#cusu cusu

It's been a while since I posted, so here I am playing as Kei on mix mode! I've been busy working now, so I have to balance that plus school :(. ANYWAYS, I captured this back in December, but was too lazy to post. Around then, my PS2 started having issues, the disc drive and CMOS began failing, which meant I couldn't access some features on DS2001 like View Mode. Luckily, the disc itself isn't scratched, which was my biggest worry. I hope to eventually replace the CMOS battery (I somewhat taught myself how to solder) and lubricate the laser carriage to fix those loud noises from the disc drive.

I wouldn’t describe my current state as “in an art block” but I definitely feel stifled in some ways. Something [or, someones, harhar] that makes me feel a little better are my Lord and Saviours, Cusu-Cusu. Lately, I have been drawing nonstop and quite frankly ridden with inspiration but my stupid perfectionism and depression won’t let me finish anything or even be in the mood to. However, those four wonderful ladies bring me so much consistent comfort that even if a drawing is a simple sketch, I may be so inclined to actually finish it. Which is still something I struggle with but Hey ! Look ! This one’s finished and it looks great !! SHE looks great. And it only took me just over 2 hours so I don’t have much of a reason to not do these kinds of drawings all the time.

In the ds2001 website [now archived], the team description for Cusu-Cusu is not only different but gives some extraordinary extra information.

Here’s it translated :

Cusu-Cusu ☆Team Story

Sahara and Cindy come looking for Kei and Me, who have gone missing on a trip to Africa, and find the two masked and disfigured. The Cusu-Cusu elder tells them. “These two have incurred the wrath of our god, Lord Cusu-Cusu. There is no other way to lift this curse than to use the mysterious power of the Groovetron." The two immediately entered the Dance Summit 2001 to obtain the Groovetron. “Come on, you guys dance with me! This is no time to be cursed!"

Let’s get into this, each sentence at a time, immediately because I can’t wait any longer.

We already knew that Cindy and Sahara don’t live in Africa but it was kinda vague for Kei and Me, this confirms that they also don’t. Although, unsurprisingly, it’s unclarified to which country, they’re just going to Africa.

The ‘disfigured’ is very intriguing. Is that referring to their horns? Or does it mean the masks were the disfigurement in general? I hope it’s the latter because I really like their horns so adding the physical pain of growing horns to their curse symptoms is horrifying. Disfigurement could also include those genuinely strange splotches of greenish… “stuff” on their arms? Maybe I’m focusing too much on it, this was only translated through a website so maybe it doesn’t matter that much.

I already thought that the title ‘Cusu-Cusu’ was a culturally significant term separated from Lord Cusu-Cusu, so this confirms that it’s the name of Me and Kei’s tribe and that it also has an elder. ‘Incurred’ makes me curious because what did Me and Kei do to make their Lord angry? Either it was something so terrible and possibly sacrilegious or Lord Cusu-Cusu is a frequently wrathful god and cursed them because it’s also just evil. I’ve had the idea that all they did was leave, ever since I first found out about their story. Born and raised in whatever country in Africa in their in-universe tribe and moved away, which was the start of Lord Cusu-Cusu’s wrath. So when they went back for a holiday, likely meant to be a family reunion, their Lord finally got a hold of them and cursed them.

We already knew that the Groovetron is the only thing that can cure them but it will always make me so sad. As I’ve said before, I would so prefer for Me and Kei to be safe than for Texas to have some steak. The fact that it’s their tribe elder to confirm this, shows that the Groovetron isn’t only some modern technology but that it can also be regarded with the same respect as a god.

Sahara and Cindy IMMEDIATELY join the Dance Summit 2001 because they love each other so much and will not hesitate to help their friends wwwwwww we know all that. What I find interesting is the speech at the end, which is most likely Cindy because of the bossy tone. She’s the leader, of course they’re gonna dance with her. It’s curious because what the hell is she talking about? ‘This is no time to be cursed’? What do you mean?! They don’t have a choice and that’s exactly why you’re here!! Well, I take it as incredible denial. We can already see that Cindy has leadership built into her, that she’s confident, independent and persistent and all that can turn into bitterness towards Me and Kei’s “hesitation” even though she is currently trying to save their lives. Also, she seems to not fully know what the curse is, can’t blame her since they’re still able to dance [how convenient]. The lack of knowledge makes a clear distinction between the two halves of this quartet, confirming that Kei and Me are related to each other but not Cindy and Sahara, likely befriending them during their travels.

I cannot understand why nobody ever thought to look into this until I decided to do it pretty much two years ago, and I’m sorry that I’m only posting about it now. I’m not sorry to you, the fandom, I’m sorry to Kei, Me, Cindy and Sahara. Fuck Lord Cusu-Cusu though. I hate that guy

I wonder why they decided to add all this incredible stuff only in the website and why it was never there to begin with. I also wonder if they added stuff for the other teams but I don’t really care.

Me with a cowboy hat… save me..

Me with a cowboy hat…

I’ve been extremely depressed recently and I’m not getting better, drawings have stagnated because of that, so in the meantime, take some unfinished Cusu-Cusu drawings that I don’t care about or like enough to post on my main account.

This one of Cindy is actually quite nice ! I might redraw it because I changed the colours at the last moment and that really pulled it all together for me. I’ve always liked this one despite how different my artstyle has become [I do not want to go back], but I just never found a reason to post it. Until now, I suppose. All my appreciation for this drawing depletes when I look at the stone ring she’s lifting. I rightfully didn’t want to put any effort into it but despite this whole piece already being quite simple, it does kinda ruin it.

This was a Halloween drawing that I never really planned to post on any upcoming Halloweens at the time, just whenever it was finished, but I lost interest so I never finished it at all due to multiple factors. Sahara is the only one that really works, therefore she’s the only one I started to colour and I should really finish her up and turn her into a solo drawing because she still looks great. Cindy is a vampire with a wooden stake stabbed in her head from where her flower would usually be [I still think that’s a clever idea]. Kei is a ghost, a wee banshee like, I’ve always associated her with flow-y and gloomier aesthetics but it just didn’t really look like Kei, same with Cindy. Me is equally as generic. She’s a zombie, wearing a hoodie/poncho thing over a dress, all very tattered, worn out and covered in all kinds of muck and blood, with one of her horns broken in half. I quite like what I pictured her design to be, second to Saharas, but it doesn’t work well as a drawing, it would’ve looked too flat and boring but putting her in the far back didn’t fix that. Apart from Sahara, I’ll definitely try to come up with something else for the other three at some point. The main issue was that they didn’t follow the same design principles as their original designs, it was just gonna be a straight up black dress for Cindy and a white one for Kei. How boring.

This is an example of having a really specific image, colour scheme and composition in mind, but my artstyle not fitting it yet. This, objectively, looks fine, but I don’t draw like this anymore and I don’t want to. We may not know what Kei’s face looks like but this definitely doesn’t look like what I’ve always pictured in my head [and drawing what I pictured right has taken me some years, even though I still haven’t mastered it yet]. Anyway, at least this piece perfectly encapsulates the colours that I associate with her.

This Sahara one is boring and I abandoned it very quickly. She was gonna be holding one or more of the parrots that show up in the Jungle Rock stage and vines, flowers and other fauna were going to wrap around and frame her perfectly but ugggghhhh I didn’t want to do any of that. Her face is still cute but I really really didn’t like drawing like that anymore and was desperate for change. Somebody else should’ve drawn this.

ok so since this is an ask i'll (finally) get to my question lol: what drew you to cusu-cusu specifically?? i apologize if you've been asked this before but like, i am genuinely curious...even despite the fact they're based around rather harmful african stereotypes(which ik you touched on in a post), what about them keeps you interested enough to look past that, so to speak?? is it the character dynamics? the mystery surrounding them, namely me and kei and those cursed masks?? as for me personally i do enjoy playing as them, their dances are super cool and fun to watch and their CPUs are very cooperative so it's easy to get quartets ^_^ oh and their stage's song is catchy though not my most fav one overall

Oh my god thank you SO much for this !!!! I have also noticed that I stand out with other fan artists, likely due to how different my artstyle is from the series’ style but my opinion of myself is not important, thank YOU so much for the compliment.

So… nobody has asked me that before. I talk mostly about Cusu-Cusu with my friends in real life since nobody here seems to be interested at all. Probably because of the racist tropes they follow and people are too blindsided to realise that they are actually really sweet and emotional characters. Which when I joined the fandom, I understood but now, ugh guys please just listen to me already… so lots of thanks to you for actually asking me anything about them. As to why I’m interested in them so much, of course it’s the dynamics and the mystery, the masks, the dances, all the quartets and their song !!! [Red Star is all the way up top of my favourites, including the New Wave mix, I don’t care for the European mix much]. If I didn’t like all that then what would I like ??

I have been such a big defender of them because there’s such loving, interesting characters and downright terrifying realities behind those stereotypes. It’s so clear that the designers had no racist motivations for creating them at all, they were just incredibly misguided because it was Japan in the late 90’s, so I’m not going to judge them. And their designs are wonderful !!! I wouldn’t draw them so much if I didn’t love their look [I have a HUGE amount of drawings of them… so many wips… so little time…]. I feel like people want to compare them to Hamm whose whole character was intended to be a joke and design was actually racist, I think he’s adorable, but Cusu-Cusu aren’t like that at all.

Cindy and Sahara want to be doctors, Sahara wants to be a vet specifically because she can literally talk to animals, kinda questionable but *cough* Utan in Discos Estrus. She also likes to sleep in trees which is also questionable, maybe smells a bit of racist character tropes of wild tribes not even being able to make homes for themselves… but shut up because her sleeping in trees is actually adorable to me. So many kids grow up climbing trees but what is there to do once they’re up at the top ? Take a nap up there is Saharas answer and that’s amazing. Also, she just loves her friends so much. All the unabashed hope for Me and Kei’s safety and possibly their survival is on Sahara because her innocent love for everything is so strong. I AM crying and YOU are too !! Cindy is great, I’ve said before that she’d benefit from being more interesting but that’s what makes her still likeable; she feels so realistic. Her maturity compared to Sahara is a huge reason why I think the team is so well crafted. Also I really like drawing her, I love how much her hair contrasts with the rest of her. And what do I even say about Me and Kei that I haven’t already repeatedly said ? Well, there’s always something more otherwise I wouldn’t have made this account. The mystery of them and their curse is incredible. However, I’ve constantly gone back and forth between liking the mystery of the curse and really wishing we knew more about it. Yet no matter how much I dread the reality of Me and Kei’s state, it’s still so intriguing, is it not ? But I suppose the main loveable thing about them is their designs because there’s not much else if somebody didn’t care for the mystery. But the ripped up animal skin, the incredibly unfortunate design choice of Cusu-Cusu as a whole, is the most obvious with these two. That’s why I draw them wearing things that are completely different. But I love everything else. The colours are cool but holy shit those masks and horns !!!! Compared to actually racist depictions of tribal masks, there’s clearly no negative intent at all. Definitely stereotypical but clearly acceptable. Maybe I love them so much because I used to watch the Harry Belafonte episode of The Muppet Show religiously when I was really young and the last song would deeply comfort me and put me to sleep. It included African inspired masks which Me and Kei’s look nothing alike but maybe there’s an unconscious connection there…? Although I am incredibly aware that Cusu-Cusu have no connection to anything culturally African.

Yeah I wouldn’t have talked about and drawn them the most if I thought they were just offensive and ignored them. I’ll never understand people who do that. That is another huge reason why I love them so much. I love defending them. I love talking about them with people who don’t quite understand them which those conversations haven’t actually happened… until now !!!! Thank you so much for this ask !! I genuinely thought that I’d never actually be asked anything about Cusu-Cusu by another fan and what makes me like them so much !! Maybe this is more than you expected for me to say but trust me, I had to much more that I scrapped from this and have saved for another day…