An Expedition that escalated way too much!
A visual novel developed by Light, written by Takashi Masada and illustrated by G Yuusuke and the third game in the Shinza Bansho Series.
In ancient Ashihara no Nakatsukuni, generals fought each other to gain the favour of the emperor. They attempted to invade the uncharted eastern lands, but suffered total defeat at the hands of demons more intelligent than humans. Three hundred years later, the land of the gods, Shinshuu, has locked itself away from all foreign countries, but an air of gloom begins to drift in from the east. They are forced to head east again to drive away the demons.
Originally released in 2011. Similarly to Dies irae ~Amantes amentes~, an All-ages release for the PS Vita, Kajiri Kamui Kagura Akebono no Hikari was released in 2013 with a Windows version released in the same year. This version adds extra chapters and unlockable other stories.
This game contains examples of:
- Alliterative Title: The kanji for the title is "神咒神威神楽", repeating "神".
- Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: The Eastern Expedition wears almost only normal clothes, only some having armor on both arms, while the Big Bad Tenma Yato is clad in his Time Armor, a metaphysical artifact created from Yatos law, allowing to ignore any change, including damage, on him.
- Apocalypse How: Class Z Should Hajun ever complete his Law, as is would not only erase the current world, but everything in the entire Masadaverse, even including the Throne, leaving only him alone for all eternity.
- Just the process itself is horrifying, as seen once Yato was killed and Hajun completed his Law. Every being on the world started to kill each other, reagrdless of past relations with no hope for their souls, since they were killed to. The world suddenly filled with Billions of Śṛgālas (terminals of Hajun’s power, AKA mooks) and tens of thousands of pseudo-Gudou Gods battle with each other, sealing the fate of future, reducing universe to a mere slaughter feast until nothing remains in the end, existence itself started to shrink down until nothingness.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Almost all characters. Even if they seem to do altruistic actions, their actual motives are selfish. The only exceptions are Koga Rindou and the Tenma.
- Big Bad: Tenma Yato, leader of the Yatsukahagi, serves as one, until it is revealed that he is actually the only thing preventing the world from complete destruction from Hajun, who is the true Big Bad.
- Crapsack World: Every single being is as egoistical as possible, half of the World is ruled by all powerful, nigh invulnerable, immortal demons and a nigh-omnipotent God threatens to destroy the world through sheer egoism.
- Cosmic Horrorstory: The entire world is ruled by the nigh-omnipotent Hadou God Hajun, who uses the souls of the mulitverse to power his attacks and his entire being literally works to erase everything around himself. Also, his powers constantly increases and the entire world is part of his being, making fighting back almost impossible.
- Cosmic Entity: Several characters including almost the entire main cast at the end
- Any Being capable of attaining Taikyoku, as they become full-blown Gods and start to paint over reality with their own Law, transcending all concepts, any form of existence, any form of information, any form of duality, any form of time-space, regardless of its complexity, or its size. They become abstract beings and are capable of manipulating reality on a conceptual level, in addition to literally being walking universes and mere drop of their blood weighing more than a neutron star.
- Cursed with Awesome: The Distortions give powerful abilities, but it also has negative consequences such as hand trembling, haze in the eyes and extreme nausea to the point of vomiting own internal organs.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The Distortions and Taikyoku Laws are manifestations of the users deepest desire.
- Deity of Human Origin: Any Human capable of attaining Taikyoku counts as one.
- Divine Conflict: The story goes about the struggle between Tenma Yato and Hajun over the fate of the world and how the Eastern Expedition got caught in it.
- Eldritch Abomination: Any being who reached Taikyoku is this as they are less living beings but more abstract entities with their body being nothing more than a manifestation of their respective law.
- God: Hajun, but any Hadou God who usurps the throne becomes one.
- God in Human Form: Habaki is basically an avatar of Hajuns Tumor.
- God Is Evil: Hajun, wanting to destroy everything in existence definitely counts.
- Good Is Not Nice: The Tenma are not above massacring entire fleets for their goals. Justified, since they are trying to save the world from complete destruction and therefore want to be sure that nothing goes wrong.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Neither the Yatsukahagi or the Eastern Expedition are truly evil. The Yatsukahagi just want to preserve the world from being destroyed and are willing to do anything for that. The Eastern Expedition only wants to claim the Eastern Land for humanity. Although there is still Hajun, but not even he can be called evil as his Law is just the manifestation of his desire, just like the other Hadou Gods. For a God to go against their Law is literally to go against their very definition.
- Happy Ending Override: Is this to the ending of the Marie route of Dies Irae. Several thousand years after in the ending Marie aka Tasogare took the Throne and became the fifth Heaven, watching over reality with Ren aka Yato, she and the other Gods were killed by Hajun usurping the Throne. Yato, the only one to survive due to having the series strongest defense power and Hajun almost not noticing him, barely managed to stop the complete manifestation of Hajuns Law with his time stop, keeping the world alive until eight thousand years latter the main events of the story kicked in.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The entire fight against Hajun is this for the Yatsukahagi as it was stated during the story that the difference in strength between their strongest member, Tenma Yato and Hajun is like a human standing against a God.
- I Reject Your Reality: A fight between Gods is this Trope taken literally, as the Gods are trying to overwrite the opponents law in order to shape reality acording to their own law.
- Magical Incantation: Almost every single God has one for activating his law.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Killing Tenma Yato had devastating consequences for the world, since it Hajun to complete his Law, causing the apocalypse where all living beings, regardless of their scale and family relation, kill each other. From human, to animals and even insects, the world was full of slaughter. Furthermore, since soul itself can’t exist in Tengu Dou, death is absolutely irreversible, without chance of reincarnation and due to omnipresent wilderness. no new life could be produced, making progress of civilization stop and universe itself shrinking down, reducing the very possibility that new souls can be born. Billions of Śṛgālas (terminals of Hajun’s power, AKA mooks) and tens of thousands of pseudo-Gudou Gods battle with each other, sealing the fate of future, reducing universe to mere slaughter puting Hell itself to shame until nothing remains in the end.
- Last Stand: The Yatsukahagi are trying to do this after having no other option left and barely being able to hold on after eight millenia of resistence against Hajun.
- Our Gods Are Different: Every single God is literally a walking Universe.
- Hadou Gods are a Sentient Cosmic Force, always expanding until they have occupied all space in existence.
- Gudou Gods are sentient universes, who define their boundaries with their bodies.
- Legion Gods are souls absorbed by a Hadou God and boosted to the same level as their respective Hadou God.
- Our Giants Are Bigger: Each Hadou God and the rest of the Tenma, can summon and control a Kamunagra, a giant being with a form individual to each God and use them in battles
- Power Level: The strength of a God is measured in the strength of his law, which is measured in Taikyoku Value. Having a lower Value than your opponent means that your Law, no matter how broken it is, will be overwritten and defeated. As Taikyoku Value is defined by quantity and quality of souls, in form of spiritual mass, it is always a given that Hadou Gods are stronger, since they can simply absorb more souls, take more space with more souls and therefore have vastly more spiritual mass, while Gudou Gods are limited to only one soul.
- The Quest: The reason the main cast started the Eastern Expedition, in order to claim the Eastern Land from the Yatsukahagi.
- Rage Against the Heavens: Literal Example, as the cast goes against Hajun, the sixth Heaven.
- Suicide Mission: How the Eastern Expedition is viewed by their fellow countrymen, as they are up against immensely powerful entities who effortlessly destroyed the last Expidition three hundred years ago.
- Sentient Cosmic Force: Every Hadou God is a Domain of their personal Law, always striving to expand it to the utmost limit of space it can ouccupy. A Hadou God who takes the Throne applies his Law to all of reality.
- Story-Breaker Power: Tenma Yato, being able to use every power of the other Tenma, stop Time, ignore any kind of damage through his Time Armor and crushing the Eastern Expedition with almost no effort. He also can also finish an entire Multiverse, rip holes into reality and throw thousands of stars condensed into a single blow, which he uses to finish of a fleet.
- Hajun manages to be even more broken as his Law basically erases anything. He also can use the power of every other Hadou God, albeit weaker as the originals. His strength compared to the second strongest character, Tenma Yato is stated to as big as a Human to a God.
- Title Drop: Just before the final battle as Habaki and Rindou are about to release the Longinuslanze Testament, everyone shouts Kajiri Kamui Kagura as an invocation as they let the lance fly to begin the final battle.
- What If?: It's a sequel to a one of alternate endings of Dies Irae. Additionally, the backstory itself is an alternate conclusion to the battle against Hajun. The outcome that leads to the Rea route of the original Dies Irae has Mercurius barely survive and defeat Hajun and push the Reset Button on the timeline.
