{"ops":[{"insert":"So, in response to the November 2022 Deckbuilding contest, I love the Kagerou Project, and I already happened to have a deck for it! Or at least I would, after dusting it off and swapping in some newer, better-representative cards. One that represents, in card form, all the major characters and themes. Let's take a tour through the deck. But, a word of warning -- KagePro is something of a mystery, and one spread across multiple entries in the series (including songs, manga, novels, and the Mekakucity Actors anime) and thus, to spell out all the card connections, you're walking into spoiler town.\n\nSo, while the story (usually) begins one scorching summer day, usually with a soda being spilled on a keyboard, the true beginning of its backstory goes to a being known as Azami (represented by "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Damia, Sage of Stone"}},{"insert":" ). Azami wandered the world for untold ages trying to understand her own nature as a gorgon, but ultimately withdrew from society in a distant wood. There, she eventually found love but in so doing became keenly aware that mortals would age and die. In order to not lose her family, she drew deep on her powers, snake-spirits dwelling within her, and used them to construct a parallel world without time where, in her vision, she would be able to live in peace with her family. However, two things went wrong: suspicious villagers captured her husband and even threatened their daughter, causing Azami, in her sorrow, to flee into the never-ending world alone... and it turns out the world was more of a hell than a paradise in the end. This parallel world becomes known as the \"Heat Haze\" (or Kagerou Daze) and is represented by several cards to capture its scope and importance: "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Paradox Haze"}},{"insert":" , the Hondens, "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Phyrexian Arena"}},{"insert":" ,"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ana Sanctuary"}},{"insert":" , and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Elfhame Sanctuary"}},{"insert":" together represent the time-warped nature of the Haze, its intended function as a retreat, and the hellish reality.\n\nEventually, Azami's daughter (Shion, played by "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Xathrid Gorgon"}},{"insert":" ) and granddaughter (Marie, played by "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Vraska the Unseen"}},{"insert":" ) run afoul of ruffians and are brought to the brink of death. Azami, watching from the Haze, uses what influence she has to gather them to her, but regrets that she can do no more than granting one of them, Marie, the core \"snake\" that makes up her power ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Aspect of Gorgon"}},{"insert":" , "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Gaze of Granite"}},{"insert":" ), functioning as a surrogate life so that Marie can return to the mortal world. Without that power, though, what ability she had to command the Haze is gone, and it begins senselessly repeating her last orders by gathering those on the brink of death under the right conditions...\n\nEnter the modern day, and the cast that we spend most of our time with: a group of young people united in a web of relations, through having been brought to the Kagerou Daze and granted one of Azami's powers in order to leave and live again, at the cost of someone else being trapped behind...\n\nTsubomi Kido ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive"}},{"insert":" ) was granted the power of \"Concealing Eyes\" ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Infiltrator's Magemark"}},{"insert":" ) which lets her make herself (and others) imperceptible. She is one of three children who were adopted by the Tateyama family, and with her adopted siblings forms the core of the Mekakushi Dan, seeking the truth of their strange experiences and abilities.\n\nKosuke Seto ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Notion Thief"}},{"insert":" ) was granted the \"Stealing Eyes\" ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Knowledge Exploitation"}},{"insert":" ), the power to read the minds and thoughts of others... whether he wants to or not. A kind boy, Seto is one of the Mekakushi Dan along with his adopted siblings and (over the course of the story) their friends, and also the one who brings Marie out of her isolation in her hidden ancestral home.\n\nShuuya Kano ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Vesuvan Shapeshifter"}},{"insert":" ) has the \"Deceiving Eyes\" ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Pemmin's Aura"}},{"insert":" ) which allow him to take on the likeness of just about anyone. Though teasing and often sarcastic, he's one of the adopted siblings of the Mekakushi Dan and, really, a true friend.\n\nMomo Kisaragi ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Elvish Bard"}},{"insert":" ) doesn't initially know anything about her power or the Dan -- she's an idol, inadvertently thanks to her \"Drawing Eyes\" ( "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Lure"}},{"insert":" ) forcing her to be the center of attention. Kido helps her regulate the downsides of uncontrolled mystically-enforced popularity and ultimately brings her into the group.\n\nHibiya Amamiya ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Tandem Lookout"}},{"insert":" ) gets drawn into the Haze during the events of the main story, along with his crush, Hiyori Asahina ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Eternal Witness"}},{"insert":" ), after a hellish experience of ten subjective years ( despite it being no real time at all) emerging with the \"Focusing Eyes\" ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Oracle's Insight"}},{"insert":" ) which allows remote viewing.\n\nBut what of the story's main character? That would be Momo's Brother, Shintaro Kisaragi ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Jushi Apprentice // Tomoya the Revealer"}},{"insert":" ), teen genius turned shut-in NEET after the suicide of his best friend. To talk of him requires mentioning that there are multiple timelines, and that Shintaro's ability (he has one after a point) \"Retaining Eyes\" ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Enter the Infinite"}},{"insert":" ), was not recieved the normal way, and allows him to, once it is activated, remember what happened on previous timelines.\n\nShintaro spends a lot of his time dealing with the apparent AI Ene ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Covert Technician"}},{"insert":" ), actually once of his old friends, Takane Enomoto, who ended up with the \"Opening Eyes\" ability that digitized her consciousness ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Inventive Iteration // Living Breakthrough"}},{"insert":" ). For all her needling, she's trying to help him through hard times while avoiding thinking about her own loose end...\n\nHaruka Kokonose ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Magus of the Library"}},{"insert":" ) was an ill boy who had a budding romance with Takane when they were both human. He ended up in the haze himself where Azami prepared to grant his wish for a healthy body. Rejecting not being himself, though, he became trapped in the haze and the fragment of Azami used for his benefit emerged as a new entity, Konoha ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Descendant of Masumaro"}},{"insert":" ) with the \"Awakening Eyes\" ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ferocity"}},{"insert":" ) granting him an ideal form\n\nThat leaves two major roles (and a few characters between them) to talk about, as well as themes and endings.\n\nOne starts with Kenjiro Tateyama ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Laboratory Maniac"}},{"insert":" ), the adoptive father of the initial Mekakushi Dan who was, with his wife, looking into the mysteries of the Kagerou Daze before becoming part of them by way of car accident. His beloved wife was left in the haze as Kenjiro himself was taken to the outside not by Azami, but by the rebel fragment of her that architected most of the sorrow thus far and would go on to be the main villain: the Snake of Clearing Eyes ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ophidian"}},{"insert":" /"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ophidian Eye"}},{"insert":" ). Technically, the Snake exists to grant its master's wish, that being Azami's desires that birthed it (but then changed) or Kenjiro's to see his dead wife again. Its goals, however, are anything but benevolent: furious at its first purpose being denied by its mother-creator despite being endowed with wisdom beyond even her own, it wants nothing more than to torment those who have crossed it... again, and again, and again. Though it works on Kenjiro's goal with various surprisingly mundane means ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Villainous Wealth"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Dark Tutelage"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Moonlight Bargain"}},{"insert":" ), its ultimate goal is to both empower Marie with Azami's abilities and traumatize her to the point where she can't accept the world she's in, causing her to use those abilities to reset time and start the tragedy all over again ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Time Reversal"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Day's Undoing"}},{"insert":" ). To that end, Clearing Eyes usually ends up possessing Konoha (becoming \"Kuro Konoha\", as represented by "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Toshiro Umezawa"}},{"insert":" ) and using his vast strength to slaughter all her friends in front of her. ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Tragic Slip"}},{"insert":" , "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Victim of Night"}},{"insert":" , "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Sudden Spoiling"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Hero's Demise"}},{"insert":" , "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Go for the Throat"}},{"insert":" , "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Dismember"}},{"insert":" , "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Eyeblight's Ending"}},{"insert":" )\n\nBut then there's also Ayano Tateyama ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Azusa, Lost but Seeking"}},{"insert":" ) -- Kenjiro's biological daughter, big sis to the adopted Mekakushi Dan, and that friend Shintaro Kisaragi was so terribly broken up about. On most timelines, she learns part of the Snake's plot -- that it will gather the powers in the physical world and fuse them all into Marie. In order to make that impossible ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Arcane Denial"}},{"insert":") and, in her hope, save her family and friends who would have their souls ripped out by that process, she arranges matters so that she will be swallowed up by the Kagerou Daze, attain an ability (\"Favoring Eyes\", represented by "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Intellectual Offering"}},{"insert":", the ability to transmit thoughts and feelings to others) and then refuse to leave, consigning herself to hell for the "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Greater Good"}},{"insert":", not knowing that this plays into the Snake's hands since resetting time apparently takes fewer accumulated powers than resurrecting the dead, aligning a literal reading of her father's wish with the Snake's own twisted desire.\n\nThe story as a whole takes place over just a few days \"main line\" each cycle, but tells flashbacks of entire lives, delving into histories and secrets, layer after layer. This is why I rounded out the deck with several \"Discovery\" themed cards -- "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Path of Discovery"}},{"insert":" for seeking out Marie's home and the secrets hidden there, "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Pore Over the Pages"}},{"insert":" for the journals and research notes left by the Tateyamas, "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Shared Discovery"}},{"insert":" for the Dan's search for both meaning and a way to free their beloved big sister from the Haze, and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Search for Tomorrow"}},{"insert":" evoking the need for a way out of the loop -- the "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Last Word"}},{"insert":" that could finally stop the Snake short and break the cycle with a happy ending.\n"}]}