Hero of This Story opened in December, 2006, so it is currently on it's third "page", as I will call the versions. The Story part of the title makes me think of books!

It wasn't difficult picking the name, which is kinda rare for me! It's named after a song by Regina Spektor, a really talented, young artist. The lyrics go; "I'm the hero of this story, don't need to be saved". Balthier insists on being the leading man, whom he says can never die, so it just felt perfect.

The layout was made in Photoshop 7, with brushes and patterns coming from Portfelia, The Magic Box and In Obscuro. It features Balthier's look in the upcoming Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War, a remastered version for PSP where Balthier is going to make an appearance. He looks so cute in the noseless Tactics style.
I wanted to make a much lighter layout this time. It feels more spaceous than the previous ones and I'm proud that the background isn't totally gray. I used lyrics from the theme of Firefly, a sort of sci-fi western TV-series. The protagonist of Firefly has a few things incommon with Balthier, read more in the Look-a-Like-section.

Page One In this layout I experimented and improvised the final result, without much of a thought behind it. I liked the way the image turned out but the gray background reminds me of rainy days~
Page Two I tried to do something a little more colourful and fun this time. Nono and Montblanc also made cameos in each section!

First and foremost reason: He's a bishounen. I'm a rabid fangirl in the closet. ^^;
The first thing I noticed when the CG art was released was that he looked alot like Shinji Mimura from the Battle Royale movie, and Balthier too turned out to be the cool guy among the crew! He's handsome, he's skilled and he knows it. A little cocky, but ever-charming. Square knew the ingrediens for making a character that would have the fangirls melt!
Unlike earlier ladiesmen of FF, like Irvine or Zidane, Balthier seems more mature and somewhat unreachable. He hasn't actually chased any girls thus far in the game, just shown consideration, like when he gave Penelo his handerchief and said "I will wear it close to my heart"(in the english version, that is) when she gave it back. Even though Basch is the knight of the party, Balthier's acting sometimes reminds me of oldschool courtly love chivalry~
I believe it shows that he has respect for the female characters around him. ^^ Heck, Zidane even grabbed Garnet's ass in FFIX and with Fran's and Ashe's outfits even I'm tempted to do the same. Yet Balthier only treats them as people, he's even a bit harsh towards Ashe at times.
Basically this dude is the one every girl wants to have and every guy wants to be! Admit it, doesn't he just make you wanna go 'Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum?"'