The Masamune VS Fusion Sword

Good day to you, dear citizens of Earth!  It should have been about a week now so... have you watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children yet?  As for me, I personally find that the weaponry of our two warriors featured in the movie are simply awesome.  Yes, they are the Sephiroth's Masamune and Cloud's Fusion Sword!

The Masamune is Sephiroth's one and only weapon used in all his appearances in the Final Fantasy series and that includes the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.  It is the preferred weapon for Sephiroth.  The Masamune is easily recognizable due to its long length like a Japanese nodachi blade, an exotic and special two-handed sword.  The hilt of the sword is wrapped in a dark blue colored wrapping and featured gold studs along the hilt.  The sharp blade's length is as long as Sephiroth’s own height, and possible for the sword to measure about six to eight feet long.  Sephiroth's Masamune has become one of the most iconic swords in the Final Fantasy series.

The Masamune is known to be an extraordinarily difficult weapon to wield, since it is such a lengthy blade, it requires a great amount of strength and focus at the same time.  It is said the only one capable of effectively using it was Sephiroth.  

Sephiroth is a master swordsman, wielding the Masamune as his sole weapon on his dominant left hand, and possesses a superhuman strength, endurance, speed, agility and reflexes.  His grasp of control on the sword, the Masamune, is so strong that his precision on critical hits is terrifyingly accurate and deadly.  In all aspects of combat fighting, he acquired the unparalleled level.  He is able to produce beams of energy by swinging the Masamune, which can effortlessly cuts through solid metals and concretes, and he can swings the sword faster than the eye can follow. His ability to strike down his opponents multiple times in only a few seconds is one of his specialties.  

Other than that, he is able to use magic without the need of Materia, an item that enables oneself to cast spells and receives new abilities such as levitation.  Why Sephiroth is able to do this?  It is due to his immersion in the Lifestream during the time of his ‘supposed’ death in the Final Fantasy VII which I wrote about in my previous entry.

Initially the Masamune had been only a physical blade, but it all changed after Sephiroth’s transference into the Lifestream.  With Sephiroth newly attained power, he was able to manifest multiple copies of the blade at will.

And now let’s move on to Cloud’s own choice of unique weapon!

Have you ever heard of a set of six steel swords being assembled together into one single sword and is held by one man alone?

…Well, there you go!

As you can see, Cloud Strife is always seen to be carrying heavy sword as a weapon.  Before this version of weaponry, Cloud used a Buster Sword which can be simply described as a very huge and broad sword.  And then, it is upgraded into a new type of sword, and named as the Fusion Sword.

The six-piece sword assembly wielded by Cloud Strife comes in a variety of shapes and sizes and are thus able to suit any of combat situations. It can also combine back to a single large sword similar in size and function to Cloud's famous Buster Sword.  By combining and separating different blades, a fighter would be able to show his fighting skills.  It would be an awesome sight to see isn't it?  It would definitely be such a sight! …That is if one is able to lift that insanely heavy blades of sword. 

The Fusion Sword probably weighed a bit more than a Buster Sword considering it is six-blades-in-one type of sword.  An ordinary soldier would experience a plentiful of difficulties just by having to lift a Buster Sword from the ground using both hands, but Cloud held it up high and casually settled the weight of the sword down his shoulder, single-handedly for that matter!  That is like seeing someone drinking double 3-in-1 shots of coffee and yet the said person still sleeps like the dead (I’ve seen one by the way).

How is it Cloud is able to carry around his weapon just fine?  It is simply because Cloud Strife is not an ‘ordinary’ soldier or even a normal person.  Truth was he had been immersed in the Lifestream before.  It was long enough to cause his ability to over the edge, surpassing normal human capabilities.  With that being done, he is not at all being held back by the weight of the weapon.  Cloud also possesses a remarkable level of speed and agility.  This weapon is definitely not for someone who is restricted by human strength.  Thus, marking the Fusion Sword to be one of its kind weaponry used in the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.   

Alas, it was probably not a good idea to carry around six very heavy interlocking swords all the time, even for Cloud.  So what was his solution?

That’s right!  A man’s best friend has come to the rescue, well it’s not a dog though.  But a high technology, plus super cool-looking motorcycle counts right?  Now let me tell you my dear fellowship, that this bike is called Fenrir, which in my opinion is quite a handsome name for a motorcycle.  And so, this good-looking bike possesses internal storage compartments on either side of the front axle where Cloud stores his individual blades of the Fusion Sword.

Now that we become acquainted with the two weapons, let's see their combat.  So, which one of these weapons is to your liking?

Prologue - Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Many interesting movies have been released for these past years.  Each of those movies that had been labelled as "Simply amazing!" has its own distinctive feature, a feature that would cause a great impact being acted upon the minds of audience.  This would mean the story has been successfully delivered and would be long remembered in the film industry.

And so, for this post, I want to write about this particular 'one of a kind' movie.  A very epic one that had made me watch it ten times fold.  This CGI-animated movie developed by Visual Works and Square Enix is named as "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children".

This remarkable movie was directed by Tetsuya Nomura and Takeshi Nozue.  The writer of this brilliant story is Kazushige Nojima.  'Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children' was produced by Yoshinori Kitase and Shinji Hashimoto, and it was released on 14th September 2005.  The movie received a big hit in Japan, and later achieved an award from America Anime Award in 2007.

The story of the movie was based on its original game called "Final Fantasy VII" made by the same Japanese company, Square Enix.  The movie took place two years after the events of the original game and focuses on the appearance of a trio, the Remnants of Sephiroth, that kidnaps children infected with an unknown disease.

Cloud (left) and Sephiroth (right)

Before we get to know the Remnants of Sephiroth, allow me to introduce you the main character, Cloud Strife.  Cloud Strife, the main protagonist is a blond spiked hair male with blue eyes that glow due to the 'Mako' flowing through his body.  Mako is a spiritual power-infused energy from 'Lifestream', but prolonged exposure may lead it to be similar to radioactive materials that could cause genetic mutation, poisoning and ultimately, death.  Cloud is often associated to be an 'Ex-SOLDIER'.  A 'SOLDIER' is an elite commander in combat under the 'Shinra Electric Company'.

The Remnants of Sephiroth are entities emerged from a character named Sephiroth.  From the game, Sephiroth was a first-class SOLDIER of Shinra Company.  But after he found out his birth was a result of an experiment by the mega corporation Shinra, in which they injected him with cells from the extraterrestrial life-form named Jenova when he was still a fetus, he turned sides and sworn for vengeance.  Most of the Final Fantasy VII fans would refer Sephiroth as the 'One-Winged Angel', a super-soldier with a single black wing on his back.  He, who no longer have any emotions of love and beloved, where the act of kindness looked pointless to him and the only feelings he had been familiar with were of hatred, despair and a world of eternal darkness.  In the game, Sephiroth was defeated in a fight against Cloud Strife and was seen dissolved into the Lifestream, seemingly destroyed.  But in this movie, it was then showed that Sephiroth still had some will power left that had allowed himself to "live" as his three remnants instead of being pulled into the Lifestream completely.  Sephiroth's dark power contaminated the Lifestream.  As a result, an unknown disease spread and infected people who came in contact with the tainted Lifestream.  The infected people are mostly homeless and orphaned children.

Remnants of Sephiroth : Yazoo (left), Kadaj, Loz (right)

The Remnants of Sephiroth (also known as the Silver Haired Men) are a trio of young men that served as the primary antagonists of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.  They were born from Sephiroth's power and embodied different traits of him.  Kadaj was Sephiroth's cruelty and insanity.  Loz was Sephiroth's strength and agility.  And Yazoo depicted Sephiroth's allure and cool demeanor. Together, they could become Sephiroth as whole.  The remnants were each a fragment of his will that served a purpose to enable Sephiroth's physical resurrection into the world.


Come and watch, let yourself be immersed in a world of enchantment and fantasy!

Friendship

The last three years of high school, had all the memories I cherished most.  It may be something as simple as taking those small steps inside the classroom, greeting my friends in the morning with a laid back ‘hello’s or perhaps the short tour I took around the school during free periods.  I missed the times where I would enjoy those 20 minutes of recess in the class with my home-made lunch box… and with my two best friends.  I definitely miss them the most.

☆  Aisyah, me and Pavithira ☆

We stayed connected, texting messages to each other every alternate days or chatting through the Internet.  A few weeks after our SPM result had been announced, Pavithira and I hang out at our favorite café nearby, Heliconia Café.  We spent probably more than four hours there, talked about everything and catched up on what we had been been doing after SPM ended.  The topic went on to talking about how we missed the school days and our dearest friend, Aisyah who had attended a private college near our area after the SPM result.  Hence, we decided to call Aisyah, and invited her to join us at the cafe.  

I remembered each of us had ordered and refilled our drinks at least twice while waiting for her.  Not that we mind since we were happy to know our friend was to join us soon.  Plus, the drinks served there were delicious!

Mocha Cappuccino served by a seriously good-looking barista o(≧∇≦o)

When Aisyah arrived, we talked again for a good two hours before we took our leave.  But our meeting didn't end there, next destination was the Wangsa Walk Mall!  We went there in Aisyah's car, since she had recently got her own driver's license.  When we arrived, we walked around the ground floor, bought some cookies from the Famous Amos stand.  We did some window-shopping along the way up. There was a book shop named 'Popular', we decided to visit it for fun.  When it comes to books, all three of us had different tastes, Pavithira headed out to the Malay novels section, Aisyah went to the cooking book shelves, while I disappeared to the English novels section.

After all those brief readings, we somehow ended playing games available at the arcade.  And before our arcade coins ran out, we went to the photo booth section.  We wanted to take some photos of our memories on that day.  As we entered the small booth, we were taken by surprise because all the instructions was written in Japanese.  Yes, we were pretty much clueless on what we were supposed to do at that time.  Despite that, we put in our coins and pressed what we assumed to be the 'Start' button.  Then, we selected a few 'cute' poses on the screen, we figured it was for the pose we were going to make later.  And, pressed 'Start'! 

A cheerful song tuned inside the machine.  For every pose there is a ten second countdown, so with the three of us cramped, we awkwardly did our poses.  It was really fun, I couldn't stop laughing. 

When the clumsy photoshoot session had reached its end, I thought our photos would be printed out then and there.  Until Aisyah urged us to move on to the next booth, saying "Quick, we need to edit the photos!".  Well, at least one of us had a clue what's going on.  Pavithira and I went on to the said booth, she passed a pen to me to decorate the photos on the screen.  This was no easy task either, there was a time limit as usual.  So, hastily we decorated each and every pictures, but with smiles on our faces.  It was one of our best moments together, indeed.

We never thought the unplanned meeting was the best we ever had.  That occasion was a special one, it was the first time the three of us got to hang out together outside the school premise.  We enjoyed each other's companies, because the three of us knew, that was probably the last one we would have in years to come as we pursue our goals in our studies.

"Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget" – Randolf G.