Here we see Ryoko going through a strange metamorphosis, or what I like to call-Monstermorposis! As shown in her increasing behind, her glowing red eyes, and also by the electricity being emitted from her horn, Ryoko is slowly turning into the monster whose armor she wears, the Mystical Kirin!

Had to play around with effects, filters, and blend modes in this one quite a bit. It's not perfect, but I'm satisfied with the outcome. Almost decided to cheat and take a picture of the Kirin and place it in the background, but I decided that I should draw it instead. Go me!!

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And now for my diagnostic on the Kirin. I usually rank monsters in one of 3 categories:
Easy-Normal
Hard-Annoying
So ridiculously annoying that I often avoid their missions. (I've only played MHFU, so this category is pretty much for the Tigrex)

The Kirin is a monster that I would put in the "Annoying" class. It mainly attacks by summoning lightning bolts from out of nowhere in about seven different ways. The way it summons lightning bolts follows a pattern that is easy to figure out pretty quickly and are also pretty easy to dodge. Needless to say, they take huge chunks of damage if you're hitv(in G rank, it can also charge while summoning lightning bolts. Avoid at all costs).

What makes this monster extremely annoying are two things. One: It's extremely quick and has two attacks that aren't super attacks that send you flying, but damage you slightly and very often. It doesn't give you much opportunity to heal, sharpen your weapon, etc, and at higher ranks these attacks take off a lot of damage really quickly. Two (and even more annoying): it's small, it's weak point is it's horn, and the rest of it's body is <b>EXTREMELY</b> hard. Any weapons with sharpness below blue (which increases to white for high rank and purple for G rank) will bounce right off and leave you wide open.

Taking these attacks into account, there are several ways to combat this monster with most of the blade master weapons (I don't use the gunlance or gunner weapons).

Greatswords: By timing a quick draw the moment the Kirin turns around will allow you to strike it's horn (or any part of it's body if the sharpness is high enough). Sometimes the Kirin will stand still allowing you to charge to at least level 2 (level 3 if you're lucky or time it right) before you can strike it's horn hard.

Longsword: This is my preferred method. The battle method is similar to the great sword, but allows for more mobility. Also, even with low sharpness, the longsword's spirit attacks do not bounce off, regardless of the monster's hardness.

S&S: This is only for weapons with high sharpness. Allows you to attack it as nimbly as it attacks you.

Dualswords: Also recommended for weapons with high sharpness as well as the "sharp sword" skill (dual sword's sharpness lowers fast). If you can manage to get near it while it's mostly mobile, you can attack it with a quick draw, a regular attack, a spin attack, a demon attack, or a demon spin attack. When it's stationary is the time to use the demon special attack, which ignores hardness, but eats away sharpness rapidly.

Hammers: Mostly good for it's tornado swings, which ignore hardness. If the Kirin is stationary you can try to pull off a 3 hit combo if you can reach it's horn (some of the Kirins are huge).

Lance: I've never used this against the Kirin and I would avoid using this as well. Because it's so slow, there's a high chance of getting hit by a lot of the Kirin's attacks. Even if you guard, unless you have the "guard up" skill, the lightning attacks will still send you flying. And unless you have an extremely sharp weapon, you need to precisely aim for the horn during the times that it stands still.

Well that's my take on the Kirin. I hope this is helpful for some people.

Kirin and Kirin armor are © of Capcom