Kingdom Hearts

About

Kingdom Hearts is a popular game series made by Square Enix. Started in 2002, it is a crossover of Disney and Final Fantasy characters and worlds. Since the release of the first game in the series, it has received with widespread critical acclaim and has been followed up with a myriad of sequels and side-games.

Premise

The story is centered around Sora, a young boy who lives on Destiny Islands with his friends Riku and Kairi. When his home is attacked by darkness and his friends disappear, he uses his new found power of the keyblade to go and find them. Soon joined by Donald and Goofy, they travel many worlds looking for Sora's friends and banishing darkness. In later games other characters are introduced and are sometimes the main focus, such as Roxas, and his search to find his purpose, Riku and his balance between light and dark, and keyblade warriors Terra, Ventus, and Aqua.

Characters

Sora

When beginning development on the first game, Square Enix wanted Mickey Mouse to be the main characters, and Disney wanted Donald Duck. Tetsuya wanted a human as the main actor and so Sora^[4] was born. His original concept showed him ss half human half lion with a chainsaw sword, Later they mixed settled on the Sora we play today. Sora is a brave and upbeat character, who is ready to die for his friends. He is a keyblade wielder which gives him the power to open any lock and remove darkness from worlds.

Riku

Riku^[5] is, in a way, the exact opposite of Sora. He is calm, cool and sometimes emotionless. While he is different he too would die for his friends and do anything to protect them. He is also a keyblade wieldier and has become a master. Riku his filled with light and darkness and controls both of them unlike Sora, who just controls light.

Roxas

Roxas^[6] is the Nobody of Sora and was created when Sora died to restore Kairi’s heart. Roxas has all the same powers as Sora being his Nobody. Roxas has the power to have emotions unlike other Nobodies. Roxas’s personality is like Soras but he is less happy and upbeat. He is also easily angered unlike Sora.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua Are the main character trio from Birth by Sleep.

Terra^[7] is calm and cold, much like Riku, but inside him is a heart that will fight for his friends. Terra is tempted by darkness and can’t control it, leading him to be angry and lose control.

Ventus^[8] is a happy boy, but is usually concerned about Terra, who he sees as a older brother. Ventus makes friends easier then the other two, and has a new one each world. Ventus is constantly faced by his dark side Vanitas^[9], who is threating Ventus friends.

Aqua^[10] is the most mature of the trio. She is the only on to gain master status and has greater power then the other two. Aqua has great passion for her friends, shown when she sacrificed herself to save Terra from dying, even though he has evil and lost control. She does all she can to protect those the loves.

History

Kingdom Hearts first started as talk between Shinji Hashimoto^[1] and Hironobu_Sakaguchi,^[2] who were talking about how they wanted to make a game like Super Mario 64, but thought only characters from Disney could rival Mario. By luck, a Disney executive and Hironobu met in a elevator and talked about the idea which lead to its creation. Kingdom Hearts was directed by Tetsuya Nomura.^[3] Disney gave him full right to use the characters and worlds of Disney how he wanted to, but chose to stay true to there source material. Tetsuya began by only using Final Fantasy characters he made, but used others in later games.

Gameplay

Kingdom Hearts is a mix between a Hack and Slash action game and a RPG and use real time combat. The main character uses melee and magic attacks, and can also use summons and sometimes has friends/followers. Gummi ships are in a couple Kingdom Hearts games as a way to travel between words. Gummi ship levels are much like Star Fox 64. Each game has a “journal”, ether written by a side or main character, which contains all the information about the games, story, worlds and characters. Kingdom Hearts take many things from Final Fantasy, like leveling style, weapon names, boss fights and side character.

Online Relevance

Kingdom Hearts is very popular online. A deviantART search of Kingdom Kearts brings up over 650,000 results.^[11] On reddit, the sub-reddit for Kingdom Hearts has over 16,000 readers.^[12] On fanfiction.net, Kingdom Hearts has the most fictions of any video game at about 71,000.^[13] Also on Tumblr, there many blogs divoted to Kingdom Hearts and its related fandoms.^[14] TV Tropes has the page for the game franchise^[15], and fanmade wiki pages dedicated to the game series, Kingdom Hearts Wiki^[16] and KeyHole^[17], were launched on April 1st, 2006 and Feburary 1st, 2010 in each.

On the Japanese illustrators community pixiv, fan illustrations for Kingdom Hearts are not only tagged by the name "キングダムハーツ"^[18], but also tagged by "王国心"^[19], an argot coming from the literal translations of "Kingdom" (王国) and "Heart(s)" (心). The latter tag are usually used for Yaoi illustrations for the purpose of avoiding deletion by the company of the most strict copyright protection.

Fandom

Fanmade Keyblades

A popular thing for fans of Kingdom Hearts to do is make Fan keyblades. Many try to come up with concepts for keybalde of Disney worlds not yet in the games. Others make keyblades for their original characters or fanfiction.

Cosplay

As in all fandoms, many people like to cosplay as Kingdom Hearts characters. Some use websites to get official products and other sew and use cardboard to make costumes to show their love for their fandom.

Fanart

Fan videos and Parodies

People make many parodies for Kingdom Hearts. Most parodies criticize the games large friendship messages and the Final Fantasy and Disney Crossover. Some parodies are done like YouTube Poops using clips from the game. AMVs, Miku Miku dance, and anime dance videos are commonly found in the Kingdom Hearts fandom.

Related Memes

Roxas Hates

Roxas hates is a video showing Roxas destroying a computer. The clip would eventually be subject to remixes where the it is commonly paired up with a song or video the maker doesn’t like.

Omega Kawaii Cloud Song

Omega Kawaii Cloud Song originates from a animation involving cloud sing about jokes in the Final Fantasy world. Kingdom Hearts fans have made multiple parodies with this.

Related Subcultures

Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy is another large video game by Square Enix. Due to the fact that Kingdom Hearts is a Diseny and Final Fantasy crossover, both fandoms interact with each other. Many fans write fanfics or draw pictures using characters from the Disney and Final Fantasy, that weren't included in the Kingdom Hearts.

Nightmare Before Christmas

Since Halloween town is a playable world in Kingdom Hearts, both fandoms have interacted with each other. A lot of Nightmare Before Christmas's popularity come from its rebirth in the Kingdom Hearts saga. From fanart to fanfiction, Nightmare Before Christmas and Kingdom Hearts are closely related fandoms.

Disney

Disney is one of the companies that brought Kingdom Hearts to life. By making a partnership with Square Enix, they help make one of the most popular JRPGs ever. Many fans like to speculate and draw pictures of which Disney worlds and characters are going to be in the new Kingdom Hearts games. Many fans hope for things like Star Wars, Marvel comics, and Pixar, due to Disney's new ownership.

Search Interest

External References