Rozen Maiden/Headscratchers

• At what point did the story become about "creating" Alice and not reviving her? Unless the translation is wrong, in volume 2 (pp.134-135), Shinku says the 7 dolls have 7 fragments of one Rosa mystica that broke, and they have to put them together to revive her. That means Alice existed before and...died? And then Father put her essence into a jewel and shattered it? What happened? And why did the story change?
  • As far as I know, the goal always was to 'create' Alice. Might have been a shoddy translation?
• What will happen if Shinku and Suiseiseki wanted to battle to the end, like the former and Hinaichigo? They have the same medium, so if one loses, the other too...
  • Answer: The medium doesn't die if the doll loses. The fact that Souseiseki's medium survived is proof of that. In the case of Shinku fighting Suiseiseki, the losing doll would be simply be cut off from Jun.
• Why Laplace's demon has the right to decide when to end the Alice Game in the case no Maiden is victorious?
  • Maybe, it just establishes a facts as it see them. Most likely, LD worked for Rozen all along and ensured that ex-apprentice's meddling would not lead to something worse than what happened in Traumend. Why not ?.. Rozen with his "oh, by the way, there's even other variants!" is obviously manipulative enough for such a trick. Then LD playing with 2 Rozae Mystica just guards them (tresspasser would giggle and drool after few minutes of conversation) until Rozen makes up some fitting "quest" for his "daughters".
• Why all things regarding Kirakishou have been doomed to stay Fanon? Ooooh, why?
  • Probably because she has the least amount of face time than any of the other dolls, including a WHOPPING THREE SECONDS in the anime.
  • Original troper here, up to date with the latest Rozen Tales chapter. Now that Kira has been sort of a... villain (much like Season 1 Suigintou) during all of it, we have a clearer concept of her character. All hail Peach Pit.
  • And our dear /Boku/ has regained her body... at least, until Gin decides to retake what is hers. So if Tea Bitch does the same, we will be back at square one.
• Okay, a Rozen doll CAN exist without a Rosa Mystica, right? Suigintou has showed us she only needed a desperate wish to exist for her 'soul' to enter a doll. So, why did Souseseki, and later Hinaichigo have to enter coma when defeated?
  • First off, let's separate this from the manga where Suigintou DOES have a Rosa Mystica all along. Dolls being able to move without an RM are not canon, so don't involve manga arguments in this.
  • I think it's more implied that they can't, but that Suigintou actually had one all along, and only believed that she didn't as part of the massive inferiority complex that drives her to compete in the Alice Game. After all When she's defeated by Barasuishou, two Rosa Mysticae leave her body, One is Souseiseki's, the other can only be her own. (At the time, Barasuishou had Kanaria's and Suiseiseki's, and Shinku had her own and Hinaichigo's)
  • Ever watched the Ouverture OVA? Suigintou was a rose-less doll in it, and it happens about a hundred years before the series starts. At the end, Rozen's spirit grants Gin a Rosa Mystica, so that she can fight and prove herself. Then sprouts her raven wings, which are her Rosa's special power so no, Gin did not have one all along, and yet she lived.
  • Ok first of all, all dolls in the Rozen Maiden universe are said to be alive. Even Jun's cursed dolls, after being animated by Shinku, commented on Jun's well-being. But even if they are alive, they can't actually move without a Roza Mystica. They just stay "asleep". Although Suigintou was able to move without a Roza Mystica, it was only temporary. She was only able to move because of her extraordinary desire to be with Rozen. Shinku noticed that and realized her ability to move would wear off soon and she'd become a normal doll. So Souseiseki and Hinaichigo, who did not have such incredible desires to be with Rozen, couldn't move on their own, and even if they could, would only be able to move for a little before they fell back into a coma.
  • even then Gin moved and gained her personality before she had a Roza Mystica, a doll's consiousness is very dependant of their own identity, as seen with the broken doll. For Souseiseki and Hinaichigo their Roza Mystica is tied into their identity as is the idea that when they lose theirs they will cease to move. So their minds make it real
  • So then could this be a case of Clap Your Hands If You Believe with the Roza Mystica as an optional substitute for belief?
  • When she was in Rozen's workshop before his eyes, she could "feed" on his power to her heart's content and retain some when he was not around, even without stable link of ring. And that's why she grew attached to him more than others! Rozen supposedly loved all his creatures and was powerful enough to have accidental animation as a "little side effect", but this was not enough to give her autonomy - much like dolls serving Rozen Maiden. So he was just forced to complete this one long after he should have to, but before he felt ready. The same didn't happened to other RM just because he didn't protracted any other work so much.
  • also, Hinaichigo gradually fell in coma from lack of power, then her Roza Mystica left, not vice versa.

• • Also, Suigintou has a complete body in the manga,so there's no way for her to angst about a missing stomach.
  • In the manga, it isn't her wings per-se that give her the junk complex. It's the cracks in her back that came from the wings.
• Just finished watching Traumend. WTF?! There's "another way to become Alice"?? Rozen tells them this now?! What the ever-loving hell did I just watch practically every single main character die for? Is there any actual justification (canon or otherwise) for this? I know they were tricked by fake-Rozen, but that doesn't explain why they thought they had to play the Game in the first place.
  • Fight yes, kill each other no. It's that simple people.
  • But all dolls lose their Roza Mysticas upon being defeated- which kills them. So it logically has to be something else. (We need a third season where we figure out just what in the hell is going on-- or maybe what Rozen is smoking.)
• Out of curiousity, are we supposed to consider Rozen in any way worthy of the desperate "Well Done, Son" Guy love most of the dolls have towards him? His actions, particularly the one of making his creations, who are living things rather than just dolls, believe the only way to be worthy of his love is to kill each other and not telling any of them there were other ways, seem to qualify him as a colossal Jerkass at best, if not an outright Complete Monster. .
  • Except for making the dolls fight each other for the title of Alice, there are no real explicit bad intentions in Rozen's motifs. I also seem to think that your definitions of both Jerkass and Complete Monster are very off, as there are people who have done worse things than just arranging a tournament to the death and are not considered irredeemably evil (the one most defining feature of the Complete Monster) and as for Rozen being a Jerkass... Nah, if he were a real dick like that, the dolls wouldn't love him, right? Besides, in the end he does inform the dolls of a better way to complete the Alice Game, so that really disproves him as an irredeemable asshole. Not perfect, by all means, but still not 100% bad.
• Shinku says that Hinaichigo was able to live without a medium for so long because of a loophole in the rules of the Alice Game; she was able to draw power from Jun through Shinku. Supposedly the reason that Hinaichigo dies is that "Father would not allow it" once the Alice Game actually starts. But the Alice Game never does actually start because the seven dolls are never united — at least in the anime the seventh doll never appears at any time. Barasuishou was a fraud. So ... why did Hinaichigo die?
  • We see Kirakashou at the very end of Traumend in the N-Field. By that logic, Kirakashou must have woken up around the time that Barasuishou was around. So the Alice game would have techinically started.
• At the end of Traumend, Hina Ichigo and Souseseki were not brought back like every single other doll. The logic of this being that they were defeated by other Rozen Maidens, Shinku and Sugintou, respectively. therefore losing the right to become Alice. So, Sugintou was defeated at the end of season one by Shinku. By that logic, Sugintou also should not have been brought back. because she technically lost the right to participate also. (If Rozen loves Sugintou enough to bring her back after dying three times, why doesn't he just make her Alice and be done with it?)
  • There is an explanation for this too. The difference between Hinaichigo and Suigintou at the time of their defeats in Season 1 was that Hinaichigo had contract, whereas Suigintou, in her stubborness, did not. As Hinaichigo's ring was contract ring was destroyed, she lost the right to fight in the Alice Game. However, since Suigintou did not have a contract at the time of her defeat, she was still eligible to participate, as she still had both a rosa mystica and the ability to make a contract. While Shinku refused to take the rosa mystica from both at the times, the difference still stands. As to this, Suigintou was still officially in the game at her defeat by Barasuishou in Träumend.
  • My understanding is that Suigintou was able to return because Shinku didn't take her Roza Mystica.
    • Then again, she didn't take Hinaichigo's Roza Mystica either at her time of defeat, so that doesn't explain much. To put it in perspective, Hinaichigo had already officially "lost" the game due to being unable to sign a contract, whereas Suigintou was still able to do so. Therefore, the sign that legal participants were starting to die was probably a sign to wipe away the ones who already had lost their rights to participate, in layman's terms, Hinaichigo. Basically, she had no right to participate anymore, so she was most likely killed off to not be able to interfere with the game either.
      • Actually, Shinku did take Hinaigchigo's Roza Mystica, in a way. She didn't take it away from her, per se, but she took ownership of it, making Hinaigchigo bound to her.
  • Suigintou was not defeated by Shinku. She was defeated by Barasuishou
    • ...In the second season. She was still defeated by Shinku in the first season. But since Shinku did not bother taking her Roza Mystica (or lay claim of it, as in Hinaichigo's case), she was revived in the second season. Though she got resurrected after having been defeated by Barasuishou too because she was not a legitimate participant, despite the former laying claim to her Roza Mystica.
• Am I the only one who thought that their rings were the Rosa Mystica because of the clip that plays when Shinku explains the game to Hinaichigo in episode 2?