Warning, absolute 100% unadulterated crack on display!

Consider Towa Herschel for a moment. She is cute as a button, makes friends with everybody and is easily the most competent person at Thors. She is in fact too good to be true in the world of Zemuria. Consider how suspicious she is when you look past the surface.

Her age: She is supposed to be one of the oldest students at Thors. Despite this, she looks like she might be older than Miriam if we’re being generous, but younger than the rest.

Her eyes: They’re gold. Enough said.

Her personality; Did I mention how NICE she is yet? This is Kiseki, beware of nice people.

Her name: Towa Herschel, an odd mixing of languages. In fact, I think I’ve seen that somewhere before… oh yes, Nayuta Herschel from Nayuta no Kiseki. They have the exact same last name and both of their first names are Japanese variations on the theme of ‘infinity’. What could the connection be? And this isn’t pure crack, Falcom themselves invited speculation on the topic in the FalMaga article that introduced Towa.

Her past: To put it bluntly, it’s a mystery. We know her family isn’t from Erebonia originally. If you take Towa to the Stella Garten event at the festival she’ll mention that she loves stargazing, a hobby she got from her grandfather. And we never see her family or evidence that anyone else has either.

The references: One of her Crafts is shared with Nayuta. Her S-Craft animation takes the ‘four seasons’ glyph from Nayuta and uses it to empower her gun. Her strongest weapon is even named Nayuta. And the game that introduces her includes a Noi doll as a wearable accessory.

But wait, you say, nothing happens with her in the first two games! Well yes but bear with me because that’s what Falcom wants you to think… Those gold eyes? A red herring, but a clever one. We’ re supposed to think Towa could be another Gnosis victim (which would also explain her frightful competence and unusually youthful appearance) and with Sen II coming and going and giving her too many missed opportunities to be revealed as having a secret identity, they’ve fooled us into a false sense of security. And that’s where Tokyo Xanadu comes in.

Behold Kokonoe Towa:

She looks kind of familiar, doesn’t she? Yes, that’s Towa except that Falcom turned the knob all the way up to 11 on the ‘Cuteness’ factor.  Kondo claims that he just likes using her as a character but I think he’s hiding the truth from the fans. In fact, Towa is a world-hopper, travelling from Falcom world to Falcom world for an agenda only she knows. She came from Nayuta’s world and is in fact Nayuta’s granddaughter (she all but tells us as much at the Stella Garten) as all the references to that game make abundantly clear. She may even possess magical powers if the Mythos can pass on their wings to children of mixed blood. From there she travelled to Zemuria for reasons unknown. As ‘Kokonoe Towa’ is five years older we know she must have world-hopped again within five years of the end of Cold Steel II. As she ends that game going off to who knows where, it could even have happened immediately after but I suspect a little more time has passed.

Once in Tokyo Xanadu’s world, she created an identity for herself as Kou’s ‘cousin’, easily using the power of her Cuteness (and any Mythos-derived ones she may possess) to convince a couple of people who had recently had their worlds turned upside-down that they knew her for their whole lives. She may even be ‘Whitecloak’, allowing Falcom to engage in some meta-commentary by having all of our past crack theories about Towa Herschel be true, but for Xanadu’s Towa instead. I don’t think it matters though, the important thing is that a dangerous force for cuteness has now crossed through three Falcom worlds, all in close proximity to major local disasters (the ‘Second Genesis’, Erebonia’s civil war, the Tokyo Earthquake) and she’s looking for something.

My guess is that she is seeking out fragments of the deities or other supernatural powers that underly each world. She already has the wings of light or at least knowledge of the Mythos and she may possess knowledge of the Sept-Terion from Zemuria… or even an actual Sept-Terion since she’s hanging around a country that has two up for grabs. Now she’s after information about Xanadu. Clearly she is seeking to unify all Falcom worlds under a single power by combining the powers of all the separate worlds into one supreme being.

In other words, Towa is Falcom’s answer to Hoid. Or possibly I’m just going stir-crazy waiting for Shadows of Self to be released and releasing some stress by throwing out all the crack-fodder that Towa has produced. What do you think?