In her original story released on YouTube (https://youtube.com/shorts/O-MLYVfzVPE?si=uvUWzU3HduJSpeUM), Shimada Sojiro was assassinated when Kiriko was 7. but according to the Kanezaka Shrine description of the homepage Hero introduction, he was assassinated when Kiriko was 12.
This is very confusing for a fan who likes the character’s story.
She is treated as a very young hero in the game like D.va and Lucio, so if fallen Shimada Clan when Kiriko was 12~13, Kiriko would now be in her late 20s, which makes me feel very strange.
And Kiriko’s mother, Asa is looking for the vigilante Yokai. if Kiriko is in her late 20s, her mother has not been able to find Yokai for years. This means that Yokai has provoked Hashimoto to endanger the village for more than 6 years. (According to “the letter of Asa” official released.)
Because Kiriko formed Yokai when she was 20 years old.
I remember they originally announced her age, but then they found out that if you follow the logic of the hero story, she can’t be much younger than Genji, so they chose to delete her age
From what i understand, kiriko was originally meant to be in her late 30’s, but she was randomly changed to be in her early-mid 20’s, which has resulted in a huge number of contradictions in her lore
it seems like her story was a side note thing and had no organization. probably was just get the character out as fast as you can then we’ll worry about the story later but when they went back and checked on thier work they couldnt even figure it out
in other words probably should get a F for homework lol
probably some director was like we neeed something cool and hip for the kids and the character creator artist/writer was trying to explain to the suit that it wouldnt make sense but the $$suit$$ said “I DONT CARE JUST DO IT”
Exactly, thats how i feel too, especially considering how hard she was pushed in the marketing. That said, characters like genji and mercy are in their late 30’s and are very popular, so its pretty disappointing they decided to go that route. It makes her lore make 0 sense.
still it doesnt matter really since i think she was a smash hit if you look at her revenue wise. also if your in the know she is popular elsewhere and with fan artists if you catch my drift
a literal gold mine
maybe even more on par with d.va and mercy in popularity. maybe
If we follow the timeline, I have bad news for those who’d like to keep a “young ninja” stereotype in mind: Kiriko should be it her late 30s.
It was discussed, really. She trained with Shimada brothers and now we have Hanzo at 38 and Genji at 35. For her to be in her early 20s now she’d need to be an infant when they were training, it’s almost 20 years difference. And even infant is probably a stretch.
The youngest she could possible be is early 30s or very late 20s (like 28-29) for it to make sense with the backstory of her training.
Even more ridiculous if follow the timeline. Someone claims to be in her 30s, and most of based on illustration. It makes sense if Hanzo and Genji trained together when they were in their late 10s. It is not uncommon to train before the age of 10.
They’ve always played fast and lose with the story. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If something doesn’t make sense, they’ll simply retcon it and tell you that you were mistaken. Regardless of how much evidence exists to the contrary.
If “Genji is 35, Hanzo is 38” and “Kiriko trained with Shimada brothers” are both mandatory pieces of the story puzzle, there’s no way Kiriko can be in her early 20s. Here’s some detailed explanation, if you so wish it:
https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Kiriko
there is one aspect of her lore that conflicts with all this. In both Kiriko’s Origin Story, as well as Protector, she’s shown alongside Hanzo and Genji, with both appearing to be in their mid to late teens, which is strange, as based on the two’s originally mentioned ages, 13 years ago should’ve shown the two as being around 25 and 23 respectively. This would seem to suggest that instead of around 10 years, it has instead been around 20 years since their father was assassinated. However, this doesn’t make much sense, as that would mean Kiriko is really in her mid-twenties to early thirties, the Yokai has accomplished little to nothing of note against the Hashimoto Clan despite being active for around a decade, and conflict with the previously mentioned information of it being closer to 10 years since the assassination.
Basically, if you’re a lore nerd then at some point you’ll have to choose what to accept and what not. Blizz tripped over their own writing and just silently swiped it under the carpet, as usual. Not the first time, not the last:
– They did a U-turn on D.Va as a pro gamer too, all the while they’ve embarrassingly forgot to delete her “personal SC2 page” for quite some time. The original page was here: http://wcs.battle.net/sc2/en/players/dva and it’s still available in the web archives, http://web.archive.org/web/20151102070045/http://wcs.battle.net/sc2/en/players/dva
– They did a U-turn on the Cowboy’s name. This is not so lore-critical but it’s arguably more embarrassing as they still have “Reunions” animated short on their official PlayOverwatch yt channel and Ashe calls him McCree.
This explanation is also based on illustrations. They have caused an illustration error in Ana’s Origin story before.
Anyway, Kiriko’s Lore is very messed up, so if a PvE centered on her is released later, a convincing story will have to be made.
it does exists, time to make it canon
. RIP Overwatch.