Eizen

Eizen (アイゼン, Aizen), also constantly referred to as the Reaper (死神, Shinigami; literally meaning "Death God" or "Death Spirit"), is both a fictional character and protagonist of the Tales of Berseria series of the Tales of series. He is a 1000-year-old Earth Malak who has the appearance of a 30-year-old and lived for a very long time, he was born from an Earthpulse somewhere in the world and is the older brother of Edna, a female protagonist from the Tales of Zestiria series. At the beginning of the game series, he is seen in the search of his captain, Van Aifread and assists Velvet Crowe due to sharing the same goals.

At some point in time, He became pirate and pilots a ship called the Van Eltia as its vice-captain. At the beginning of the series, he is seen in the search of his close friend, the missing ship captain, Van Aifread. He joins and assists Velvet due to sharing the same goals and in order to help search. In the 3 year period during Velvet's imprisonment in Titania, he became infamous as a "Reaper" whose existence as a Malak brings misfortune to everyone around him. In Tales of Zestiria, Eizen appears as a mindless murderous dragon and rests at the Rayfalke Spiritcrest, but served as a minor antagonist.

His true name is Ufemew Wexub (ウフェミュー＝ウエクスブ, Ufemiyuu Uekusubu), meaning "Eizen the Explorer".

"I bring ill fortune to all those around me. The "Reaper's Curse". If you join up with me, I can't guarantee your safety."
 * —Eizen, warning Velvet.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice actor: Taliesin Jaffe (English), Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

Biography
The first mate of Aifread's pirates and Edna's older brother, Eizen is one of the certain number of free malakhim wandering in Midgand. He inflicts a curse of ill fortune on all those he accompanies, thus he is known as the Reaper. He wears bracelets to enhance the power of his fists and kicks in combat.

Appearance
Eizen is a tall, built man recognized as a "reaper" and therefore is dressed portrayed in dark clothing. He has blonde hair, pale skin and blue eyes, a trait similar to he shares with that of his sister, Edna. Under his eyes he has black markings around his eye-bags.

His attire consists of tailored black trousers tightened with two belts and brown boots and gloves (before he gave them to Edna). He also wears an orange shirt, a loose white shirt and a black waistcoat, finished off by the long-dark business type jacket. He also dresses roughly and in black, reinforcing the "Reaper" epithet.


 * Hair Color: Blond with Brighter Yellow tips
 * Skin Color: Pale
 * Eye Color: Blue
 * Age: 1,000 (chronologically), 30 (physically)
 * Birthday: Not Known
 * Height: 187cm
 * Weight: Not Known

Personality
"A man who earned the name "Reaper" as a leader of Aifread's pirate band. Despite being a malak, he prefers to sail the high seas with humans, living life just as he pleases."
 * —The Tales of Link's description on Eizen.

His personality is quite a dark character, similar in that of Velvet for character traits and clothing appearance, but his is that of cool and controlled individual, though he does display a passion for artwork and antiques that runs counter to that aloofness. He is a very sincere person and as an older malak, he also acts as a mentor to Laphicet in helping him find his own will as well as treating him like a brother.

He is shown to be extremely caring to those younger than him and are of the same race, such as his sister. He has been credited by Edna multiple times in the Tales of Zestiria storyline.

Family

 * Edna (younger sister)

Fighting Style
Eizen's class is Pugilist. He fights in close-range combat martial artes using his hands for fist-fighting and involving mana-boosted punches which can cover up to mid-range, though primarily he can also fight with Earth-type malak artes to strike from a distance that are centered on Air and Earth as opposed to Magilou's focus on Fire and Water elements. His initial weapons, bracelets, help act as a catalyst for both casting artes and dealing stronger punches.

His Break Soul is Dragonic Drive (ドラゴニックドライブ, Doragonikku Doraibu), which allows Eizen to manifest dark reaper-like wings that allow him to fly and release energy provided that one of the enemy's within the Break Soul's range is afflicted with the "Stun" status ailment or is downed, and launch a powerful special arte. The appearance and name foreshadow his eventual fate as a dragon.

Despite his Break Soul being powerful, he can only use it when his enemies are in a stunned state and would have to be initiated quickly, before the enemy recovers. The appearance slightly resembles a dragonfly and the name foreshadows his eventual fate as a dragon.

His mystic artes are Perfect Mayhem, which involves him unleashing a flurry of punches in the time it takes for a coin to drop, Howling Dragon, and Venom Strike. He also shares a combo technique with Rokurou Rangetsu known as Last Laugh.

Past
Prior to the events of any Desolation title's main story, Eizen was born from an Earthpulse somewhere in a mountain area. Initially he chose to sit around, even as other Malakim were born as well since he had nothing to do. That changed when Edna was born from the Earthpulse. Normally Malakim do not have siblings since they are not born the way humans are, but a special connection existed between between the two that drew them together as if they were siblings. It is later found out that the two are actually siblings through the birth of the same relative Earthpulse, creating this connection even though they do not having any parents.

Before his departure to become a pirate, he lived together with Edna in peace. However, after a continuous streak of unfortunate events, Eizen eventually realized that his domain caused misfortunes toward people near him. Thus, he decided to go on a journey so Edna would not get involved in his "curse".

At some point Eizen's domain began to act up due to his desire to protect Edna. This resulted in him gaining what he called The "Reaper's Curse", which caused negative events to happen to himself and others around him, even if it was nearly impossible. Due to this, Eizen left to search for a way to fix his domain, but overtime grew tired and began to feel it was impossible.

Tales of Berseria
In Tales of Berseria, Eizen is the first mate of the Aifread pirate group. Living with his own belief, he searches for his missing captain Van Aifread. Along the way, he meets Velvet Crowe and joins her to fight their common enemy, the Abbey. His knowledge and experience of surviving in the underworld will greatly helps Velvet in her quest for revenge.

After Velvet seals Innominat, Eizen returns to the Van Eltia and continues to journey with Aifread's Pirates for the next 800 years.

During the Timeskip
During the period known as the "Unprecedented Cataclysm", both Eizen and Zaveid joined forces with a Shepherd to fight the Lord of Calamity of that period. During the battle, the Shepherd was killed and Eizen, seeing no other way to win, allowed the Malevolence inside him from years of living to turn him into a dragon. As a Dragon, Eizen killed and devours the Lord of Calamity, saving the world from disaster before mindlessly flying around, an event that Zaveid witnesses. Sometime before this battle, Eizen, knowing what would happen to him, makes Zaveid promise that he will kill him if he becomes a dragon, so that Edna would not have to suffer. Afterwards, Eizen flies away disappearing for a time, but eventually returns to Rayfalke Spiritcrest, where he lives in isolation. During the span of this time secluded on Rayfalke, Eizen loses all traces of his original self and becomes a mindless dragon, killed and devouring many countless humans and seraphim who approached the mountains, and is no longer able to recognize his own sister. Thus since then mountains, that experience has left prompting Edna to place flowers in a nearby shrine.

Video Game
During the events of Tales of Zestiria, Edna, having saved Sorey, Mikleo, and Lailah from Eizen, joins them on their journey, hoping to find a way to save Eizen. Zaveid, on the other hand, tracks him down to fulfill his promise to kill him; he only stops when he runs out of bullets to fire the gun that empowers him and then allows Sorey to try and find another path. Eizen's defeat is optional and only possible once Sorey has fought Tiamat and fully accepts that the only way to save a seraph that has fully turned into a dragon is to kill them. Once Edna and the others kill him, she allows herself to move on. His grave is placed on Rayfalke Spiritcrest's summit, where Edna and the others fought him.

Anime
Some time later during the events of Tales of Zestiria, Eizen was first seen when Sorey decided to investigate dragons after one attacked the city of Ladylake. He was fighting against his sister Edna, who was trying to stop him from causing damage without killing him, when Shepherd Sorey appeared, and tried to purify him, only to be told that someone who had been so corrupted as to become a dragon cannot be turned back. Nevertheless, the two battled extensively until the intervention of Zaveid, who fired magic bullets at the creature, all of which it dodged, despite its immense size.

After escaping from Eizen, Edna later admitted to Sorey that she had spent years searching and searching for a cure for her brother, only to find nothing, and concluded that her brother would almost certainly have to be killed. Nevertheless, Sorey promised that he would find a way to save Eizen, despite her disbelief.

While Eizen and Zaveid continued to battle, Eizen wielding fire, Zaveid using magic bullets, Zaveid cursed Eizen for losing all of his memories of who he was and everything left of his former self. To protect Zaveid, Sorey took in Lailah’s powers and entered his Shepherd form, before using his fire-sword to attack Eizen, dealing several blows but being careful to avoid fatally injuring him, all while Edna watched on in horror, flashing back to the man he had once been. However, eventually Eizen slammed Sorey into a cliff using his tail, before issuing a triumphant roar.

Edna then tried to talk to Eizen and break through to him, standing on a rocky platform, against Zaveid’s pleas. Eizen reacted to her presence by kicking the rock, smashing it, and throwing his sister into the air. He then turned his head towards the still airborne Edna and began to produce flames from his mouth. Sorey was able to collect enough strength to leap into the sky and catch the falling Edna, and while he had planned to lay another strike on Eizen, the moment Eizen’s eyes connected with Edna’s, he recognised her as his sister, stopped emitting fire, and flew away into the sky.

Edna then made a Sub-Lord Pact with Sorey in order to lend him her seraph powers during future battles, and to better help him find a way to save Eizen.

Sorey was finally given hope that he would be able to purify Eizen when he successfully purified another large dragon which attacked the city of Ladylake by spreading its Malevolence into both himself and his squires Alisha and Rose.

Eizen was not cured by the end of the series however, since Sorey became trapped deep within the earth on a quest to purify Heldalf in an act of self-sacrifice, and in a few years seem to have passed (based on the apparent age of Alisha) and the world’s Malevolence level was continually dropping because of Sorey’s actions, and the actions of his successor as shepherd. Due to this Eizen’s mind gradually restored itself and he regained his ability to reason, think and speak, once again becoming a close brother to Edna.

Notes & Trivia

 * Eizen shares the same color palette for his hair and eyes as Edna from Tales of Zestiria. He also wears the same gloves and boots, until he later hands them down to his younger sister.
 * Eizen keeps a pendant with Edna's picture inside it, which shows her smiling.
 * Despite not wearing them all the time, Eizen is seen wearing glasses during the skits in which he reads the letters he received from Edna.
 * In a skit, Eizen is revealed to not being able to swim prior to meeting Aifread. After training and overcoming the disasters, he is able to swim, but he sometimes still needs a life buoy.
 * According to a special Japanese skit that comes with a pre-ordered copy of Tales of Berseria, Eizen's favorite past Tales series character is Ricardo Soldato from Tales of Innocence. Eizen believes they both have an air of death around them; however, Rokurou Rangetsu believes he chose Ricardo because they both wear black coats.
 * This is the first time Eizen's Japanese voice actor, Toshiyuki Morikawa, has voiced a main party character in the series. He has voiced both Dhaos in Tales of Phantasia and Yuan Ka-Fai in Tales of Symphonia.