Depressed

I was once a big fan of the Blazblue franchise. My favorite characters through out the series were Noel Vermillion, Makoto Nanaya, Ragna The Bloodedge and Yuuki Terumi. There was also an anime based on the show that I would watch every saturday on YouTube called Blazblue Alter Memory. Now a lot of people somehow didn't like this show as it had somewhat of a poor grasp of the source material. But I liked it cause of how the character designs were awesome. Speaking of Blazblue, sometimes when I go and visit my dad on a weekend when he wants to spend some father and son bonding, I'd always go downstairs and play on the PS3 which of course had a Blazblue game. My favorite game in the series is Continuum Shift.

In regards of Blazblue, my childhood with the game series would be shattered after I discovered a dark episode of Blazblue Alter Memory in which I found to be oddly terrifying and sad. This all happened in 2020. It was June 19th, my last day of 11th grade before I would move into the 12th grade. On the weekend of June 26-28. My dad invited me over to his house to spend some time with him. After the following weekend, I was visiting the Terrible Shows & Episodes wiki when I saw a show that caught my mind. It was entitled Blazblue Alter Memory. I decided to find some information about this show. For example, a trailer of what the show was about. When I searched the name of the show on YouTube, I found a video showcasing the complete series. I watched it to see if it was terrible or not.

After I finished watching the series, I found it to be a good anime. I would respect anyone's opinion on the show if they hated it. A few days later, I created a video on VidLii stating my review on the series. (I will not tell you my VidLii account because I don't want to.)  A few days later, I was told that there was a missing 13th episode of the show. Before I could reply to the comment, my dad came into the room and got me a super early birthday present. From what I can tell, it was a DVD of all 13 Blazblue Alter Memory episodes. That comment was right, there was a 13th episode in the series. I thanked my dad for the present and put the DVD into my PC. I decided that I would rewatch the first 12 episodes before the 13th one.

When I started the DVD, it looked completely low budget. As it was just a white background with some text. I pressed play all and the episodes shown were completely normal, except for the 13th episode. The episode began as usual. It started with a cold opening that had Kokonoe trying to have Iron Tager hunt down Hazama. Btw, this was an english dub. The intro played and I was just vibing to it. The title of the episode was called Depressed. This confused me. I wonder if this episode was going to talk about the effects of depression. I watched it for a good view. The episode started with Ragna hanging up what appeared to be birthday decorations. The birthday party happened to be for Tsubaki (One of the characters on the show).

Noel came into the room and asked Ragna who the party was for. Ragna described it and Noel asked if she can invite Makoto for the party. Ragna got confused for a moment then said, "Uh...... Noel..... I don't think you got the memo but Makoto died last week. True story, not even joking." Noel began to grow a tear from her eye presuming that she was going to cry. Noel said, "But..... why?" Ragna replied with, "Well Noel, Makoto was hunted down by someone named Kagura. And when someone dies, they can never come back." Noel started to really tear up and she screamed no so loud that it showed a shot of the earth while it happened.

Noel then proclaimed that she was not going to attend the party anymore and she walked out of the hall and went back to her house. She slammed the door open and went on to the couch to cry. This scene lasted for 2 minutes before it showed Noel crying even more in different places like the shower, the kitchen and her bedroom. Just listening to her crying was making me feel very sorry for her. After that, Noel began writing what I think was a suicide note. She put it on her bed and went to her desk. She then grabbed one of her pistols and put it to her head. She said, "I must end it all. I'm very sorry." I then said, "Don't do it Noel, you can always make a new friend!" But what happened next, shocked me. Noel responded to what I said. I felt like we were communicating since I had headphones on. Noel replied with, "Sorry Ryan, this is for my own good." She then shot herself off screen as it cut to black. Meanwhile, it cut to a scene of everyone but Noel and Makoto at the party for Tsubaki.

Litchi said, "I heard Noel was in a bad mood earlier. I'm gonna go over to her house to see what's wrong." So she went over to Noel's house. Litchi saw that Noel was dead. But when I saw Noel's dead body, it scared the living shit out of me. There was blood coming from her neck and one of her eyeballs gouged out.

I finally got to see the note she wrote and here's what it said.

"Dear Anyone Who Reads This,

I can't take it anymore. The death of Makoto Nanaya has put me in a severe depression. Without Makoto, I am nothing. Whether I'm in heaven or hell, I hope to see one of you guys in either of those places. I'd thought I would take the moment to say my last few goodbyes to everyone and every city I've been in. I'm sorry for hurting anyone for doing this. You guys have made me what I am today, I am thankful for you. But now, I am dead. All I have to say is.... goodbye forever.

Best Wishes, Noel Vermillion."

It then cut to a black screen with text in Japanese saying, "The show is officially over. Hope you enjoyed. The credits played as normal. I was about to take the DVD when all of a sudden, I saw something that made me burst into tears. It depicted a video of what looked like a dark room of a house that one of my friends at school live in. All of a sudden, the sound of footsteps were heard and of course, it was one of my friends at school who appeared. He took what appeared to be a shotgun and shot himself. I was completely crying at this point. After seeing this emotional piece of shit, I immediately called 911 to know the forsaken meaning of this DVD. The police arrived and when I showed them the episode, they were shocked. My parents would eventually hear about this and they weren't mad.

The next week, my family announced that we would be going to Japan to visit a pen pal of my mine. I decided to bring the DVD with me so I can show this to my pen pal since she knows a lot about anime. When I was in Japan that following week, I began to show her the DVD. For your convenience, her name is Hayao. After I showed her the episode, she was in desperate shock. But then she remembered something, she had an older friend who used to work at Madman Entertainment. (The production company of the japanese version of the show.) He suffered through depression and asked the creators of Blazblue Alter Memory to create an episode all about depression. And so they did, and luckily, they made an unreleased DVD of that episode and was shipped to a thrift store somewhere in my hometown.

After watching that episode, I have terrible fears of it. I have had nightmares thinking of the dead body of Noel. Matter of fact, sometimes when I'm staring at the walls of my dark room, I can imagine the dead body just laying down near my bed. To this day, I now hate the Blazblue anime. I also have fears of the franchise itself. I smashed the DVD a few days later and decided to move onto another fighting game franchise. Which was Soul Calibur. I have to go, this episode has put me in deep shock.