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Rean is shirou emia of trails series.

9:59 Admittedly, he's quite similar to Emiya in Fate series as a deconstruction of similar protagonist trope, but less extreme.

This is an important topic to me so I feel the need to comment. 1.) Respectfully, I think the format doesn't work well. Most of the vid is a recap with a surface level "analysis" of the scenes displayed (which to begin with aren't really subtle to warrant much looking into.). Any interesting part that you could add to the discussion is undermined by a joke or glossed over in favor of continuing with the recap (specifically referring to him being a "deconstrucion" and the criticisms his character gets. Stuff I really disagree with, but would've helped with the "analysis" if you went more into detail). 2.) The story beats chosen are very surface level and really repetitive (all boiling down to "Rean doesn't think highly of himself/thinks he is a burden"). One scene which warrants analysis would be Rean's flashback in CS3 which has more depth and showcases his survivors guilt, also his speech with Ash in the same game... 3.) There is a surprising lack of analysis for the symbolic aspects present, such as his ogre power and how it could be a metaphor for Rean's repressed feelings of anger towards himself/others... How changes in his support system (Class 7 -> NC7) are a key part for his recovery, etc... As for the thesis of the vid, I couldn't disagree more honestly... Its a very personal matter, so I'm just gonna speak from my experience... While feelings of worthlessness are a syntom of depression, they dont even encapsulate a great part of the experience... There are other key aspects such as general feelings of emotional numbness, self harm, lack of energy to perform even basic tasks etc. And Rean really only displays a generally vague lack of self esteem with some self loathing. The way the story treats it is also very surface level. After CS1, besides Rean rushing in to save someone what other flaws does he showcase? What real mistakes does he make? How much does the story call him out for these mistakes/how many are REALLY his fault? He unleashed the curse, even though he was set up by Osborne. He helped anex 2 neighboring countries, but he was coerced into doing so and the game itself portrays his particiaption as a good thing (working to save civilians and minimizing damages)... The reason people call Rean wish fullfilment is the major aspects surrounding his character too... He has a large support system of friends, coworkers, and family that are pretty much always understandable of his situation, willing to help him out and (agains post CS1/CS3) rarely ever have a conflict with him (besides his sacrificial nature)... (Not everyone has a good support system, and even if they do, they too are people with their own problems so you cant expect them to be there all the time) Despite being adopted the only person who has any issue with it is himself, even his biological father turned out to be a good person that was always proud of him... He someone manages to handle a 9-5 as a teacher, his daily rounds, a good social life with coworkers, students and his old friends AND still have enough time to train to become a divine blade... (Some people dont even have the energy to take basic care of their hygine, that is a huge contrast)... He is regarded highly by some of the most important figures in the empire, and outside of it (Arianhrod even basically tells him she wanted him to be her son)... He is even highly regarded by his enemies (at least those that arent nameless soldiers) and those he has wronged in the past who hold little grudge over his actions (Lloyd, Rocksmith)... Any mistake he makes (besides his one glaring flaw) are glossed over, or can be justified. And of course the Harem. Despite everything, he is a natural born lady magnet that attracts a large chunk of the female cast (even those the player cant choose like Claire and Duvalie). The less said about his (not*) sister and his students the better... (If keeping up with friends can already be hard, you can imagine a romantic partner) This is also why I disagree with the idea of him being a deconstruction... He isnt deconstructing anything. He plays into all the same tropes that other fantasy fullfillment anime do (as listed above), and his only negative trait isnt even that unique... The idea of a boy with a special power that scares him and makes him isolate from others by thinking he isnt worthy isnt in anyway new, and was used by a lot of light novels at the time. To the point it was mocked and memed and turned into the "edgy/angst" OC image sometimes shared online... I dont think there is anything wrong with fantasy fullfilment. And if people found solace in Rean for their own problems that is great! More power to them... But praising it as good representation doesnt sit right with me personally... The one major exception is his speech in reverie which does encapsulate the responsability people have for their own well being. But even so it's not that deep, its very blunt in fact. All this to say that while I love trails, it's not perfect and not that deep. There is a lot of media out there that portrays these topics in a better and more authentic way. So I suggest seeking it out! Trails is cool, but you should definetly get out of your comfort zone! On a final note. Even in trails we have Kevin and Renne being a pretty good representation of the effects that trauma can have on the individual, and part of that is 3rd's willingness to take the subject matter seriously and showcase the truly ugly aspects of it.

this video is a masterpiece

I like Rean, my problem is the Anime Tropes, I know, all the characters in all the games have something of that, my point is precisely his Shounen side, because I'm already used to Shounen, and Rean's "Talk no Jutsu" always ends up getting boring. 27:51 - I understand what the story wanted to convey, but at this point I was kind of fed up with Class VII & SSS, I really wanted to see it being focused 100% on "C" and his redemption, but for me, Reverie left more to be desired with the secondary characters than the main story XD. 37:19 - Here's another problem I have, as I'm already used to Shounen, you're also used to other genres like Harem, why not form pairs with the other characters in your own class or outside of it? As mentioned in the video itself, in CSI & CSII you have more background of the characters, but in later games it's forcing who will be the "chosen waifu", we know that this is an appeal to the Japanese public, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯... Thanks for the video Bro 10/10. MUSSE, EMMA, TOWA, ALFIN OR VITA >>>>>>>>

Thank God someone does God's work XD. As much as I played the games until Reverie, which I did 100% a few days ago, you end up forgetting some details here and there about the story, it's good to have a video like that to refresh your memory XD, ty my man <3 BTW¹: Randy, Wazy, Kevin and Oliver it's OUR GUYS! <3 BTW²: Emma, ​​Musse, Alfin and Vita >>> ALL, so far XD.

after replaying the whole of trails of cold steel and reverie I can conclusively say: you are schizophrenic

Indeed a great video and explanation on Rean’s character.

Cold Steel is the Gundam Seed of the Trails fandom both of the stories and characters get a lot of unjustifiable hate and people go out of their way to hate on them

I might be the minority here, but whatever. I think Rean is the WORST Protagonist in the trails series, I hate how naive Rean is like in the cold steel 2 he want Crow to graduate with Towa and friends despite he just "killed" Erebonia chancellor and started civil war that caused a lot of death. Even if Rean forgive him it's dumb to think the Goverment gonna let him go after everything is over.

Only right romance options are Elise, Towa or Laura.

Good video. I binged Cold steel 1 - Daybreak 2 with fan translation. Im going to be playing kai no Kiseki with ai translations.

Hey man, I want to say thanks for this video. I really put me more in light of Rean instead of another Harem Shonen Good guy. With a little bit more respect to his name. And I see why few people I know would use his likeness in avatar models and such. I came in disliking Rean for aforementioned aspects. Harem, Pretty Boy, Mr. Steal your b**h. And again high school games just about does it badly for me. But seeing you bring up the evidence for Rean really make me respect the man. Yes he is a pretty boy. Like you, I don't roll that way but hey, man's got the looks. I haven't hopped on Trails too far in the extent as most do. Playing the RPGS now would be a huge investment of time. So reading and watching/listening to characters, lore, synopsis. Learning as well as the upcoming Kai No Kiseki: Farewell O'Zemurai. I'm happy for yall and I want to be part of that. I came from all of Ys wanting to learn from Trails for the longest. With it's 30+ years of ongoing story telling. That's something I can get behind. I'd say, for those who haven't gotten the time to learn through CS 1-4 for Rean, come here. You did a bang up job of dissecting Rean than most I've seen. Thank YT's Recommendation too for finding you. Thanks again.

It doesn't matter how many times you put Rean losing his eyes on Laura or Emma I laugh my ass off every single time

sorry for the long ass rant

1:38 for estelle and lloyd I can understand but van and kevin are way more mysterious in their introductions. this maybe sets an aura for something but its not as great as with joshua. I mean him helping characters is cool ig, this glosses over the majority of the flaws with rean but yeah sure. rean is not mature he is mature *sometimes* when the dialogue needs him to be 5:21 so he is underplaying his skills. sure. a normal bad quality 6:01 which is dumb because he could have blocked it with his sword or at least not his spine :) 6:31 up until now you are just showing how normal of a protagonist he is, nothing special yet 7:46 when in existence has this ever been said????? I have no memory of this ever happening. 8:00 legitimately I have no words, I truly believe you are just putting head canon into this video lol 8:25 I kind of maybe understand the sacrifice thing kinda maybe maybe but underplaying his strength? really? how is that relevant at all from what im seeing right now you are putting headcanon into this but still even if what you said is true, the dialogue flow, the character interactions are all so embarrassing that any semblance of character development that you mentioned yet is shallow, weak and hard to feel. 10:01 you have not shown any evidence of this yet, and everything you mentioned is just generic protag stuff. most protags have problems related to family, have/had problems with mentality and want to help people and cheer people up. 11:49 I feel like you are just saying words here. you are not showing WHERE he says these things or feels these things, just saying that he does. 12:49 most of the things he is angry at himself for are things that are contained in the story and not the past but ig if he had problems like that before you would be right (which you have proven very shaky evidence for) 13:27 you skipped over the cringest most torturous dialogues in the whole trails series and over some fairly major events such as the pantagruel escape (crow interactions, actually using spirit unification, alfin interactions) and the crimson wings which are all quite major in his character development in this game but sure. also the memes in this video are not well made because they break the flow of the video and are way too loud. 13:39 its not revealed, he slowly throughout the games gains a more defined personality 14:27 I was in agreement with you until you showed no moments like that. you just showed vulcan and scarlet trying to kill themselves, not even rean's reaction. 14:58 you are narrating events without showing (or even explaining) rean's reactions to events, this video is quite poorly written even if you want to argue for cold steel and rean. 16:35 you arent even wrong.. its just that the game is so infuriatingly cringe with so much of the dialogue that these parts of the game are just towered with complete shit. 17:21 the issue is that there is nothing yet shown of the north ambria occupation that is written well dumbly enough so these parts of the story that could be highly emotional were just removed... as a testament to the stupid writing of cold steel. 18:20 actually here is when I stop disliking rean as a character but the writing of the games. I hate how forced it is that his students fight ouroboros with him because it legitimately makes no sense to involve students in things like that. you might argue as you have before that rean did that as a student but this is not normal in this world, the fact that one person does something does not mean it should be a golden standard. 19:35 its not self sacrifice, its protecting students from harm, I disagree on this part completely. 20:20 I still cant see him hating himself, he just has a lot on his mind. 20:24 here he just regrets that crow died, he doesnt attack himself for that 21:58 this WAS really hype, one of my favorite moments in trails 22:30 you are showing too little evidence, again, you sound like you are writing your own story or telling your own story rather than showing things to back up your claims. 22:39 he came to terms with the fact that at the end of the day he is the sacrifice of the great twilight 23:22 this is the first time there is actually good evidence to back up your claims of deep regret/depression. 24:52 yeah the bad ending was quite sad 25:33 this is the ending so there is not much to comment about the quality of the writing, this is pretty good but then again im a big trails fan so enjoying trails is not exactly something to be shocked about. 28:12 yep that is how a person would react to things like that happening. this video is very lazer focused on rean so I cant comment much on the overarching problems with reverie's dumb writing in some places but yeah he is not depressed he just has a lot to think about and come to terms with still 29:00 he already did that in cs4, this time its just with different flavoring 30:24 you could just say what happens, we all know what happened in the game and even the people that dont will understand with the minimal amount of context needed, no need for mark rober the evil science guy 31:46 wdym what a creative name? he calls himself that, what else do you want him to be called? the demon rean of impending doom and the great ones owner? 33:30 this was.. something well idk I dont really need to watch the rest I have a conclusion. this video is not very well made to prove a point but I can say this: what your point is (that rean is like trying to defend other people at the cost of himself) is not especially wrong or anything, but the game is especially poorly written if this is what they try to convey. the WRITING is bad, maybe the idea is good (which I never disagreed with actually lol) but the writing is not peak fiction, its far from it. there is much unnecessary bullshit and a lot of the points that you showed in this video are not felt so much during the playthroughs of the games because they are just shallowly written. also cold steel is still way more mid than the other parts of the series just because of the shallowness of the dialogue.

You're also wrong about Rennes intelligence, it came from being subjected to gnosis and used as a guinea pig while in paradise. Ouroborous didn't give her her super intelligence.

How do you mispronounce so many common english words. It's wild.

this shit stinks please take a shower

Rean becoming an Instructor was one of those things I initially kinda hated, cuz it felt like he was failing to move on, and trying too desperately to cling on to the past when he was happy even though all his friends had already moved on to do his own thing. Yet in true Falcom fashion, they ended up making it work so damn well that by the end I loved it. Partially because all my hate was directed at just how absolutely fuckin' EVIL that cliffhanger was in CS3. I was able to jump into 4 immediately, BUT STILL. The BALLS on Falcom with that astound me to this day.

Playing CS1, I can't remember the exact moment that prompted it, but I remember jokingly saying to myself "Good going, Shirou Emiya." THEN EVERYTHING MADE SENSE.😂

Good video, I disagree completely though... Go watch Kamen Rider OOO. It's way better than Trails of Cold Steel in regards to how it handles it's subject matter. Eiji Hino (The GOAT) >>>> Rean

Imagine if instead of Musse it's...Renne Bright the scythe girl. Lmao.

GENIUS MAGICAL GIRL SNIPER!!! 🌟🌟🌟

I love chara Rean from 1 trails 😢i knew,dies one will hero without proof

Great video! I love Rean and you explained it so well!. My only wish is he had a cannon partner. Because the "what if" scenario hamstrings a lot of the potential the other girls on the cast. Like the other guys have minor npc love interests like gaius and Linde, but since the girls are rean's choice, they can't have any other interest. I hope in Kai this can be resolved. Like maybe alt Rean in Reverie had the "your choice" character as the love interest and died, while the real one has a cannon one. This will free them to move on and grow more. Also my head cannon is Rean x Towa, they match really well, and the only way to stop a workaholic that cares for people more than themselves is to have another one.

Can you do Estelle and Joshua's next, their romance is hands down easily the best written romance in all of the JRPG ive played, Joshua story is kinda like Rean but he was lucky to have Estelle to knock some sense into him that the "must sacrifice myself and atone for my sins for everyone's sake" arc only lasted half a game

Alright Bobby you put up a good video, nice job. I learned some stuff, I overlooked quite a bit. I still think CS3 is wack tho, but your explanation makes it less wack lol

Reverie had an awesome arc for Rean and C. But clearly they were out of idea for Loyd.

Fie best girl

The problem with Rean is the inconsistency of its central theme. Yes, he was abandoned and the nobles see him badly BUT his adoptive family loves him unconditionally. He says he doesn't deserve to be in class VII BUT all his classmates can't stop telling him how much they care and love him. He says that he is nothing next to his classmates but it is Rean who solves most of the problems within Class VII by making them look useless without Rean. I think it was a very bad idea to make a character with low self-esteem has a harem because it makes me ask "why does the man who says he's worthless attract all the girls?" The game wants to be a tragic story and a harem fantasy at the same time and that makes me and many other people not take Rean seriously and sorry, I don't think Rean is a deconstruction of the shonen protagonist

As someone who's fighting off depression myself I really felt some kind of connection towards Rean. Also just to throw it out now: Lloyd also has a harem, so I don't get why Rean gets reduced to harem protag while Lloyd is the same boat. Oh well, anyway. I really like how during Riverie Rean gets some closure and also look at his cut-in picture, he holds his sword the same way someone else did. I also really loved the bonding events in CS4 with Laura getting really angry at Rean or Towa finally getting her closure. It's not just Rean who's well written but also the people around him who are well aware of his depression and try to help him out. There were alot of moments throughout the series where I just wanted to hug Rean or other characters. Civil War and world wars are no joke on the people ON TOP of the other issues they have.

I've really enjoyed the way you've told the story of Rean, I'm differently looking forward to your future videos.

A yes my other favorite Black haired overpowered protagonist next to kazuto kirigaya 🥳

The best protagonist in trails. Other trails protagonist not even close to him. Edit :)

What was it with the Cold Steel arc and depressed characters

> Mentions Sora and Rex and eating up corny friendship speeches I see, you're someone of culture as well. :) But yeah the other comments have covered anything I'd want to add. Dude's got a lot more to him than it seems, but you have to be willing to play ball with the series which for a series so corny, a lot of people don't seem to want to do! He's got a special place in my heart. I have mixed feelings on things like the bonding event system making him the center of everything (because all the other Class VII girls sans Millium are reserved for Rean, none of them can really have relationships with the other guys, romantic or otherwise. Like Laura could also spar with Jusis or Gaius or talk to them about marial arts as much as she does Rean but AFAIK she never does. This didn't turn out _as_ badly with the new class, but it still happened to a degree.) However, that's a meta issue, and Rean _as a character_ on his own is totally fine. It's just falcom made some not so great choices that I disagree with that involved him. And that's fine.

Rean gets way to much hate. I always thought he was a great example of a man with self loathing and serious depression.

@1:03 Sheep Chiplock lmfao

While Rean is my least favorite protagonist, I still really like how well he works in Cold Steel 3 in particular with the "war hero" figurehead thing for a horrible government

You sir understand Rean perfectly and what makes him great. You know I often like making Rean fish, even though I hate the mini game in CS1&2, because I like the idea of this guy whose truely not okay on the inside and is looking fir an excuse to run away and throw his life away, just stopping all the noise coming from that inner ogre to fish. Just listen to the creek water, wait and fish, taking a time out from doing Student Council busy work he throws himself into like finding worth in his life depends on it, or field study missions, fishing is exactly what he needs

Just finished the video so I'll add to my other comment: It's pretty obnoxious how so much of the community complains about Rean's "trope-ness" despite the whole of Trails being built on Tropes. Like, name a character and someone'll name you the trope. They're meant to be tropey because it's such a wide world wide so many characters. Attempting to write a thousand+ characters with each of them being OC-DONOTSTEAL would be absolutely foolish. Estelle and Joshua can be a tropey and nobody bats an eye, but Rean is and suddenly the whole of Reddit blows a gasket. It's really annoying and why I mostly steer clear of the fandom in general.

this timeline is all over the place

0:00 Wait did you just show the ending of....(ehem, spoilers) Xenoblade fans know 😉 I'm jumping to Trails Series ship now.

Not his younger not-sister 😅

Rean is such a complex topic that, at its core, baffles me. People who claim to love Trails so very deeply looked at Cold Steel, saw the bonding events and immediately dismissed Rean as a Shonen Protag Harem Wishfulfillment. Falcom gave us Sky, Azure, Daybreak, Nayuta, etc and yet people still didn't give them the benefit of the doubt and refused to actually take in Rean's story. A recent poll on Reddit made me laugh a lot because he was rated both as the most overrated and underrated character in the franchise and yeah, it's pretty much true.

Knuckles really had that big “O”