User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Astalos/@comment-4969421-20161106155946

Oh boy where do I begin. Raizekusu is by far my favorite of the Elite 4, along with Mizutsune. I've always been fascinated by insects and other creepy crawlies, and like everyone else here I'm also a fan of dragons, wyverns, reptiles and all that buzz. Raizek conveys traits of my two favorite group of animals in real life, and I cannot help but absolutely adore such masterful design. Raizek takes inspiration from many insects and combines them into a generic Flying Wyvern. The wings of a glasswing butterfly, a horn like a treehopper, his shell is spiky like a thorny devil, earwig tail, his legs sightly resemble a grasshopper's, and he even sounds like a cricket at times! cute! I love how he's almost more insect than wyvern, and how that conveys into its behavior as well: Like his lore states, Raizek is instinctive, a nice counterpart to those monsters that use their brains to fight. In battle, he's by far the most aggressive out of the other flagships. His moveset is vastly different from other Flying Wyverns, barely letting you catch a breath while he assails you with brutal attacks. Like many Thunder-element monsters, Raizekusu can charge itself with electricity, but again does so differently from other Wyverns. Raizek can use pretty much every part of his body as a weapon, and said body parts will eventually charge up by themselves; when they do that his wings will glow neon green and turn transparent, his tail pincers elongate, and his horn becomes a handy axe he can go choppy choppy chop chop with. Raizek is my favorite E4 to fight because I find him the hardest and one mistake can really screw you up. His equipment is awesome, that hammer alone is enough of a reason to give it a ten out of ten in terms of design, but Raizek weapons also have great affinity and sharpness, much like those made out of Neopterons. His music theme is really nice, I just kinda wish Capcom would use something other than electric guitars for electric monsters. I can't really complain, though, Gens' soundtrack is amazing, may as well throw that in now. ...I think I've appreciated on everything there is to appreciate, hopefully I'm not missing anything! Raizek is such an amazing monster, I cannot wait to fight him again in XX, be it a G-Rank version or hopefully, a Deviant.