BlazBlue has plenty of characters that are deconstructed character archetypes, as part of its overall Darker and Edgier tone.
- Ragna the Bloodedge
- Ragna deconstructs the badass '90s Anti-Hero. He possesses tremendous power capable of being a One-Man Army, but he himself isn't very bright and prefers to just charge ahead to any of his problems instead of thinking a lot. Unfortunately for him, that power is extremely demonic and is eating him from the inside the more he uses it because it does not belong to him (it belonged to the Black Beast), and the world surrounding him is a lot more savvy than he thinks he is. And thus, he mostly ends up as a Butt-Monkey in gag scenarios, gets snarked by his allies, is unable to reach his one goal of saving his sister, continuously eats lots of sword stabs courtesy of Nu, is unable to trounce the one he hates the most (Yuuki Terumi), ends up mutated into a monstrosity by his sister-possessed-by-Goddess-Of-The-Underworld because of said power, and his final victory is almost immediately followed up by him being erased from existence. Had this been something like Guilty Gear, he would've probably succeeded in becoming an invincible badass like his predecessor (Sol Badguy), but alas.
- He also deconstructs The Chosen One by the end. Ragna was singled out by the Origin as the one destined to rescue her from the Boundary and slay "a monster". Unfortunately, the monster in question is Susano'o, who hates the Amaterasu unit so much he wants to make her suffer for all eternity, and all this did was end up making Ragna a target of Susano'o's wrath and cruelty. He lost his happy childhood when Susano'o's offshoot, Terumi, burned down his home, killed his foster mother Celica, brainwashed Jin to betray him, and kidnapped his sister Saya, turning him into the embittered, cynical wreck of a man he is today who hates the world and only wants revenge for everything he had lost. It takes him four games and losing his memory to finally calm down and realize that he's not a '90s Anti-Hero, as that mentality has gotten him no success and has blinded him from the true problems at hand which everyone else had either been aware of and failed to get through to him about due to his stubbornness leading them to write him off as a joke, or were close to realizing but ended up subverted in the end. It's only after he finally embraces his destiny as The Chosen One of the Amaterasu unit and goes after the truth that he finally stops being seen as unimportant by the rest of the cast, defeats Susano'o for good, and saves the world. Unfortunately, due to the nature of his existence and the usage of his power up to that point culminating in a Critical Existence Failure if left unchecked, he gets a Bittersweet Ending at best - ending up as a Messianic Archetype who spent his entire life suffering and has to say goodbye to everyone he ever met, helped, and formed a relationship with, erasing their memories of him and leaving for the Boundary with the Origin because that's the only place he can continue to exist in any stable form.
- Jin Kisaragi deconstructs the Annoying Younger Sibling and I Just Want to Be Special. The lad always wanted to become someone special for his brother, Ragna, a 'hero' or something. Signs of this are already shown in the past that when his typically beloved (but occasionally bullied) sister Saya got ill and Ragna had to give extra attention to her, Jin started getting jealous and began intensifying his bullying, and when there's this weird green stranger who offers to make him a 'hero' to save his brother, Jin jumps in without question. Said 'weird green stranger' turns out to be an utterly malicious troll who possesses him, cuts off his brother's arm and burns the orphanage, then erases his memory and leaves for the Kisaragi household. While he became a hard-working son, the family never liked him and when he's sent to the fields of war, he couldn't remember a thing and all of a sudden, he's given a ridiculously huge amount of hero's honors, not realizing that it was also the malicious Troll's plan to more easily use him and it results in Jin himself becoming something of a mentally dead person walking, with people referring him as 'false hero'. And, when his brother comes back, all he gets to hear is "You killed our sister, bastard!". So much for 'special'... Thankfully, he is taking steps to gather the deconstructed pieces and try to reconstruct them anew as of late.
- Noel Vermillion is a dark Parody Sue. She has been accused of being a Creator's Pet due to all her powers... but actually, all of her "Sue qualities" put her in positions that the poor girl is very clearly unfit to handle, her social interactions have suffered quite a bit (ie., being Jin's sort-of sister was something that Hazama used to manipulate her close friend Tsubaki Yayoi, who's obsessively in love with Jin, into a Face–Heel Turn) while her powers remain unknown to her and get exploited by others for their own gain. (Not to mention how despite being very pretty, she still has low self-esteem and a fixation on what she lacks rather than what she already possesses). Noel's character has also had little chance to develop due to constant manipulation, resulting in her being a super shy Shrinking Violet with no small amount of emotional baggage and no small amount of traumatic things experienced. However, closing her "Eye of the Azure" might have lead to the possibility of her becoming mentally/emotionally stronger - and if a month with her other best bud Makoto is any indication, things are looking up for her.
- Tsubaki Yayoi deconstucts The Ojou and Yamato Nadeshiko. She's very beautiful, polite, mature and intelligent, from an extremely traditionalist family, and not to mention extremely loyal to them and the Librarium. She only has eyes for one man, Jin Kisaragi, and is very enamoured with the idea of assisting him in his duties as his secretary. She's also shown to be very intimidating when annoyed or angered, as shown in Remix Heart. And she's a Lady of War, too. The problem is that underneath this 'perfect girl' facade there's a deeply insecure and troubled young woman whose sincere but obsessive love for Jin and extemely muddled origins bring out the absolute worst in her, and her ivory-tower upbringing leave her woefully susceptible to manipulation, which Hazama exploits like it's going out of style, completely screwing her and others over.
- Makoto Nanaya is a deconstruction of the Plucky Girl, Cute Monster Girl and Wide-Eyed Idealist. She's rarely ever upset and normally has a smile on and cracks jokes. She also has some very good friends that she cares about more than anything else. She's also both physically strong and strong-willed, plus she managed to get into the high-class academy that only the best can enter. Except what family you're from matters greatly to a lot of students there, where you're a target for bullying if you aren't from a high-class family. Makoto has had it even worse due to being a beastkin which are very looked down upon by the students, leading to her distrust towards humans for a long time, until her befriending with Noel and Tsubaki. She also doesn't completely trust her best friends if her Continuum Shift alternate ending is accurate, and believes that they talk negatively about her when she's not around. Oh, and her caring about her best friends more than anything in the world? That means she's willing to choose them over the world if she has to. ...Oh, right, the trope she's deconstructing? The Power of Friendship... it seems.
- Yuuki Terumi
- He deconstructs the gambiteers. At first, he was played as an unerring chessmaster+Clock King who played the cast like a deck of cards, and came out on top no matter the outcome. He was overly powerful, knew just about everything about everyone, and had backup plans for every contingency. However, the ease with which he gets irritated when his ego or plans are damaged (for the latter, add the aforementioned Makoto for good times) was a hint that his omnipresent control over affairs was a mere illusion; Slight Hope demonstrated that he was not as in control as he thought he was, and Chronophantasma broke the illusion outright thanks to multiple plays by Kokonoe, Rachel, and Kagura. He also actually cheats to be such an all-knowing mastermind in the first place, courtesy of playing with Takamagahara and having Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory, meaning that he gets to know everything by way akin to Save Scumming. Suddenly, his goal of disabling Takamagahara sounds more like a detriment for him in the long run as his planning capabilities are greatly reduced without it. As it turns out, the vile, scheming troll was naught more than a Clock King suffering from Crippling Overspecialization and outright ego-induced nearsightedness, all of which haunted him until the day he died. Even Izanami - who he thought he was controlling - was pulling his strings all along, and she left him to his fate by the end of it, and it takes a lot of planning to undo said betrayal.
- He also deconstructs the Card-Carrying Villain. If Terumi had a mustache, he would be twirling it, that's how much he revels in being a villain, and him doing so would be hilarious... Then you'd choke on your laugh as he burned down the orphanage that Ragna lived in during his childhood, killed the nun taking care of him and his siblings, possessed Jin Kisaragi and made him chop off Ragna's right arm, and spent the following minutes verbally abusing the poor kid until he passed out from blood loss. And that's just one of the many instances throughout the series that Terumi dedicates to demonstrating just how absolutely fucked up a person who describes himself as "Evil" with a straight face would be. Tacking on further deconstruction points on that, Terumi also demonstrates how hard of a time an actual Card-Carrying Villain would have with carrying out his goals: Terumi has to possess the Artificial Human Hazama and have the construct speak on his behalf, filtering out all of his unpleasantries in the process, in order to be an even half-way competent gambiteer, since everyone with an ounce of decency hates his guts and for good reason.
- Finally, he also deconstructs Hate Sink. Out of universe, Terumi is designed to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Everything about him is loathsome, from the horrible and unnecessarily cruel things he does to the rest of the cast to the ludicrously petty and spiteful motives he has for doing so; the more one learns about him, the more inevitably hateful he becomes. But as it turns out, he's actively cultivating his status as this in-universe, since he relies on the hatred of others to sustain his existence. So by hating him, you fell right into his trap. Ha! Then this too comes back to bite him in the ass in Central Fiction when the heroes are able to exploit his reliance on hatred to trick the Master Unit into perceiving him as a noble warrior who defeated the Black Beast, which strips him of his status as a villain and takes his hatred-driven immortality with it.
- Relius Clover deconstructs The Perfectionist archetype. At first, he's presented as a Mad Scientist with an absolute Lack of Empathy that sees people as nothing except experimental test subjects, to the point he turned his own wife and daughter into Magitek Killer Robots purely For Science!. Over time, thanks to his cooperation with Terumi and the Imperator, he has never tasted defeat, thus convincing himself that he's perfect, including his personal plan to design the world by himself just so there can be progress, which goes against the aforementioned two's plans. So what happens if he actually TASTED defeat and had his long-built plan crumbling utterly, especially by someone treated as an utter joke? The result is that Relius is completely broken down, unable to comprehend defeat and is left with nothing else after years of the pursuit of perfection alone. He goes from one of the most feared men in the verse to a man willingly putting himself on the leash of the son he traumatized casually (after his attempt to get himself killed by being beaten to a pulp by his old rival failed due to being interrupted by a collapsing building) and the only thing he can look forward to is about how said son is going to deliver his well-deserved punishment once he's done with his brain... and then, much like Terumi, he reconstructs himself by pulling himself back together, pulling a fast one on his son that pushed him down a darker path, and unlike Terumi, he got away with his life, if not necessarily his goals.
- Hazama is a deconstruction of The Sociopath and Artificial Human. At first glance, Hazama fits all the traits of a classic sociopath: Lack of Empathy, superficial charm, Consummate Liar and manipulator, and incredibly sadistic. However Central Fiction reveals that Hazama is actually a vessel for Terumi created without a heart, thus rendering him incapable of feeling emotions. When Trinity stabbed him in the climax of Chronophantasma, that was the first time he felt any actual pain, which proves to him that he does actually exist. Now he seeks to understand the pain and suffering of others.
- Litchi Faye-Ling deconstructs the Yamato Nadeshiko, Good Is Not Soft and The Power of Love. When first seen, she's this perfectly maternal woman and Cool Big Sis who gets along with and is beloved by everyone, and who protects the helpless. Even her dark side which got shown primarily through trying to save her friend Lotte Carmine from his fate of becoming the Blob Monster Arakune seemed tame enough, seeing as how with enough determination powered by love, all may be fine. However, a combination of her deteriorating condition due to contracting the same corruption as Arakune just to save him, the people she trusted (Kokonoe) refusing to help her because it can't be done, and her own flaw of not wanting to burden people with her personal problems, she kept believing that it was her fault that Lotte became Arakune and thus was her responsibility. (born out of the grief of losing Lotte in the first place) She felt duty-bound to get it done at all costs, even if she had to join the aforementioned Terumi and Relius that she personally disliked on sight and fight against those that loved her, and not notice the bigger conflict outside of "How I can save him?". And when it turned out trying to go back would not yield results, she had no other choice but to go along with a plan to reset the world just so Lotte did not commit the mistake, at cost of the old world being subjected to genocide. The duty of an Oriental Yamato Nadeshiko to save their beloved pushes her to go beyond the horizon of 'Not Soft' to the point where she's a borderline if not actual villain in her own right. In the end, Tragic Hero doesn't even begin to describe her.
- Azrael deconstructs Blood Knight and World's Strongest Man. What do you get when you've got a guy who's so phenomenally powerful that he can wipe out entire armies and loves to fight more than anything? Well, you get a borderline, if not an actual psychopath who has to be fitted with a heavy-duty Restraining Bolt just to stop him from killing everyone around him out of boredom and an even more heavy-duty Power Limiter so he can have a fight with someone that doesn't end in five seconds, which he hates. Azrael generally doesn't care about any of the agendas going around either; all he wants is to fight the strongest people in the world, which makes him an easy sell for bigger villains to take advantage of.
- Bang Shishigami, for as much as he is a Memetic Badass, deconstructs the Knight in Shining Armor or 'hero of justice'. Even though he was treated like a joke at first and slowly took levels in badass and dropped his Joke Character status, he has always been a man who had his fantasies intertwined with his own daily life (and shows these fantasies in a bombastic way, endearing him to the fans) and it shows: He treats Litchi as a perfect character that can do no wrong, therefore a perfect bride that will fall for him and her life is always perfect. And every kid he meets is always going to be his 'Apprentice' and will always be good, mannerly kids just from meeting him, like Carl Clover. He's very protective of both Litchi and any kids he meets, and his mind runs on a Black-and-White Morality mentality. Unfortunately, it is that mindset that makes Bang unable to help them, as both Litchi and Carl have never told him about their true personal problems of trying to save Lotte and restore Ada, respectively, and as Bang travels to Ikaruga, he was so sure that they'd be fine... until he saw Litchi siding with Relius to seize his Rettenjou, which was followed by Carl taking his side as well, both of them for their own personal reasons, shattering all the fantasies that they were purely good people. In truth they're flawed and for as much as he claims that he's the protector of everyone, he didn't protect them from their worst problems. While he managed to gather enough fortitude to fulfill his duty and screw Relius over (see above), Bang will needs to do some self-introspection about his old fantasies and think of how to 'truly help those he cares for from their problems, now that he's seen their flaws and how deeply wounded they are. Whether he will succeed in a Reconstruction or not remains to be seen.
