#mod chikako

Name: Jack's

From: The Incredible Circus

Name: Miss Ribbon

Debut: Rhythm Heaven Fever

International Womens' Day has been upon us! Everyone say thank you women! And also apologize to women. Gaming is full of iconic female characters, from Opila Bird to Slow Seline. But none quite as female as this one!

Miss Ribbon is pink. She wears a ribbon. She's named after the fact that she's a girl with a ribbon. That's all there is to her! There is absolutely no concept to this character design. She's a Girl One, but she exists in comparison to one of the most bare-minimum character designs possible.

Here she is with Marshal and Cam, the other two little ambiguous humanoids in her clique. You have the Main One, the Glasses One, and the Girl One, of course. How else would you be able to tell them apart? Every friend group is like this. If no one in your friend group is the Glasses One, well... you just might be more Glasses than you think!

Marshal and Cam are boys. OBVIOUSLY. You'd be a fool to think otherwise. Do you see any defining gender markers on them? Exactly! That means they're male, because they're default. And I mean really default. Rhythm Heaven is full of these little featureless white homunculus characters in all sorts of situations, as sort of the bare minimum kind of Person that can exist in the world. Always male, since they don't have any Female accessories, like eyelashes (please do not look at SpongeBob). Just like humans, where girl babies are born wearing pink bows. They weave these bows in the womb using their silk glands!

I'm torn between Miss Ribbon being hilarious and infuriating. She is the laziest Girl design possible, and the concept of Girl Versions is rather funny to me, but I'm laughing at it, not with it! I want female characters to have actual designs! And maybe I could forgive Miss Ribbon more if the Rhythm Heaven series was better at female characters in general, because. Well,

Here are a bunch of the female characters featured in Fever's rhythm games. There are a lot of women in these games, which is good, but they're nearly all the same woman! The ol' Ko Takeuchi sameface. That guy loves his Girls, but perhaps it's more accurate to say he loves his Girl, since he basically keeps drawing the same one in different outfits and with different hairstyles. Essentially no variance in facial layout, skin tone, or body type to be seen anywhere! A whole series, victim to the Cute Girl Curse... and if she isn't this kind of design, she's a Girl Version of an androgynous male character. I certainly hope Groove makes some more unique women. But as of now...

Fire Mario is iconic! This is the very first offensive power-up to appear in the mainline Mario series, and it appears to this very day! It's simple, yet effective. Mario can throw fireballs in front of him, giving him a frontal attack he would not otherwise have. More and more characters continue to get their own Fire forms, with their own spins on the snazzy red-and-white outfit!

...and I'm gonna say it. It's not a very good design!

It LOOKS good, I can't deny that! But what about this screams "fire"? There's red, but Mario already had red. The big new addition is the white. Red and white... you want me to associate that with fire? This is Candy Cane Mario. Bowling Pin Mario. Popcorn Bucket Mario. When the B button is pressed, he will attempt to sell me one of those three things. The two buttons on his overalls represent the two popcorn kernels in the bucket. It may seem like a paltry amount, but you're only paying for the bucket! It's a nice little bonus, because he likes you.

And where are the fireballs coming from? His hand? As if. I don't buy it. There's nowhere on those for fire to come out! No holes or nozzles or even match heads! I think we've all been too afraid to admit that Fire Mario's design ruins our immersion. It's time for a redesign.

Doop de doop de doo. This is my platform. My reliable platform! Thanks to my platform, I can exist at a higher elevation, if need be. My platform does not make any sounds, or any of those frivolous things, but I think it loves me. It helps me. We have a bond that you may not understand, but you can appreciate it, right? A dog can't tell you it loves you, but you can know. It's the same way with my platform.

There are plenty of other platforms in the world. Plenty of flashier ones, with more functionality than my platform. I don't NEED mine to rotate, or spin, or follow a track, or anything! It's perfect the way it is, because it's MY platform. It's my best friend. Huh? You don't remember me ever mentioning my platform before this post? Feh. You must be a fake fan. Only explanation I can think of!

My platform never leaves my side... unless it's under my feet supporting me, of course! It's physically supportive, and emotionally supportive, too. I just get that feeling that it really gets me.

So, recently, my platform and I were enjoying some coastal merriment. We went parasailing! What fun! It seems so scary, but once you get up there and the line gets taut, it's honestly the most serene thing I can think of. I'd love to be able to do it all the time to clear my head whenever needed, but it being a rare indulgence does make it all the more special.

So there we were! Soaring over the ocean, our responsibilities far below. Just us, the sea, and the sky. The only land in sight was my dear platform sitting beside me. Even a platform loves to be elevated by something else once in a while. At least, that's what I think.

I'll never know exactly what happened next. Maybe a malfunction. Maybe an accident. Maybe intentional tampering. But suddenly... the line snapped. We were gone. At the mercy of the winds, with no land in sight. I clung on for dear life, to the seat, and to my platform. But we had to land at some point. We tumbled through the crashing waves, and I gasped for air at just the wrong time. As I coughed up seawater, I felt weaker and weaker. I just didn't have the energy to keep going.

I remember waking up on a rocky shore. Right next to my platform. It had saved me, no doubt. But I couldn't save us now. I had no energy. No food. Days went by, with nothing but saltwater to sustain me. Then, at last, I saw it. Right next to me, where my platform usually sat.

A beautiful, unbelievably massive mango-frosted eclair. You probably don't believe me, but I was in no position to let such a treat get away. Without question I tore into it like a wild beast. The taste was bizarre, the texture tough, but none of that mattered. I wasn't going to question such a gift. I gorged on the treat until I passed out, exhausted, yet full.

That night, for the first time in days, I dreamed. I dreamed of my platform, lost at sea. Alone. It wasn't real, but god, it hurt so much that it might as well have been. Waking up from that dream should have been a relief. And yet, when I did, I didn't see anything I expected. Not the eclair. Not my platform. There was something new.

Name: Bone Lift

Debut: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Name: Pee Cloud

Debut: Mario Kart Arcade GP XL

Name: Putt

Debut: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Putt is a funny little critter! It has this big rock, see? You see the rock? It's going to do a trick with the rock. Are you ready?

PUTT! It putts the rock right down the hill! Like it's playing mini golf! My goodness gracious, look how happy it is! It's having so much fun, probably more fun than you've ever had in your life, to be honest. But let's always try to find such incredible joy in the little things, just like Putt!

What a fun trick it just pulled off. But what now? The rock is gone. It can't do the trick again. How does Putt feel about this?

Putt smiles because it happened! It smiles massively! It's going to remember this antic for a long, long time, and it looks forward to the next time it gets to do it!

Name: Bad-minton

Debut: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon