salutations;

i've got a fever, and the only cure is more dead angels

Welcome to Diva May Cry, a small character tribute to the snarky, sultry Bayonetta, the female protagonist of the Action-Adventure game of the same name. This beautiful witch is not only full of eye-catching, but is also endearing and intimidating all at once. Not to mention, she holds such vigorious strength and pulls so many impossible talents, that she can even give Dante from Devil May Cry (a game with a similar gameplay to Bayonetta's) a run for his money. Thus, the site "Diva May Cry" (a fan nickname for Bayonetta, in case you are wondering) was created to analyze her role and personality... and pretty much fangirl at her glorious meaning to video game history.

Please be aware that this contains spoilers for the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 game Bayonetta. This site is part of Iris-Noire.Org and the Amassment One Page, One Month site marathon, although it may be expanded in the future. It is recommended to view with Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or Internet Explorer 8.0, with at least a 1024x768 resolution screen.

the witch;

don't fuck with a witch

Bayonetta (pronounced bay - uh - net - tah) is our titular character of the game, who possesses a strong affinity in black magic. She's beautiful, badass, and deadly. As an Umbra Witch, she has a serious deal with the devil: by accepting the ability to utilize demonic arts, she must spend her afterlife in Inferno, the game's equivalent of Hell.

She also suffers from amnesia, and the only thing she recalls is that, twenty years ago, she was awakened from a long-term imprisonment at the bottom of a lake, by the journalist Antonio Redgrave. Antonio was then mutilated by divine beasts called Angels (who only appear in another plane of existence), in front of his son, Luka Redgrave, who accused Bayonetta for the murder, due to the fact that he was unable to see the real killers. Like any amnesia victim in media, she longs to learn about her past. But what separates her from other protagonist is that she doesn't sulk about it endlessly, waiting for it to hit her in the face. Rather, she takes action. Aside from fighting off Angels, she also befriends Enzo and Rodin to inform her of any interesting pieces. And she highly enjoys the excitement in battles, making the most of her life, past or not.

Despite what her name might suggest, Bayonetta doesn't use bayonets in combat - rather, she uses a large variety of long-range and short-range weapons. She equips weapons on both hands and feet, making four weapons total. She is able to somehow shoot bullets from the guns from her feet without pulling the trigger with her hands. She may use pistols, swords, whips, ice skates, etc. In addition, she has the power to slow down time right before an enemy hits her (named "Witch Time" in the game), summon beasts to brutally kill Angels, or even pull out medieval torture devices. She may also shapeshift into animals such as a panther or a crow.

Not part of the job description is her incredible muscle power and flexibility. She is able to lift a stack of Angels and a tombstone without breaking a sweat, juggle guns, throw large boulders and vehicles at far distance with ease, suplexing large beasts, and flex her legs like a professional gymnastic. In addition, her moves require much dexterity and leg/arm movement that she never grows weary from. It must be seen to be believed!

forgotten past;

Bayonetta, you're a mystery / You came along with a destiny

Bayonetta's true name is Cereza. She was born from an unfortunate love affair between an unnamed Umbra Witch and a Lumen Sage named Balder. Before then, the world was balanced by the Umbra Witch clan and their light counterparts who oversee Inferno and Paradiso (the equilvant of Heaven) respectively. By creating an offspring with mix heritage, there was an imbalance in the system, which led the two clans to dispute and riot. The Umbra Witches banished the two lovers, and kept the child in their care, though forced her to be an outcast from the rest of the group. She trained in the dark arts like any Umbra Witch, and allies with Jeanne. Overtime, almost all of the Lumen Sages were slayed by the Umbra Witches, and the Umbra Witches were slaughtered by the humans, in their fear and scorn. All was left was Cereza and Father Balder. Cereza could not accept her fate, so she was sealed away by Jeanne, with her memories erased.

The "fate" Cereza feared, was her fate as the "Left Eye", one part of the "Eyes of the World"; if united with the "Right Eye" (who was Balder), one can recreate the universe to their liking by summoning the Creator, Jubileus. Balder sought to fulfill this mission in the favor of the Angels of Paradiso. However, there was one small problem - Cereza now had no memories of her past thanks to Jeanne.


Balder sought to remedy this issue by summoning a younger version of Bayonetta to help awaken her memories through a time paradox. Through her maternal instincts, Bayonetta accidently inspires little Cereza to be courageous and retained her memories for the 500 years. Balder's plan almost worked, had Jeanne and Bayonetta's friend Luka not intervene. Together, she and Jeanne defeat Jubileus and its army of Angels.

personality;

As long as there's music, I'll keep on dancing

I don't blame you if you feel the need to make a lame pun of the "bitchy witch" - because it isn't far off from the truth. Bayonetta is a classy bitch with a British accent. Selfish and egotistical, she is not only aware of this attitude, but pretty much flaunts it. To illustrate, in the very first chapter, she breaks Enzo's car, never apologizes for it, and makes him steer for her. Later on, she leaves the Gates of Hell bar to make him pay her tab. Bayonetta doesn't need to insult, antagonize, or threaten others to get her way. She instead uses smug, sarcastic remarks to give off an aura of intimidation around her.


Notably, Bayonetta is apathetic to mostly anything that does not conflict with her interests. When Rodin discusses about the quarrels between Paradiso and Inferno, she dismisses it as uninteresting and unnecessary. Her mission is a completely selfish one in that she will do anything to find her past, even if it means damaging property and scaring citizens. She is extremely driven to her goals, and won't waste time helping locals, unlike other video game protagonists.

Being an Umbra Witch, she knows her inevitable fate once she dies - she'll remain in Inferno, where the rest of the Angels she killed were sent and all the demons live, for eternity. Despite that, she doesn't act pressured or scared, and continues to walk on with assurance. In fact, it is this sort of boldness that Balder tries to correct, making little Cereza grow just like her.


As she has to kill numerous Angels, she's numb to the violence she sheds and in many ways, is sadistic. One of the buttons in the game is to taunt at your foes, in fact. While she can easily kill enemies with a simple bullet mashing, the game encourages her to be creative and execute long, damaging combos or using the torture attacks. Her torture attacks include ripping foes apart, jagging a spike up an Angel's... private part, and kicking a small minion to an Iron Maiden, and closing it. To put it bluntly, she is rewarded for being merciless to her foes. Even during cutscenes, she dances while she fights and toys with small beasts. During boss fights with the Paradiso agents, she comments that they are "too talkative", and prefers to go straight to a fight - even if it means interrupting an Angel while it is speaking!


Aside from her words, she is able to communicate with her body. Bayonetta's face isn't that of an angel. She smirks or gives coy smiles more often when she's torturing angels than when she's seeing an old friend. Her hands are often on her hips, and when she moves, she swings her hips, giving her a look of confidence.

Although she is very attractive, her pose and attitude can even scare the most perverted. In Chapter XI: The Cardinal Virtue of Justice, a romantic embrace from Luka is quickly ruined, when Bayonetta jumps off and let's him crash to a wall. In an earlier chapter, she pushes Luka before being crushed, allowing him to briefly caress her butt. She then lays right on top of him, suggestively stroking him. This signifies that should the two have a relationship, she's the one on top; she's the dominate one.


Of course, even Bayonetta has her soft side. No matter how much she teases Luka, she seems to generally care about him, which is first hinted when she unnecessarily felt the need to save him in Chapter V: The Lost Holy Grounds. In Chapter XIV: Isla del Sol, when Luka saves himself and little Cereza from the rockets setup by Jeanne, Bayonetta subtly compliments his luck and walks off - then calling him "Luka" instead of his usual nickname, "Cheshire". The same is applied to Cereza when she is kidnapped by Jeanne in Chapter XII: The Broken Sky; Bayonetta switches between calling her "little one" to "Cereza" with a look and voice of concern within a few minutes. Of course, being one not to admit that she's nice, Bayonetta tries to excuse herself, although the player can plainly see the lie.

aesthetics;

I should have been a pole dancer

You be surprised how much detail was done to Bayonetta. The designers themselves claimed they had difficulty capturing the vague key words given by the director, Kamiya Hideki: she had to be a) a female protagonist, b) a modern witch, and c) a gunslinger with four guns. Everything else was up to their imagination.

Well, except that she needed glasses. The glasses are supposedly a symbol for her intelligence and anonymity. It's a stereotype that those who wear glasses are nerdy, and thus tend to read alot and gain more insight than others. But the glasses are also aesthetically appealing, and a type of fashion accessory. Imagine Bayonetta without them - somehow, her appeal just drops a few points because the black glasses add to her exotic design.

Aside from her glasses, the most iconic part of Bayonetta is her crazy, prehensile hair. That tight leather outfit she wears so comfortably? It's actually part of her hair, altered to look like clothes. This means that she is almost bare naked whenever she transforms her hair into something else. The demons she summons? The animals she "becomes"? Also a result of her hair. In fact, her strongest attacks are when she constructs large high-heeled boots and fists with her hair. She can expand it or shrink it within a blink of the eye.

To say that Bayonetta's figure is exceptional is an understatement. She is remarkably tall, and sports disproportionately long legs. This is not the result of faulty character design; this was all intentional. Shimazaki Mari, the designer for Bayonetta, had a career in illustrating "high fashion" sketches, and was encouraged to use her skills into the creation process. Fashion illustration presents the human anatomy into a more surreal and elegant form. Although it's used to model clothes, it can also be considered a type of art. In fact, most of these two-dimensional models do, in fact, have very long legs.

Speaking of her clothes, Bayonetta is unsurprisingly gothic. She is a dark witch, so no color would suit her better than black would. Part of her design was to modernize her garment, embellishing it with her personality. Instead of a pointy hat and black dress like fairy tale witches, she wears a skintight catsuit (with a rose emblem stitched) that opens up around her cleavage and reveals her entire back, and attaches many belts and long hair-like sleeves. Wrapped around her hair is a long red ribbon that reaches to her heels. She's also decorated with moon crescents such as the one on her chest, her earrings and her sleeves. The moon is an important element with the game, as the moonlight allows her to crawl up walls. Since the moon is associated with the night sky, it's another part of her "mystifying" appearance.

jeanne;

Feeling better, Bayonetta?

Jeanne (pronounced sha - awe - n) is also another Umbra Witch, except she's more aggressive and suffers from a severe fashion disaster. She at first appears as an archnemesis to Bayonetta, crossing paths at least four times, and hurting Luka and Cereza along the way. It is revealed, however, that she was brainwashed by Balder to force Bayonetta to remember her past. Still, she managed to resist slightly, stirring trouble with the Angels, all to be able to battle Bayonetta solo. She is a recurring boss, not fighting to her full potential until Chapter XIV: Isla del Sol, where she dresses in her white Umbra Witch attire.

After defeat, Jeanne recognizes that Bayonetta is more powerful than years ago, and admits that she and her were actually childhood friends. When the two clans fought against each other, Jeanne feared that Cereza would lose and fall into the wrong hands, so she sealed her away using the jewel in her Umbran Watch.


Like many rivals in video games, Jeanne is a foil to Bayonetta. They are similar and different in various ways. For example, though Jeane is just as sassy as Bayonetta, she is more serious, preferring to just strike enemies down instead of playing with them. They also have similar battle mechanics, can both use Witch Time, Wicked Weave, Beast Within, and wall-walking.

More prominently different are their appearances. Bayonetta's main color theme is black. Although Jeanne wears red in the majority of the game, her true outfit (matching Bayonetta's) is pale as can be. She also uses more excessive makeup and prefers her hair short. Yoshimura Kenichiro, the modeler of Bayonetta, comments that their character models have a "balance": Bayonetta is big-breasted, but has a small behind, while Jeanne has a flatter chest and a bigger butt.

motherhood;

You know the rules - No cockroaches or crying babies

It is unknown who Bayonetta's true mother was, other than the fact that she was an Umbra Witch. Supposedly, according to little Cereza, her mother gave her the Umbran Watch as a birthday present when she was younger. She may have also looked a bit like Bayonetta currently, for when little Cereza first entered the modern time era, she clung on to her, and immediately designated Bayonetta as her "mummy".

Little Cereza was still young and innocent, full of childlike thoughts and ambitions. She cradles a cute cat plushie named Cheshire, and unlike her grownup self, is completely defenseless and scared, crying very often throughout the game. It makes you wonder how such a sweet girl turned into the foul-mouthed Bayonetta! Bayonetta admits that she isn't interested in taking care of children, and only protects her because the mysterious voice (Balder) compells her to do so. To be honest, she just has a hidden heart of gold.

Much of Cereza's future interests are developed in this time loop, especially for innovations that won't be made for centuries. Luka first introduces her to her love for lollipops when he offers her one to calm her down in Chapter X: Paradiso - A Sea of Stars. The nickname Bayonetta gives Luka is derived from the stuffed kitty she drags around (similarly how Bayonetta would drag pathetic Luka around). When Bayonetta lays Cereza to rest in her own time period, she lullabies "Fly Me to the Moon" by Frank Sinatra, which becomes her favorite song and the game's main theme.

Throughout her journey, Bayonetta acts like a role model to her in many ways. Her silencing her tears forces Cereza to act strong for her "mummy" and make her happy. By witnessing Bayonetta's valor in the face of numerous obstacles and dangers, Cereza's innocence is exposed to the wild and crazy actions of her mother, and feels the need to imitate them. A clear example of this would be in Chapter XII: The Broken Sky, where she copies Bayonetta's pose as she leans against a wall, and even follows her sighing with her own.


When Bayonetta takes her back to her own time, she informs Cereza that she should protect her important treasure, the Umbran Watch, and that she is a strong individual, capable of doing anything. These key words are hummed in Cereza's mind as she grows up, and instead of Jeanne being forced to seal her away, the two work together to obliverate the invading Angels. Bayonetta remembers everything from her past, and this knowledge is exploited by Balder to be used as the "left eye". Fortunately, with the words still ringing in her head, she is confident in overcoming his plot and defeating the Creator itself!

sex appeal;

you want to touch me?

There is no denying that Bayonetta is a figure of gratuitous fanservice. She's got sizable assets, wide hips, an exposed back, pole dances severally times, and has too many crotch and butt shots to even count. Her battle theme first plays the minute her nun clothes are ripped, showcasing a transformation scene to her hair-dress. Being an action game heroine, she's geared toward the intended audience of male teenagers and young (and horny) adults. Bayonetta is not only aware of it, but she even taunts her good looks.


Now, we are in the modern feminist era where many people criticize the typical female protagonists for being treated like sex objects. While I completely agree that Bayonetta is filled with problematic elements around her, I do think she is at least different from most sexed up female protagonists. Rather than having a man take advantage of her, she's has perfect control of her body and, as mentioned above, makes it pretty clear that she's more dominate. Any chance Luka has to admire the fanservice is always ruined, letting him know that she isn't molded to fit anyone's desires but her own. She isn't shy about sex, despite no hint if she's a virgin or not, and she uses her dazzling appearance to her own merit; she's confident and proud of her looks.

In addition, due to her awkward body structure, most provocative scenes looks more ridiculous than sexy, in my opinion. The scenes are also so over-the-top and out of place that one can argue that it's more of a parody of fanservice in action titles than an example of it. I cannot begin to describe how exaggerated these scenes are, so just see it yourself.

closing;

Let's dance, boys!

Bayonetta is a very interesting female character, so I am happy to work on a fansite to her. There is no denying that she's inhumanly badass in many ways, and she doesn't take crap from no one. Although she's rather smug, she isn't without morals either, as she won't have fun if it means sacrificing innocent lives. It's less that she's a bad person, and more like a radical good person who wants to live the rest of her life to the fullest, before suffering for the rest of eternity.

I hope you too enjoyed and learned from this site as well. If you wish to link back to this site, feel free to save these crappy buttons. Donations are always welcome as well!