Lola is a self-aware battle support robot developed and built by Copen and one of the supporting protagonists of Azure Striker Gunvolt 2. A chippy, energetic personality, she works as Copen's constant partner in the field, supplying him with his EX Weapons.
Referred to as a Combat Pod (バトルポット Battle Pot), Lola's true form is a small spherical robot. However, she can use the Septima The Muse contained in Joule's Mirror Shards to take on a human-looking form called Ultra Mode[3] / Idol Mode[4] (Japanese: Pドール P-Doll, short for Phoenix Doll).
Lola is an Autonomous Combat Pod (ACP) designed to regulate the control of Copen’s personal array of combat drones, also known as bits. Because of this, she thinks of herself as kind of Copen’s official guardian, for better or for worse. During her AI development period, she would often serve as a conversational partner for Copen’s little sister. Through this, she picked up the habit of referring to Copen as “Boss.” At a certain point in the story, she gains the abilities of The Muse, just like Joule.[5]
Usually, Lola's form is that of a floating white and red sphere with blank yellow eyes.
In her Muse form, Lola appears as a young teenage girl with short mint-green hair and purple eyes. She wears a red and white leotard with bits of gold, and white knee-highs with black and red shoes, as well as black gloves with red fingers. She also has two white and red disc-like objects known as "Speaker Pods" that broadcast songs at her hips, which also sprout reddish-orange wing-like holograms which vaguely resemble phoenix wings.
Compared to her no-nonsense, serious partner, Lola is a far more eager and colourful character, often quite loud and energetic, unlike a stereotypical robot. This is due to the fact that Lola was quite close with Mytyl before the events of Azure Striker Gunvolt 2, and, as a result, adopted some of Mytyl's own quirks and personality traits. She doesn't like waiting on the sidelines, and enjoys taking part in the action, frequently cheering Copen on during his missions. She has quite the short temper, instantly lashing out at Asroc for calling her a "pet".
Lola is also quite close to Copen, her time spent with Mytyl making her act almost like a guardian angel to her creator. It's even suggested that she may also have romantic feelings for him, as she appears noticeably flustered and flattered whenever Copen is protective of her. Her feelings for him are only more emphasized in Clockwork Daydream, where she supposedly dreams about going on what is essentially a date with him and letting him rest his head on her lap. In the Clockwork Daydream creative notes, the possibility of either the "love" within the Mirror Pieces or Joule's residual thoughts influencing Lola is mentioned.[7]
History
Background
Development on Lola began sometime during or prior to Azure Striker Gunvolt. Her AI was developed through extensive conversation with Mytyl, resulting in her seeing herself as Copen's guardian of sorts.
When the malfunctioning Seraph begins to crash towards the city, Lola redlines her A.S. Drive and Bits to fire the Heartblazer cannon, destroying its engines and allowing Gunvolt to safely land the ship.
After Zonda and Tenjian trap Joule's power in Mirror Shards and GV and Tenjian fight, Lola sneaks up to Tenjian and snatches one of the shards.
With Mytyl in tow, she and Copen return home.
Copen's Route
Lola absorbs the Mirror Shard to try and analyze it, but she can't get any results other than "it contains Septimal power."
When she and Copen go to visit Mytyl, she starts to feel a burning sensation before she suddenly takes on a human-looking form with the power of The Muse, much to everyone's surprise.
Throughout Copen's battles against Eden, Lola can use this form to sing for Copen, activating his Overdrive subroutines and reviving him with Anthem when he falls. Additionally, every time Copen defeats a member of Eden's Seven, Lola takes in the Mirror Shard used in their Grimoire and acquires a new EX Weapon based on their Septima.
In Copen's route, when he and Lola finally confront Zonda, Zonda uses Mytyl's presence to steal all of Lola's Mirror Shards and transform into her Reverie form. Lola has a backup to keep her EX Weapons running, but her Muse abilities are disabled.
In Copen's route, after he defeats GV, a mysterious force takes control of Lola and manifests her Muse form. She sings an Anthem alongside Mytyl and Joule, reviving and empowering GV until Copen defeats him again.
In GV's route, Lola uses EX Weapons derived from the six main GV1 bosses to help perform Copen's SP Skill "Guilt Sequence". After GV defeats Copen, Lola's Muse form manifests alongside Joule's near Mytyl, and together they sing an Anthem that revives and empowers Copen until GV defeats him again.
Epilogue
After Copen takes the re-powered and amnesiac Mytyl home, he disowns himself as a Kamizono and prepares to leave Mytyl, Nori, and the family mansion behind permanently. Lola follows along, ever the loyal sidekick.
In addition to making an appearance as both a skill and passive Image Pulse, Lola's pod form makes a cameo in the game's joke ending as Magical Girl Mytyl's staff and Xiao Wu's pendant.
Copen as a DLC playable character has Lola following him and controlling his P-Bits like in Gunvolt 2. The appearance of Lola's pod form changes depending on the element of the custom EX Weapon that Copen has equipped. When Copen reaches low health, there is a chance that Lola will turn into her Muse form and invoke Anthem on him, restoring a small amount of his health.
Lola has several different pixel stickers, including her pod form appearances that can be collected by enemy drops.
Lola appears in the crossover roguelite card-battling RPG Card-en-Ciel as a Muse card and enemy support representing Azure Striker Gunvolt 2. As a Muse card, when certain conditions are met she appears and sings a song that grants abilities.
Cond: Inflict Break 3 times on an enemy with Break Points. Effect.: Each turn, Forge a 0 Cost Copy of the first card to inflict Break on an enemy with Break Points.
Curiously enough, both her and Joule'sGV2 version Muse sprites lack a glint in their eyes, which is contrary to their official appearances in the series and their Muse sprites for other versions of them.
Abilities
As a combat-support unit, Lola controls the P-Bits that surround Copen. She can send them flying around for Copen's Shred Storm, activate any EX Weapons that Copen has acquired from Adepts, heal wounds, or activate the Flashfield.
Lola is also able to redline her A.S. Drive in tandem with the Bits to fire a beam cannon called "Heartblazer". This laser is powerful enough to damage the engines of the airship Seraph, but is not usable in actual gameplay.
In the cutscene following Aggressor (Downtown), Lola appears to surround an unconscious Mytyl with a spherical purple barrier and telekinetically carry her away. This may be the same ability as the "Capture Field" alluded to in Luminous Avenger iX.
Lola can manifest her Muse form when at least one of Joule's Mirror Shards is in her possession. In this form, Lola's A.S. Drive can have high output and work in a stable manner through The Muse's power, greatly increasing the energy supply to Copen's White Tiger jacket. However, manifesting it requires a complex interaction of several factors including Lola's Septima analyzer, her A.S. Drive, the emotions of her AI, and the resonance of the Mirror Shards with Mytyl, which Copen does not fully grasp.[8]
In gameplay, Lola will take on her Muse form while Copen has over 1000 Kudos, or after she revives him with Anthem. This causes all of Copen's equipped Overdrive Subroutines to become active.
Anthem
ソングオブディーバ、Song of Diva
「リミターカット！ フルドライブ！」- "Removing the limiters! We're going full power!"
「負けないで、アキュラくん！」- "Don't give up, boss!"
Lola's Muse powers allow her to invoke Anthem on Copen, which becomes available in-game after clearing Aggressor (Downtown) and selecting Copen on the character select screen for the first time. Whenever Copen is defeated, there is a chance that Lola will restore him to full health, though his abilities will not be enhanced aside from the activation of his OD Subroutines.
The stage music is overridden by Igniter upon use.
Copen can increase the chance of Anthem activating by talking to Mytyl before missions.
Anthem cannot activate when Copen dies by falling down a pit.
Copen's Kudos are locked at 0 while under Anthem.
If Copen dies while already under Anthem, it will not activate and save him a second time.
Lola was something with an ambiguous image at first: she was idol-style or nurse-style…. I foresaw that the designing work would be very hard. And thus I began to think of how to make her flashy enough so that she wouldn’t lose to Lumen and Joule in terms in looks and whether there was anything that symbolizes rebirth like Lumen did: the answer I reached was the phoenix. Once the motif was established, I exchanged a lot of ideas with Araki-san: she steadily and firmly began to take shape, which was a hard work yet very exciting at the same time.
-- Yoshitaka Hatakeyama
I thought that, since she’d transform, she wouldn’t remain a robot but I did stray a lot with idea such as “an idol-like songstress!” or “she’s a servant of Copen, she must be a Sister!”. In the end I returned to the SF suit draft which I’d discarded at the beginning. I did think “again!?” at the shrine maiden motif but she has a chihaya* image that helps her successfully differentiate from Lumen, no? I did think of a design in which the Battle Pot ball transformed but it was very hard (to do) so I quickly switched over to a mascot-type (character). The thing that Hatakeyama-san drew in a corner of Copen’s (design) looked good but was too cute so I had him tune into a inorganic but nevertheless charming design. The decoration on her head is inspired by a Alice band, typical of girls.
-- Munehiro Araki
T/N: A chihaya is an outfit worn by women in religious acts.
Instrumental remix of Igniter that plays when Lola first gains her Muse form.
(Unlisted)
Trivia
The earliest conception of Lola was actually a cute robot girl boss character for GV1 named Q-TRON, but unlike the also-scrapped Plasma Legion boss, she never reached the design phase. The concept of her was brought back for GV2 when Copen needed a Muse character and partner to talk to in stages. The Heart Blazer skill was meant to be her lethal move. Also, the bits that Lola uses were added because Copen's own design doesn't have any flowing parts like GV's hair and coat.[10]
The name Q-TRON, Lola being named RoRo in the Japanese version, and the Heart Blazer skill are all references to the second game Inti Creates developed, Love & Destroy. The game has three robot girls known as Q-TRONs with the names ViVi, LuLu, and KiKi, and the Heart Blazer is an attack in that game.
During the original voice recording of GV2, one of the directions Yurika Endo was given alongside "AI" and "idol" was "a certain cat-shaped robot".[11] This likely referred to Doraemon.
In the Japan exclusive drama CD Clockwork Daydream, "RoRo" uses her English name, "Lola", as an alias, making it the first time a character's English name has been used within Japanese material.
Before settling on Lola, it was considered to give Copen a trio of muses that would sing in tandem. This was dropped for volume concerns.[12]
This concept may be based on ViVi, LuLu, and KiKi in Love & Destroy, who have similar colors.
The idea was later realized to a certain extent in Card-en-Ciel, which allows up to five muses to perform at the same time, although only one song is played. Coincidentally, there are three versions of Lola in that game.
Another early idea was for Lola to completely change her design in her humanoid form (instead of her pod form) whenever she changes the EX Weapon she is using. This was scrapped due to how much work it would require.[13] The idea was partly revisited in Luminous Avenger iX with the EX Weapon Darkness Trigger.
In early GV2 English promotional materials, Lola was named LoLo.[14]
Lola shares her eye color with Asimov, whose blood was analyzed to create her A.S. Drive. In Luminous Avenger iX, her eye color is blue instead, matching Gunvolt. In that timeline, Copen never retrieved his gun and with it Asimov's blood.
Both of the Japanese voice lines of Lola's Skill Image Pulses in GV3 are recycled audio of Mayu Mineda, the Japanese voice of iX Lola, from the first Luminous Avenger iX game.
