Taokaka

Taokaka is a Kaka and the guardian of the village where the majority of her species resides underneath the 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi. She had temporarily relinquished her position as guardian to aide Ragna the Bloodedge, and has unbelievably keen senses despite her juvenile behaviour and mindset.

She first debuted as one of the original 12 playable characters in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger.

Personality

Her hyperactive behaviour and incredible ability to almost forget anything would lead people to assume that Tao isn’t a threat, but her carefree personality has her always itching to “play”. Tao’s forgetfulness often drives characters to their breaking points as she will never remember a name, and forget even the most basic things about the world around her. In fact, the only things that seem to really matter in Tao’s mind is food, naps, and breasts – the first two could be attributed to her cat-like instincts while the latter is a fascination which she seems to be only one in her clan to possess. Her speech is littered with verbal ticks such as “meow” (as a substitute for ‘me’) and “neow” (as a substitute for ‘now’), although other Kaka, such as Chachakaka, also possess this trait, while a select few, like Torakaka, rarely display it.

With her dim-witted nature comes the fact that Tao is undoubtedly innocent, having no real knowledge of what is right or wrong, and simply does what she wants, which, although unpleasant for some certain individuals, has no negative intent, in fact, she’ll usually go out of her way to make others feel better, especially with Ragna. This all said, she is merciless to those who harm those close to her, such as Arakune.

Biography

The guardian of the Kaka Village, Tao was raised to be the new village guardian once Torakaka decided to leave. One evening, she was with Tora and met Ragna for the first time, calling him a ‘block-headed person’ and ran away from him.

She’s forged a deep and loving trust with her clan, and is well trusted to protect them despite the attacks made by Arakune. She is well acquainted with Litchi Faye-Ling, a doctor who frequents the village, and Jubei, the one who her genes are descended from. All the Kaka Kittens admire her, and see her as a role model.

Capricious Us

A meeting was held by Totokaka to discuss the recent attacks made by Arakune, and the general affairs going on in the village, such as a severe food shortage, Tao, however, was absent from the meeting that she was supposed to attend. Later on, Toto found her wondering around the center of the village, and asked that Tao do a favour for her in return for a year’s supply of catnip, obviously, Tao agreed despite her earlier objections of it being too much work. The job in question was to look around the higher levels of Kagutsuchi which could help with returning sunlight to the starved areas of the village.

Calamity Trigger

The kittens woke Tao up in the middle of one of her naps, giving her an assignment from the elder of the village to pursue Ragna the Bloodedge and claim the reward money from him. Directed to Orient Town, she found herself fighting Ragna out of desperation to be fed. When the battled ended, Ragna treated her to a meal at the local restaurant, but Tao was completely unable to recognise who he is since the wanted poster issued to her had such a terrible drawing of Ragna that even he was unable to recognise himself. Stupidly, neither had any money to pay for the meal, so they left as quickly as possible, being chased down by the restaurant staff, passing Linhua along the way.

The two ran into the Kaka Village, where both Tao and Ragna encountered the elder. She apologised to Ragna about being taken in by the guardian, and offered up a secret passage into the higher levels of Kagutsuchi so he could evade those searching for him. Tao showed him the way, although it cut directly through Arakune’s den, and she stood down, opting to stay in the village instead of encountering the “evil squiggly”. Both Litchi and Noel Vermillion entered the area, and Tao immediately groped the lieutenant before ending up extremely disappointed with what little she found. Litchi and Tao went to the elder’s house, but Tao had to sit and listen to the dark situation that is the Kaka’s population problems, although her attention shifted as soon as Noel walked into the building.

Trigger Shift

Gigant: Take-Mikazuchi’s blast had devastated the nearby mountainsides, so Tao helped Litchi, Linhua, and the Ikaruga Ninjas in Orient Town by fetching medical supplies for the injured civilians.

Continuum Shift

Back at the village, Tao was resting before being woken up, again, by the kittens for another mission from Toto- to broaden her horizons and become a warrior worthy of protecting the Kaka. Instead of going off, she went to go back to her napping where she found Ragna as fell from the sky, so she took him down to the elder’s shack after fighting off Arakune who had sensed the Azure. Inside the shack, she reunited with Torakaka and was told to find Litchi so that Ragna’s wounds could be treated to. On the way there, she ran into Relius Clover, who observed her as being a remarkable copy of Jubei, even complimenting her spectacular senses. Since Litchi was away, she only found Bang Shishigami, and Carl Clover inside the area, but they pointed her in the right direction where she eventually found the doctor and directed her to the village. When there, she played around with Ragna’s wounds, and went so far to test out his fighting ability after he healed up his wounds.

Tao travelled around some more before meeting Tsubaki Yayoi, who she took an instant liking to thanks to her knowing about her species. Upon mention of Ragna’s name, Tsubaki came under the impression that the Kaka was working alongside the Grim Reaper and attacked, but after the battle, she, too, was fondled by Tao, which earned her the new nickname “Average Lady”. Tao wandered off further into the Hanging Gardens where she found Hazama and Noel, and the former forced the latter to fight as a test of her life-link. After the fight, Jubei jumped in to defend her from both Relius and Hazama, commanding that the Kaka follow Hazama to the top of the NOL branch where she fought him before suffering a brutal loss at his sheer strength. Jubei saved her again, and carried her to the village where the hero told her to partner up with Ragna through his journey into the Ikaruga Federation.

Chrono Phantasma

Soon enough, both Tao and Ragna had come near the remains of Celica A. Mercury’s church, and she learned about his family before wandering off on her own. She entered the old Kaka Village and met Torakaka, overjoyed to hear from her, and came to learn that Momokaka was now the temporary guardian of the village until Tora or Tao’s return. She felt something was off, however, and ran towards Ragna’s direction where she met with him, Rachel Alucard, Nago, and Gii; her instincts lead her to the location since Hades: Izanami’s presence alerted her.

The duo got into the 7th Hierarchical City of Kazumotsu, and the both of them blamed one another for taking so long to get there, but Taokaka’s persistence had them visiting a local restaurant to feed. Half-way through the meal, they were interrupted by Bullet, but her uniform made Tao’s uncontrollable mouth call her out as “nyaughty”. She watched as Bullet and Ragna gave one another intense stares, but Tao left to find Noel when Ragna brought the subject up. As it turned out, Tao hadn’t left the restaurant, and beat up the owner so she could find Ragna, but bumped into Celica A. Mercury and the two found him severely beaten up.

Tao joined Ragna, Celica, Rachel, Nago, Gii, Noel, Jin Kisaragi, Kokonoe, Kagura Mutsuki, Makoto Nanaya, and Hibiki Kohaku in a giant feast. She chastised Ragna for eating so much, but she gave him 5 popularity points.

Powers and Techniques

Since she is the guardian of her clan, Tao is one of the most powerful of the Kaka race, and her power has been recognised by even Jubei himself. Hidden within her seemingly non-threatening paws are a vast array of blades, some curved, and some hooked, all of which she can use to slice away at her target with the overwhelming strength that her species are known to possess. Her ditsy personality arguably lends her more strength, as she often struggles to hold back, giving everything she’s got in a fight, and only really sees fights as playing anyway. Tao’s Drive, Dancing Edge, allows her to dash at lightning speeds and attack an opponent with her razor sharp claws. Oddly, Tao has no training in how to access certain Ars Magus that she uses in attacks, and instead innately uses up the seithr around her for attacks; she also has a fairly high aptitude with the substance since she needs less units of seithr in order to activate the Ars.

An impressive skill that Tao has is an unknown sense that allowed her to detect the presence of individuals such as Hades Izanami, something that even Rachel Alucard couldn’t do.

Library Entry

Taokaka

She is a descendant of the Kaka Clan, a race of bioweapons created from the genes of Jubei, one of the Six Heroes.

Simple and moody, put nicely, she’s innocent, but on the flipside, she hardly listens to others, but rather does whatever her primal instincts tell her. She loves interaction with others, and often forgets her objective when there is something else that interests her.

Her short-term memory is worse than that of a bird, and she has been known to forget things after taking only three steps. She cannot remember people’s names, and will give everyone nicknames based on an arbitrary trait. Her favorite activities are napping and eating, and when it comes to that, meat buns rank the highest.

While she’s the current protector of the Kaka Village, she joins Ragna on his quest, so that she might also grow as a warrior. For now, they head to Ikaruga. During Taokaka’s absence Torakaka agreed to protect the village from harm.

Appearences in other Media

• The mobile game, Mabinogi Duel, stars Tao as a playable card.