time and my favorite found family. This is a more personal “damn what could come out of this if TKRB had an actual updated game with extensive lore?” I don't want people thinking that because I'm sorta criticizing it that I don't actually really like the game. Things aren't black and white like that.

For those not in the know, Touken Ranbu is a card-collecting browser game from Nitro+/DMM. It used to have a global server but has since shut down. It was a genuinely unfortunate case. The game revolves around you as a saniwa (審神者) that’s able to summon historic Japanese swords as hot dudes. The sword boys you send out into battle are based on ACTUAL swords you can find in museums. This game is massively popular in Japan, but quite obscure overseas for a multitude of reasons. 

This game was created as almost a Side-M to Kancolle, or Kantai Collection. Their gameplay is almost exactly the same except for some differences that exist purely because you can’t maintain a WW2 warship the same way you fix up a katana. 

Both Touken Ranbu and Kancolle have massive barriers of entry to get into. They are made for the history buffs in mind. Unlike games like Fate Grand Order which put a spin onto the characters’ actual histories/stories, Touken Ranbu character lore is just what you would expect out of a history book. It’s quite straightforward with no twists to the actual history. There are anime adaptations for Touken Ranbu and I feel the most digestible version of this is Touken Ranbu Katsugeki, which has a smaller cast of characters with great animation from UFOtable. I also got into Touken Ranbu more with its 3D game Musou, which also has a smaller cast and feels more like an actual game.

Because of that, I feel like there’s a lot of inconsistencies with characterization that Touken Ranbu has created for itself with this. There is little to no actual in-game lore since it’s just selecting maps and fighting in them. The descriptions for each area are pretty clear-cut historical summaries. Outside of that, the worldbuilding for the game is sparse. The time travel technology is inconsistent in both the slice of life anime (Hanamaru) and Katsugeki, while not being explained in the game at all. We don’t even have a solid idea of what the Time Government or the enemies we fight even are. Furthermore, characters themselves will get mischaracterized from their in-game counterparts (Katsugeki butchered both Izuminokami and Horikawa’s in my opinion).

Because there is no lore outside of the historical summaries/in-game voice lines, the characters set themselves up for flanderization in canon media and fans themselves, since they can’t work with much else. I think if there was an actual plot for Touken Ranbu outside of the surface-level time travel, the characters would have a lot more depth to them. Sometimes they’ll have events where big things happen, like the Special Investigation events, but those more or less play out the same way any other map does.

A while ago, they did this event called the Hyakki Yagyo, where in the end it turns into one big raid boss. I actually played this event when it first dropped and it’s one of the better events in Touken Ranbu, but story wise it’s confusing. There’s definitely some improvements so far in this second version of the event, but it still has the problems of creating more questions and not effectively answering most of them. There’s the existence of this Mikazuki clone (Oboro) not on the government’s radar with a sheet over his head skulking around. Kuki Masamune’s existence in Iko wasn’t answered. There’s a big oni breaking through the barrier that just says vague stuff that’s meant to be foreshadowed and the ending of the second part of the event is test tubes/a laboratory area? It’s just Touken Ranbu faking depth to their game by pelting their players with a bunch of questions and random concepts with no cohesion. 

Lots of people seem to not want more worldbuilding in their franchise. This was a topic of conversation I had ages ago with others in the community. I still maintained my argument that TKRB would be far more successful if it had a cohesive world like FGO’s did, but they argued that because the target audience for Touken Ranbu is different, worldbuilding isn’t necessary. I am almost not sure how to interpret that. Initially, I was worried because I assumed it was gender-based since TKRB has a predominantly woman audience, but the female-male player ratio with FGO is split perfectly down the middle. I think if anything, a lot of TKRB players are worried that worldbuilding is going to get in the way of their existing headcanons/yumejoshi shenanigans, but I don’t think that’s true at all. I have a lot of friends that yume for FGO and Fate has sooo much worldbuilding even I can’t wrap my head around understanding it a lot of times.

I would love for Touken Ranbu to add more to their worldbuilding and UI design because I fully believe if it was given the effort it deserves, we’d have so many cool things for fans everywhere. I just have spoken to SO many TKRB fans who are just totally okay with the way the game is because it’s been this way for years. Meanwhile, all these other games with male only casts are blowing it out of the ballpark because there’s more work being put into it. I do wish TKRB didn’t invest itself into being a multimedia project with stageplays because it means the main game isn’t being given the necessary TLC for it to be successful and competitive with other games on the market right now. There’s also ways for it to be successful without making it P2W. 

This isn’t to say I dislike the musicals by any means, but I guess I just want more things being put in for the game/other video games in the making. I guess it shows where my priorities lie. I just think having a game would be super accessible for people, it’d make others understand the animes better, and if anything it would enhance enjoyment of the musicals. 

There are also other games that look better than Touken Ranbu visually but kinda function the same gameplay wise. Girls Frontline is one of those games. I think a lot of people would be more drawn to Touken Ranbu if the UI was kinda similar/cleaner like that. I think it’d be SO cool to have Live2D for our boys but OTL I don’t think it’s AT ALL within budget with the way they’re going.

Globalization is also a big thing. The global version of Touken Ranbu was a disaster and it’s because they hosted it on some shady platform, the translations were really bad, and there was barely any marketing done for it to make it appeal to anyone. I remember seeing a tweet during the EOS that a Starbucks in a really good area made a lot more than TKRB EN and that really put things into perspective. You have to really push for this kind of thing to succeed with making merchandise accessible, etc. because it's a totally F2P game. I also wonder if it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy they’re trying to reach with joseimuke games. If you release a global version, don’t market it properly, and then see that the game is failing, you can shut it down and then go “Oh well! This is why we don’t market out to girls/global users like that!”. I think it’s a crazy assumption to make if true. The reason why figure companies even push for figures of guy characters now is because Touken Ranbu was so popular, they realized “wow men actually are profitable”.

As of now, it’s basically impossible for Touken Ranbu to be globalized. It’s established as a mixed media project with no desire to actually further sculpt the world or explain historical Japanese concepts for the unfamiliar. That’s also partly why the localization failed. There was just too little for people to hold onto outside of “ooh pretty guys”. In my perfect little world, that gap would be bridged. I really want people to enjoy my favorite characters more! I want there to be more substance to their characters outside of the little historical summaries they were given and having to relive their respective timelines. I don’t think there’s anything bad that comes from additional depth.

So, the TL;DR: If TKRB had more substance/worldbuilding/lore to it, an updated UI/graphics, it'd be a lot more successful and fun to play. That's really it.

Anyways, I think that’s it for my little thinkpiece on Touken Ranbu. I want to be more active on Spacehey, so I decided to write something like this.

For anyone who is interested in Touken Ranbu, please say hi to me!! I also have a group for fellow saniwas. Touken Ranbu is a pretty small community after all, so no one really joined, but I’d love to say hi to some people.