Introduction
This is my page dedicated to Asuka R. Kreutz aka That Man from Guilty Gear! I, uh, ended up getting a little out of hand with this, but I consider this page my love letter to him. I wanted to compile some official info and also my own thoughts on him, so hopefully my passion for him shines through. =°w°=
Asuka is the main antagonist of Guilty Gear, though he's not actually that bad a guy... if you ignore the war crimes, anyway.
Official profile
For the longest time Asuka didn't actually have an official profile due to him not actually being playable and confined to the lore only, but after finally being added to the game for the series' 25th anniversary we have something!!
Character bio:
PRAYING FOR THE ACCUMULATION OF GOODWILL
MASTER OF SORCERYHe stands at the pinnacle even among the company of generally highly capable magic wielders. He is both a scientist and also unparalleled in his mastery of magic – what one would call a genius.
Although he is generally polite and humble, he often finds even his carefully considered statements can result in discord.
In contrast to his intellectual capabilities, he severely lacks in stamina, with the slightest exercise tiring him out.
Any physically straining tasks are handled by custom-made bits of his.
Asuka continues to transmit “clear numbers” from space, in the hopes of bringing peace to Earth.
GG World profile:
☆ Height: 5'5
☆ Weight: 126 lbs (58 kg)
☆ Blood Type: Currently AB (for the 5th time)
☆ Birth Date: October 1
☆ Origin: United States of America
☆ Hobbies: Making buckwheat noodles in a Rube Goldberg machine, bonsai (specialising in succulents)
☆ Values: Sol, Aria
☆ Dislikes: Rare steak, seafood
☆ Affiliation: None
☆ Weapon: Magic
GG World bio:
Asuka was a researcher and best friend to Sol and Aria, with whom he collaborated in the Gear project.
Upon learning about Aria's incurable disease, he implanted Gear cells into her in order to buy time to seek a cure. He did the same to Sol to increase his longevity so that he could spend time together with Aria once she was cured.
As time passed, the military began to intervene in Asuka's research. To circumvent the military use of Gears, Asuka developed "Justice," a complete Gear capable of bringing all other Gears under its command, using Aria as a medium.
The Universal Will, whose goal is the extinction of the human race, saw this as an opportunity and intervened, causing Justice to run amok. This brought forth the Crusades, and as the Gears' supposed creator, Asuka was branded as the Gear Maker and also became known as the source of all evil, the Devil.
Despite men of different names and appearances appearing in different times and places, the personalities of those men matched the words and actions of a single individual, and those unspecified number of beings came to be uniformly referred to as "That Man."
Asuka has 2 main objectives.
The first is to remove the "Flame of Corruption" from Sol and convert him back into a human so that he can live out the rest of his life with Aria as an ordinary human being.
The other is to bring about world peace by observing and sharing the number of different occurrences happening worldwide, without any bias towards any ideology or profits.
He hopes that one day, he will be able to call these numbers the "Accumulation of Good Will."
Themes:
☆ "The Man" from Guilty Gear 2: Overture
☆ "The Gravity" from Guilty Gear Strive
Pre-Strive story overview from this post:
He worked as a researcher on the Gear Project with Sol and Aria, and was a close friend to them.
Seeking extra time to find a method to cure Aria of her deadly illness and for her to live together with Sol once she’s been cured, he transplanted them both with Gear cells. After some time, the military began intervening with his research.
Wanting to avoid Gears being used by the military, Asuka developed the ultimate Gear “Justice,” who could command all other Gears, with Aria as the body.
However, Justice went berserk due to interference by the Universal Will, which sought to destroy humanity.
Thus began the Crusades. Asuka became known as the Gear Maker, and was labeled the devil responsible for the misery that followed.
He concealed his face and real name for a long time, but he showed himself after defeating the Universal Will with everyone.
He then surrendered himself to the United States, attracting attention from all over the world.
"Wow Nyar, tell me more!"
That's just what I wanted to hear, babygirl. Let's get into the story:
Story
(NOTE: I'm gonna write this assuming you have at least some knowledge of Guilty Gear lore)
While Guilty Gear takes place in the 2180s, Asuka actually originates back to our era -- it's not stated what year he was born, but it is known that in at least 2014-2016 he was working on the "Gear Project" alongside his best friends and colleagues, Frederick Bulsara and Aria Hale. Asuka is the lead on the project, and the aim is to essentially create a magical cure for human illness, in the form of something known as "Gear cells."
Near the completion of the research, Asuka decides to turn over his research to the state with the terms that it will 1) further peace in the world, 2) everyone involved in the research must have their physical and financial well-being guaranteed, 3) current staff will keep their jobs and receive a budget increase, and 4) these terms must become publicly known as a protection. Guess how this turns out.
Things go awry, and it becomes known that Aria has a terminal illness herself threatening to take her life. Against her wishes Asuka decides on the genius idea to cryofreeze her until a cure can be found, and he imbues Frederick with Gear cells in order to artificially prolong his life long enough to see that day. As per the events of Guilty Gear Begin, a hostile military takeover of the project is done, and despite his prior requests for his work to be used for world peace, he decides to stick with the project til the end as it becomes used for weapons research. Asuka betrays Frederick, and later uses Aria as a base for Justice, the first complete commander Gear.
In 2074*, a deployment of Justice is done, and when the Universal Will threatens to manifest over Japan, Asuka issues the command to forcefully have Justice vaporise the country, reducing it into a gigantic crater for the rest of the series. This unsurprisingly causes irreparable trauma to Aria, and Justice goes bazonkers as a result, leading into the devastating 100 year war known as the Crusades.
* (A flashback in Sign chapter 4 lists the year as 2074, but an exposition dump in chapter 6 lists the year as 2073)
A lot of Asuka's backstory is left vague aside from this, really the only other things that are known are that he was once a student of The Original, hence his magical talent.
After this, Asuka becomes known as a war criminal and just kinda fucks off, abandoning his own sense of identity and just becomes a mysterious figure known as "That Man" or "the Gear Maker" who observes the world and occasionally influences events with the help of his servants: I-No, Raven, and later Jack-O' as well.
Personality
Asuka's an interesting character -- he has the build-up of being this evil scientist and fabled mage who destroyed the world, yet any other character who meets him realises, "hey, this guy's actually not that bad" and feels he doesn't live up to the reputation of world's most heinous war criminal.
Despite his menacing reputation, Asuka's actually quite polite and calm. His ultimate desire for the world is peace for everyone, and he has messianic disposition as a result. He considers the destruction of Japan a necessary evil, and the Crusades an unfortunate byproduct of his actions -- when asked about the Crusades in Strive, he regards himself as a "bystander" as opposed to having a direct connection to it. However, when Axl asks in Xrd if Asuka was responsible for the Crusades, he does say yes.
Asuka considers himself a saviour to those around him, from his friends to his servants, and believes he knows what's best for them. He goes against Aria's wishes because he believes he has the best solution, despite desecrating her memory and traumatising her past the point of no return. He admits to feeling he's failed I-No when she decides to walk her own path in Strive, and even once the story's over he still believes that he needs to protect humanity and do his best for world peace.
However, he's actually very awkward and unsociable, and he himself admits to being a pushover who just does what everyone else wants and not deciding anything for himself. He has problems with communication and conveying his feelings, which he acknowledges, and overall he's very self-conscious of his faults -- later to the point of self-deprecation, referring to himself as a "pathetic, ineffectual nerd" and believing himself to be unlikeable. Hell, his whole arcade mode is based around his own damn clone telling him to grow a pair and better himself.
The core motivation for everything he does is actually the sake of his friends over the sake of the world. It's even stated on his profile that what matters the most to him are Frederick and Aria, despite their complicated histories and Asuka acknowledging that he's ruined their lives. In this regard he has a strange, almost obsessive one-sided relationship with Frederick, where he states that he's fine with being hated as long as they can still have a connection.
Overall he's a funny little guy, I always call him my little "autism king" bc really... HE IS. He has a fixation on math and numbers, and he believes that by sharing his numbers with the world (statistics acquired through the Tome of Origin) it will bring about world peace... somehow. If anything he's very misguided, even if he has some good ideas.
So, what's the deal with Asuka R♯?
I'm SO glad you asked. Strive actually did something interesting when they made him playable -- the "main" Asuka for the DLC is R#, who isn't actually the original Asuka, but rather a clone made by him for unspecified "selfish reasons."
This is R#, with the red colour scheme:
And this is actual Asuka, now with a blue colour scheme:
R# isn't actually a 1:1 clone of the original Asuka as he was "accidentally" given a modified personality, making him more of a distinctive character. However, this isn't really explicit unless you go through the arcade mode.
In comparison to the original Asuka, he's more confident, open with his emotions, and overall he seems to be more reflective of what Asuka wishes he could be. He openly states that he likes himself and wishes to exist, which is in direct contrast to how self-deprecating Asuka acts post-Strive.
For simplicity's sake I'll treat R# as an extension of the original Asuka, but at the same I time I really do consider him a seperate character and he deserves his own page at some point...
Side notes regarding the colours thing, bc it's something people doubt for whatever reason:
Links of interest
☆ Asuka's charcter page for Strive
☆ Asuka's character introduction in Japanese
☆ Asuka's character introduction in English
☆ Asuka's page on Dustloop
☆ "Isotope and Isolation" from the Overture Material Collection, translated by Sol Radguy
☆ Guilty Gear Begin translation by Sol Radguy
Game theories and headcanons
Ah... this is my specialty. I could go on forever about these.
Asuka and R#
I have so much to say on R# that I ended up working on a second page for him, but I have yet to finish it...
Coming Soon(tm)
Asuka is GAY AS FUCK
FACT that I learned from Daisuke Ishiwatari himself: Asuka is BIG GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY
He is INCOMPREHENSIBLY gay for Frederick, and the one thing Strive did right was make it so blatantly obvious that even complete normies who've seen the Strive story mode joke about it. Asuka devoted his whole life to bringing back Aria because he wanted Frederick to be happy.
Also… have you seen the one Rev2 after story with Raven…? Man…
Gear Project era
Gearpro era has been touched on a decent amount in canon, but we still don’t have many details tbh.
From what we know:
It's very clear that Gearpro went beyond "colleagues" as written in Strive's GG World, as doing what he believes will make Frederick and Aria "happy" is Asuka's entire motivation.
No matter how bad it makes Asuka look, he would do anything for them. Even after Aria is no more, Asuka still devotes his whole being (for better or for worse) to bringing her back for Frederick's sake. It's the perfect tragic display of love making you evil.
I used to have a little diagram that I'd throw around after they showed the GG World preview for Strive and I got mad that they wrote that Asuka was just “colleagues” with Frederick and Aria — THEY WERE HIS BEST FRIENDS!! HE RUINED THE ENTIRE WORLD FOR THEM!!! FUCKKKK
The Tome of Origin and Asuka’s intentions
In the GGST story, it's mentioned since almost the beginning of the story that among some other things, Asuka's goal is "to dispose of the tome." However, it's later revealed near the end that Asuka is actually fused with the tome and it is straight up a part of him.
With this is mind, I want to know: what exactly was his plan to get rid of it? It's later mentioned that he intends to send the tome to space (with himself obviously included), but if he wasn't able to do that (or it wasn't part of the original plan), was he actually intending to destroy it regardless? And if so, how would he go about this?
I have a few things in mind for this: either Asuka was planning to defuse with the tome at some point, he was planning to just live out the rest of his life fused with it, or... he was just planning to destroy the tome along with himself.
I think it's safe to say that Asuka has fulfilled his purpose in life -- in Revelator, Jack-O said that Asuka had been living for the purpose of reviving Aria, and that has essentially been fulfilled after the merge with Justice, even if Jack-O isn't actually her but rather possesses her appearance, memories, and soul. Asuka has done what he set out to do: Aria is technically back and Frederick has been de-geared, meaning they can both live their lives together again. This is the future that Asuka was hoping to achieve. So, given that he intended to live in pure isolation for the rest of his life anyway, I think he would be fine with dying instead as well.
While it's highly likely that he just always intended to go to space given that he was aware of Tir na Nog prior to G4, and that was most likely his main purpose for being there at all, this was just something that came to mind.
It's especially interesting to look back on after his arcade mode, where it's shown that Asuka doesn't like himself and it's even implied that he wants to die -- he doesn't look very highly upon himself (calling himself things like "pathetic" and making comments that he sees why no one likes talking to him), and R# has to push him to realise "hold on, I don't actually want to die like this!" So maybe it's not that absurd that he did have the intention of dying when he went up.
So, why do you like him?
Because I wanna have raw, visceral sex with him. Next question please!
Jokes aside (though I do mean that), not to seem like a cringe lord, but he really is my everything. He's weirdly relatable, he's cute as hell, intriguing as a character, and, uh, he has a very high amount of very sexual-sounding voicelines for whatever reason (like for real, go listen to his Overture and Strive files). Not to be gay but I love him wholeheartedly, he motivates me and gives me something to be passionate about.
I've been an Asuka truther since a friend got me into Xrd, and hilariously I've actually made some extremely valuable personal connections with others due to this (if you're reading this, you know who you are). Usually I don't get involved with fandoms, but I definitely don't regret taking a chance here.
And some final fun facts:
☆ My favourite ships: Kreutz/R#, Fredsuka
☆ Least favourite ship: anything straight will make me vomit. Also Chaos/Asuka, get that shit OUTTA HERE
☆ I put one of my acrylic stands of him in the middle of a peanut butter and jam sandwich before. True story!
And... that's all I've got for you
Well, not really. I used to be an avid fic writer, so if you care for some reason, feel free to browse through my works (though a lot of it is drafts I could never bring myself to finish).
Also, here’s some personal favourite fics of mine:
☆ Starman by Broken_Clover - This is a classic and one of my fav Asuka fics of all time
☆ Little Bird by ChainsawViolin - So uh, this is actually mpreg?? But there’s just something so touching about it beyond kink that really gets me
☆ Strides of Cobalt by aphelion_orion - This is actually more Aria-centric, but it still feature Asuka in it so IT COUNTS.
I love Asuka so much but it's so hard to put into words, so hopefully this conveys it just a bit... writing is hard. OTL
Also, special thanks:
☆ Radio, a fellow devout follower of Asuka-kun, for moral support and 500000000 cursed ideas that haunt me every day
☆ Averiff for porting Tir na nOg to VRChat, which I've used for some screenshots and backgrounds -- also for running GG Night for so long! Those were the days...
☆ and most importantly shoutout to my huge penis lol