Day 17: Seija

[Juuni]

reganeet ytsgna

Day 17: Seija Kijin

Seija is a character that I feel is supposed to be hated. She has barely any redeeming qualities, cheats, and Stockholm syndromed shimmy to make herself stronger. She generally doesn’t have a great personality, and I hate the speech tick of saying a ton of opposites, as it just makes her more annoying than anything. She accomplished being a more villainous character, but I feel the fans lost that part of her and tried to make her into something she isn’t. I also don’t really like her design as well, but her theme is excellent. Overall, villain character that got fandom treatment in a bad way, coupled with her not being my favorite type of character.

[Eulogous]

Seija is one of my favorite characters, mostly because she doesn't want to be redeemed. It's nice to have an antagonist who doesn't just get a slap on the wrist at the end of their game, stop the bad thing they were doing forever, and end up casually hanging out with Reimu or something. However, Seija is a rare case of a character, for me at least, that has been done dirty by both the fandom and in canon post-ISC.

In fanon, she's just used as a meme for flipping things or opposite speak, which is boring as hell. Fans pair her with Shinmyoumaru, which doesn't sit too well with me as Seija's friendship with her was only really a means to an end in DDC. I get why, because same game and all, but it feels like another one of those ships that are the surface-level "character knows other character exists, so they are together now. Aren't they cute paired up like this?" type that, when viewed through the lens of canon, feel kind of gross. It reminds me of ships like Tenshi/Iku, or Aya/Momiji, where the characters in-universe don't like each other.

Then we have her appearance in Grimoire of Usami...

I hate it. What happened to all the cheat items from ISC? Why is she back with Shinmy? Why is Shinmy a gremlin now? ISC had Shinmy try to convince Seija to give up, which she promptly refused. She effectively spit on their "friendship" because it didn't matter to her, to which Shinmy then tells her that she'll alert other characters of her antics. GoU kind of just pretends none of ISC even happened, so it shoehorns Seija back into being with Shinmy without any explanation because I guess ZUN thought it'd be cool or something.

It also just nerfs Seija by removing the cheat items in general, to which I'd wonder why someone who seeks to start an uprising and is effectively a fugitive would abandon that kind of advantage. I've seen some claim that they were used up, or they are implied to be used up, but I've actually played the game. I completed every scene and got my unsatisfactory "ending.png" reward for it, and I remember nothing of the sort being brought up.

 

5 hours ago, Juunimeta said:

and I hate the speech tick of saying a ton of opposites, as it just makes her more annoying than anything.

Oh hey, another thing I hate that was made into a quirk for her in GoU.

It's the stuff like this that makes me wish some characters don't return, because it feels like a gamble whether they appear as a harmless nod to their existence (most characters), get something decently substantial that makes them more interesting (Kogasa with her babysitting job, and her ability to repair Reimu's needles), or an aspect people would write off as fanon nonsense slowly being made canon (Hong Meiling).