Fusion Monsters: Malevolent Spectral Knights

Matthew, the main character of Penny Blood, has the ability to transform into fusion monsters – other versions of himself, which manifest when he fuses with the souls of his ancestors that sleep within his blood. When thinking about the fusion monsters for Penny Blood, the concept that I’ve always had in my mind since the start was “ghost knights”.

The concept I used in my previous series was “devils,” which was influenced by Devilman, a personal favorite of mine. This time I’m focusing a bit more on myths and legends – on the “holy” nature of heroes that appear in fairy tales, so I decided to go with knights. Additionally, the base color isn’t going to be black, which was meant to evoke demons. This time, the base color will be white in order to express the “holy” nature of the knight, which you can see in Demna, Matthew’s first fusion monster.

As you can see in the Kickstarter campaign video, as Demna fights, its ancient armor creaks and its ragged cloak flutters eerily along with its movements. It’s the birth of the ghost knight I’ve always dreamed of.

At this point, I can tell you about what happened right after we finished the Demna’s 3D model. I went and watched Moon Knight, a new Marvel show which had just been released on Disney+, and thought “This looks just like Demna!” It really shocked me…

After speaking with my staff members, we decided we had no choice but to change its appearance, so I (very reluctantly) gave Demna a mask. This really caused Kato-san and our model designer a lot of headaches, but as the mask ended up giving Demna more of a ghostly aura, we all ended up breathing sighs of relief in the end.

Now, getting back on topic… In order to center things around the ‘knight’ concept in the fusion monsters, I decided to make Matthew a descendant from real knights of the past. Another point I really spent a lot of time thinking about when designing the monsters was figuring out how ‘crazy’ they should look. Knights are a very major element of both Western and Eastern games and films, so it was very important for me to create a version of knights that could be unique to Penny Blood. Simply making them “holy” would cause them to look too heroic, so the “spectral” nature would be necessary to give them some spice.

Now, I’d like to pass the baton over to Hanya-san, the one who actually designed the fusion monsters. Please introduce yourself, Hanya-san, and tell us about the challenges you encountered and things you focused on when designing the fusion monsters based on Kato-san’s design for Demna.

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Nice to meet you, everyone. I’m Nobutaka Hanya, a member of Studio Wildrose. I’m in charge of designing the fusion monsters and normal monsters for Penny Blood. When Director Machida first approached me about this job, he said he wanted the fusion monsters to look both creepy and cool at the same time. When he showed me the initial design for Demna, it made sense to me… But actually designing the other fusion monsters didn’t go as smoothly as I expected it to.

Something I kept in mind was how cool the fusion monsters would look when facing off against their enemies. And when I say cool, I mean I didn’t want it to look like “a hero fighting against a creepy enemy,” but rather “something creepy fighting against another creepy thing,” then have the coolness ooze out from that. I even thought it might be a good idea to make the fusion monsters look even darker than the enemies in some places… It took me a lot of time to figure out the right balance.

In the end, Kato-san gave me some advice that really helped to push me in the right direction, and I was able to finish the designs in one fell swoop. Yes, now that I think back to it, things went much quicker once I’d figured out the proper direction for the designs.

Lastly, I’d like to leave a message here for all the fans who are looking forward to Penny Blood. A lot of evil, grotesque monsters are going to appear in this game… I’m aiming to design some monsters that will make you want to look away the moment you see them, so I hope you’re excited to check them out! I also hope you’re excited to see the fusion monsters moving in-game. They should end up looking even creepier and cooler than the normal monsters! Now, I’ll pass the baton back to Machida-san.

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Thank you very much, Hanya-san. I know how hard you worked on designing Macdeva and Rukia, the fire-elemental and ice-elemental fusion monsters. Day after day, Hanya-san wanders around the Graveyard, encountering new fusion monsters and designing them based on my orders.

As you proceed through the story of Penny Blood, Matthew will explore the graveyard that exists deep within his heart and acquire new fusion monsters. They’ll have as many variations as there are elements, and we intend to give each one a unique appearance.

These fusion monsters are meant to be a mixture between the kind of knights who appear in fairy tales and creepy ghosts… We’re doing our best to make them even darker and cooler than the enemies themselves. That’s what you can expect from the fusion monsters in Penny Blood.