Amane Nishiki

Amane Nishiki is one of the brand new characters that are set to appear in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma.

Information
Amane is a young man who travels around to gather a troupe of young and handsome men. Upon stumbling across the news that a cute vigilante boy was heading for Ikaruga, he immediately sets out to look for him. As he finally meets the boy, Carl Clover, Amane asks him to join his troupe, but Carl declines and runs away. Amane chases after him, but encounters Rachel, who is suspicious of his mysterious nature. As they engage combat, they gain the respect of each other and Amane reveals his purposes: he claims that to dance on the greatest stage, also the greatest battlefield where greatest warriors gather is his wish.

Personality
Amane, as expressed through battle dialogue, is seemingly very haughty and arrogant. He conducts himself in a graceful and awkward manner, and seems to enjoy playing with his androgynous appearance by carrying a sash and parasol (similar to an oiran or geisha).

Appearance
Amane Nishiki is an androgynous male character with violet hair tied in a bun and blue eyes with dark pink eyeshadows and red lipstick. He wears a flowing pink and red kimono that exposes his shoulders underneath is sleeveless black skintight turtleneck, black shorts and legwarmers, and red platform sandals. He also sports a translucent pink scarf which appears to levitate through unknown means.

In his pre-battle that was first seen in the trailer, he wore a royal white geisha outfit underneath was a pink and red-colored checker pattern kimono.

In his mid-teens, his appearance was very similar to his current appearance, only with messier hair.

Powers and Abilites
Amane's Drive is Spiral. His Drive attacks turn his cloth into a drill, with which he can use to attack his opponent. There is a level system involved with this Drive.

His Overdrive is Cyclone. Overdrive attacks are upgraded to their final level.

Trivia

 * His fighting style is similar to that of Noel and Jin in terms of using his kimono as a weapon, indicating that he also utilizes a dance-like fighting style, almost similar to that of Anji Mito from Guilty Gear.
 * His ability to form drills out of his clothes seems to reference Lisa Lisa from the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga series.
 * This is also similar to Iku Nagae of the Touhou Project series, who also controls lightning. Curiously, one of Amane's attacks is called Raibu (Thunder Dance).
 * The fact that Amane can control and manipulate a certain substance for a form of attack is similar to the likes of Gaara of the Desert from the Naruto franchise; Gaara even possess moves with similar effects in fighting games (such as a circular shield-like movement and attacks that rise from the ground). Both are even voiced by Akira Ishida in Japanese.
 * In an interview with BlazBlue producer Toshimichi Mori, he mentioned that the ideas for Amane's Drive and fighting style were originally proposed by Tomokazu Sugita, the seiyū of Ragna.
 * Ironically, both Amane's voice actor, Akira Ishida (as Katsura Kotarō), and Tomokazu Sugita (as Gintoki Sakata), have gone head to head with each other in the Gintama series (with Ragna being similar to Gintoki in many ways).
 * Intriguingly, the input for Amane's Astral Heat is the same as the Murakumo Units (Lambda-11, Mu-12, and Nu-13).
 * His birthday, November 15, is Shichi-Go-San in Japan, a festival for five-year-old boys, seven-year-old girls, and three-year-old children of both sexes.
 * "Nishiki" translates as "Brocade" in English. A brocade is a class of decorative fabrics woven with elaborate designs, usually having a raised overall pattern.
 * His Astral Heat seems to either morph characters into younger or earlier versions of themselves; however, most of the time, it is done in parody:
 * Ragna: Teen-aged Ragna as seen in his Continuum Shift story.
 * Jin: Younger Jin from Tsubaki's Continuum Shift story; Yukianesa is wrapped up.
 * Noel: Her appearance when she was adopted into the Vermillion family: hair cut short and wearing a white shirt with long sleeves; a black tie; a long, black skirt; and white stockings with dark brown shoes. However, in this case, she has a red tie and a blue skirt.
 * Rachel: Her appearance in the Phase Shift mangas.
 * Taokaka: Resembles a Kaka kitten more.
 * Tager: A wind-up toy version of Tager.
 * Litchi: She has back-length hair tied into a dark green ribbon bow with Lao Jiu and small circular glasses. She also wears red Chinese shirt with long sleeves, white tights, and red slippers. Oddly enough, her bosom is still quite large.
 * Arakune: A Tartar, like the one seen in Lambda-11's story.
 * Bang: His hair is worn into a messy ponytail, and he has no scar. He wears a skintight sleeveless exposed top, a dark green hakama, and is barefoot.
 * Carl: He has a purple-collared, long-sleeved shirt with an orange tie; black shorts; and brown shoes. Ada is presented as a plush toy.
 * Hakumen: "Pakumen".
 * Tsubaki: Resembles the Tsubaki seen in her Continuum Shift storyline, when she first met Jin. Oddly, she still has red eyes, despite hers being originally blue.
 * Hazama: Kazuma Kuvaru.
 * Makoto: Wears a short orange top that bares her midriff and short black tights, and is barefoot.
 * Valkenhayn: Appears in his younger form, when he fought the Black Beast alongside the rest of the Six Heroes.
 * Platinum: Trinity Glassfield.
 * Relius: He looks slightly younger with shoulder length hair, and wore white chemise collar shirt with maroon cuffs, a white scarf with a purple gem, purple vest, and black trousers. Presumably when he worked alongside the Sin Architects.
 * Bullet: Simply appears more childlike. Outfit seems to be unchanged. However, unlike Litchi, Bullet is flat-chested when made younger. This could mean that Bullet is much younger than Litchi, or aged farther back.
 * Azrael: Simply appears more childlike. Outfit seems to be unchanged, only lacking his goatee.
 * Mirror-Amane: Appears unchanged, except more in his teens. Hair is a little messier.
 * Nu-13: Turned into the younger form that Noel had seen in the mirror in Calamity Trigger, happily hugging a Ragna plushie, ahoge heart-shaped. She keeps her eyepatch on this occasion.
 * Mu-12: Turned younger, wearing a blue experimental robe. Her hair retains the distinct fray.
 * Izayoi: Similar to Tsubaki's result, except she is now in a purple dress.
 * This ability is reminiscent of Demitri Maximoff's Midnight Bliss from the Darkstalkers series, which transforms male characters into a female form, and female characters into a more innocent form, while Demitri drains the opponent's energy.
 * That it also makes the opponent younger in most cases draws parallels with Alessi, another character from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure whose Stand, "Sethan" made its victims younger whenever they stepped in its shadow.
 * Amane's move names are based on the titles of various installment's of Tōei's Super Sentai series:
 * Ninpu Sengeki: Hariken - Ninpū Sentai Hurricanger, the 26th Sentai.
 * Jūken Dageki: Gekiren - Jūken Sentai Gekiranger, the 31st Sentai, in which Amane's voice actor, Akira Ishida, voiced the character Bae.
 * Chōjū Rengeki: Raibu - Chōjū Sentai Liveman, the 12th Sentai and the last installment produced during the Shōwa period of Japanese history.
 * Tensō Rakugeki: Gosei - Tensō Sentai Goseiger, the 34th Sentai.
 * Chōjin Kaihī: Zettō - Chōjin Sentai Jetman, the 15th Sentai and the last pre-Power Rangers installment.
 * Kyōryū Tokkō: Seijū Rensōkyaku - Kyōryū Sentai Zyūranger and Seijū Sentai Gingaman, the 16th and 22nd Sentai, respectively.
 * Kaizoku Senkō: Gōkai Rasen Renpa - Kaizoku Sentai Gōkaiger, the 35th Sentai.
 * Jakutoku Meika: Gōhahōyō - Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, the 36th and last Sentai as of the release date of Chronophantasma.
 * Amane's color palette based on the Persona series is based on the protagonist of Persona 3.
 * Coincidentally, both characters have the same Japanese voice actor, Akira Ishida.