Axl Low

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Axl Low
Game series Guilty Gear series
First game Guilty Gear
Created by Daisuke Ishiwatari
Voiced by Keiichi Nanba
Information
Birthplace Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom

Axl Low (アクセル=ロウ Akuseru Rō?) is a character in the Guilty Gear fighting game series, making his first appearance in the first game, Guilty Gear, though his story and character change and develop further in the later games. He employs a strangely modified kusarigama, which, instead of a weight at the end, has another kama, and a thus-far unexplained control over fire. His personality can be described as laid-back or lighthearted, and despite his consistent failure to solve his problem, he always keeps a fairly upbeat attitude.

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[edit] Character design

Axl Low is modeled and named after Axl Rose, frontman for Guns N' Roses. Axl Rose also wore a British Flag of a similar design. [1]

Axl's appearance notably changes between Guilty Gear and Guilty Gear X. In Guilty Gear, he is portrayed as a very large, muscular person. However, since Guilty Gear X, he is portrayed as having a much more average physique, if slightly thin, and is more fully clothed.

In the original Guilty Gear, the opening guitar riffs in Axl's theme "March of the Wicked King" are similar to the ones in the Guns N' Roses song "You're Crazy".

[edit] Story

[edit] Background

Axl is a bit of an involuntary time traveller, and actually comes from the 20th century, over one hundred and fifty years before most of the Guilty Gear story takes place. His main goal seems to be to return to his own time period, mainly because of his desire to return to his girlfriend, Megumi. For this reason, he seeks out various ways to do so, and is continually attempting to solve the mystery of why it is that he "slips" through time in the first place.

[edit] Guilty Gear

Axl enters the Sacred Knights Tournament in hopes of finding a way to get back to his own era. He was apparently led to believe that the winner of the tournament could have a wish granted them. In his ending, he defeats Justice and is hailed as a hero. This is unlikely to be canon, and Sol Badguy's ending is more likely. He also declares that he will stop actively looking for a way to get home.

[edit] Guilty Gear X

In the second game, Axl is wandering about, looking for Faust, in hopes of being cured by a doctor of such skill. He encounters various people on the way, and fights them, chalking it all up to bad luck. Then he meets up with Sol Badguy. After this, the path splits. In one ending, Axl fights Kliff Undersn and Justice, and then realizes that he's been thrown back in time once again. In the other (more likely) ending, he battles Faust, and then is diagnosed with involuntary timeslipping. Faust blames this on there being an alternate version of Axl in existence.

[edit] Guilty Gear XX

Through story mode, Axl meets up with I-No, among other people, while wandering about. As is the case with many other characters, I-No is the catalyst that causes the events that follow. In one of his three endings, he ends up fighting a future version of himself. In another, Axl fights with Zappa, and afterward begins to wonder how Megumi is faring. In the third ending, he meets up with "That Man" and finds out from him that Raven is the cause of his timeslipping, and it is implied that Raven is the alternate version of Axl that was diagnosed by Faust. This allegedly has something to do with actions performed by Axl later on. Perhaps more light will be shed on this in later games. Interestingly, since the three endings have nothing to do with each other, and don't contradict each other in any way, it's entirely possible that they all happened.

[edit] Related characters

Axl seems to have some sort of story connection with I-No, as he consistently claims to recognise her. He also seems to know Sol quite well, and vice versa. He apparently has a photograph of Sol as a child, and talks to him like an old friend. Given Sol's age and Axl's time travelling, this is more plausible than one would think.

[edit] Megumi

Megumi is Axl's girlfriend from his own era. Little is known about her, except that he is obviously devoted enough to actively seek a route back in time to rejoin her. One of Zappa's ending hints that her spirit is actually the ghost, S-Ko, that is possessing Zappa. Her silhouette, as seen in one of Axl's Guilty Gear XX Λ Core Plus endings, does very little to disprove that theory.

[edit] Raven

Raven is one of That Man's four servants -- the other three being I-No, Justice and an unknown and unnamed individual who is completely covered from head to the ankles (this character appears during one of Sol's endings in Guilty Gear X Plus, and makes an appearance in an official artwork along with That Man and his other subordinates). Even less is known of him than is known of That Man, except that he has some sort of connection with Axl Low, described by That Man as a "parallel existence."

In the Guilty Gear novel Lightning the Argent, he battles both Faust and Sol Badguy, defeating Faust in an interdimensional battle and essentially ignoring Sol's fire attacks through regeneration. Raven at this time claims that he cannot feel the heat from Sol's flames.