Nero was unironically a mistake.
I get why people feel this way, honestly. The memes on how she's the favorite really ring true especially in the early game of FGO. And look... I love her too, Nero herself also suffered during her life and has issues the same as all the other servants, but man, too much of a good thing and all of that.
Let's not forget how Nasu said OG seiba Artoria's (No, I'm never going to call her Altria, that's stupid) story was finished and basically just ignore her entire existence in FGO. Despite the fact she's literally the app icon!? She's the face of the franchise!? We really not going to feature her in the main story at all!? Not her meeting with her former knights, facing her sister Morgan, maybe even talking to Mordred (Ha, yeah right!)? Okay...
I just never could uncerstand what was wrong with following the trope of Kitsune depicted as the mysterious cunning pranksters, who can both love humans as well as cause mayhem. And by now I pretty much moved on, though I still hope to find more kitsune content out there.
Oh, also. Fuck you Tobs for writing the Tanuki culture into a wall. You didn't even plan to make any Old Country Tanuki, so why write them to be subservient to the Kitsune, content and ever-loyal? Just re-reading the Tanuki entry in wiki brings back anger...
I care nothing about court drama at the cherry blossom throne because I'm not ever going there, my main input comes from either become their champion (fuck the rest of you trashunes), marrying their long lost lady and distant family of their god and getting a noble concubine they themselves kicked to snowland because she's slightly toasted, none of those actions take me closer to experience them at their weeb country because all I really know comes from their tree, and it full of tropes from anime, that would be fine should he relax instead of trying to write drama
The tanuki have big, heavy balls and that's prime fetish fuel for these people. They would never get a good deal from Savco team
Yes, there really would've been nothing wrong with them just being fantasy Japan. It's needlessly complicating the lore with random anachronistic bullshit that has no place in CoC II anyways. Notice how I said "No place in CoC II", while it would be really hard for you to write a serious portrayal of imperial Japan in a porn game, it's not an impossible idea. I myself wouldn't recommending attempting it, but fortune favors the bold I guess...
None of all this lore about the Old Country would be as pointless if we could, you know,
go over there! But instead we just have to listen to everyone yap on about them. That little event you get where Kiyoko signs away her title just like that really could've been expanded to a full on expansion, but what do I know? I certainly haven't got a document with some drabbles about a potential expansion about this... Nope... Not at all...
Oh, and yeah, fuck Tobs and Savin for holding Onis and Teigu over our heads,
"Oh, we have those in the Old Country! They'll never come here though Ohohohohohohohoh!". They barely did anything with Lady Evergreen and her family, and it probably was thanks to her being a dommy mommy futa (Though not a true futadom) that she's even occasionally remembered.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Meiji restoration the point where samurai still existed but were getting phased out in favor of firearms but they were still around in some capacity? Granted that still doesn't erase the point. He's got early samurai being expansionists and offers nothing to say why their country would be like that when they got blasted back technologically too. And if anything makes the ones we interact with closer to early British settlers in North America just with a Japanese aesthetic.
The samurai were already in decline by the time the Meiji restoration occured. It was after the abdication of the shogun that the daimyo were stripped of their domains and forced into European style peerage while the land was restructured into centralized prefectures under the government.
This basically rendered the samurai redundant, as they were retainers to daimyo, but if the daimyo are gone... what was their purpose? So the Meiji government begain stripping them of their traditional rights and privileges. Many samurai simply accepted these changes for what they were and started to invest their time and money into land and industry or get jobs in the government.
The ones that didn't accept led many small scale rebellions across Japan, the biggest of which was the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.
But again, if the Kitsune got rid of their Shogun when Belhar showed up and Commodore Perry'd their asses, then the first thing they'd do is restructure themselves to a more centralized nation. No more daimyos. Probably no more samurai as well as what could they do that a normal footsoldier couldn't? Probably no more den mothers having free reign. And this all took place before the Godswar mind you, so none of the "gods" were around to do anything about it.