Wesker's Report - Canonicity Debate (or the Official "WTF Hiroki Kato!?" Thread)

[News Bot]

Wesker report is not canon T_T

Current evidence points to it being partly canon, partly not. The problem is that CAPCOM still insists on releasing it (10th Anniversary, Archives II) and aside from a few plot discrepancies which could probably be chalked up to the fact that according to cvxfreak, Hiroki Kato wrote it while completely smashed one night, it could be quite canon. I want to use this topic to concretely decide whether it's canon, partly or not at all.

Wesker report is not canon T_T

[News Bot]

At the time of its release it accounted for Gaiden which set up Leon's infection, but then that got scraped for the RE4 we got, so now it isn't.

Gaiden did not set up Leon's infection. Stop spreading this as though it's fact, because it's completely unfounded and utter speculation. There's no indication that Sugimura even acknowledged Gaiden, and Leon's infection was meant to happen during biohazard 4 itself. And more importantly, Leon does not get infected in Gaiden. He DIES in Gaiden.

[Dracarys]

At the time of its release it accounted for Gaiden which set up Leon's infection, but then that got scraped for the RE4 we got, so now it isn't.

[Dot50Cal]

You think about this too much, lol. I always thought he just recovered what the team did from Birkin's lab. Sure, some of them broke open and rats fed on them but I'd imagine there were some vials that still had the stuff in them.

[News Bot]

You seem upset.

Trying to make sense of Kato's drunken mistake does that.

[Fruit Salad]

You seem upset.

[News Bot]

Let me start from the beginning by saying FUCK THIS THINNGGGGG.

Now that that's out of the way, I want a formal debate on this thing because to be perfectly honest: I'm on the fence. Part of me thinks of it as canon, the other thinks of it as bullshit, and the gnarled bit of my brain thinks it might be a bit of both.

The biggest discrepancy is HUNK's acquisition of the G-Virus. According to Hiroki Kato, Leon acquired Sherry's pendant containing the G-Virus sample and threw it away, only for it to be retrieved by HUNK who then brings it to Umbrella. Fine. Except according to Hideki Kamiya and BIOHAZARD THE DARKSIDE CHRONICLES, the sample HUNK acquires is actually just one lying around from the P-4 Laboratory. The second biggest discrepancy is one that pisses me off the most because it is the only thing in the series giving BIOHAZARD GAIDEN (Katoooo!!) any credibility: Leon is a member of an underground anti-Umbrella organization. A fact which is never stated again anywhere in the series and is outright ignored and indeed, changed to him actually being employed by a secret agency under the direct control of the U.S. President.

...dammit Kato!

The storyline is actually fucking perfecto without it. It's the one dirty mole on the ass cheek of the series. I actually hope Noboru Sugimura tore Kato apart for Wesker's Report and Gaiden because they fuck up an otherwise flawless canon. Someone wasn't attending those monthly fucking meetings!