Fighting Games Friday: What the Heck Is Akatsuki Blitzkampf?

There were several worthwhile fighting game-related announcements at Evo 2019 this year, the number of which even topped previous years. Of them, the new characters announced for Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle Ver. 2.0 took the cake as the weirdest of them all. A character like Neo Politan from RWBY was expected, while someone like Yumi from Senran Kagura: Estival Versus was no surprise. (The Senran Kagura franchise had been rumored to join Cross Tag Battle for over a year.) The two roster additions from Akatsuki Blitzkampf, specifically the halfway-titular Akatsuki and the somewhat-titular Blitztank, were by far the biggest surprises. The latter is called “Blitztank” because it’s an actual goddamned tank.

Akatsuki was also previously a guest star in Under Night In-Birth EXE:Late, a series already well represented in CTB. He really gets around.

Here’s a good question, though: What the heck even is Akatsuki Blitzkampf? This was on the minds of many English-speaking (and perhaps some Japanese-speaking) fighting game players when the announcement was made, and its one that deserves a thorough answer.

Akatsuki Blitzkampf is a doujin fighting game developed by Subtle Style for Windows PC, originally released in 2007. (Doujin games are Japanese games made by hobbyists for fun rather than profit, though they usually don’t mind making money off their hard work.) The game stood out at the time thanks to its themes, character design and art style, and gameplay being unique among the doujin community at the time. The character designs are striking at first glance due to their inspiration from World War II-era German soldiers, and the overall militaristic look represented in the backdrops. You may also know those solders as “Nazis.”

They’re hardly what you’d expect from any kind of Japanese developer, which helped them stick out enough for the game to grab a small-but-vocal audience in Japan, and a miniscule one outside the country. The themes were taken in stride at the time (whether they should have been is another question), a period that predated the plethora of once-funny “Hitler Reacts” videos all over YouTube; but they’re unsettling now thanks to elected officials in several countries unironically taking inspiration from Nazis’ rule. Blitzkampf’s themes were overt enough at one point that the words “Sieg Heil” appeared in the game when character Elektrosoldat (the extremely Nazi-looking fellow in the artwork above) performed a certain technique, but this was removed from subsequent versions.

The core gameplay helped it stand out among lower-budgeted fighting games. Several other doujin fighters at the time took inspiration from Arc System Works’ Guilty Gear, the most popular of which was Melty Blood and its progeny. But Akatsuki Blitzkampf went old school for its inspiration, with gameplay similar to the Street Fighter titles and other 90s Capcom fighters. The game wasn’t too reliant on combos, and placed equal focus on footsies, zoning, proper spacing, and mix-ups. Sure, it was possible for players to rack up sizable combos, but they were harder than merely chaining them together. It even has a dedicated parrying command, though it doesn’t work in quite the same way as in the Street Fighter III games.

Interestingly, Akatsuki Blitzkampf wasn’t the first game in the series. It started with Akatsuki Shisei Ichigo in 2003, which felt more like a beta version of Blitzkampf with only five characters. Seven more were added with Blitzkampf, while the arcade version added an additional one. The characters come from Japanese, Chinese, and German backgrounds, represented through either their names or outfits. In addition to Akatsuki and Blitztank, Da Wei and Anonym stick out more than the others in terms of their designs; the former bears a striking resemblance to wrestler Shinsuke Nakamura (a coincidental one considering he didn’t have his current hairstyle in the late 00s), while the latter is an always-interesting gun-toting nun.

The game became popular enough to receive an arcade release known as Akatsuki Blitzkampf Ausf. Achse, which released around ten months after the PC version. The game established a faithful tournament audience thanks to it; it’s still played at several these days, including at Evo among the AnimEvo lineup.

It’s a pity Subtle Style didn’t maintain the, well, subtle-style approach to a fighting game with sequel En-Eins Perfektewelt, released in 2010. The Capcom fighting game-inspired style was abandoned for a more combo-heavy one, which made it feel like every other doujin fighter. The decision was mystifying considering a key reason why Blitzkampf was popular was because it didn’t play like those. Its art style was also considerably more “anime.” This isn’t to say the game was bad, of course, as it has its own dedicated audience.

Whether another game in the series will be made is anyone’s guess. It’s guaranteed that several of its characters will live on in other franchises, specifically the next Under Night In-Birth (called Exe:Late[cl-r], however the hell you pronounce that) or further Cross Tag Battle DLC.