Millia Rage is a fictional character in Arc System Works's Guilty Gear video game series. She first appeared in the 1998video gameGuilty Gear. In the series, Millia is a retired assassin who fights with her own hair, which is prehensile and able to change its size and shape. This ability of manipulating her hair has been received with both praise and criticism by video game reviewers who have commented on the character with mostly positive statements.
Creation
Millia is named after American thrash-metal band Meliah Rage. Daisuke Ishiwatari created Millia's character to, through her relationship with Zato, convey the message of how is the feelings of a person who loves someone who is rejected from society.
Appearances
After the death of her parents, she is adopted into a nearby assassin syndicate, the Assassin's Guild. There, she learns the Sixth Hi-Deigokutsuipou, "Angra", which allows Millia's hair to model as she wants. Due to Zato-1's rise in power within the Guild, Millia seals him within a dimensional portal, and abandons the guild shortly thereafter, finding no comfort in the cruel ways of an assassin. In Guilty Gear, Millia uses the Second Holy Order's Fighting Tournament as a method of tracking down Zato, who has escaped from the dimensional prison, to kill him. However, she can not do it as she is manipulated like the rest of the cast, and the bloodshed from the tournament releases Justice from her slumber. She still in search of Zato in Guilty Gear X. Panicked with a Gear with free-will countries establish another tournament, with a prize to who captures the Gear. Millia uses this as another chance to find Zato. Canonically, she finds him, seemingly killing him. Unknown to her, a symbiotic creature named Eddie takes control of Zato's body. In Guilty Gear X2, she receives sightings of a being similar to that of Zato's Forbidden Beast, Eddie. In XX, Millia has three different endings. In the first, faces Slayer just before she is about to confront Eddie. After a fight Millia manages to hold her ground but is unable to defeat him, Slayer tells Millia that her hair is of the same origins as Eddie, though Millia says she already knows it. In the second ending, she defeats Slayer and subsequently kills Eddie. The third ending shows that, after killing Eddie, she buries Zato's body. In Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, Millia sets off to find and kill Eddie and destroy the Assassin's Guild. In her first ending, she finishes her vendetta, as she slays Eddie. She continues to live on a run from the Assassin's Guild, but did not falter in her mind and continues to keep her hair under control. In the second ending, however, she loses the control of her hair and accidentally kills Bridget. As she stands horrified on her act, she is accidentally stabbed in the back by her fan, but she felt content as she died as herself, not as a monster. By Guilty Gear Xrd, Millia had made peace with Venom and worked together with him to find the resurrected Zato-1. Millia is also a playable character in the spin-off gamesGuilty Gear Petit, Isuka, Dust Strikers, and Judgment.
Reception
Millia Rage was referenced by Destructoid as being "a classic Guilty Gear character and fan favorite". In a 2013 poll conducted by Arc System Works, Millia was voted as the 13th most popular character from the series. IGN staff was impressed by the animation of Millia's hair movement as it "has a life all its own as it launches out at enemies, repels attack, and surrounds her." In addition, they stated she is "just terribly cute", a sentiment shared by GameSpot's Greg Kasavin who labelled her as "cute yet not-so-surprisingly powerful". IGN also noted her as one of "Guilty Gears faster characters", a remark shared by Todd Ciolek from Anime News Network. She was included in the Complexs list of "The 25 Best Looking Sideline Chicks in Games", with the writer Elton Jones saying she "stands out to us the most" due to her ability to cause damage by using only her hair. The ability caused her to be called a "Medusa-esque" character by Miguel Lopez from GameSpot. In a Guilty Gear X review for Allgame, Gavin Frankle said no other character from the series had a more "unique fighting style" than Millia. It also led her to be featured in an article titled "Gaming's 19 most impractical hairstyles" by GamesRadar's Lucas Sullivan, who said what she can do with her hair "is truly impressive", and described her hairstyle as "The Rapunzel". This latter feeling was shared by Ciolek, who noted the similarities between Millia and the Rapunzel from Disney's film Tangled. The ANN's reviewer declared he was not impressed by Bayonetta as he felt the main character is "a rip-off" of Millia. Ciolek noted similiraties between their hair manipulation abilities, stating "The only real difference is that Millia doesn't actually wear her hair or get nearly naked in battle". On the other hand, IGN said "Millia Rage takes bizarreness to lofty heights", and ranked her hair as the sixth "goofiest weapon" in their Top 10. Similarly, she was mentioned by 1UP.com as one of Guilty Gears "goofy characters" along with I-No and Faust.
