Other BLACK DRAGONS Stuff - Monster Hunter Lore and Ecology

[@madambutterfly1997]

Oh you got it from a book I thought you were sleeping with somebody who has connections to Capcom😂

[@ChronoPinoyX]

I have some connections... however you wanna interpret that (:

[@herbyplayz5813]

🤨📸​@@ChronoPinoyX

[@FatalisCataclysm]

🤨📸​@@ChronoPinoyX

[@Jimmy-g7k]

🤨📸

[@athos9293]

🤨📸​@@ChronoPinoyX

[@Asriel_Cypher]

I personally liked the idea of Safii Jiva being a literal black dragon. As it kinda relates to the lore of "Pray for your life, if you see a Black Dragon" in MH lore that dates so far back. As to indicate that Black Dragons are beings that brings death. I personally would've liked to see Safii Jiva being a black dragon and when it goes "Super Nova" as does every other dragon, its scale and skin turns darker, while his bio energy radiates in Red or Blue, just like his first appearance as Xeno Jiiva. I think it would've made him stick with the "Perfect Life" as well as "Alien Life" in his name.

[@FatalisCataclysm]

I see where you’re coming from, but personally I can’t think of how safi could be even bette- Actually, if they made a custom version of him that’s always in the last phase of his fight the whole time that would be sick as hell Edit: also a black safi with blue energy has a lot of potential but that one’s more iffy

[@ultraspinalki11]

@@FatalisCataclysm but isn't that what he sorta looked like in the very first teaser (5:08)?

[@FatalisCataclysm]

@@ultraspinalki11 yeah, but I still think it would be cool to have the normal safi fight, then the extreme always last phase fight as an event quest or smth

[@_Tzer]

the term forbidden monster applies also in lore with the guild being on a mostly "hush hush" basis remember the destroyed alatreon records.

[@ChronoPinoyX]

Oh yeah definitely. They can still be called that hence my statement at the end. Hopefully we'll get an official name when we get MHWilds in 2025!

[@ohenthevoidwatcher3939]

to be fair, i don't quite like that bit of lore, why burn knowledge that could prevent or lower deaths ?, often times ignorance will not bring peace, it just causes the reaper to harvest more souls

[@martusmartus8976]

@@ohenthevoidwatcher3939 as it was explained in the lore, it was some small group from the guild that thought that something like Alatreon couldn't or shouldn't exist so they just burned it, but easier explanation is, that people are just stupid

[@MeguminDStaff1007]

I have my headcannon that the Black dragons are just a subcategory of monsters within the "1st class danger elder dragons" which monsters like dalamadur, Amatsu, Shantien, shara ishvalda and the other dragons in the Tales of the Five. Its just the Black dragons are the strongest and most mysterious

[@elk3407]

This might be a hot take, but I hope Wilds brings back Safi and expands on the lore. Specifically on being a rival with Fatalis. Maybe even give us a subspecies or two. Imagine getting white crimson and black fatalis with a corresponding Safi’jiiva rival in Wilds. That would be the dream

[@Reymax164]

Chances are low but possible, if not in Wilds, in future titles.

[@niklaspeter2568]

God I wish. I'd love to see black Safi as rival to white fatalis.

[@Zephrese]

@@niklaspeter2568 Do that, and base it off of the Safi'jiiva concept art where it has the whiskers and blue Xeno'jiiva-like "hair" on its body.

[@Goji-Moji]

Slight problem: Safi was originally designed to be a black in coloration, and strong monsters are typically black, this is true. But it extends beyond the 5 “black dragons”-most endgame monsters are black for thematic reasons, like Kulve Taroth, Arch Tempered monsters (especially Nergigante), Amatsu, Gogmazios, Abyssal Lagiacrus or Apex Monsters in 4U, now risen elders in Sunbreak, so on and so forth. Additionally, Fatalis was not supposed to be in Iceborne originally, and the game files suggest Safi was in development from base World-most likely what they meant was noticed all the strongest monsters *in this title* were going to be black with its addition. You’ll actually notice that the cover pages for Alatreon and Fatalis’s sections have unique red flaming borders that no other monsters have, including Safi’Jiiva and Shara Ishvalda, who have the same blue borders as everyone else. It clearly marks them as belonging to their own special category among every other monster in both Dive books. It’s an easy detail to miss, because there’s not any words attached to it, but it’s an important one. Another reason Safi is not a “black dragon” is because of the numerology. I won’t get into the specifics of it, but we’re probably never going to get another “black dragon” because the number 5 is significant to associated symbolism. Safi has **extremely** close ties to black dragons, more so than any other monster, and is comparable in power, but he either isn’t one of them or intentionally blurs the line-and it’s not because he’s not black because that doesn’t matter either. I would argue you’re not wrong for talking about it in a video about the black dragons. Safi’Jiiva is clearly an expansion of the idea and ties into their ecology in a way no other monster is known to do, it’s just technically probably not one of them. Not the least of which because Safi is the “Lao Shan Lung” of Iceborne-not the “Fatalis”. Alatreon was the “Fatalis” of Tri and Dire Miralis was the “Fatalis” of 3U. Originally Alatreon was slotted to be the “Fatalis” of base world but was cut and moved it Iceborne. Safi was originally going to be the “Fatalis” of Iceborne, but popular demand had them make it… Fatalis. That’s why Safi is red.

[@ChronoPinoyX]

The problem with that statement is that they never claimed Kulve to be related to Fatalis in any way. The production note on Kulve makes no mention of Fatalis and has next to no relation to it, Safi'jiiva does. All their design notes of Safi has always revolved around a Fatalis like dragon for the New World with a red colour. The red border indicates official records made by the Hunter's Guild (as indicated by the Ecology notes being replaced with Memorandums) as opposed to records created by the Research Commission. This is something they played with by claiming most of the notes made for Alatreon and Fatalis are delivered as official letters as opposed to notes made by the Research Commission themselves. When you go through the backpages of the book where they note down the recurring events in Iceborne, they put the Alatreon and Safi'jiiva notes under the same page to indicate the events happened in the New World then made a two page spread to document Fatalis in the Old World. More than happy to share those details as even though I can't fully read Japanese, I can still get the gist of things via translators and can always corroborate it with those who speak Japanese (:

[@Goji-Moji]

@@ChronoPinoyX Coming back after the release of the 20th anniversary Super Encyclopedia. There's a small entry on page 71 explaining what the forbidden monsters are, and in it, it lists the 5 forbidden monsters that have been discovered. Safi'Jiiva is not one of them.

[@FatalisCataclysm]

The dire miralis art in that one clip is reeeaaally good Edit: man, I forgot how good safi’s last phase looks, that teaser clip reminded me

[@avocado1714]

Honestly, if Safi *is* supposed to be a rival to fatalis, that should be all the *more* reason for it to be considered a black dragon. Because, what could rival a black dragon in terms of power besides another black dragon?

[@zigayoutuber7256]

Not in lore but gemplay

[@davetolentino8973]

Safi doesn't have connection with Fatalis, Alatreon does.. Fatalis cannot form rivalry with other monsters because they stay away from him the only ones who stood up against him are the hunters.

[@shylight9731]

The Lore Books Quite literally state that Safi'jiiva was designed as a rival to Fatalis! @@davetolentino8973

[@FatalisCataclysm]

@@davetolentino8973he’s talking about the world book where it says smth like how safi is the counterpart to fatalis

[@bluhmer1990]

@@davetolentino8973 You keep saying things like this but you have absolutely no evidence. You're honestly just annoying at this point.

[@kingdrago3753]

Okay I agree with you that safi SHOULD be a black dragon but the page you showed us was just talking about them deciding they wanted to try a dragon a different color then black. So they said red dragon. That had nothing to do with the actual lore of Safi being a black dragon.

[@alexdurain3753]

Safi could be a new tier of dragon, something more powerful than previously documented. Or we could just accept that it’s a Black Dragon.

[@OTBASH]

Interesting, I didn't know that was the intention behind Safi. At this point I think we should get rid of the term "black" dragon though since it makes no sense at this point to refer to the strongest dragons as a specific color when not all of them are that color. "Super Badass World Enders" has a nice ring to it.

[@ChronoPinoyX]

The sooner we get an official group name for these dragons from Capcom the better. As much as I like Capcom's approach of letting the community "build up" their own naming for these dragons, an official one will always be the better approach

[@katrinacomhaire2875]

Unfortunately, 'Dangerous First-Class Monster' doesn't really roll off the tongue quite as well.

[@tigerfalco]

@@katrinacomhaire2875 "Schrade Class"? I know that just off Fatalis, but I like the idea of it being based around feat or something. Or if they wanted to reference World "Star class/level" as a reference to both Safi'jiva and the Sapphire star hunter who was able to defeat them.

[@Bolderox]

may be a hot take, but i wish they stuck with the blue and white of xeno'jiiva The monster screamed "sapphire star" which the game heavily leans into yet his adult form is... red. Would have been cool seeing a dull blue safi'jiiva, that over the fight, absorbing bio energy slowly transforms to a glowing white and blue, showing it absorbing energy unto itself, and raising the tension as you fall farther into the depths of the world, a demon that shines like the heavens threatens the world.

[@neosoul9663]

Far from a hot take I see most people preferring Xeno's design even if Safi's the better fight

[@mazin_iq1499]

Safijiva design is amazing but i think he would fit as the immature form and mid fight his body cracks and reveals his true from as xenojiva. Yeah that would have been cooler.

[@ultraspinalki11]

4:06 Bottom right pic. That's how Safii looked like in the very first teaser trailer of the monster (5:08). They should have kept this one or stayed consistent with the alien-look of his juvenile form instead of becoming a classic-looking dragon like Fatalis.

[@dinosaurnerd]

Capcom out here really giving us welcomed surprises for Monster Hunter

[@TJSeries-Animated]

So now safijiiva is confirmed to be a literal RIVAL of fatalis. Id say he now has a chance to win Alatreon in a turf war.

[@_Tzer]

4:11 thinking about it do we even know if safi is even done maturing yet?

[@ES-dp6tw]

During its introductory livestream, the devs emphasized Safi as the adult form. At best, it may have an arch-tempered state, but so far as the lifecycle goes Safi is meant to be the end point.

[@_Tzer]

@@ES-dp6tw ya never know truly because they can retcon and change anything nowadays

[@ES-dp6tw]

@@_Tzer True, but I'd like to hope Capcom has a smidge more creative integrity than that.

[@ChronoPinoyX]

At this moment in time yes, it's done maturing. Safi perpetually generates energy within itself and only uses the Guiding Lands' excess energy to heal wounds as that takes astronomical amounts of energy. So rather than wait for its energy to replenish passively, it just steals bioenergy to heal itself quickly. That said, it's possible they can do another Fatalis scenario where we see a variation of Safi further changed in future. But it'll be a long time before that happens

[@Oldredscale]

i was hoping arch safi would be a thing and it would be black

[@NotProGamerMan]

4:10 IT TURNED OUT SO MUCH BETTER RED DUDE OMFG

[@freshthemeemer4266]

By technicality, Bazelguese is a forbidden monster

[@erickchristensen746]

I love how some folks were to posted at you for the last video and here we are with you proving them wrong. Some other dude was trying to convince everyone that Fatalis was the only “Black Dragon” classification and was so angry xD

[@immortalstar0138]

They should have kept the whiskers. That way it could have really stood out as a rival to fatalis, western dragon vs eastern dragon.

[@neosoul9663]

Alatreon is a western dragon Fatalis is supposed to be a fusion of western and Eastern dragons(becomes much more obvious with White Fatalis)

[@7om015]

@@neosoul9663 no fatalis IS the western dragon by definition, look up all the legends about dragons in the west world and tell me fatalis doesnt look like it. Alatreon is not based on any other culture tho, its way more fantasy then anything ever seen on legends (with all the things about elements and scales growing backwars, the 2 giants horns and the glow of his skin, nothing ever seen on old cultures). Go check any medieval dragon representation its literally fatalis.

[@badtiming2208]

If lightning unicorns and hot air octopi can be classified as Elder Dragons, then a red dragon being classified as a Black Dragon is not the weirdest shit they've done.

[@Semt9x]

I though Black Draagon is just title given by hunters guild to certain monster because of their sheer destruction level, not because their colored black

[@athos9293]

how do i get this artbook?

[@tigerfalco]

Honestly I dont understand how there's so many arguments about the classifications. I get that in part it's because Capcom doesn't have an official name but it seems strange. From what I can tell theres a class of Monsters, either "Dangerous first class" or "Calamity Class". Monsters in this group tend to be black (Fatalis, Alatreon, etc..) Because they tend to be black, the community coined the term Black Dragon cuz it's shorter than the alternatives. Capcom literally designed Safi'jiva as a black dragon, and said that it Rivals Fatalis in power. Even said Alatreon felt threatened by its birth. So by all intents and purposed Safi is a dragon at the same level of power as other Calamity/Black Dragons, but just happens to be Red because they didn't want every dragon that powerful to be Black in color. Yes Safi isn't a Black dragon in color, or even "technically" in title if you want to argue that "black/red" dragons are "Titles" and not phenotypic descriptions, but she is a Black Dragon in the sense of a shorthand community made name for all the Calamity class Dragons. It seems like it should be really simple...I think people just want to power scale the dragons so if they make a dragon and it isnt Black and standard dragon shaped it's weaker than Fatalis one of, if not, the most powerful. So even if Capcom says another Dragon canonically rivals Fatalis but just happens to be red people want to argue with the company who releases the f'n game. But hey, Black power i guess lmao

[@BestieWeStruggling2749]

How do you get the Iceborne lore book?

[@AaronKnight-fe1vm]

Very interesting video good information

[@Ema4700-l6o]

To be honest safi would have been so much cooler in black

[@ivasanchezify]

So... it isnt a black dragon, was one at early design, changed the color scheme, not anymore on the category, nowhere we can see the "Fatlist rival" part, and on top of that on the 15th anniversary monster showcase all the black dragons were together and safi was not with them and you said capcom acted like he was a forbidden monster but they ended up showing it anyways before the forbidden mosnter rule was lifted

[@cervantesmaxi6536]

Production Notes literally describe Safi as a rival/counterpart to Fatalis... translators are shit for doing fully fledged translations but the "Twin Wall to Miraboreas" was meant to say it's "the Counterpart to Miraboreas", Miraboreas being Fatalis JP name. And the 15th Anniversary video happened BEFORE Safi was released so of course it wouldn't be on it. If you simply checked the date that would have been stupidly obvious why Safi wasn't on it

[@ivasanchezify]

@@cervantesmaxi6536 yes you are indeed true but still that doesn't change it isn't a black dragon, might be a rival to fatalis but it ain't a black dragon only his early design was

[@neosoul9663]

Not giving the final version of Safi the blue glowing underbelly was a huge missed opportunity

[@thebacon9681]

If safi'jiva is canonically a black dragon this changes everything omg

[@7heart476]

Sooooo "Kulve Taroth" is not a black dragon?

[@bluhmer1990]

Of course. Why would you think it was?

[@iammnms]

I don't want to be that commenter but all I got from this unnecessarily long explanation was that ''knowing the fact that the dev team decided to release it as a Red Dragon, you still chose to write it down as a Black dragon.'' Why? Maybe for the click and comment baits. Smart idea but didn't really help your case if one looks into the topic at hand.

[@randomblackgaming4609]

If that's what you got, then you're stupid.

[@Slycarlo]

Unlike other black dragon, safi does not seel civilisation and destroying them

[@erikpoli6275]

Sorry everyone but i realy cant see the way safi jiva can rival fatalis

[@clementdubeaurepaire1463]

You can see the Safi'Jiiva as a nextgen Fatalis

[@nat.m.portant9959]

I don't quite understand your points here. You show a lot of proof that Safi was originally intended to be a black dragon, and then show that he was later changed to a red dragon, but then state that this still makes him a black dragon? The plans changed on his designs, that design changed the lore, but the only things that are cannon are things that made it into the game.

[@ComfortZoneComic]

Xaffi should evolve again/keep evolving and returning......could be a new type of Elder..but was classified as a BD at first

[@haramberoth117]

Love the support for safi so butthurt fans can shut up

[@GunlessSnake]

You're still erroneous in your perception of Safi'jiiva as a "Black Dragon". It's not a Black Dragon because this isn't necessarily an official classification since the group is officially called "Forbidden Monsters" by 15th anniversary materials. Doesn't matter that they're not forbidden anymore, that's still their true shared title which is fully official unlike Black Dragons or "Dangerous First Class Monsters". As well, another key factor is that all other Forbidden Monsters share the title of "Black Dragon". Fatalis is the Legendary Black Dragon, Alatreon is the Blazing Black Dragon, and Dire Miralis is the Smelting Black Dragon. Crimson and Old Fatalis are variations of Fatalis, and considered by proxy. Safi'jiiva is the Red Dragon and never had a Black Dragon title. Finally, there's the matter of design concept. All previous Forbidden Monsters were created under the idea of being a different form of Fatalis, both from a gameplay standpoint and in-universe myths where they were confused with the original Black Dragon. Meanwhile, Safi'jiiva was established from the start to be an entirely separate Monster from Fatalis, one who was never confused for it due to it being a surprise adult form of an already newly discovered species. Safi'jiiva is not a Forbidden Monster, it's its own new Monster entirely who has been created to specifically contrast the Black Dragons of old as the 5th generation equivalent.

[@ChronoPinoyX]

Source? Because based on everything I've read so far Safi'jiiva has always been a Black Dragon. And if you say 15th Anniversary stuff, all the 15th Anniversary material were made BEFORE Safi'jiiva released. The 15th Anni. was celebrated in March 2019, Safi didn't come out till November 2019. I've scouted every bit of information from the 15th Anniversary Event material, not a single statement in there says that a Black Dragon has to officially have the title "Black Dragon" for it to be part of the group. Crimson and White/Old Fatalis were both designed the same way as Safi'jiiva, they wanted to make a different coloured monster but at the time they only had Fatalis at the time so rather than make something new, they made variations of the existing Black Dragon until they made Alatreon. And the term "Forbidden Monster" as I stated in the video was never used by Capcom as an official name. I've not seen a full statement from Capcom where they claim the group is called as such. If there's a credible source for it, I'm more than happy to make another video covering it, but I've yet to find it myself, so feel free to provide that source if you have it!

[@cervantesmaxi6536]

Bruh Gaijinhunter said in his Forbidden Monster video when he translates the production notes for Alatreon that Black Dragons are all designed to have a resemblance to Fatalis. Safi'jiiva was literally mistaken by the entire community as Fatalis before they released it. They don't have to be black in coloration, they can be any color so long as they somewhat resemble Fatalis or a "Black Dragon"

[@GunlessSnake]

@@ChronoPinoyX Gaijin Hunter has a video covering the Black Dragons a.k.a. Forbidden Monsters using information provided to him when he attended the 15th anniversary event in Japan, one that I believe you yourself mentioned in this video. Capcom have never referred to this group at all officially, because they've never mentioned them officially as you yourself stated in the video. And even then, they don't call them Black Dragons, they've only ever given them the overarching name of "Forbidden Monsters" as any kind of true name for their group. Otherwise, they're just known as Elder Dragons like usual. The whole "having Black Dragon as a title" is an inference, yes, but it also entirely makes sense. Black Dragon isn't technically an official term as established above. All the ones we had were either variations of THE Black Dragon, or otherwise were explicitly called Black Dragons themselves. Safi'jiiva, meanwhile, can't be a Black Dragon by title since it's the RED Dragon, and we already know Black Dragon isn't an official group name anyways. And besides that, it's important to note that every Black Dragon was initially created as a version of Fatalis in a sense, sometimes literally in the case of his own variations or more spiritually like with Alatreon and Dire Miralis. Meanwhile, Safi'jiiva wasn't created to be a version of Fatalis according to the Iceborne book (I'm the one who translated ALL of the Large Monster pages for people to read, BTW), and instead meant to directly contrast Fatalis's concept as an archetypal dragon itself and serve as a rival; the rivalry angle ended up being more so with Alatreon, anyways. An additional note is that, unlike Alatreon and Fatalis who are confirmed Black Dragons, Safi'jiiva's section in the Iceborne guidebook isn't style the same way as their sections. Those 2 have sections with "Memorandum", red text to denote that difference, and a lot of passages devoted to historical myths and legends surrounding them. Meanwhile, Safi'jiiva's section has the normal blue text like the other Monsters in the book and has sections entirely focused on its ecology. So even in the guidebook, Safi'jiiva is differentiated from existing Black Dragons instead of being stylistically categorized the same way.

[@Salty-ki7gd]

Except Safi is never stated to be a Black Dragon... they only state her as being a rival to Fatalis, and comparable to Black Dragons when going Super Critical. Her initial concept as a literal Black Dragon doesn't necessarily mean she still is... In fact, I think she should be considered something else entirely considering that she isn't capable of standing up to the Black Dragons without absorbing a monstrous amount of energy from other Elder Dragons and the environment over thousands of years? If Safi needs to constantly absorb energy to maintain a similar level of power to the Black Dragons, she isnt as powerful as they are... because they are that powerful by their own merits, outright. I think Safi has the potential to upset the power balance by constantly draining more and more power to fuel herself, which would eventually threaten the territory of the *highly territorial and hostile* Black Dragons. She probably wouldn't make it that far though, given that both Fatalis and Alatreon became active in response to her amassing power-they would have killed her before she could get strong enough to equal them.

[@GTTB-227]

So what's your point?, what does that thick ass official book do to prove your points? The original Fatalis is black, crimson and white are only its variants. You said this yourself a couple times in this video: Safi was *"ORIGINALLY"* designed to be black, but at the end of the day the final decision was that it's Red, am I wrong? You can't compare that to Fatalis variants because there are no variant for Safi'jiva, Red IS the canonically accurate original color for it, it doesn't matter if the early decision was black, because that concept didn't made the cut. Safi is a Red dragon, anybody with normal eyes can see it, it's such a stupid debate, just accept it and move on, it doesn't matter.

[@Darkrai110]

Honestly I much prefer that black coloration shown in the artbook.

[@anthonypopescu3592]

I hate the alatreon fight😊

[@ComfortZoneComic]

Gg