Another character from the series whose design I wanted to talk about, one that is close to my heart, is Roxas, my top fave character in the KH franchise. Roxas is the character that introduced me to the KH series. He’s the character I thought the most about.

I loved his personality and design and I wanted to talk about it though Nomura already explained Roxas’s design concept. This post is just my attempt at explaining his design.

Name:

His name is straightforward but is deep and enriched in meaning that has something to do with her nature and his supposed role.

Roxas’s name is the anagram of Sora and x used like this:

Sora + X = Roxas

This is used to signify that Roxas is the nobody of sora with Roxas name being an anagram of Sora’s name.

The x is what organization 13 uses in their names with the anagram of x and the member’s real name when they were once human.

The x in Roxas’s name is a lot deeper than what you think. X is part of the roman alphabet pronounced “Chi” or “kye.“

The x is called the resultant Sigil pronunciation similar to the roman alphabet or kye or key. This is given to the organization members. The x sigil is used by Xemnas to locate members of the Organization so he can use them for his goals. The x is a symbol designed by Xehanort to represent the rejection of a nobody to form his original persona so he can control them.

X is symbolic of death. This notes Xemnas’ objective with the members. He plans to use the artificial kingdom hearts to make the members the intended vessel of Xehanort’s heart once it has been completed. Xemnas plans to use all the original organization members’ vessels once kingdom hearts are met. Xemnas added x in their names, which x is the mark of an intended vessel.

He needs the person’s original self to die first so he can use them as a vessel. He needs the person’s original self to die first so he can use them as a vessel. The x symbol for death symbolizes the death of the self. organization 13 members are marked to signify the death of their original self.

Design:

To keep with Kingdom Heart’s themes of connection, Roxas’s design encompasses these concepts

Roxas’s design concept is based on the concept of between since nobodies exist between light and dark not belonging to neither. It alludes to nobody. Roxas has many elements in his design that correlate directly to nobody which is seen best in his outfit.

The zippers seen throughout Roxas clothes look like teeth from the mouth of dusk, and dusks have notable zipped mouths in their designs. 

The X cross zipper on Roxas clothes is the same emblem nobodies have; the cross is a motif for nobodies, Roxas X shaped zipper pull is modeled after a nobody symbol.

Nomura said the X is symbolic of the crossing of dark and light. Nobody are beings that neither belongs to light nor darkness this part in his design hints at his true nature as a nobody in a more subtle way

Another interesting detail is in his black and white rings on his fingers and the black and white checkerboard pattern of his wrist band on his left wrist, Nomura stated that the checkers in Roxas’s clothing represent light and darkness this goes well with nobodies since nobodies are being that belong to neither.

Roxas’s first design is based on Sora.

Roxas original design was supposed to look like sora since he’s his nobody and the person nobody looked similar to their original person. His hair isn’t as spiky as Sora’s; it’s clear that Roxas’s hair is meant to be similar to him with his jacket resembling Sora’s white kh 1 jacket in the concept art. Roxas was designed to resemble Sora, but with as much agency Roxas has in his character arc, his looking like Sora would have not done him any good.

Roxas has created contrast Sora,

Roxas is designed to bear similarities since he is his nobody but retains his individuality.

This is seen in their clothing. While Roxas is designed to be an urban child to contrast Sora’s country child

Roxas has slightly narrow eyes; his hair is the same length as Sora’s.  But his blonde hair contracts Sora’s brown hair Roxas harbors the same face as Sora right down to the same pixels.

Roxas’s main color is white, the basis used in his clothes in contrast to Sora’s black clothes.

Roxas’ image color is white, white is the color of nobody, it’s the color of Dusks, the first nobody we see in the game.

White is the absence of color, white is the color of nothingness being a color of blank, nothing. This goes well with the enemies nobodies in the games that are a blank slate made to be transparent since white is a color with nothing in it.

Roxas’ white jacket and pants being white on black goes with how nobodies are seen with white on black.

This took a while to summaries since there are a lot of intricate details of Roxas design. If I forgot to add anything or I’m wrong feel free to correct me.