How to fix Kiriko's age problem

Story Discussion
1

Okay, so now that Sojourn is 51 and that makes her twin sister having a kid at 18 (and not 14 like previously, honestly, THANK YOU :pray:) and not retconing a whole novel about it (because that would have really be pretty bad, so THANK YOU² :pray:) let’s hit another problem:

:shinto_shrine: Kiriko :fox_face:

Before we start, let’s list all the related lore about her and the Shimada :

• January 11, 2021: Asa’s letter to her hursband Toshiro Yamagami

In this letter from Kiriko’s mother to her hursband been held hostage by the Hashimoto it’s stated that “Even now, some twelve years on, I see the mark they have left on our city.” Thje Hashimoto’s have been around for 12 years, more or less.

" The children of this town, growing to adulthood with only the brutal, thoughtless Hashimoto to determine what is good or bad . . . our daughter among them. It is dangerous in this city now."

Kiriko grew up and became an adult while Hashimoto were ruling. It fits with her being a young adult at the motment this letter is written.

• September 20, 2022 : Kiriko Origin Story

In this, the artwork suggests that she was closer in age with the Shimada brothers, and it is told in Kiriko’s point of view.

• September 20, 22 : Kiriko Origin Story SHORT :

Now, there is the first time we’ve got another age : “But when Kiriko was seven, the Shimada clan collapsed when Genji and Hanzo’s father was assassinated by a rival clan : the Hashimoto’s who then took over Hanamura and Kanezaka”

12 +7 = 19 - So Kiriko was kinda 19ish because we didn’t have a proper timeline (yet)

• September 23, 2023 : Yōkai

It’s the end of the Summer Festival with fireworks. She is a “teenager” and “The Shimada were some ten years gone now, and their castle had a new occupant.”

It kinda fits with the narrative previsously said.

• October 8, 2022 : Kirko animated short

She is clearly living on her own, probably recently, and her mother is worried about her. She must be a young adult still. And she agreed to come back and live with her mother after the Hashimoto corridor incident.

• November (or december?) 2022 : New hero biographies

Kiriko biography that said "When she was twelve years old, the head of the clan, Sojiro Shimada, was assassinated by the rival Hashimoto clan.

Here is the first real retcon about her, previsously it said she was 7 - now it says 12.

12 +12 = 24 - so we assumed she was 24ish at this time.

• August 2023 : Lore codex and timeline (in the game client if you bought the PVE)

It is now established that Uprising happened 10 years ago. So, Retribution, with Genjin having a new body and beeing in Blackwatch, happened before that. It fits with the narrative saying that the clan fell 12 years ago, if Retribution happened, lets say, 11 years ago. Plenty of time to get his cybernetic body and being very bitter about what happened to him.

• September 2023 : New age and dates of birth of all heroes added.

Kiriko biography says that she is 21. Now, if Sojiro Shimada really died and the clan fell 12 years ago, when she was 12, she has to be 24 today. That conflicts with the freshly established timeline.

Now that everyone read that, let’s ser how we can fix this hot mess!

1. Edit the biography to say that “when she was 9”. Problem solved, the Shimada clan still fell around 12 years ago, it’s okay.

2. Edit her age so she is 24 instead of 21. Problem solved, her age when Sojiro died fit with her current age now.

I prefer option 1 tbh. It fits more with her personnality IG and in the short and her mother being worried like she is. For the “they grew up together” part, as in, they trained together and Kiriko was probably arround a lot on the Shimada ground, It doesn’t bother me much. And for the artwork… it’s not the first time, nor the last, that T4 had problem with age consistencies

PS : if you ever need a lore historian in the team to make sure those problem don’t arise in the future, I’d gladly join the team BTW, just saying!

5 Likes
2

The problem with kiriko is also how shes connected to genji and hanzo she needs to be more like 32 to make sense and it would still make sense she lived with her mom for so log because its common for multiple gens to live in one home in Japan

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3

I agree with you.

But Kiriko has been a mess to the lore since her introduction. It feels like her backstory, the Shimada lore and their previous established ages and timeline were not taken in account.

So now, the best way to fix that, is to do the options I said, without major retconing. Because aging Kiriko for more than 10 years just crumble all her lore saying she grew up to adulthood under the Hashimoto’s reign.

Or, they could also lower the Shimada’s ages. But that’s a whole new can of worm I wouldn’t touch if I were them…

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4

Ya and thats the problem they need a lore master so bad

5

I offer myself as a tribute.

6

Well, I don’t entirely agree with that. the origins video is however a recent presentation of a new character compared to the old cinematics in which the lore was not yet defined (or rather, it did NOT want to be defined). so I don’t think the development team can make an easy choice, they MUST sacrifice one of the two narratives they have set for her: did Kiriko grow up with the Shimada (whole narrative of her relationships with them) or has she recently matured with the transition to adulthood (cinematic narration)?

I think it’s almost more painless to change Kiriko’s maturity with her mother’s relationship. One could describe Asa as an overprotective mother who insisted on protecting her daughter as well once she reached maturity. This would not ruin the artistic setting at all but it would change her (little) information on the protective character of her mother by accentuating this aspect rather than on the personal judgment of when Kiriko would have developed a spirit of rebellion towards the Hashimotos. and ok, it would be a stretch… but a choice has to be made and Kiriko can’t take back the too many spams she’s made about how much he knows Shimada personally.

EDIT

another theory is to set Kiriko’s cinematic as an event prior to the present, something that happened a few years ago (maybe that 2 year gap from the OW1 era). And consequently the exact date of Asa’s letter about the presence of new guardians in Kanezaka also changes. consequently we would make Kiriko’s feelings of maturity described in the cinematic and short story unchanged because they actually occurred between the ages of 20 and 22.

But we don’t have a decent clue to do this type of operation. :thinking:

Absolutely not.

7

They could do a Mercy on Kiriko and make her older with the explanation of the Fox Spirit making her age slower.

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8

Personnally I would lean towards the second option : I think giving Kiriko 24 or 25 wouldn’t be that much of a stretch.

I know plenty of people of that age (me included) who have similar personalities and equal love of sugary goods as diner so I don’t really see why aging her up would be a problem. Furthermore, in japan, it’s often seen that adult children live with their parents for a long time (sometimes even until marriage and after) so it could fit the fact that the mom is worried she’s moved out, but also they’re in a situation where there are Yakuzas everywhere and the world is in shamble, even if Kiriko were to be 25 or 30 I could still see her mom be worried and ask her to come back.

But if Kiriko was going towards 25 (so the year of her 25th birthday) and was 3 in the origin story art with the Shimadas :

  • it would give Genji around 15, which could fit (he wouldn’t be tall because he’s in the middle of his growth spurt, and that would fit the teenager being hit over the head because he’s not listening).

  • And that would make Hanzo around 17, which would also still fit the look of the art, if people can imagine that he looks short but could still be growing the last few centimenters.

And even at 3, Kiriko could still have memories of growing up with Genji and Hanzo and having trained with them. (As a personal example, I have a 12 years difference with my big brother, same age difference as Kiriko would have with Genji if she was 25, but I still feel we grew up together and so does he).

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9

That has never been a thing, and it has been debunked multiple times over the years. :roll_eyes:

10

technically yes, although I imagine a lot of people will object to the voiceline talking about genji cutting his hair when he was young. the one mentioned is quite typical of young Japanese kids rather than adolescents close to maturity. But you can always delete/modify that voiceline and simplify the problem, of course. :open_hands:

11

It’s amazing how people don’t understand that aging slower doesn’t mean you’ve lived fewer years.

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12

I mean she looks younger but is more years old so they dont have to make her LOOK older and like rework her entire personality as well.

13

ok, but if they have to explain to us how he ages then I would prefer them to give precedence to the question “is it magic or spiritualism that introduced by the shimada / Kiriko dragons? Are you canceling the old condition of ‘it’s not magic’ said in the ow1 era?” . :sweat_smile:

14

I’ve already gave up on this “Magic doesn’t exist” thing since Kiriko honestly. The way how she can teleport herself, heal a fatal gunshot with an ofuda and make her scars disappear in a second by touching the scar are beyond science.

15

The only fix is changing the 2 to a 3 in her age. Having her act like a 20 year old in her 30s is infinitely better than breaking her lore entirely. Ideally though, they’d just get rid of all the zoomer dialogue that no one likes anyway and redo her character entirely. They ruined Genji by neutering his personality in OW2 for no reason, so they obviously have nothing against this.

16

Age canon is really confessing as heck but atleast we know one thing Kiriko is still in her early 20s.