how hoyoverse ruined kokomi's writing

i think it's safe to say that kokomi deserves better, specifically better writing. she has one of the most interesting lore in genshin impact and the fact that it's never really explored is a crime. especially with how beautiful her design is!!!!

give this girl the spotlight that she deserves please hoyo ;___;

【TIMESTAMPS】
00:00 - intro
00:57 - kokomi's introduction was actually good
05:47 - being the no. 1 victim of inazuma's terrible pacing
12:13 - kokomi's story quest
19:56 - where's THE kokomi centric event hoyo???
25:11 - missed potentials & fan theories

footage credit:
inazuma archon quests: LyurGG
TCG event cutscenes: potatozshara

[burnoutcat]

Orobashi being barely mentionned is kinda annoying. To the point most of the fanbase forgets he was Watatsumi's god and thinks he was a mindless beast Ei killed some day.

[exo_eve]

I always wished kokomi was a more morally grey character like lyney/lynette and others recently. Would have been an interesting development if kokomi knowingly worked with the fatui to try and win the war in a moment of desperation instead of it just being an oopsie. Or had more of an actual hand in the every event of the war. Like if yoimiya and the kamisato clan were directly in cahoots with kokomi so events like the prison breaks or the peacr talks or the ninja mission were actually from Kokomi's direct orders, making her an actual mastermind in the shadows. But no she legit got nothing....


Also can they please stop making character quests date quests... like at this point just give 5 stars hangout quests and keep that shit to those so we can have juicier story quests.

[chrisgonzales]

I know Alhaitham is an "acquired taste" since his personality can turn off people but he's a perfect example of a big-brain actually show off their big-brainness

[Rose-]

i remember seeing a short comic about Kokomi being revealed to be a scary twist character drowning the enemy soldiers in the ocean during the Sara fight and saying something along the lines of "you'll run out of men before the ocean runs out of room for the bodies"
it's very extreme for Genshin standards and absolutely not something they would have done at that point in the game's history but i still love the idea of this pretty and cute character turning out to be a demon on the battlefield

[ishtilodi]

I knew she wasn’t written to be a strategist the second they drove home the point that she writes down hundreds of outlines for each scenario. A strategist would create a plan that already considers all possible weak links and designs counters for them, then manipulates the scenario to bend to their plan. Quantity of plans does not surpass the quality of a single good plan. It just shows you can only problem solve in binaries, not dynamically.

[Erza_dayo]

They could’ve EASILY fused her story quest with the enkanomiya side quest .. she should’ve came with us down there and explained everything and when we get to meet enjou and he eventually turns out to be an abyss lector, it would make an amazing cutscene + kokomi would be a huge help as a trial character against the abyss lector since she can break his shield + the pyro lector has attacks that can severely damage the whole team so having kokomi as the healer could’ve added a great experience to that mini boss fight … aaand with the huge lore drop that enjou gave about the book called before sun and moon ( that literally gives the lore of the start of teyvat + it has ties with orobashi ) … man it could’ve been a heavy lore bomb quest with amazing cutscenes and amazing combat aspect but hoyo just wasted this huge opportunity :’) .. ( and * cough * as an enjou simp I would’ve loved to hear his voice acting more but oh well )

[AJHodgeIV]

Her character needed to be a priestess only, pushed into a war that she wasn’t ready for and didn’t necessarily want. Gorou needed to be the genius military strategist. They overloaded her.

[mang]

As an albedo fan since his release I remember back when we used to speculate about him being a homonculous based on nothing but a few lines in his stories and the names of his constellations...the 2021 winter event felt SO satisfying to play and see the theories confirmed and his lore expanded I simply do not understand why kokomi could not at the very least receive the same grace, especially given how rich in lore enkanomiya is as an area, how relevant kokomi's connections with orobashi and his people are and, most infuriatingly, the fact that the perfect opportunity with the vishap people event was right there ripe for the taking. Kokomi at least conceptually was always one of the most interesting characters in the game for me and as much as she was a victim of inazuma's last act collapsing in on itself I don't think it had to be the end for her (see how ei's second story quest swiftly changed so many people's opinions on her), but unfortunately I think hoyo no longer care.

[iyxon]

And we know they can write big brain genius' because, like you said, Nahida and AlHaitham even pulled the wool over my eyes

[chrisgarbutt]

Kokomi and the Inazuman war held so much potential. The greatest tragedy to me is that Kokomi has never met the Raiden Shogun. Not once. Which is a shame because kokomi wanted to be Ei's cheif advisor before she became the leader of Watusumi. She's the perfect character to learn about the truth of the puppet and help Ei realize what she did wrong and teach her about humanity going forward. Both of them together could have repaired the centuries long grudge Watasumi had against the Shogunate and forge a completely new path for Inazuma.
Its just sad to see hoyo through her away.

[JEvans-wyln]

I remember people theorizing she was either fatui or working with them and i feel like that wouldve made more sense than what we got in the archon story. Instead of kokomi being so incompetent that she accepts supplies from an unknown benefactor despite being a "master strategist" id prefer if she was in on the deal and doing it to win the war regardless of the costs

[Catsaber]

It really is sad that the entire Watatsumi cast suffered (and still do after all this time) from bad writting overall, Kokomi "Genius Strategist" part never got really shown and instead they tried to sell us "Inazuma's Jean" in her story quest, and while they had TWO whole patches of Enkanomiya (the patch where they introduced the new area and the patch with the new event surrounding the area) they just never tried to tie her into anything outside of "go explore it for us", while Gorou went from "Military General who cares about his men" to "Bullied by Yae Miko" and "Miss Hina running gag" that quite frankly it got really boring after the 3rd time of "he doesnt know and we wont let traveler tell him", like i'm not kidding when i say from Gorou's debut in 2.3 up until the very last patch of inazuma, there wasn't a SINGLE patch without Miss Hina not being mentioned somewhere, be it in his Hangout, Iodori Festival, Yae Miko's story quest, Liben's event, Itto's drumalong event, heck even Heizou's hangout for whatever reason. It just baffles me how they already have something that they can use to make both of them better and instead both of them get reduced to "joke" characters for no reason whatsoever. (and this really pains me because those 2 are some of my favorites in this game and every time they appear at this point i'm already expecting hoyo to just reuse their same old troupe for the 54th time =/ )

[jzter]

The archetype of a priestess is to obtain and give forbidden knowledge that is largely overlooked or simply ignored. Kokomi's arc should have been about mystic or esoteric findings about Ei's true nature while everyone is acting a fool.

[TheEulaFan]

Good points for Kokomi. I was honestly infuriated in this summer event. Both Eula and Kokomi deserved better than this 5th (with 6th on horizon) Klee event. And what especially made me mad is the end of second part, where Eula tells that she will talk to her parents in future. It's literally Hoyo's way of saying "We wanted to give Eula her event, but we don't care about her. Please, wait another 1.5 years when we do her dedicated event, where she has a conflict with her parents".

[tmtravlrsgoogleaccount]

I definitely agree, in Sumeru they really improved the character writing, with more show and less tell. I also liked how they left mysteries, like after seeing Alhaitham steal the forbidden knowledge capsule, I wasn't sure if he'd end up being an enemy until the end of the archon quest. So far Fontaine has been interesting too. Hopefully they can keep it up!

[angeldude]

I've been saying for a while that Kokomi is the result of Hoyoverse trying to write a character who's smarter than themselves. She's _supposed_ to be a prodigy in military strategy, but no one at Hoyoverse actually knew the things she was supposed to know, so they couldn't show her knowing those things.
Hoyoverse has definitely gotten better at writing intelligent characters, but there's also the matter of Kokomi's intelligence being highly specialized in a specific field that isn't very common to think or hear about.

[user]

I have massive problem's with Kokomi's writing, and the way even the good elements were executed. Even her introduction is quite bad - Gorou is the driver of that scene, not Kokomi, even though it was meant to be her grand reveal, something everyone was excited for. Let me explain.

In that cutscene you see Gorou and his men fight a battle they cannot win. They're outnumbered and they're going to lose - his men will get imprisoned, the traveler will get captured, and he's going to get his vision taken away. There's nothing they can do but fight until the bitter end. And you can see that defensive aggression in his motions, this is his last stand.
Then Kokomi pops up with reinforcement and gives a confident smile - almost telling everyone that they did well holding out, and they'll be okay now. And you suddenly see the happiness and relief in Gorou's face - a moment ago he was set to lose everything, and now he's saved! I wouldn't have been surprised if the guy started bawling from relief then and there.
Not only that, but he even sees an old friend - Kazuha is here. All of his allies have come to his aid, and they're all there to fight by his side for their shared goals. Even Beidou joins in, and now THEY are outnumbering the enemy, who has to retreat! Morale rises, and you can see how energized they get - they can win.

It's actually one of the best scenes in the game in my opinion. Even though you knew Gorou, a playable character, would be fine in the end, and the traveler will save the day anyway, they still did a pretty good job at making the Gorou, who doesn't yet know his fate, act the way he's meant to. And that's why I say that he's driving this scene.
Take Gorou out, make Kokomi save her men with reinforcements, and you lose all of that. It's still roughly the same, but... you lose so much of that personal touch.
Take Kokomi out, and have Gorou be saved by Kazuha, Bediou and their men (along with some resistance soldiers sent by Kokomi), and you still get quite a lot of emotions, you just miss out on the first wave of relief.
Yes, that still means that you lose out on something, so it isn't like Kokomi's presence is unnecessary there, it's the opposite, she's needed there. But she doesn't drive the scene in the least bit.

And considering that this was her BEST moment, that's saying something. After that, the way they use her character only gets worse and worse.

I think they just set up that scene and story horribly.

[legomaniac]

LMAO I remember after finishing the Inazuma archon quest I didn't really process that the entire Inazuma arc was over because I legit thought there was gonna be more to show like what will happen to the resistance, Kokomi suddenly not important anymore, etc. After a great cliffhanger in Act 1, with Kokomi finally showing up, I was skipping most of the Teppei stuff just to get to the characters I wanted to care about only to realize I finished the entire story quest. Without going online to read what others thought, I remember feeling empty after completing the entire story but I wasn't sure if I missed something important since I did skip a lot. So I wasn't sure if my criticisms were justified because I may have set up unrealistic expectations myself. Glad to hear many people felt the same way about this storyquest. I remember the community crying over Teppei's death and I never understood it because to me he is a basic npc and I cared about other npcs more (Hanachirusato and so on). Kokomi, the smartest general, doesn't realize her troops are using delusions and killing themselves. GTFO of here lmaooo. If they want to write character flaws for Kokomi, that requires you to have a character arc. Teppei getting more screentime than Kokomi and Gorou in the story quest is infuriating and I can not understand why parts of the fandom cry over that npc

[anotherrandomperson]

11:43 hilariously in the recent GAA Kokomi just didn’t even feel like a character… like the entire time I suspected she was also some sort of construct. But no apparently nothing is going on????

[jadecoolness]

Kokomi's introduction was AMAZING, which is why her downfall hit so hard.

What's sad is that Alhaitham was unironically an amazing strategist/planner in Sumeru... if Kokomi had gotten that writing, GEEZ.

The fact that they show Kokomi as a "genius" in an event by having her win TCG is just a joke too... I mean TCG in general is a joke, but still. TCG requires absolutely 0 skill, it's literally just luck, based on the dice rolls you get. What's even funnier is they PROVE this by having you fight Itto using his awful deck, and he uses a "meta" deck, and your winning is entirely reliant on getting good RNG on the rolls. What a joke.