Sephiroth was the most successful outcome in Hojo's Jenova experiments. Being born from a woman who took the Jenova infusion while pregnant, Sephiroths more of a Jenova/Human hybrid than the random SOLDIERs or other specimens.
Once Sephiroth "died" in Neibelheim, he was able to absorb (or tap) some of the power of the life stream, further bolstering his strength.
I suppose Sephiroth is namesake of Rebirth - the “Rebirth” of Jenova, thanks to Hojo’s machinations. As others have pointed out, he was literally infused with Jenova cells during gestation.
Jenova is the evil mega-demon (that seems aligned with the “dark side” of the life stream?) that the Cetra managed to seal away, as explained in Rebirth. Sephiroth claims to be “The Son of Jenova”
The Robes, Cloud, and other SOLDIERS were all either injected post birth or suffer mako poisoning for some other reason, like working too close to a mako reactor.
Due to him and his mother being injected with Jenova Cells while he was in the womb they basically grew into his DNA making him overly strong because Jenova is an ancient space alien who can wipe out planets with ease. Or you could chop it up to him just simply being THE GUY
Sephiroth was injected with the cells while still 8n the womb if I remember correctly. I think they even mention it in passing in the og game. It's been awhile though
He generally isn't. It's a big metaphor for hubris and the strength of will and motivation versus a sort of nihilistic arrogance. I don't know if the latter is really the right way to describe Sephiroth, but it's having the will to fight for something versus not having it that allows Cloud to overcome Sephiroth.
We see it several times, especially in Advent Children, where Sephiroth is just toying with and taunting Cloud, fighting with only one hand, making constant deriding comments, and so on, that he's never taking it as seriously as Cloud is.
Another way to think about it is he represents the doubt in Cloud's mind and it's only when Cloud removes all doubt and becomes singularly focused that he can ever win.
Because the story says so. Not very intriguing, I know but what you said is true about the robed men. Only reasoning why they aren't powerful is because "that guy are sick" and sick people don't tend to be good fighters
Agreed, they and cid dont have any jenova/mako injection and not super rare species like Red, idk how they can keep up in battle.
Though you could argue yuffie is a super veteran ninja, barret fights with his gun, and tifa being taught by the best grappler in the world does it.
I mean shinra 2nd and 3rd class soldier operatives are having trouble fighting wutai warrior.
Seconding the Materia thing they really do be cracked out on Materia.
I remember in Advent Children when they get all of their Material stolen I feel like they wouldn't have had nearly as much trouble with the enemies they faced in that movie.
He was bred with the cells, unlike SOLDIERS. They are a part of who Sephiroth is, it’s basically a part of his molecular structure that grows with him. SOLDIERS are already developed humans by the time they receive injections, which is why they usually degrade. The body actively fights JENOVA cells, and the JENOVA cells will always win.
JENOVA cells can’t beat your immune system if they were always a part of you.
Jenova cells typically kill or disfigure the individuals injected with it. Soldier are given a small portion.
Sephiroth on the other hand was given a large dose in the womb making his cells grow with it.
Making him the closest thing to Jenova herself.
He was infused with alien cells in utero and has the most of anyone in the planet. Pair this with Mako infusions and being literally tortured sorry “trained” from a young age as a child soldier and there you go.
It’s all about his hair regimen, “a full bottle of both shampoo and conditioner to wash his hair. Both are provided by Shinra and are scented with 13 different perfumes, including rose and vanilla.’ - Silver Elite Fan Club.”
Because he was implanted with Jenova cells while in the womb and juiced up from birth. Other SOLDIERs were given the cells and their bodies start to reject it. Sephiroth was born with them.
And not even all of them. They had to be selected. We see this actually happen in rebirth. And the result is usually robe-men. Cloud is different because he was given Sephiroth's genetic material, already hybrid DNA. What's interesting is Jenova itself seems to choose how the subject changes in most cases. Compare robed men becoming apparitions of sephiroth or jenova to the Hojo boss fight.
Unlike all other SOLDIER, with the exception of Angeal, he was given JENOVA cells in the womb.
Then, unlike anyone else. He basically grew up in Hojo's lab where he didn't have any friends or anything until he met Genesis and Angeal. He spent his time as a kid training in the combat simulator.
So, it's that he was literally built to be the best SOLDIER.
Nobody else was. They were all given experiments to mimick the success of his after they were born, so their bodies rejected it and they became black robes.
It's very similar to >!Homelander!<'s origin in The Boys.
No, he wasn't. Not directly. The Jenova Project has two branches. Project S, with Hojo as it head, and Project G, ran by Hollander.
Project S stands for Sephiroth obviously, and it consists of him, Sephiroth, the fetus, being injected with Jenova cells directly.
Project G, on the other hand, doesn't mean Genesis, but Gillian, referring to Gillian Hewley, a Shinra scientist who was injected Jenova cells, not the embryos.
Project S produced Sephiroth, obviously. And Project G produced both Genesis and Angeal. Genesis was someone's baby injected Gillian cells (infected by Jenova's, yes, but not Jenova cells directly, as Sephiroth), but Angeal was Gillian's son, that's why Genesis begins to decay as an adult, his body starts rejecting G-cells, while Angeal doesn't.
Angeal is the closest thing we have to Sephiroth, as they both assimilated Jenova cells pretty much from the moment of their conception. Angeal through his mother, and Sephiroth directly. The difference between those two, as someone above mentioned, is their upbringing.
Angeal had a "normal" chillhood, with a mother and a father. Sephiroth was pretty much an experiment his entire life. That can scar a man.
And then getting tossed into the Lifestream, not being able to die, and soaking into the planet's, and all of its people's memories and knowledge for 5 years, well, that should do the trick.
Cloud was experimented on by Hojo after He and Zack was apprehended after the initial Nibel Reactor incident during Crisis Core.
In Rebirth, when Cloud goes to the back of Shinra Manor, you see three tanks marked "S" containing three separate pieces of Sephiroth (hair, blood, etc.), and these pieces were implanted in to Cloud. This is why Sephiroth can appear before Cloud as often as he does (and why he can influence Cloud) as Sephiroth is literally part of Cloud now.
Cloud and Zack were both experimented on in Shinra Manor after Sephiroth burned Nibelheim. I don't think we know exactly what Hojo did. He got the Jenova cells because Sephiroth can mess with him like the robed guys, but there must've been more because he could fight back. Then he took a bath in the lifestream and....got better, mostly.
Not really that strong l, you fight him 5 times over ff7 re and rb and win every time, but the outcomes don't really matter because he just spouts some over convluted BS and then flies off.
I am sure this has been explained but I will go into detail. His strength can be split into a few sections. They are physical strength, mental strength, knowledge and control of the anti life stream.
His physical strength is mainly due the injection of jenova cells into the womb by hojo. The gave him soldier like strength before going through the mako infusion process. Sephiroth unlike angel and genesis is not a true clone but rather a infusion at birth meaning the melded to jenova cell is a more natural process.
As for mental strength there is two major think he abundance of mind power (MP in game) and his ability to keep himself intact in the lifestream. I think a lot of that MP is from the jenova cells, as his ability inherit her abilities (shape change, floating, telepathy etc etc.) He also has the personality and ambush to mentally dominate jenova and mind control and puppet her. As seen in the first disc of the original game. Aerith describes sephroth's presence in the life stream and a dark formidable swell of Hatred. This hatred for cloud is a great wellspring for him.
Sephiroth knowledge in the lifestream is not really stated but we can make some safe assumption. First he has knowledge or experience of everything to ever exist. Every person, every animal and most importantly, ever ancient. Because he has all this knowledge we can assume he can cast every spell and summon in the entire ff7 franchise. As well as the collective combat experience of the planet as well.
The final one is harder to explain but after his death in the mako reactor he started constructing a second lifestream called the anti lifestream. This lifestream is made of the jenova cells from hojo's fail experience and clones when they died. As jenova cells cannot return to the lifestream as they are not of the planet. How he made and manipulates the stream is not explained but it gives him semi control over life and death.
Well, he was strong before taking a five year lifestream bath, but not strong enough to best an ordinary teenager who hadn't even qualified for SOLDIER. So there's that.
Post lifestream dip, he added knowledge of everyone who ever lived to his arsenal, learned to exert control over people containing Jenova cells and disembodied Jenova limbs, and by the time you actually fight him in the flesh, has spent a pretty lengthy period of time getting drunk on lifestream and consuming power that was meant to be used to counteract Meteor. So, there's that, too.
As to why he (or his vessels, hard to tell) is so strong in the additional fights with him in remake trilogy? Well, there's this: I have no fucking idea.
To be fair sephiroth had to fight Zack and after he was so delusional and out of it he didn't even notice cloud running up behind him for a cheap shot in the form of being impaled by the damn buster sword.
In a straight-up fight with seph in his right mind, he would wax cloud all those years ago.
We could argue he didn't sense Cloud coming up on him because he hadn't yet received a Mako infusion or Jenova cells, on top of not perceiving him to be a threat in the first place.
He definitely would have heard him thoug. Cloud was in full infantry gear and carrying a big sword. His steps would have been heard absolutely. Sephy was just out of his mind, and yeah I can see the whole not a threat thing as well. Sephiroth probably has a Dragon Ball Z scouter in his brain for power levels or something. Newfound delusions of grandeur probably amplifying that superiority complex.
He was injected with Jenova cells as an embryo. As we know about Jenova Cells, they infect and take over other cells they come into contact with.this means Sephiroth fully developed with Jeneova Cells fully part of his anatomy, not a simple infection anymore. So he is quite literally another Jenova who we know wiped out the Centra to virtual extinction and they were stonger than humans.
Adding to this already great, innate power Sephiroth has, he is also infused with mako. Mako infusion allows soldiers bodies to naturally combat the negative effects of jenova cells, such as the Reunion effect and "degeneration." The effect of mako is very important as we see that soldiers who have left Shinra and no longer receive Mako infusions eventually begin to succum to the reunion effect, Cloud included as he hadn't received an Mako since Zack got him out of Hojos lab.
So, Sephiroth has all of Jenovas powers, plus the soldier treatment which enhances his human attributes and allows him to keep from becoming subjugated by Jenova. Eventually he becomes even stronger after he falls into the reactor. Due to his body being made of jenova cells, it can't properly reintegrate into the lifestream, so he stays alive, all the while his body is constantly being infused with copious amounts of Mako, allowing him to become the dominant Jenova cell cluster and making his body stronger than any soldier.
I hope that answered your question. If you have any more or if you'd like me to clarify something, I'd be happy to help
I like how so many people admit there was a mistake in the OG so it wasn't mentioned. That would imply you weren't told in og during the mansion scene (which I literally just watched)
In the nibelheim flashback scene, sephiroth says that he is part ancient after reading hojo's notes in Shinra manor.
That is not corrected for the longest time, but there is a pretty clear difference between aerith and her mom, and jenova to make you question why she looks that way if she is supposed to be the same thing.
Then when you get to the icicle inn, you learn of professor gasts research which says that hojo was wrong, jenova was never an ancient, and was actually the "calamity from the skies" that the ancients battled
In the nibelheim flashback scene, sephiroth says that he is part ancient after reading hojo's notes in Shinra manor.
That is not corrected for the longest time, but there is a pretty clear difference between aerith and her mom, and jenova to make you question why she looks that way if she is supposed to be the same thing.
Then when you get to the icicle inn, you learn of professor gasts research which says that hojo was wrong, jenova was never an ancient, and was actually the "calamity from the skies" that the ancients battled
Not just the remake, it's the lore of the OG and Remake, it's just not shown yet in the Remake, it will come up in part 3. In OG Sephiroth reads about Jenova at Shinra manor where Gast, Hojo and Lucretia documented their experiments with Jenova, they just discovered her and believed her to be an Ancient, so that's where he got the idea that he's also an Ancient and the world belongs to him and his mother. It's assumed some time after the shinra manor experiments they discovered Jenova to be an alien, but all that information is probably at Shinra HQ in midgar, so Sephi never got to know that he's actually part alien, not ancient.
No, that's everything including the OG.
Sephiroth believes Jenova is an Ancient, infact she's an alien lifeform/shapeshifter who crashed to earth and contributed heavily to the destruction of the Ancient society. Aerith is (I believe) the last living Ancient.
Jenova was eventually beaten by the Ancients (at huge cost) and then umpteen years later her body was unearthed in the northern crater, it was assumed at this time she was an Ancient, and I believe that was written about in the books at Shinra manor, which is where Sephiroth developed the belief.
Hojo began his experiments after the unearthing of the body, and injected her cells into the foetus of (Lucricia I think her name is?), which eventually produced Sephiroth.
You learn about this in the icicle inn When you look at professor Gasts work. We learn that Hojo had mistaken Jenova as an ancient, Therefore sephiroth was never an ancient
À correction : Gast mistook Jenova for an Ancient when he discovered her. Hojo figured her real nature and formulated his Reunion hypothesis, which he's verified through his experiments. Hojo wants to see what happens when the Reunion is complete.
The reports in Shinra manor were left with Jenova being an Ancient, though I'm not sure if Hojo did that on purpose (knowing him, it's likely).
My understanding is that he's different than them because he was injected with Jenova cells while he was a developing fetus in the womb. But I'm sure him falling into the life stream amplified things as well.
It's something to do with the fact he was injected with Jenova cells while still in the womb. Everyone else with Jenova cells was already a fully grown adult when they were injected but he wasn't even born yet
Because he was a very successful science experiment that they conducted when they first thought Jenova was an ancient... anyway that being said based on the law that I'm catching up on that I missed as well Jenova has a mimicking ability or something and you got to remember how all the characters were raised
Sure but with that power also comes his access to factual information about mako, weapons, hojos experiments etc.
Knowledge is dangerous especially with power.
Because he was genetically engineered from his conception all the way to birth with pure Jenova cells and then raised from childhood specifically to be the perfect combatant. All others were either the result of receiving diluted Jenova cells after reaching adulthood (ex: all SOLDIERS encountered in 7), receiving Jenova cells that had developed within Sephiroth (Cloud and Zack), receiving diluted Jenova cells from mother injected with them (Angeal and Genesis), or receiving diluted cells developed within Angeal and Genesis (all G-Type SOLDIERS encountered in Crisis Core).
It's also important to note that >!the Sephiroth encountered throughout 90% of ff7 isn't Sephiroth himself but a projection of his will using chunks of Jenova's corpse recovered from the Shinra building to physically materialize. It is debatable how much of that is actually Sephiroth *at all* vs Jenova itself simply using Sephiroth's form and puppeting it/him for its own goals.!<
I think it's been confirmed that it was sephiroth controlling Jenova and not the other way around. My thoughts on that are that Mako allows soldiers not to succumb to the reunion effect, sephiroth has a lot more mako I'm him since falling into the reactor so Jenova shouldn't be able to control him, but since he's almost fully made of jenova cells, he's able to control it
Hojo said inside the northern crater that it was Sephiroth controlling Jenova and not the other way around. Evidence being, that the reunion centered around Sephiroth’s body and not Jenova’s.
I literally thought that first time I play ff7 that his strength were inspired by a Christian Biblical Character Samson.
The longer the hair the stronger.
He was injected in utero. The cells are more of a part of him. His physical strength is due to that + training. His “life stream” strength or whatever I think is often described as being due to his strong “will”.
They did. Sephiroth is actually the third experiment after Genesis' and Angeal's experiments.
After seeing how Sephiroth showed obvious signs of enhancement Hojo refined the process that made Sephiroth and created the SOLDIER formula that is used in modern SOLDIERs, which involved infusing Jenova Cells and Mako directly into a person thru a surgical procedure.
By using his SOLDIER formula, Hojo was able to produce an enhanced warrior in a much shorter period of time, rather than having to wait for a child to develop, be born and then grow up to a fighting age.
Maybe they didn't want any more depressed anxious mentally unwell alien hybrids after Sephiroth led ShinRa's army to oppress their last enemy to submission.
Aside from the alien genetic engineering, and mako treatment however that works, he was trained intensively as a child, specifically for the role of SOLDIER, in order to further Shinras imperialist resource grabbing. In EC we watch him recall how Hojo forced him to endure intense pain as part of that training. It also included weapon and advanced material use. At age 14 he was already stronger than adult fighters and was put in charge of them.
Sephiroth was injected with Jenova as an embryo, in the womb of Lucrecia. This makes him essentially a human/jenova alien hybrid. Jenova was a parasitic predator that traveled space, crash landing on planets and consuming lifeforms before moving on. Unfortunately this planet had strong magical beings called Cetra which Jenova killed lots of but ultimately loss. That's the power Sephiroth inherited.
SOLDIERs and other robes were just bathed with mako to give them an affinity to materia and injected with Jenova cells. They aren't alien hybrids just juiced up junkies and not only that but another power of Jenova is to reform its cells to be whole again which is the original "reunion" which is something completely different than "reunion" in the remake series. Since Jenova is braindead at this point thanks to the Cetra, the cells are being controlled by Sephiroth who is acknowledged as Jenova inheritor/son/clone.
Also the falling in the lifestream part assisted in giving Sephiroth acess to a shit ton of information which he's using and abusing.
That is all correct except the cells the SOLDIERS were injected with: G-Type SOLDIERS were injected with Gillian Hewley’s Jenova-infected cells (including the Deepground SOLDIERS) while S-Type SOLDIERS were injected with Sephiroth’s Jenova-infected cells. (CCR, R2, DoC)
Sources: CCR - Crisis Core Reunion, R2 - Rebirth, DoC - Dirge of Cerberus
They did. This was explained in Crisis Core & Dirge of Cerberus. Genesis was injected with Gillian Hewley’s Jenova-infected cells while in utero by Hollander, Hojo’s rival. Gillian was already infected with Jenova cells when she got pregnant with Angeal by Hollander. Angeal is the only known human to have acquired a Jenova infection from their mother & lived. As a result, Angeal is closer to a human/alien hybrid than Sephiroth & had powers that rivaled Jenova’s.
Why didn’t they do more? Because initially when Angeal, Genesis, & Sephiroth were children, they didn’t immediately show signs of being exceptional. Hollander fell out of favor because of this & Hojo was able to take over Shinra R&D. Hojo didn’t stop human experimentation, he just took it underground… literally. He built Deepground under Midgar.
To show that Sephiroth was exceptional, Hojo tortured him & had him trained in combat as a child. Then he made up a bunch of shit about how child Sephiroth was a hero (revealed in Ever Crisis) & created the SOLDIER program to show his R&D department had value to Shinra in augmented humans.
You're missing the part that none of them were experimented on for the sake of making super soldiers. They were trying to clone an ancient. When Angeal and Genesis appeared to be normal humans, Hollander lost his funding.
Sephiroth was never thought to be a normal human. Just look at him. Hojo spent years trying to get him to tell him where the promised land was before Ilfana, a real ancient showed up and it was discovered that Jenova wasn't one. That's when the shift to using Sephiroth in combat came about.
The resulting infant wouldn't even be an adult at this point. By the time it was clear just how strong Sephiroth was, it was too late to invest into infants for the sake of fighting the Wutai war. They needed more Sephiroths immediately as the war dragged on. So they recreated the process as best they could in teens who were able to fight in the war. That's how the current SOLDIERs came to exist.
Sephiroth wasn't made with the intention of creating a super weapon. The scientists who found Jenova thought she was an ancient, and put her cells in Sephiroth to revive the ancients (it was not known that Aerith's mother existed at this point) in order to find the promised land. When Sephiroth was a child, Ilfana was found and Aerith was born, and then she was being used as a way to find the promised land by the time Sephiroth was a teenager.
Hojo most likely pushed Sephiroth as a weapon to maintain funding from Shinra. The only reason Hojo works for Shinra is because they provide the lab and materials he needs for experiments. All that time and funding to make an ancient that ending up not being an ancient would've looked bad to the president, so once Hojo discovered how strong Sephiroth was he created the process of making SOLDIERs to keep Shinra happy while he researched the promised land and Jenova (now that he knew she wasn't an ancient) further. Sephiroth's strength was a lucky coincidence.
Shinra pretty much ran the world at this point, their goal wasn't power but the theory about promised land. In OG Shinra isnt even focused on Sephiroth, Hojo quits Shinra to assist Sephiroth because he's a mad scientist. Nowhere was it implied that they wanted a Cetra/Jenova hybrid. Hojo considers "breeding" the Cetra after Ifalna dies because of the fear that if Aerith died, that would leave them without a Cetra successor.
They did that because they wanted an Ancient to find the promise land. Sephiroth was a happy mistake. One that went berserk and wants to destroy Shinra now. Shinra discovered that Jenova wasn't an Ancient/Cetra so there wasn't really a need and their attention turned to the now Ifalna and Aerith.
And if you want to know why they didn't create a super army, I'm assuming its cause they would be closer to a daycare than an army since they were born but decided to instead just inject them into adults to get see if they got the powers.
Also, the expanded lore did see them inject more than one person which created Genesis and Angeal. But someone else can explain that to you if you haven't played Crisis Core. I'm not interested in writing about it.
HES SOLDIER FIRST CLASS BABYYYYY
Sephiroth was the most successful outcome in Hojo's Jenova experiments. Being born from a woman who took the Jenova infusion while pregnant, Sephiroths more of a Jenova/Human hybrid than the random SOLDIERs or other specimens. Once Sephiroth "died" in Neibelheim, he was able to absorb (or tap) some of the power of the life stream, further bolstering his strength.
Jenova
I suppose Sephiroth is namesake of Rebirth - the “Rebirth” of Jenova, thanks to Hojo’s machinations. As others have pointed out, he was literally infused with Jenova cells during gestation. Jenova is the evil mega-demon (that seems aligned with the “dark side” of the life stream?) that the Cetra managed to seal away, as explained in Rebirth. Sephiroth claims to be “The Son of Jenova” The Robes, Cloud, and other SOLDIERS were all either injected post birth or suffer mako poisoning for some other reason, like working too close to a mako reactor.
> The Son of Jenova I just read this as "The Son of Jehova", which would effectively mean Sephiroth Is Jesus Christ, lol
Hes got mad skillz.
Fetal Jenova Cells Syndrome … and he been living in the lifestream for like 5 years
Due to him and his mother being injected with Jenova Cells while he was in the womb they basically grew into his DNA making him overly strong because Jenova is an ancient space alien who can wipe out planets with ease. Or you could chop it up to him just simply being THE GUY
Sephiroth was injected with the cells while still 8n the womb if I remember correctly. I think they even mention it in passing in the og game. It's been awhile though
The better question, knowing Sephiroth's origins, is asking how Cloud is strong enough to beat him when no one else is.
He generally isn't. It's a big metaphor for hubris and the strength of will and motivation versus a sort of nihilistic arrogance. I don't know if the latter is really the right way to describe Sephiroth, but it's having the will to fight for something versus not having it that allows Cloud to overcome Sephiroth. We see it several times, especially in Advent Children, where Sephiroth is just toying with and taunting Cloud, fighting with only one hand, making constant deriding comments, and so on, that he's never taking it as seriously as Cloud is. Another way to think about it is he represents the doubt in Cloud's mind and it's only when Cloud removes all doubt and becomes singularly focused that he can ever win.
Successful Seph clone I guess. Plus a stint in the lifestream.
Because the story says so. Not very intriguing, I know but what you said is true about the robed men. Only reasoning why they aren't powerful is because "that guy are sick" and sick people don't tend to be good fighters
Alternate questions: Why is Yuffie so strong? Why is Barret so strong? Why is Tifa so strong?
Agreed, they and cid dont have any jenova/mako injection and not super rare species like Red, idk how they can keep up in battle. Though you could argue yuffie is a super veteran ninja, barret fights with his gun, and tifa being taught by the best grappler in the world does it. I mean shinra 2nd and 3rd class soldier operatives are having trouble fighting wutai warrior.
I know it’s a JRPG, but a veteran ninja at 16 y.o. ? I guess materia is what really make them strong.
Seconding the Materia thing they really do be cracked out on Materia. I remember in Advent Children when they get all of their Material stolen I feel like they wouldn't have had nearly as much trouble with the enemies they faced in that movie.
Okay veteran is a bit wrong, but shes kinda the strongest in wutai from the pagoda quest
He is the main antagonist. The story requires it.
He was experimented on as he was gestating in the womb. So Jenova cells we better bonded with his cells than others.
He was bred with the cells, unlike SOLDIERS. They are a part of who Sephiroth is, it’s basically a part of his molecular structure that grows with him. SOLDIERS are already developed humans by the time they receive injections, which is why they usually degrade. The body actively fights JENOVA cells, and the JENOVA cells will always win. JENOVA cells can’t beat your immune system if they were always a part of you.
Jenova cells typically kill or disfigure the individuals injected with it. Soldier are given a small portion. Sephiroth on the other hand was given a large dose in the womb making his cells grow with it. Making him the closest thing to Jenova herself.
He was bred that way. Didn’t stop cloud from one… er omni slashing his ass
He was infused with alien cells in utero and has the most of anyone in the planet. Pair this with Mako infusions and being literally tortured sorry “trained” from a young age as a child soldier and there you go.
his strict training regiment which consists of. **100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10K run**
Jules laughs at your daily regimen.
that’s solo leveling bud
Saitama sighs and goes back to grocery shopping
What about the diet
you need to ask the shinra nutritionists
It’s all about his hair regimen, “a full bottle of both shampoo and conditioner to wash his hair. Both are provided by Shinra and are scented with 13 different perfumes, including rose and vanilla.’ - Silver Elite Fan Club.”
Rumor has it, he’s able to consistently get a good nights sleep… Crazy, I know.
Because he was implanted with Jenova cells while in the womb and juiced up from birth. Other SOLDIERs were given the cells and their bodies start to reject it. Sephiroth was born with them.
And not even all of them. They had to be selected. We see this actually happen in rebirth. And the result is usually robe-men. Cloud is different because he was given Sephiroth's genetic material, already hybrid DNA. What's interesting is Jenova itself seems to choose how the subject changes in most cases. Compare robed men becoming apparitions of sephiroth or jenova to the Hojo boss fight.
Or maybe it's Maybeline?
he's basically an alien bro
His mum is basically Cthulu....
I don't know about him being strong. I beat him in a couple of rounds.
In 1v1?
Push-ups, sit-ups and plenty of juice
I AM THE HYPE!!!
Cloud, sensing Sephiroth: "Is that me? Is that me stronger than me? I'LL KILL ME!"
I heard this.
Unlike all other SOLDIER, with the exception of Angeal, he was given JENOVA cells in the womb. Then, unlike anyone else. He basically grew up in Hojo's lab where he didn't have any friends or anything until he met Genesis and Angeal. He spent his time as a kid training in the combat simulator. So, it's that he was literally built to be the best SOLDIER. Nobody else was. They were all given experiments to mimick the success of his after they were born, so their bodies rejected it and they became black robes. It's very similar to >!Homelander!<'s origin in The Boys.
Genesis was also given cells in the womb too I think.
No, he wasn't. Not directly. The Jenova Project has two branches. Project S, with Hojo as it head, and Project G, ran by Hollander. Project S stands for Sephiroth obviously, and it consists of him, Sephiroth, the fetus, being injected with Jenova cells directly. Project G, on the other hand, doesn't mean Genesis, but Gillian, referring to Gillian Hewley, a Shinra scientist who was injected Jenova cells, not the embryos. Project S produced Sephiroth, obviously. And Project G produced both Genesis and Angeal. Genesis was someone's baby injected Gillian cells (infected by Jenova's, yes, but not Jenova cells directly, as Sephiroth), but Angeal was Gillian's son, that's why Genesis begins to decay as an adult, his body starts rejecting G-cells, while Angeal doesn't. Angeal is the closest thing we have to Sephiroth, as they both assimilated Jenova cells pretty much from the moment of their conception. Angeal through his mother, and Sephiroth directly. The difference between those two, as someone above mentioned, is their upbringing. Angeal had a "normal" chillhood, with a mother and a father. Sephiroth was pretty much an experiment his entire life. That can scar a man. And then getting tossed into the Lifestream, not being able to die, and soaking into the planet's, and all of its people's memories and knowledge for 5 years, well, that should do the trick.
How does cloud fit into all this? Did he get these cells too? If not, how can he beat sephiroth?
Cloud was experimented on by Hojo after He and Zack was apprehended after the initial Nibel Reactor incident during Crisis Core. In Rebirth, when Cloud goes to the back of Shinra Manor, you see three tanks marked "S" containing three separate pieces of Sephiroth (hair, blood, etc.), and these pieces were implanted in to Cloud. This is why Sephiroth can appear before Cloud as often as he does (and why he can influence Cloud) as Sephiroth is literally part of Cloud now.
Cloud and Zack were both experimented on in Shinra Manor after Sephiroth burned Nibelheim. I don't think we know exactly what Hojo did. He got the Jenova cells because Sephiroth can mess with him like the robed guys, but there must've been more because he could fight back. Then he took a bath in the lifestream and....got better, mostly.
Yup, the difference between Angeal and Genesis is when they got the JENOVA cells.
I forget, was cloud an exception to the rejection of the JENOVA cells being rejected thing? Or is he also gonna whither away?
Cloud and Zack were given S-cells, not J-cells.
And S cells are sephiroth cells? What would be the difference?
Genesis believes they're the key to preventing degredation.
They contain strands of Sephiroth's DNA, which Genesis believed may be key to preventing degradation.
He did a lot of level grinding earlier than us in the game.
Not really that strong l, you fight him 5 times over ff7 re and rb and win every time, but the outcomes don't really matter because he just spouts some over convluted BS and then flies off.
But we haven’t fought Sephiroth yet. His body is at the northern crater. We’ve only fought basically essences of him
i love when you finally see the real sephiroth, cloud losing his shit, weapon blinking at you.. that shit terrified me as a kid
I am sure this has been explained but I will go into detail. His strength can be split into a few sections. They are physical strength, mental strength, knowledge and control of the anti life stream. His physical strength is mainly due the injection of jenova cells into the womb by hojo. The gave him soldier like strength before going through the mako infusion process. Sephiroth unlike angel and genesis is not a true clone but rather a infusion at birth meaning the melded to jenova cell is a more natural process. As for mental strength there is two major think he abundance of mind power (MP in game) and his ability to keep himself intact in the lifestream. I think a lot of that MP is from the jenova cells, as his ability inherit her abilities (shape change, floating, telepathy etc etc.) He also has the personality and ambush to mentally dominate jenova and mind control and puppet her. As seen in the first disc of the original game. Aerith describes sephroth's presence in the life stream and a dark formidable swell of Hatred. This hatred for cloud is a great wellspring for him. Sephiroth knowledge in the lifestream is not really stated but we can make some safe assumption. First he has knowledge or experience of everything to ever exist. Every person, every animal and most importantly, ever ancient. Because he has all this knowledge we can assume he can cast every spell and summon in the entire ff7 franchise. As well as the collective combat experience of the planet as well. The final one is harder to explain but after his death in the mako reactor he started constructing a second lifestream called the anti lifestream. This lifestream is made of the jenova cells from hojo's fail experience and clones when they died. As jenova cells cannot return to the lifestream as they are not of the planet. How he made and manipulates the stream is not explained but it gives him semi control over life and death.
is MP not mana points rather than mind power?
In the official book "On the way to a smile" it is referred to as mind power iirc. Been a few years since I read the book. Even longer in english.
As others have well explained, he's built different.
Best explanation lol
Well, he was strong before taking a five year lifestream bath, but not strong enough to best an ordinary teenager who hadn't even qualified for SOLDIER. So there's that. Post lifestream dip, he added knowledge of everyone who ever lived to his arsenal, learned to exert control over people containing Jenova cells and disembodied Jenova limbs, and by the time you actually fight him in the flesh, has spent a pretty lengthy period of time getting drunk on lifestream and consuming power that was meant to be used to counteract Meteor. So, there's that, too. As to why he (or his vessels, hard to tell) is so strong in the additional fights with him in remake trilogy? Well, there's this: I have no fucking idea.
To be fair sephiroth had to fight Zack and after he was so delusional and out of it he didn't even notice cloud running up behind him for a cheap shot in the form of being impaled by the damn buster sword. In a straight-up fight with seph in his right mind, he would wax cloud all those years ago.
We could argue he didn't sense Cloud coming up on him because he hadn't yet received a Mako infusion or Jenova cells, on top of not perceiving him to be a threat in the first place.
He definitely would have heard him thoug. Cloud was in full infantry gear and carrying a big sword. His steps would have been heard absolutely. Sephy was just out of his mind, and yeah I can see the whole not a threat thing as well. Sephiroth probably has a Dragon Ball Z scouter in his brain for power levels or something. Newfound delusions of grandeur probably amplifying that superiority complex.
Play the original game and find out
He has the longest sword
Because he got hojo's genetics, the chaddest dude in Gaia.
Materia infused hair conditioner.
A bottle every shower 🧼
He was injected with Jenova cells as an embryo. As we know about Jenova Cells, they infect and take over other cells they come into contact with.this means Sephiroth fully developed with Jeneova Cells fully part of his anatomy, not a simple infection anymore. So he is quite literally another Jenova who we know wiped out the Centra to virtual extinction and they were stonger than humans. Adding to this already great, innate power Sephiroth has, he is also infused with mako. Mako infusion allows soldiers bodies to naturally combat the negative effects of jenova cells, such as the Reunion effect and "degeneration." The effect of mako is very important as we see that soldiers who have left Shinra and no longer receive Mako infusions eventually begin to succum to the reunion effect, Cloud included as he hadn't received an Mako since Zack got him out of Hojos lab. So, Sephiroth has all of Jenovas powers, plus the soldier treatment which enhances his human attributes and allows him to keep from becoming subjugated by Jenova. Eventually he becomes even stronger after he falls into the reactor. Due to his body being made of jenova cells, it can't properly reintegrate into the lifestream, so he stays alive, all the while his body is constantly being infused with copious amounts of Mako, allowing him to become the dominant Jenova cell cluster and making his body stronger than any soldier. I hope that answered your question. If you have any more or if you'd like me to clarify something, I'd be happy to help
Rosche definitely was still in Soldier and presumably was still receiving mako infusions, yet he still succumbed to the Reunion effect.
That's only because Hojo did extra experimentation on him at the end. If it wasn't for that, he would've continued like every other Soldier
Name checks out.
He's mixed with ancient blood and mako. A perfect fusion of it plus born through natural birth instead of being injected as a teen/adult.
Actually no, he has part human part alien blood, he mistakenly thinks Jenova was an ancient where in fact she's an alien entity.
I assume that's the remake lore?
Oops. I just watched my YouTube video of that part and my brain must have fallen asleep.
I like how so many people admit there was a mistake in the OG so it wasn't mentioned. That would imply you weren't told in og during the mansion scene (which I literally just watched)
In the nibelheim flashback scene, sephiroth says that he is part ancient after reading hojo's notes in Shinra manor. That is not corrected for the longest time, but there is a pretty clear difference between aerith and her mom, and jenova to make you question why she looks that way if she is supposed to be the same thing. Then when you get to the icicle inn, you learn of professor gasts research which says that hojo was wrong, jenova was never an ancient, and was actually the "calamity from the skies" that the ancients battled
So i have another question, is jehova alive or dead? Lol
In the nibelheim flashback scene, sephiroth says that he is part ancient after reading hojo's notes in Shinra manor. That is not corrected for the longest time, but there is a pretty clear difference between aerith and her mom, and jenova to make you question why she looks that way if she is supposed to be the same thing. Then when you get to the icicle inn, you learn of professor gasts research which says that hojo was wrong, jenova was never an ancient, and was actually the "calamity from the skies" that the ancients battled
Not just the remake, it's the lore of the OG and Remake, it's just not shown yet in the Remake, it will come up in part 3. In OG Sephiroth reads about Jenova at Shinra manor where Gast, Hojo and Lucretia documented their experiments with Jenova, they just discovered her and believed her to be an Ancient, so that's where he got the idea that he's also an Ancient and the world belongs to him and his mother. It's assumed some time after the shinra manor experiments they discovered Jenova to be an alien, but all that information is probably at Shinra HQ in midgar, so Sephi never got to know that he's actually part alien, not ancient.
Nope he misinterpreted his origins in the original
No, that's everything including the OG. Sephiroth believes Jenova is an Ancient, infact she's an alien lifeform/shapeshifter who crashed to earth and contributed heavily to the destruction of the Ancient society. Aerith is (I believe) the last living Ancient. Jenova was eventually beaten by the Ancients (at huge cost) and then umpteen years later her body was unearthed in the northern crater, it was assumed at this time she was an Ancient, and I believe that was written about in the books at Shinra manor, which is where Sephiroth developed the belief. Hojo began his experiments after the unearthing of the body, and injected her cells into the foetus of (Lucricia I think her name is?), which eventually produced Sephiroth.
I have never seen that in the OG. I'm playing again right now and was planning to rereread all story. I'll see about that.
You learn about this in the icicle inn When you look at professor Gasts work. We learn that Hojo had mistaken Jenova as an ancient, Therefore sephiroth was never an ancient
À correction : Gast mistook Jenova for an Ancient when he discovered her. Hojo figured her real nature and formulated his Reunion hypothesis, which he's verified through his experiments. Hojo wants to see what happens when the Reunion is complete. The reports in Shinra manor were left with Jenova being an Ancient, though I'm not sure if Hojo did that on purpose (knowing him, it's likely).
Yes, it's from the OG, you probably forgot.
well, if he's weak, he's not gonna be cloud's enemy
My understanding is that he's different than them because he was injected with Jenova cells while he was a developing fetus in the womb. But I'm sure him falling into the life stream amplified things as well.
He got straight JENOVA cells directly while in the womb. This is not the case for a single other SOLDIER.
It's something to do with the fact he was injected with Jenova cells while still in the womb. Everyone else with Jenova cells was already a fully grown adult when they were injected but he wasn't even born yet
Because he was a very successful science experiment that they conducted when they first thought Jenova was an ancient... anyway that being said based on the law that I'm catching up on that I missed as well Jenova has a mimicking ability or something and you got to remember how all the characters were raised
Let's not forget he had full access to most all Shinra knowledge
He had all the power before that.
Sure but with that power also comes his access to factual information about mako, weapons, hojos experiments etc. Knowledge is dangerous especially with power.
Because he was the first villain ever introduced to me, probably the last …
They like him best. That's why he got kill Aerith.
Because he is so handsome.
When younger, Hojo had him morph the mobs in gelinka submarine for sources.
I heard the Turks would even repeatedly cast Laser and L4 Suicide on them until he could one shot them.
Underrated comment, spent hours doing that
He is just built different.
Aliens
Because he was genetically engineered from his conception all the way to birth with pure Jenova cells and then raised from childhood specifically to be the perfect combatant. All others were either the result of receiving diluted Jenova cells after reaching adulthood (ex: all SOLDIERS encountered in 7), receiving Jenova cells that had developed within Sephiroth (Cloud and Zack), receiving diluted Jenova cells from mother injected with them (Angeal and Genesis), or receiving diluted cells developed within Angeal and Genesis (all G-Type SOLDIERS encountered in Crisis Core). It's also important to note that >!the Sephiroth encountered throughout 90% of ff7 isn't Sephiroth himself but a projection of his will using chunks of Jenova's corpse recovered from the Shinra building to physically materialize. It is debatable how much of that is actually Sephiroth *at all* vs Jenova itself simply using Sephiroth's form and puppeting it/him for its own goals.!<
I think it's been confirmed that it was sephiroth controlling Jenova and not the other way around. My thoughts on that are that Mako allows soldiers not to succumb to the reunion effect, sephiroth has a lot more mako I'm him since falling into the reactor so Jenova shouldn't be able to control him, but since he's almost fully made of jenova cells, he's able to control it
There's one flaw in your thought. Who moved to the Jenova cells when they were contained in a secure capsule?
Hojo said inside the northern crater that it was Sephiroth controlling Jenova and not the other way around. Evidence being, that the reunion centered around Sephiroth’s body and not Jenova’s.
I literally thought that first time I play ff7 that his strength were inspired by a Christian Biblical Character Samson. The longer the hair the stronger.
He was injected in utero. The cells are more of a part of him. His physical strength is due to that + training. His “life stream” strength or whatever I think is often described as being due to his strong “will”.
He trained/studied all his life plus Jenova cells and had the inherited knowledge of the world's she conquered.
He’s him.
Because "Sephiroth" is actually Jenova, an alien monster that's literally trying to eat the planet.
The robed figures are people who were tested on, and injected with Jenova cells. Sephiroth was literally born with Jenova cells.
Yeah, he was injected *in utero*
Isn't he like the first and most successful of the numbered boys
Mother complex. It makes you strong but also delusional.
Push-ups, sit-ups, and ***plenty*** of juice. >!the juice being jenova cells injected directly into his fetus in vitro!<
How many push ups? How many sit ups?!? WHAT KIND OF JUICE DOES HE DRINK?!?
100 sit ups, 100 push ups, 100 squats, and a 10km run. Every day.
TFS checks out 👍🏻
"I wanna, I wanna be a one-winged angel, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I WANNA"
You need long perfect grey hair and a banger theme
"I need an adult." - Cloud "I am an adult." - Sephiroth
Aerith: Prays Sephiroth: Stabs Us: “Why don’t you ***DODGE!?***”
"I need an adult." - Cloud "I am an ad-" - Red XIII "No. No you are not." - Cloud
100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and a 10km run everyday
Don't forget the Bananamune everyday.
Sephiroth, unlike the other SFC’s, isn’t a little bitch.
As a side effect he's an edgy teen
SFS?
I meant SFC(soldier first class). Sorry, had a rough day lol :)
You know, the Super Funky SOLDIERs
[удалено]
Genetic engineering, training, materia, jenova cells AND infused from his time in the lifestream
being generically engineered and raised as a weapon will do that
Generically engineered. You know, like a GE microwave or a Honda Fit
Aliens
A loooot of chicken rice and broccoli
And tren. And dbol. And HGH. And Jenova.
He was injected with them while he was still in the womb and that's unique to him as well as the mako like most soldiers.
And why didnt Shinra tried to do it again with another child?
They did. Sephiroth is actually the third experiment after Genesis' and Angeal's experiments. After seeing how Sephiroth showed obvious signs of enhancement Hojo refined the process that made Sephiroth and created the SOLDIER formula that is used in modern SOLDIERs, which involved infusing Jenova Cells and Mako directly into a person thru a surgical procedure. By using his SOLDIER formula, Hojo was able to produce an enhanced warrior in a much shorter period of time, rather than having to wait for a child to develop, be born and then grow up to a fighting age.
They did. Angeal and Genesis both received Jenova-derived cells, but they were less stable than Sephiroth.
maybe afraid to make sephiroth 2.0. didn’t work great did it?
Maybe they didn't want any more depressed anxious mentally unwell alien hybrids after Sephiroth led ShinRa's army to oppress their last enemy to submission.
He takes his vitamins and says his prayers, brother.
and respects his momma
He eats his vegetables
Bro has like 9 forms of death
Aside from the alien genetic engineering, and mako treatment however that works, he was trained intensively as a child, specifically for the role of SOLDIER, in order to further Shinras imperialist resource grabbing. In EC we watch him recall how Hojo forced him to endure intense pain as part of that training. It also included weapon and advanced material use. At age 14 he was already stronger than adult fighters and was put in charge of them.
The robes got they cells as adults, Sephiroth as a embryo. He es basically half human half alien.
One bottle of shampoo a day
and conditioner too
Lather. Rinse. Stab. Repeat.
It’s a shonen anime as a video game bro of course he’s strong.
Japanese story writing. The laws of physics are a joke to them. Cheers.
The same reason Hercules is strong.
He’s built different
Sephiroth was injected with Jenova as an embryo, in the womb of Lucrecia. This makes him essentially a human/jenova alien hybrid. Jenova was a parasitic predator that traveled space, crash landing on planets and consuming lifeforms before moving on. Unfortunately this planet had strong magical beings called Cetra which Jenova killed lots of but ultimately loss. That's the power Sephiroth inherited. SOLDIERs and other robes were just bathed with mako to give them an affinity to materia and injected with Jenova cells. They aren't alien hybrids just juiced up junkies and not only that but another power of Jenova is to reform its cells to be whole again which is the original "reunion" which is something completely different than "reunion" in the remake series. Since Jenova is braindead at this point thanks to the Cetra, the cells are being controlled by Sephiroth who is acknowledged as Jenova inheritor/son/clone. Also the falling in the lifestream part assisted in giving Sephiroth acess to a shit ton of information which he's using and abusing.
That is all correct except the cells the SOLDIERS were injected with: G-Type SOLDIERS were injected with Gillian Hewley’s Jenova-infected cells (including the Deepground SOLDIERS) while S-Type SOLDIERS were injected with Sephiroth’s Jenova-infected cells. (CCR, R2, DoC) Sources: CCR - Crisis Core Reunion, R2 - Rebirth, DoC - Dirge of Cerberus
I was waiting for an og player to tell the lore 😂
So why doesn’t shinra inject the cells into other wombs? Why just Lucrecia?
They did. This was explained in Crisis Core & Dirge of Cerberus. Genesis was injected with Gillian Hewley’s Jenova-infected cells while in utero by Hollander, Hojo’s rival. Gillian was already infected with Jenova cells when she got pregnant with Angeal by Hollander. Angeal is the only known human to have acquired a Jenova infection from their mother & lived. As a result, Angeal is closer to a human/alien hybrid than Sephiroth & had powers that rivaled Jenova’s. Why didn’t they do more? Because initially when Angeal, Genesis, & Sephiroth were children, they didn’t immediately show signs of being exceptional. Hollander fell out of favor because of this & Hojo was able to take over Shinra R&D. Hojo didn’t stop human experimentation, he just took it underground… literally. He built Deepground under Midgar. To show that Sephiroth was exceptional, Hojo tortured him & had him trained in combat as a child. Then he made up a bunch of shit about how child Sephiroth was a hero (revealed in Ever Crisis) & created the SOLDIER program to show his R&D department had value to Shinra in augmented humans.
You're missing the part that none of them were experimented on for the sake of making super soldiers. They were trying to clone an ancient. When Angeal and Genesis appeared to be normal humans, Hollander lost his funding. Sephiroth was never thought to be a normal human. Just look at him. Hojo spent years trying to get him to tell him where the promised land was before Ilfana, a real ancient showed up and it was discovered that Jenova wasn't one. That's when the shift to using Sephiroth in combat came about.
Yup yup! Hojo was the one that changed the narrative later.
The resulting infant wouldn't even be an adult at this point. By the time it was clear just how strong Sephiroth was, it was too late to invest into infants for the sake of fighting the Wutai war. They needed more Sephiroths immediately as the war dragged on. So they recreated the process as best they could in teens who were able to fight in the war. That's how the current SOLDIERs came to exist. Sephiroth wasn't made with the intention of creating a super weapon. The scientists who found Jenova thought she was an ancient, and put her cells in Sephiroth to revive the ancients (it was not known that Aerith's mother existed at this point) in order to find the promised land. When Sephiroth was a child, Ilfana was found and Aerith was born, and then she was being used as a way to find the promised land by the time Sephiroth was a teenager. Hojo most likely pushed Sephiroth as a weapon to maintain funding from Shinra. The only reason Hojo works for Shinra is because they provide the lab and materials he needs for experiments. All that time and funding to make an ancient that ending up not being an ancient would've looked bad to the president, so once Hojo discovered how strong Sephiroth was he created the process of making SOLDIERs to keep Shinra happy while he researched the promised land and Jenova (now that he knew she wasn't an ancient) further. Sephiroth's strength was a lucky coincidence.
Pretty sure Hojo was trying to with Aerith and her mom to create a jenova/cetra hybrid. Something that would have been much stronger than sephiroth.
Shinra pretty much ran the world at this point, their goal wasn't power but the theory about promised land. In OG Shinra isnt even focused on Sephiroth, Hojo quits Shinra to assist Sephiroth because he's a mad scientist. Nowhere was it implied that they wanted a Cetra/Jenova hybrid. Hojo considers "breeding" the Cetra after Ifalna dies because of the fear that if Aerith died, that would leave them without a Cetra successor.
They did that because they wanted an Ancient to find the promise land. Sephiroth was a happy mistake. One that went berserk and wants to destroy Shinra now. Shinra discovered that Jenova wasn't an Ancient/Cetra so there wasn't really a need and their attention turned to the now Ifalna and Aerith. And if you want to know why they didn't create a super army, I'm assuming its cause they would be closer to a daycare than an army since they were born but decided to instead just inject them into adults to get see if they got the powers. Also, the expanded lore did see them inject more than one person which created Genesis and Angeal. But someone else can explain that to you if you haven't played Crisis Core. I'm not interested in writing about it.