[“Bayo-Sutra” is a week-long series of short blog posts on Bayonetta that leave discussions of her body and sexuality behind, in the hope of finding more about this fascinating game series to discuss than one issue alone.]

So I’m going to come close to breaking my own prohibition with this post, because the topic is going to make it impossible not to discuss, in some small way, Bayonetta’s physicality as a character. However, I’m going to hope that instead of masticating endlessly over the Is it okay to like this?! question I am now entirely bored of (as are plenty of others), it will be a consideration of a design element that I think is really interesting.

To coin a phrase: the camera loves Bayonetta.

If the earlier post on music didn’t make this apparent, Bayonetta is a performer. Her fighting style is based on dance-like movements and they are filled with excess. Her movements are huge and dramatic when they don’t need to be; she is highly vocal and playful (one of my favorite additions in Bayonetta 2 is that when Bayo succeeds a Witch Time-enabling dodge, she’ll make a quip, like “So close!”); the combat is characterized by excess and being over the top through things like Wicked Weaves. This is the essence of combat in the Bayonetta games: it is as much spectacle as it is combat. In fact it might be more spectacle than it is combat.

One of the cute and interesting ways this plays out is in the use of the camera, both as a literal thing and as a metaphor. More on this after the cut:

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[“Bayo-Sutra” is a week-long series of short blog posts on Bayonetta that leave discussions of her body and sexuality behind, in the hope of finding more about this fascinating game series to discuss than one issue alone.]

Luke with glasses, from Bayonetta 2

So both the Devil May Cry games (which are Bayonetta‘s spiritual ancestor) and the Bayonetta games themselves take place in a world where the “trio of realities” is a major shaping force on the world. In Bayonetta, these three realities are Paradiso, Inferno, and the Realm of Chaos, aka the “human world.” Between all three, connecting them to a certain extent, is Purgatorio, a sort of adjacent, Ethereal Plane-like MacGuffin which makes Bayonetta invisible to normal humans while she walks through the cities of Vigrid and Noatun, but also able to interact with the supernatural forces arrayed against her.

In one of the better little jokes of Bayonetta 2, series staple and journalist Luka Redgrave has managed to get a gift from Rodin: a pair of glasses that let him see into Purgatorio. I’d like to believe that Rodin managed to get Luka in the end, however, considering the design of the glasses (which you can see off to the left). The first time I saw Luka in those glasses, I heard myself say “Why hello, Professor Trelawny!” without thinking. You’re welcome.

In any event, the idea is that in the Bayonetta cosmos, the messengers of Heaven (Angel) and the denizens of Hell (Demons) exist alongside us every day, perfectly imperceptible to us except for those humans who go out of their way to acquire the talent or equipment to do so. Those humans who have magic powers, like Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages, can voluntarily enter or perceive Purgatorio with magic.

So how does this cosmology contribute to the series bringing me joy? Find out after the cut (spoilers for Bayonetta 2 as well).

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[“Bayo-Sutra” is a week-long series of short blog posts on Bayonetta that leave discussions of her body and sexuality behind, in the hope of finding more about this fascinating game series to discuss than one issue alone.]

So if you’ve never played a Bayonetta game you probably don’t know the extent to which music and dance are integral parts of both Bayonetta’s character design, and even the way that she moves in combat. If you’re not a fan of video game music, you might be know about or appreciate the intense amount of music that goes into these games; both Bayonetta titles have soundtracks that are 5 CDs’ worth of songs, which is actually kind of a lot. The typical Japanese video game soundtrack is 1-2 discs, usually, for even particularly long games. Final Fantasy soundtracks of yore are the real juggernauts, with FF6-FF10 having 4 CD beasts chock full of songs for games that could take 50 hours or more to finish. Bayonetta, by contrast, takes about 10-12 hours on average to work through.

Suffice it to say: it’s a lot of music for such a short game.

The importance of the music to Bayonetta‘s ability to bring a smile to my face is the subject of today’s Bayo-Sutra post. But since it contains spoilers for both games, read more after the cut!

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