quick ‘n dirty fanart of Mike and Chuck because MOTORCITY is premiering tomorrow!! I’ve been busy lately doing cleanup on this show and am proud and happy to be able to call myself part of the team along with no shortage of talented and hardworking people. :D

I’ll be drawing the rest of the characters eventually but this will do for now. WATCH THIS SHOW GUYS, it is beautifully animated and a lot of fun, and the first episode is available for free download on the iTunes store!

sxizzor:

YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED ADVENTURE? GET ON THAT SHIT. NOW. and nightmare in dream land is no substitute, it was way easier. you haven’t fought meta knight until you’ve fought adventure meta knight. or i guess dark meta knight in amazing mirror.

speaking of amazing mirror, it was really good, it gets a lot of flak but i liked it. and if you enjoy jerk!kirby like i do, try avalanche.

I was planning on grabbing it on Virtual Console, this is a good reminder! Not sure if there’s any difference in the controls between the port and the original game, though. Augh, too many games to try, both Kirby and otherwise. D: This is the problem with getting into video games relatively late, I have a huge backlog to catch up on.

i loved the narrator, omg. the storytelling was my favorite of any kirby game. it was just so cute and hilarious and i’ll stop gushing now *_*

weird how i say i like old edgy kirby games and then love epic yarn, but. maybe we can get epic yarn’s storytelling style and cuteness and still have some edgy parts??!?!

I generally prefer stories to be told without words wherever possible, so I completely admit that that is just personal bias on my part. ^^; Like I said I do want to finish it, and there’s plenty that I liked about it. It’s a beautiful game, I like that they took a risk like taking away Kirby’s ability to copy, and I think it succeeded at being exactly what it was meant to be - if that makes sense.

One of my favourite things about Kirby is the mixture of cute and subversive elements, and if they made a game that combined the two masterfully I would be allll over that shit :D

and now all this talk is making me want to go draw more Kirby fanarts so off I go.

sxizzor:

waddledoodles:

Butting into conversations I’m not part of like a boss!

But(t), edginess? I guess since I don’t see anything inherently violent or shocking about Kirby’s actions compared to other video game characters, I don’t see his games as having an edge to them—at least not where Kirby’s characterization is concerned. Perhaps if he were older I’d see the “edge”, but to me he’s just a kid. Like many kid heroes, he’s idealistic to a fault and doesn’t think things through.

Where I can see “edginess” is in the darker elements of the games—i.e., Dark Matter/Zero/Zero Two, Marx and Magolor, etc etc. That’s the thing that got me really interested in the series beyond that Ishikawa guy. Although I still to this day only care about that Ishikawa guy.

can tumblr handle the three-body problem!?!?!

maybe it’s that i DON’T see kirby as a kid (he is more ambiguously aged to me /shrug) so i see his poor impulse control as more of a character flaw than simple child-immaturity. and lately he just has childlike naivety, which is fine as a trait on its own but not when it REPLACES something i like, you know?

but in any case the early games to me have some really cool black and grey morality going on, not just with kirby, and it is here that i find edginess:

consider dedede! he breaks up the star rod, sacrificing everyone’s ability to dream, in order to protect dream land. but he does this without informing anyone of what he’s doing, and uses the fountain of dreams as a swimming pool to boot. he’s a hero, but he’s a dick about it. he also doesn’t give a fuck that the crystal shard does not belong to him, because he is king and he takes what he wants. like the stars in kirakira kids. so maybe edgy isn’t the right word? it’s not exactly depth, but it’s not simple good vs evil, either.

and meta knight in super star: “man dream land is kind of a crappy place to live sometimes, and i know a lot of people say this, but i would make a GOOD dictator.” he truly does have people’s best interests at heart, but he expresses that in a condescending and controlling manner. again there is complexity here.

this is part of the reason i like squeak squad so much!!! kirby is like “yo where my cake at HEY I BET DEDEDE TOOK IT” and dedede gets revenge by using him as a bowling ball. and they don’t team up or anything, dedede continues to be lazy and lets kirby handle it. like, even in 64, he was reluctant to go along with kirby. and then later meta knight is like “kirby no listen NO you are DOING IT WRONG let me handle ALL THE THINGS” and kirby is like “??? whatever HEY LOOK AT THIS EVIL CLOUD OF EVIL i wonder if THAT is what took my cake”, and then the squeaks turn out to be not such bad people after all. that was fun.

so when kirby games are less “here is a hero and here is a villain” than “here are some characters, you control this one, have fun”, i like that. they seem to be doing a good job with dedede, so here i will get into my feels on meta knight: maybe it’s just because he wasn’t really in mass attack much and the two most recent games besides that were epic yarn and return to dream land, maybe it’s that combined with my general wariness of anime influence, but lately he seems too nice. how meta knight works is, he swings from anti-villain to anti-hero to hero, protagonist to antagonist, and back all through there and it’s not inconsistent characterization, exactly, it’s more “here is a situation. how would kirby react to it? ok, now how would meta knight react to it?” and since kirby is the main character, the answer to those questions determines what meta knight’s role is in that particular game, and in turn how he treats kirby, because if they’re working together they get along, and if they’re not, well, meta knight has little patience for people opposing him.

so lately they have been uniting against common evils which is all well and good but now i want a situation where he does morally questionable things, or good things in a dickish or at least easily misinterpretable way, and he and kirby clash over it, and on top of that maybe we also can has kirby not being 100% poyo about it??!? and maybe dedede can be a third side in this? just so i can see their chaotic-(neutral-)lawful dynamic all laid out. interesting character interactions are my maxim tomatoes.

but meta knightmare ultra was pretty awesome because it emphasized his love of combat (and his arrogance) over his heroism, and that was fairly recent so i suppose i should not worry too much. although if they decide he doesn’t need to be a boss anymore now that we have galacta to fight, i might have to flip some tables.

Thanks for pretty much stating how I would have liked to respond except you did it better and with more examples. :B I do see Kirby as being a young kid as well, though maybe not quite as young and sweet as he is in the anime, but I definitely meant ‘edgy’ in reference to the games, and how they’re usually more complex than just little cartoon blobs doing cute things.

I especially love your summary of how Squeak Squad played out. That was pretty much why I warmed to the game, I think!

sxizzor:

that’s a good point, since as i was typing that i was thinking “super star and adventure seem separate from squeak squad in this somehow” and now i remember that sakurai made the first two. interesting. although it might have been because super squeak squad is newer…

there was so much that they could have done with the anime, and should have done imo, but i can enjoy it for what it is. i friggen loved epic yarn, only problem i have is it continuing a trend in meta knight’s characterization that i resent. what exactly do you mean by it being anime-influenced? i mean, i see it, but i am curious as to what you see.

i haven’t played mass attack, so i couldn’t say. and i agree, return to dream land was super star + adventure + “HEY DID YOU KNOW THERE ARE A SHIT TON OF KIRBY GAMES” + “also there’s an anime”. it was a good game.

i will talk to you about kirby at any time! i like talking about kirby :3 what games haven’t you tried?

As far as the platformers go, I’m still missing Canvas Curse, Amazing Mirror, and some of the really really old ones like Adventure and the first Dream Land, though I’ve played the remakes, and Super Star Ultra too which is fun to be able to bring around with me! I haven’t tried any of the puzzle games either, I vaguely remember my brother and I dicking around with Dream Course while on holiday when I was a kid but I didn’t find it that compelling (probably because I don’t find golf compelling, heheh). Most of them were before my time and my family had a Sega while I was growing up.

I actually really liked Squeak Squad even though I read a fair number of negative reviews criticizing it for not really trying anything new. I didn’t think it really needed to, especially since Canvas Curse and now Mass Attack did try new things in their gameplay for the DS. It was a well-done solid Kirby game that felt like the classics and I actually really liked the Squeaks as characters (they show up in Mass Attack too, whoo). As far as Epic Yarn goes, I think the main area where it recalled the anime to me was the feel of it (also, “poyo!”). It had this feeling of sweetness and softness (both in look and gameplay) that the anime had too, and lacked the harder edge I mentioned that Super Star etc had - which I don’t mean to be a bad thing, just different. I haven’t beaten it yet, though - I mainly was annoyed that the cutscenes had narration, gratuitous narration is a huge pet peeve of mine and I work in the animation industry so I tend to be very fussy about storytelling. xDD The game itself was fine if a touch too sweet for my taste, I’ll probably pick it up again and finish it at some point soon! I’ll have to ask you what you mean about Meta Knight once he shows up. xD

Also this is supposed to be a fanart blog and I’ve been posting nothing but text lately so here’s a little Kirby doodle because WHY NOT :D My first time drawing Dedede, I believe, for shame x.x;

sxizzor:

yup, whatever major happened he had to have been ok with it, i think. but he did say they were separate canons, so who knows~? my favorite kirby is probably avalanche adventure, squeak squad, or super star. in all of them he shows signs of being impulsive and impatient; less of a baby, more of an immature person who does like to help people and is usually nice, but is sort of subtly cocky about his heroism and sometimes needs to be reminded to shut up and listen to people. i like it. i am wary of influence from the anime tbh. i liked the anime, and details are cool and all (poyo!), but i would rather be able to enjoy both of the versions of characters i love. i want my game kirby and my adorable sweet bb anime kirby. if game kirby starts being anime kirby, then by default i will have one less thing to fan over. :c

Yep, I definitely think that Super Star (probably my all-time favourite), Adventure and a lot of the Game Boy games (really the games Sakurai worked on in general it seems, though I can’t comment on Air Ride since I haven’t tried that one yet) seem to have more of an edge to them generally speaking than something like, say, Crystal Shards. The immaturity and impulsiveness are certainly traits that apply across the board.

I’m actually not a huge fan of the anime, though I do respect what they were trying to do with it, but considering its popularity in Japan I’m not really that surprised to see it influencing the games. I think the games where I’ve seen the most influence from the anime so far have been Epic Yarn and Mass Attack, the former of which I really didn’t enjoy that much for several reasons (though the look and style of the game wasn’t one of them). Not so much with Return To Dreamland, though, which seemed to be trying to pay homage to both the older games and the anime, so that’s something I guess.

Really I’m just happy that I have someone to talk to about all this hahah! :B Now I want to go pick up a Kirby game I haven’t tried yet…

sxizzor:

shelzie:

I can’t find the source right now but if I’m correct, that was part of the reason why his creator Sakurai was adamant that he not really talk in the anime series other than meaningless noises and repeating what other people say, because he’s supposed to be a baby.

iirc sakurai just wanted him to not talk, and the writers made him an actual baby. i might be wrong, though.

So far I can’t find anything decisive, but Sakurai was definitely heavily involved in the production of the show so I doubt it was too far off the mark. Then again, I really didn’t like Dedede’s characterization in the show very much at all. x( My favourite characterization of both Kirby and Dedede (and design, in Dedede’s case at least) is in the Subspace Emissary of Super Smash Bros Brawl. :B (And that wasn’t even supposed to be the real them, so blaaahhh…)

Either way, Kirby’s characterization in more recent games is clearly heavily influenced by the show, which was apparently a huge hit in Japan, so I guess for better or for worse it’s here to stay!

excitabletortoise:

eco-mono replied to your post: okay so wait is it like generally accepted that…

*shrug* generally he’s fighting against the worse guy? especially in later games where there’s actually somesemblance of plot…

Okay guys, this is the big thing you should understand about Kirby.

He essentially has the mentality of a two-year-old. He’s impulsive, curious, pure id, and just toddles around the place putting stuff in his mouth. I can’t find the source right now but if I’m correct, that was part of the reason why his creator Sakurai was adamant that he not really talk in the anime series other than meaningless noises and repeating what other people say, because he’s supposed to be a baby. (And yes, Kirby/Meta Knight slashers, that basically means that you endorse gay alien child porn! That’s a subject for another day, though. :B)

My point in saying all this - I think that Kirby is a very, very innocent character, but that he is also capable of cruelty BECAUSE of that. Innocence and cruelty aren’t mutually exclusive, in fact very often they can be found in the same place. I know I did some horrible things to animals/bugs when I was a very young child that I am truly ashamed and regretful of now, and I have always been fascinated by and/or loved all animals so it wasn’t a matter of being deliberately awful to these creatures, I was just too young to know any better. I also know I’m hardly alone in this - kids are capable of some pretty terrible things which, ideally, we learn are wrong or harmful to others as we grow up. You’re not the first person by a long shot that I’ve seen be like “Kirby’s not a hero! He’s a huge jerk that murders wildlife and innocent bystanders!” and while I agree that’s a valid stance, I just wanted to offer up my take and argue how he can quite easily be both because of the nature of his character. Of course I’m picking apart old-style platforming games here whose canon is hardly consistent, but my view of Kirby as a well-meaning but derpy child that doesn’t quite grasp the magnitude of his actions, and that doesn’t really think before he acts, is one that makes the most sense to me.

The deceptive simplicity of Kirby himself is a large part of why I love the Kirby series so much! :B I enjoy that anyone that can really be called intelligent or calculating in that franchise is either a villain (Marx, Dark Matter) or something of an anti-hero (Meta Knight) - though granted a lot does vary depending on the game you play, and I haven’t played through absolutely all of them just yet. Kirby and Dedede (who hasn’t really been a true villain since the original Kirby’s Dream Land for the Game Boy, so shush!) are total innocents as far as I’m concerned and among my favourite characters in video games of all time ever. No lie!

(For the record - I always try to avoid killing Waddle Dees when I can. I love those little buggers ;_;! The fact that 64 was my first Kirby game probably has something to do with it…)

AND THAT WAS MY GIANT RAMBLE ABOUT CHARACTERIZATION IN THE KIRBY SERIES. I might think too much about these things. e_e;

waitwhatsthatinthefuckingsky:

shelzie:

Sue from Cave Story which I still need to finish, it’s such a great little game even though I kind of hit a wall with it. D: I fail at playing platformers with a keyboard. I need my thumbs!!

Finish it! I wrote a three-page article on why I love that game so much. It’s totally worth the carpal tunnel syndrome.

Found your article! :D I’ll finish it once I finish the game, but for now, will share the link for the sake of anyone who is interested.

Cave Story: A Dev’s Perspective

And here’s a link to the game itself for anyone whose curiosity has been piqued. :B

Last post for tonight, Chef Kawasaki from the Kirby series :D If it’s not clear enough already, I adore the Kirby games and Kirby as a character. I’ll elaborate more on that at some point perhaps, but the tl;dr version is that I like cute and destructive together.

Another piece I did for my ‘favourite characters’ series that I’ve kind of abandoned, I was going to try and draw a character a week. I’d still like to do some regular fanart, but I might have to narrow my focus a tad this time. We’ll see!

Sue from Cave Story which I still need to finish, it’s such a great little game even though I kind of hit a wall with it. D: I fail at playing platformers with a keyboard. I need my thumbs!!