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...
Congratulations to Oba-chan from Rhythm Tengoku, for being perhaps the most distinct female character in the franchise! She has a humble, respectable job; a unique, more realistic body type; and a face that isn't the same as every other Whythm Woman's. This is probably because she's meant to be old, so it's also nice to see an older woman here! Of course, it's quite a problem that age is seemingly the only factor that will get this designer to draw a different-looking woman. And now I'm learning that she only appears in the Try Again screen of a certain minigame, so while she may be kind and encouraging, her only role is to appear in the event of failure. Geez! I think Groove should only feature old women, in every role. I think that's the only way feminism can truly win.
