Hey, psst. Want to hear about one of my more meaningless pet peeves?
You know the Moomins, right? A few years ago the answer might've been no, but after the popularity of Moominvalley (2019) the Moomin franchise seems to have gained popularity outside of Europe and Japan. In any case, Moomins follows the adventures of hippo-like "trolls" in book, comic, TV show and movie form, animated, stop motion and live action alike. One of my very favourite characters from the Moomins is Edward the Booble.
(First image from here, the rest pulled from the episode Adventures of Moominpappa: Part 1)
My first introduction to him was in the animated Moomin (1990) series, and wow!!! What a creature, I'm sure you can assume why I immediately took a liking! A gigantic, reptilian beast, magnificently suited for aquatic living with his long body and finned tail! In this series it's even implied that he might be a dragon or related to dragons (this is not a feature of other Moomin series or books though) which made him infinitely cooler to me. Despite being the second largest creature on Earth he's always described to be a very friendly guy, if he ever steps on a person by accident he always pays for the funeral costs, they say.
Edward has other interpretations of himself, naturally, given the long lifespan of the Moomins as a franchise and the fact that he made his actual debut in the book Moominpappa's Memoirs. This is him as illustrated in the book:
In the stop motion show The Moomins (1977) he looks like this:
(Image from The Moomins episode Edward the Booble)
The comics take perhaps the greatest divergence, as in those he looks like this:
...Still pretty similar, usually.
Fortunately for me, despite his rather few appearances in any Moomin property, he gets his own spotlight in the Moomin World park! ...There's a theme park, by the way. Two parks, one in Naantali, Finland, one in Hanno, Japan. I'm talking about the Naantali park in this case, a place I've gone to significantly more than the average person. ^^' As you saw, certain characters (and places) look extremely different interpretation to interpretation, so Moomin World most closely sticks to the 90's animated show if there's any conflicting designs. This is Edward at the park, he floats near the Moomins' "bathing hut":
Now look at that! Naturally they couldn't have made him a gigantic looming beast, but this is really darn close to how he is in the 90's series. He looks a lot like a long-necked dinosaur, I really enjoy his individually molded scales and hair strands, and his sort of claylike texture. It makes him look like he was brought into the real world straight from a cartoon: a look that's just right for the Moomin World! Just look at his face!!!
A real big sweetie!!!! He's obviously fake, yet he feels real anyway. It's the way that he's shaped so naturally, how his raised neck and tail and arched back create a shape that flows from body part to part. It’s the way each part of him is textured, even in the parts of him where he lacks scales there’s a subtle unevenness to his surface, and certain features are raised. Despite being a purple yellow-haired reptilian creature he's very much like a real animal! All in all an excellent adaptation.
“Wait,” you might be thinking. “This is all good things. You like the Edward at the park. Where’s the pet peeve?”
You’d be quite right! All of this is indeed well and good, but that’s because I’ve withheld one crucial detail.
That is not Edward the Booble at the Moomin Park.
Not anymore. He was replaced some time ago, with an all new design.
Currently, Edward looks like this:
(Top image from here, bottom image from here)
What in the world. Do you see that??? Edward looks like his spine was mangled. I presented you with several different versions of Edward before so you could compare: does he look like any of his adaptations? Certainly not. He has never been a sea serpent!! Nevermind this ridiculously long snake torso, he's always depicted as having a long neck and tail but a normal, plump body. See those things shittily painted on his side? Those are fins! When did he ever have fins!!!?????
All of those wonderful sculpted scales have been replaced with an all smooth surface. His body's surface texture is instead communicated through paint. I do think the paint job is quite pretty as his colouration gets some variation (reminds me of a story book illustration, likely they were going for that look), but see how much the light reflects off of his plastic surface? When his scales were actually there, you'd see their shadows, but now that they went for an all smooth design he looks cheap, like any other theme park plastic statue out there. He looks factory-made. It makes his newly added fins appear like an afterthought, nevermind his hair that shifts from three-dimensional to painted on halfway down his neck. I suppose they just didn't feel like painting his hair all the way down his back like it is in Moomin...
I suppose his quizzical look is pretty cute, but yeeeouch that neck!!!! It has that weird bend right in the middle, and it's so skinny and short compared to his body. It widens so much at the bottom, he's like a watering can, man! His head is far too small and a real weird shape, though I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps his weird bulging teeth? They're awfully big in his mouth when previously they were more in proportion.
They insisted on this weird long noodle body and yet he doesn't even flow nicely anymore. There's an awkward hump between the neck and the body, and at the end of his body where logically his form would rise up, it instead straightens out for a bit, then his tail raises.
Now, obviously this is extremely minor in the grand scheme of things. I seldom bother myself with thoughts of the new Edward the Booble — only now did I get the idea of making a Tumblr post about this, lmao. This is just another case of “man, now why would they do that >:(“ rather than anything big. Because, really… man, now why would they do that!! Had a perfectly good Booble before. Perfect down to every last detail. Now he’s been replaced by some imposter! >:(
