Black History Month ’23, The World Of Guilty Gear

Nagoriyuki, who debuted in Guilty Gear Strive, has the honor of being the first Black character introduced to the franchise.

It’s 1999 and I head to Walmart, though I had a friend drive me there, while we were killing time before our Saturday performance of Grease at our high school. I had been excited about grabbing a copy of Xenogears, which is one of the best games to be created by Squaresoft, but Walmart didn’t have any more copies.

The person at the desk told me that they had a copy of Guilty Gear, a fighting game developed by Arc System Works and published by ATLUS, and I decided to buy a copy with the birthday money I received. I found Guilty Gear to be interesting but I thought the game would fade to obscurity I was wrong when Guilty Gear X was launched on the Sega Dreamcast, which prompted me to get Guilty Gear X2 on my PlayStation 2.

The series is equally intense and wacky, which worked because it cemented the franchise as one that goes against the grain. That means there are no Shotoclones in the game.

I thought Guilty Gear Xrd would have been the last installment of the franchise but I was surprised by the news of Guilty Gear Strive. When I saw one of the trailers, I was all “holy f–k” when it showed a mysterious Black samurai at the end.

I dedicate this piece to this mysterious warrior, Nagoriyuki, who plays a crucial role in Guilty Gear Strive’s story mode. This mysterious high-tech samurai is currently the first and only Black character, so far, to be on a Guilty Gear roster.

Nagoriyuki is a veteran of the Crusades, the in-story war that pit the humans against Justice and her legion of Gears, and is also a member of the same vampire clan, Nightless, as Slayer, the former leader of the Assassin’s Guild. Like Slayer, his master, Nagoriyuki is able to drain the blood of his opponents, but he does it differently, through his blades, which can affect anyone with a healing factor.

If there was a crossover between Guilty Gear and Marvel, he is the one person that Wolverine should not cross paths with.

Nagoriyuki is one of two known fighting game characters who hail from Nigeria. The first known Nigerian character is Bobby Strong, who is based on Bobby Ologun (a well-known TV personality and MMA fighter in Japan who is a Nigerian ex-pat), who debuted in Power Instinct: Matrimelee.

In GG Strive’s story mode, Nagoriyuki is awakened by the being known as Happy Chaos.

While he’s initially an antagonist, he switches sides and joins Sol Badguy in stopping the machinations of I-No.

Hopefully, Arc System Works will continue the franchise, though the ending of GG Strive’s story gives the impression that it is the end. If there are more installments of this popular franchise, we can hope to see more Black representation.

I did read that Nagoriyuki ALMOST didn’t make it onto the roster because the developers have forgotten about him since his debut trailer.

EDIT: I was informed that Potemkin and Venom, respectively introduced in Guilty Gear and Guilty Gear X, are also Black.

Starting with Potemkin who is a towering fighter with a sizable body mass, representing the artificial aerial nation of Zepp that is a military dictatorship aka “junta.”

He is one of many enslaved soldiers forced to do the bidding of Zepp’s military leaders or risk getting their heads blown off by the explosive collars they wear around their necks.

Potemkin is ordered to enter the tournament, win the tournament, and request territory to expand Zepp’s empire. This is when there’s a coup taking place within Zepp, too, which is successful, and Potemkin is a freedman.

Gabriel, Potemkin’s former instructor, is elected the first civilian leader of Zepp.

Since then, Potemkin has faithfully served, out of his own free will, Gabriel. This leads to Potemkin undergoing training by Slayer, a vampire, who is the former leader of the Assassin’s Guild, in order to protect Dizzy.

He has appeared as a playable character in virtually all the main installments of the series.

Potemkin is the de facto powerhouse of the franchise.

Venom is a British male who was born an orphan and raised by the Assassin’s Guild, he became the right-hand man to its leader, Zato-1, before he was controlled by Eddie.

Unlike the rest of his peers, Venom does not like killing and is often reluctant to carry out assassinations. This pisses off many in the guild and they mark him for execution but only for him to be saved by Zato-1.

In the events of Guilty Gear Xrd, Venom leaves the life of an assassin behind to become a professional baker and patissier, where he is assisted by the disembodied head of Robo-Ky.

Venom has a unique fighting style that has him using a cue and billiards balls.