Fourthmatchflame
Fangirl of Ryoshu and Scorched Girl
- Location
- A certain Pale Librarians Book.
- Pronouns
- She/Fae
should be neat, cant wait for the COVID pandemic.
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For all readers and writers
After much ado, our new tagging system is here and being rolled out to the userbase. Read more here!
Sonic Says "Wait Until Marriage": A Very Silly Weird History
- Thread starter Small Nerd
- Start date
- Timeline Post-1900
Those are not words that I would expect to read, but entirely fair, I just see that things are only going to get more stupid as time goes on
Sakura Wars
New
Small Nerd
Meganekko
- Location
- Out There
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've been threatening to go on about Sakura Wars for a while now, so I'm here to make good on that threat.
Since I expect most people reading these posts aren't familiar with the series, Sakura Wars is, in real life, a series of video games that have mostly been Japan-only, along with a lot of side media that are also largely Japan-only. Most of this media is all in the same continuity, aside from a full-length anime series that is very different in tone from the rest of the franchise and is also one of the few things to get an official English version, because of course it is, and a few spin-off games that may or may not be part of the main canon. The main Sakura Wars games all have broadly the same format, a hybrid of visual novel and turn-based tactical game where the player spends most of their time going around having conversations with the different characters and working to improve relationships with the main heroines, who you can date because this is ultimately a series designed for lonely shut-in men. Improving your relationships with all the heroines is necessary, though, since they're also your party in battle, and the more they like you the better their stats are.
As for the story, the series takes place in a steampunk version of the 1920s where authoritarian dictators never got power, and so Japan is actually somewhat democratic. Most of the games center on Tokyo's Imperial Assault Troop/Troupe, a paramilitary force that uses steam-powered mech suits to fight demons when they're not putting on plays to keep the public's spirits up. The creator of the series is a big fan of theater, you see. You play as Ichiro Ogami, a navy man assigned to lead the Imperial Assault Troupe in battle, only to find that his coworkers are all wacky anime archetypes and he has to play therapist, at least in the first game. For Sakura Wars 2, there's two new heroines, and they're the ones who need therapy since the returning heroines from 1 are all fine now. Then for Sakura Wars 3, Ogami goes to Paris to help the locals set up a competent Assault Troop of their own, naturally playing therapist to a new set of anime archetypes. And in Sakura Wars 4, both Assault Troupes Ogami's worked with team up to fight the baddest demon there is because this game was originally intended to be a grand finale for the series because the developers knew the Dreamcast was dying and they wanted to get out another game for it while they could, and a finale game to send off the console seemed appropriate. Sakura Wars 5, one of few games in the series to get an official English release, sees Ogami's nephew, one Shinjiro Taiga, go to New York City to help out with their own Assault Troop (this was originally the idea for the plot of 4, albeit with Ogami rather than Taiga) and get force-femmed. I am not kidding about the force-femming. After that game, the series went into hiatus until 2019, when a new game released. Set in the 1940s, this sees a new protagonist, Seijuro Kamiyama, help a new Imperial Assault Troupe, assembled by one of the heroines from the first four games, find its feet. Shin Sakura Wars, as it's called by fans, is one of the few games in the series with an official English release, and it's a PS4 game, so it's actually somewhat accessible. I'd still recommend starting with the fan translation of 1, though, or maybe the fan translation of 3 once that's finished.
In this timeline, Sakura Wars is mostly like it is in our world, but since the Dreamcast has a full lifespan, 4 uses its original idea of having Ogami go to New York City to help their defenders out. Additionally, the ports of 1 and 2 for the Dreamcast (they were originally Saturn games) get official English versions, since by this point RPGs (which is how Sega management is thinking of the games) have now been proven to work in the West after Final Fantasy 7 and Sega needs their own series to compete in that space, and a game with such strong anime aesthetics should do well anyway thanks to the recent anime boom. These games indeed do well, thanks in part to good marketing that includes an ad parodying the old Sailor Moon English theme song, as well as a strong cast, at least for the major characters, and an English release for 3 and 4 follow in time. I've actually worked out an English cast for the major characters of 1 and 2, or at least the major good guy characters. I'll put that in a spoiler to save some space.
The success of the games leads people at Fox to consider bringing over the other media in the series, since they've already got the show for one big Sega series so why not another, but a lot of that media takes the form of live stage shows performed by the same cast as the games, and that's not something the suits are willing to consider. There is a full-length anime, but its differences from the games and general vibes mean it isn't considered either. Eventually, it's proposed that they just make their own show to have something that fits their needs, and Sega's willing to sign off on it since they're not paying to have it made. The English cast from the games is brought on to voice their characters in this new cartoon, and that has some interesting effects.
One thing the cartoon's writers decide on is that, since Sonic has a noteworthy Jewish fandom in America (they're working on this in the early-mid 2000s, so people are starting to know about that) and they're making a complement to Sonic X, the Sakura Wars cartoon should have a Jewish character too. The problem is that most of the characters of Sakura Wars aren't European, so they're going to have to do some work to sell American audiences on one of these people being Jewish. There is a Russian character, but her backstory is that she fought in the Red Army during the Russian Revolution (I am not kidding, it's in the real-life series too), so making her Jewish has the risk of treading into dangerous territory. After a long time throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, someone notices that one of the voice actors they've got, Susan Eisenberg, is Jewish (the name helped). The character she plays, Kohran Li, is Chinese, but it turns out that there is an old Jewish community in China, one that assimilated into mainstream Chinese society over time to the point that their Jewishness had largely become memories of old customs by the time the show's supposed to take place. It's a convenient explanation for why the Jewish character in a period piece isn't obviously Jewish and gives her a ready-made subplot of learning more about her heritage and deciding what to do with it, so Kohran is designated "the Jewish character."
Another result of the cartoon's casting decision is that Mona Marshall is retained to voice the child character that seems to obligatory for games with relationship sim elements (and in this timeline's localization of the series, they're very careful about what her relationship with Ogami is and isn't). This eventually leads to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, learning about the existence of Sakura Wars from hearing Marshall mention her work on it and doing an episode that parodies it (I'm not really into South Park, so feel free to imagine an appropriate plotline and jokes for that episode), which helps bring the series some attention it wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
Overall, Sakura Wars stays a major series for Sega in this timeline, though it never quite makes it to flagship series in the West (IRL, it was and to some extent still is one of the main things Sega's known for in Japan; in this timeline, that big-in-Japan status is definitely still around), since even with anime being as big in America as it is in this timeline, there's just not a big enough target audience to support a full-on flagship status. In the West, Sakura Wars is a major Sega series, but Sakura Shinguji, the series poster girl, is stuck at a distinctly lower tier than the likes of Neptune or Sonic.
Since I expect most people reading these posts aren't familiar with the series, Sakura Wars is, in real life, a series of video games that have mostly been Japan-only, along with a lot of side media that are also largely Japan-only. Most of this media is all in the same continuity, aside from a full-length anime series that is very different in tone from the rest of the franchise and is also one of the few things to get an official English version, because of course it is, and a few spin-off games that may or may not be part of the main canon. The main Sakura Wars games all have broadly the same format, a hybrid of visual novel and turn-based tactical game where the player spends most of their time going around having conversations with the different characters and working to improve relationships with the main heroines, who you can date because this is ultimately a series designed for lonely shut-in men. Improving your relationships with all the heroines is necessary, though, since they're also your party in battle, and the more they like you the better their stats are.
As for the story, the series takes place in a steampunk version of the 1920s where authoritarian dictators never got power, and so Japan is actually somewhat democratic. Most of the games center on Tokyo's Imperial Assault Troop/Troupe, a paramilitary force that uses steam-powered mech suits to fight demons when they're not putting on plays to keep the public's spirits up. The creator of the series is a big fan of theater, you see. You play as Ichiro Ogami, a navy man assigned to lead the Imperial Assault Troupe in battle, only to find that his coworkers are all wacky anime archetypes and he has to play therapist, at least in the first game. For Sakura Wars 2, there's two new heroines, and they're the ones who need therapy since the returning heroines from 1 are all fine now. Then for Sakura Wars 3, Ogami goes to Paris to help the locals set up a competent Assault Troop of their own, naturally playing therapist to a new set of anime archetypes. And in Sakura Wars 4, both Assault Troupes Ogami's worked with team up to fight the baddest demon there is because this game was originally intended to be a grand finale for the series because the developers knew the Dreamcast was dying and they wanted to get out another game for it while they could, and a finale game to send off the console seemed appropriate. Sakura Wars 5, one of few games in the series to get an official English release, sees Ogami's nephew, one Shinjiro Taiga, go to New York City to help out with their own Assault Troop (this was originally the idea for the plot of 4, albeit with Ogami rather than Taiga) and get force-femmed. I am not kidding about the force-femming. After that game, the series went into hiatus until 2019, when a new game released. Set in the 1940s, this sees a new protagonist, Seijuro Kamiyama, help a new Imperial Assault Troupe, assembled by one of the heroines from the first four games, find its feet. Shin Sakura Wars, as it's called by fans, is one of the few games in the series with an official English release, and it's a PS4 game, so it's actually somewhat accessible. I'd still recommend starting with the fan translation of 1, though, or maybe the fan translation of 3 once that's finished.
In this timeline, Sakura Wars is mostly like it is in our world, but since the Dreamcast has a full lifespan, 4 uses its original idea of having Ogami go to New York City to help their defenders out. Additionally, the ports of 1 and 2 for the Dreamcast (they were originally Saturn games) get official English versions, since by this point RPGs (which is how Sega management is thinking of the games) have now been proven to work in the West after Final Fantasy 7 and Sega needs their own series to compete in that space, and a game with such strong anime aesthetics should do well anyway thanks to the recent anime boom. These games indeed do well, thanks in part to good marketing that includes an ad parodying the old Sailor Moon English theme song, as well as a strong cast, at least for the major characters, and an English release for 3 and 4 follow in time. I've actually worked out an English cast for the major characters of 1 and 2, or at least the major good guy characters. I'll put that in a spoiler to save some space.
The success of the games leads people at Fox to consider bringing over the other media in the series, since they've already got the show for one big Sega series so why not another, but a lot of that media takes the form of live stage shows performed by the same cast as the games, and that's not something the suits are willing to consider. There is a full-length anime, but its differences from the games and general vibes mean it isn't considered either. Eventually, it's proposed that they just make their own show to have something that fits their needs, and Sega's willing to sign off on it since they're not paying to have it made. The English cast from the games is brought on to voice their characters in this new cartoon, and that has some interesting effects.
One thing the cartoon's writers decide on is that, since Sonic has a noteworthy Jewish fandom in America (they're working on this in the early-mid 2000s, so people are starting to know about that) and they're making a complement to Sonic X, the Sakura Wars cartoon should have a Jewish character too. The problem is that most of the characters of Sakura Wars aren't European, so they're going to have to do some work to sell American audiences on one of these people being Jewish. There is a Russian character, but her backstory is that she fought in the Red Army during the Russian Revolution (I am not kidding, it's in the real-life series too), so making her Jewish has the risk of treading into dangerous territory. After a long time throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, someone notices that one of the voice actors they've got, Susan Eisenberg, is Jewish (the name helped). The character she plays, Kohran Li, is Chinese, but it turns out that there is an old Jewish community in China, one that assimilated into mainstream Chinese society over time to the point that their Jewishness had largely become memories of old customs by the time the show's supposed to take place. It's a convenient explanation for why the Jewish character in a period piece isn't obviously Jewish and gives her a ready-made subplot of learning more about her heritage and deciding what to do with it, so Kohran is designated "the Jewish character."
Another result of the cartoon's casting decision is that Mona Marshall is retained to voice the child character that seems to obligatory for games with relationship sim elements (and in this timeline's localization of the series, they're very careful about what her relationship with Ogami is and isn't). This eventually leads to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, learning about the existence of Sakura Wars from hearing Marshall mention her work on it and doing an episode that parodies it (I'm not really into South Park, so feel free to imagine an appropriate plotline and jokes for that episode), which helps bring the series some attention it wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
Overall, Sakura Wars stays a major series for Sega in this timeline, though it never quite makes it to flagship series in the West (IRL, it was and to some extent still is one of the main things Sega's known for in Japan; in this timeline, that big-in-Japan status is definitely still around), since even with anime being as big in America as it is in this timeline, there's just not a big enough target audience to support a full-on flagship status. In the West, Sakura Wars is a major Sega series, but Sakura Shinguji, the series poster girl, is stuck at a distinctly lower tier than the likes of Neptune or Sonic.
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I might not be able to think of any jokes, but I could easily see a lot of jokes on the really offensive side, mainly given Kohran's position in the US fandom, like they have some episode where the main cast find out and then in a way similar to the superhero episode(which this might replace), creates a thing where they act like it is the game, and there is going to be a lot of jokes about how SEGA is pandering to one audience, with it later leading to a 'Panderverse' being made up of 2 different parts, Into the Panderverse, which is essentialy our version, and Across the Panderverse, which turns up the jokes on SEGA which I am 90% sure will be a relatively common thing ITTL, as for the 'South Park Revue' as I'm going to call it, I am 90% sure that they would make a South Park game revolving around it, or if they never create superhero alter-egos due to Superhero movies never really taking off, the 'Sakura Wars' parody episode will be the one that got all those episodes and the game
Small Nerd
Meganekko
- Location
- Out There
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That makes sense to me. Thanks!
Again, given Kohran and Sonic's 'Jew' position, I am 90% sure that South Park will have quite a few jokes aimed at SEGA
Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
The Death Egg is now the picture of the Secret Jewish Space Laser. Anytime someone brings up that conspiracy, it is either with or immediately followed by a picture of the Death Egg.
Small Nerd
Meganekko
- Location
- Out There
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh, this makes me laugh too much for me to not include it in the timeline.
The Nintendo Cinematic Universe
New
Small Nerd
Meganekko
- Location
- Out There
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've kept mentioning the Nintendo Cinematic Universe, but I've left it pretty vague up til now. That's because I haven't put much time into fleshing it out yet. But now I want to have more meat on this idea's bones, so let's get to it.
The Nintendo Cinematic Universe is what I've been calling the collection of television series (pretty much all animated) and movies that adapt different Nintendo and Nintendo-adjacent video game series and all take place in the same overarching world. What people in this timeline call it probably isn't that since the name is a play on "Marvel Cinematic Universe," and that term exists because it was needed to distinguish the MCU from the main universe Marvel comics take place in. Nintendo's games generally aren't thought of as taking place in one connected universe, so "Nintendo Cinematic Universe" isn't a phrase I expect would occur to people in this timeline. I imagine they'd call it something like the "Unified Nintendo World." Much less catchy, so I'll stick with what I've been using.
The NCU starts around 2005 or 6 with a cartoon adapting Super Mario. This is their pilot program, so they stick with a very recognizable name. The Mario cartoon does fairly well with younger kids and their parents, and it increases sales of Mario games enough that Nintendo decides this experiment is worth continuing with new shows. Soon enough, American televisions are showing cartoon adaptations of The Legend of Zelda and Kirby (technically not owned by Nintendo, but they work with HAL on licensing out the series both in this timeline and real life). The Kirby cartoon continues on in the vein of the Mario cartoon, largely aimed at younger kids and fairly episodic in story, while the Zelda show is a bit more experimental. It's aimed at somewhat older kids (roughly 8-12 years old), and tells a continuing story (what that story is I'm not sure yet). The Kirby cartoon isn't especially successful, but it isn't a failure either. Meanwhile, the Zelda cartoon does pretty well, and the people in charge of this whole "adapting Nintendo games into TV shows" project come to the conclusion that telling proper stories is viable and something they should keep doing. This lays the actual groundwork for the cinematic universe proper.
Around 2008 or 9, a slate of new Nintendo cartoons begins to air. These include adaptations of series that aren't necessarily high priority for Nintendo as games but still have potential to make them money. These include series like Metroid and Star Fox, which do get cartoons at this time. There's also a Fire Emblem cartoon (not technically owned by Nintendo, but Intelligent Systems is very much Nintendo's pet, so I don't think it's absurd) for the sake of brand synergy, since this timeline's equivalent to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is releasing around this time and they might as well promote it. It's also with this set of cartoons that the idea of a connected universe starts becoming prominent, with a crossover special for Metroid and Star Fox (the plot is what you'd expect, the villains of both shows team up so the heroes team up too) and some references to the Zelda cartoon in the Fire Emblem show (the occasional mention of something that happened in the Zelda cartoon, mostly). The thing that first gets people's attention is that the crossover special has effects on the story of both cartoons going forward. Then people notice the Zelda references in Fire Emblem and things take off from there.
Fans who notice these things start going back through the previous cartoons to see if there are any more connections and find one or two shots in the Kirby cartoon where you can see what looks like a Metroid from, well, Metroid, because a very nerdy animator had decided to put in a reference to Kirby's Dream Land 3 for fun (in both this timeline and in real life, that game has a brief segment where Kirby has to get rid of some Metroids, which gets him the gratitude of Metroid protagonist Samus Aran). This really gets the theory-crafters going, and soon enough people are seeing connections between all of Nintendo's cartoons, whether or not they're actually there. And then, each of the currently-airing Nintendo cartoons wraps up, and they all include similar scenes at the end of the protagonist being approached by a mysterious figure who'd like to talk to them about "the Smash Project." Fans go nuts.
The Super Smash Brothers movie, whose name may or may not be Super Smash Brothers, releases around 2010 or 2011. It had started production alongside the set of Nintendo cartoons that gave people the idea of a connected universe, but it still needed time in the oven. This movie brings together all the Nintendo cartoons that have come out up to this point, even the ones for Mario and Kirby, and has the heroes from each of them join together to form "the Smash Squadron" (and they're all brought together by Master Hand, of course), a team dedicated to fighting evil whenever it threatens so many worlds that such a large team of powerful heroes is necessary. For this movie, that great evil is Tabuu (or whatever the villain of this timeline's equivalent of Super Smash Bros Brawl is named, this movie gets roped into helping promote that game), a tyrant who wants to rule the whole universe and make everyone be productive all the time. The movie has a subtextual theme about the value of play, since it is ultimately promoting a bunch of video games. The movie ends with Tabuu defeated (not necessarily forever, of course) and the heroes deciding to stick together for the time being, just in case.
The Smash Brothers movie, much like the real-life Avengers movie, is what propels this cinematic universe into household name status. By the time it comes out, many American families are already familiar with the various Nintendo cartoons (they all air on Nickelodeon, which is still a dominant kids' channel in this timeline because of SpongeBob SquarePants), and they're all good enough that each has gotten a noteworthy fanbase, so this movie helps to permanently merge all those separate fanbases into a single and quite large one. After the movie, more cartoons come out to help maintain the momentum, so the NCU fandom is given plenty of opportunity to solidify itself into an enduring part of the cultural landscape. Some of those cartoons continue the stories of the characters in that movie, some feature new characters (who get scouted for the Smash Squadron, naturally). For the most part, characters from different games are in separate shows, since Nintendo generally doesn't make games that combine their series and doesn't want to set expectations that they're going to start doing that, but crossover specials and/or TV show storylines do happen, just in a carefully controlled amount.
New cartoons after the movie include one for F-Zero (Chris Pratt, who didn't get a role in Parks and Recreation and is attempting to pivot to voice acting, plays Captain Falcon), one for Pikmin (which features a mostly-silent protagonist traveling through a ruined world on a quest to return to his home, inviting comparisons to Samurai Jack), and a spin-off of the Super Mario cartoon focusing on Luigi's adventures as a ghost hunter. There are also additional seasons for the Metroid, Star Fox, and Legend of Zelda cartoons.
Eventually, there are more movies and more TV shows, and once the internet develops the infrastructure to support it, direct-to-streaming shows appear too. The Nintendo Cinematic Universe is a real money printer, but I'm not sure how that affects what games Nintendo decides to make. It probably should, I just don't know enough about how Nintendo management makes its decisions to guess at how. I can say that this timeline's Wii does well and its successor isn't a total failure, if only because the brand loyalty the NCU has cultivated can keep the Wii U more alive than in real life. The Wii U probably still does pretty badly, though. I can also say that Disney doesn't have the dominance over American popular culture in this timeline that it does in our world. This world's Disney doesn't own Marvel Comics (an MCU never quite materialized, so Disney wasn't as interested in buying the company), and due to Al Gore beating George Bush in the 2000 presidential election, the FTC has a different set of members than in real life, and they decide to bar Disney from acquiring Lucasfilm. Disney is still a major force in this timeline's entertainment industry, but it's not the master of all it surveys.
Because the NCU occupies the position of "big pop culture thing that all nerds have to know stuff about whether they want to or not" in this timeline, that also means that all the fanwork of the MCU we all know and... have opinions on... either doesn't exist or is about something else, which is often the NCU, as you probably expect. I'm not sure what ships this world's Tumblr fujoshis would be really into, though. Maybe Fox and any male character that's conventionally attractive enough, maybe Mario/Luigi incest. The yuri-heads would probably mostly be into Samus/Zelda, I'm pretty sure, since it's the cliche "masculine woman and feminine woman" thing (never mind that Samus isn't all that masculine and Zelda is known for androgyny, official characterization doesn't matter when it comes to shipping). I bet there'd be at least a few interesting NCU quests on here or... other forum sites... but I'm not going to speculate on what they'd be like since I'm not really a quest writer. Also, the NCU probably doesn't have any of its writing done by Joss Whedon, since he doesn't seem to have much of an interest in working on animated stuff, so that particular style of dialogue probably isn't as popular in this timeline's 2010s as it was in ours. Whether or not that's an improvement I'll let you decide, but at least this world doesn't have to endure the same few jokes being made about that writing style constantly.
So there's all the thoughts I've had about the Nintendo Cinematic Universe now that I've put in the time to think about it. I might go into more detail about some of the shows I've mentioned in future posts, and I also might try and think through some more of the consequences of this phenomenon, but for now, I'm going to think more about other stuff in this timeline. What will it be? We'll see.
The Nintendo Cinematic Universe is what I've been calling the collection of television series (pretty much all animated) and movies that adapt different Nintendo and Nintendo-adjacent video game series and all take place in the same overarching world. What people in this timeline call it probably isn't that since the name is a play on "Marvel Cinematic Universe," and that term exists because it was needed to distinguish the MCU from the main universe Marvel comics take place in. Nintendo's games generally aren't thought of as taking place in one connected universe, so "Nintendo Cinematic Universe" isn't a phrase I expect would occur to people in this timeline. I imagine they'd call it something like the "Unified Nintendo World." Much less catchy, so I'll stick with what I've been using.
The NCU starts around 2005 or 6 with a cartoon adapting Super Mario. This is their pilot program, so they stick with a very recognizable name. The Mario cartoon does fairly well with younger kids and their parents, and it increases sales of Mario games enough that Nintendo decides this experiment is worth continuing with new shows. Soon enough, American televisions are showing cartoon adaptations of The Legend of Zelda and Kirby (technically not owned by Nintendo, but they work with HAL on licensing out the series both in this timeline and real life). The Kirby cartoon continues on in the vein of the Mario cartoon, largely aimed at younger kids and fairly episodic in story, while the Zelda show is a bit more experimental. It's aimed at somewhat older kids (roughly 8-12 years old), and tells a continuing story (what that story is I'm not sure yet). The Kirby cartoon isn't especially successful, but it isn't a failure either. Meanwhile, the Zelda cartoon does pretty well, and the people in charge of this whole "adapting Nintendo games into TV shows" project come to the conclusion that telling proper stories is viable and something they should keep doing. This lays the actual groundwork for the cinematic universe proper.
Around 2008 or 9, a slate of new Nintendo cartoons begins to air. These include adaptations of series that aren't necessarily high priority for Nintendo as games but still have potential to make them money. These include series like Metroid and Star Fox, which do get cartoons at this time. There's also a Fire Emblem cartoon (not technically owned by Nintendo, but Intelligent Systems is very much Nintendo's pet, so I don't think it's absurd) for the sake of brand synergy, since this timeline's equivalent to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is releasing around this time and they might as well promote it. It's also with this set of cartoons that the idea of a connected universe starts becoming prominent, with a crossover special for Metroid and Star Fox (the plot is what you'd expect, the villains of both shows team up so the heroes team up too) and some references to the Zelda cartoon in the Fire Emblem show (the occasional mention of something that happened in the Zelda cartoon, mostly). The thing that first gets people's attention is that the crossover special has effects on the story of both cartoons going forward. Then people notice the Zelda references in Fire Emblem and things take off from there.
Fans who notice these things start going back through the previous cartoons to see if there are any more connections and find one or two shots in the Kirby cartoon where you can see what looks like a Metroid from, well, Metroid, because a very nerdy animator had decided to put in a reference to Kirby's Dream Land 3 for fun (in both this timeline and in real life, that game has a brief segment where Kirby has to get rid of some Metroids, which gets him the gratitude of Metroid protagonist Samus Aran). This really gets the theory-crafters going, and soon enough people are seeing connections between all of Nintendo's cartoons, whether or not they're actually there. And then, each of the currently-airing Nintendo cartoons wraps up, and they all include similar scenes at the end of the protagonist being approached by a mysterious figure who'd like to talk to them about "the Smash Project." Fans go nuts.
The Super Smash Brothers movie, whose name may or may not be Super Smash Brothers, releases around 2010 or 2011. It had started production alongside the set of Nintendo cartoons that gave people the idea of a connected universe, but it still needed time in the oven. This movie brings together all the Nintendo cartoons that have come out up to this point, even the ones for Mario and Kirby, and has the heroes from each of them join together to form "the Smash Squadron" (and they're all brought together by Master Hand, of course), a team dedicated to fighting evil whenever it threatens so many worlds that such a large team of powerful heroes is necessary. For this movie, that great evil is Tabuu (or whatever the villain of this timeline's equivalent of Super Smash Bros Brawl is named, this movie gets roped into helping promote that game), a tyrant who wants to rule the whole universe and make everyone be productive all the time. The movie has a subtextual theme about the value of play, since it is ultimately promoting a bunch of video games. The movie ends with Tabuu defeated (not necessarily forever, of course) and the heroes deciding to stick together for the time being, just in case.
The Smash Brothers movie, much like the real-life Avengers movie, is what propels this cinematic universe into household name status. By the time it comes out, many American families are already familiar with the various Nintendo cartoons (they all air on Nickelodeon, which is still a dominant kids' channel in this timeline because of SpongeBob SquarePants), and they're all good enough that each has gotten a noteworthy fanbase, so this movie helps to permanently merge all those separate fanbases into a single and quite large one. After the movie, more cartoons come out to help maintain the momentum, so the NCU fandom is given plenty of opportunity to solidify itself into an enduring part of the cultural landscape. Some of those cartoons continue the stories of the characters in that movie, some feature new characters (who get scouted for the Smash Squadron, naturally). For the most part, characters from different games are in separate shows, since Nintendo generally doesn't make games that combine their series and doesn't want to set expectations that they're going to start doing that, but crossover specials and/or TV show storylines do happen, just in a carefully controlled amount.
New cartoons after the movie include one for F-Zero (Chris Pratt, who didn't get a role in Parks and Recreation and is attempting to pivot to voice acting, plays Captain Falcon), one for Pikmin (which features a mostly-silent protagonist traveling through a ruined world on a quest to return to his home, inviting comparisons to Samurai Jack), and a spin-off of the Super Mario cartoon focusing on Luigi's adventures as a ghost hunter. There are also additional seasons for the Metroid, Star Fox, and Legend of Zelda cartoons.
Eventually, there are more movies and more TV shows, and once the internet develops the infrastructure to support it, direct-to-streaming shows appear too. The Nintendo Cinematic Universe is a real money printer, but I'm not sure how that affects what games Nintendo decides to make. It probably should, I just don't know enough about how Nintendo management makes its decisions to guess at how. I can say that this timeline's Wii does well and its successor isn't a total failure, if only because the brand loyalty the NCU has cultivated can keep the Wii U more alive than in real life. The Wii U probably still does pretty badly, though. I can also say that Disney doesn't have the dominance over American popular culture in this timeline that it does in our world. This world's Disney doesn't own Marvel Comics (an MCU never quite materialized, so Disney wasn't as interested in buying the company), and due to Al Gore beating George Bush in the 2000 presidential election, the FTC has a different set of members than in real life, and they decide to bar Disney from acquiring Lucasfilm. Disney is still a major force in this timeline's entertainment industry, but it's not the master of all it surveys.
Because the NCU occupies the position of "big pop culture thing that all nerds have to know stuff about whether they want to or not" in this timeline, that also means that all the fanwork of the MCU we all know and... have opinions on... either doesn't exist or is about something else, which is often the NCU, as you probably expect. I'm not sure what ships this world's Tumblr fujoshis would be really into, though. Maybe Fox and any male character that's conventionally attractive enough, maybe Mario/Luigi incest. The yuri-heads would probably mostly be into Samus/Zelda, I'm pretty sure, since it's the cliche "masculine woman and feminine woman" thing (never mind that Samus isn't all that masculine and Zelda is known for androgyny, official characterization doesn't matter when it comes to shipping). I bet there'd be at least a few interesting NCU quests on here or... other forum sites... but I'm not going to speculate on what they'd be like since I'm not really a quest writer. Also, the NCU probably doesn't have any of its writing done by Joss Whedon, since he doesn't seem to have much of an interest in working on animated stuff, so that particular style of dialogue probably isn't as popular in this timeline's 2010s as it was in ours. Whether or not that's an improvement I'll let you decide, but at least this world doesn't have to endure the same few jokes being made about that writing style constantly.
So there's all the thoughts I've had about the Nintendo Cinematic Universe now that I've put in the time to think about it. I might go into more detail about some of the shows I've mentioned in future posts, and I also might try and think through some more of the consequences of this phenomenon, but for now, I'm going to think more about other stuff in this timeline. What will it be? We'll see.
...Wow... That is excessive, but I do agree on a lot of points, I can just see this universe's internet being an... interesting place, as I said earlier when I was talking about the Neptunia fandom, which I am equating to the MLP fandom in parts, not fully on the same extent of MLP's fandom, one which I'm sure still pops up, leading to stuff like Rainbow Dash VS Starscream STILL HAPPENING
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Oh yeah, My Little Pony was something that happened in the 2010s. It's been so long since I last thought about it, I'd half forgotten. Gee, I have zero clue what Lauren Faust would be doing at that point in time, and without her running the show in its early days, I'm not sure it'd catch on with men in the way it did IRL. Maybe she has the chance to do more with her "Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls" idea in this timeline. IIRC, she never had the chance to do much with it in actual history, and I get the impression it's something she really cared about (still cares about?). Call it my way of paying homage to the actual Faust for helping make a show I really liked when I was younger.
Just remembered that I forgot to ask this. Does the fact that the original voice of Rei from the 90s also provided Sumire's voice have any part to play in the use of a parody of Moonlight Densetsu(the DiC dub was one of a few that had their OP be the Japanese OP with English lyrics for the most part, not counting Hawaiian dubs such as the Hawaiian UltraSeven dub or the Hawaiian Mazinger Z dub)?
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Actually, I didn't have the shared voice actress in mind when I came up with that bit. I forget what exactly my thought process for it was, but it was probably something like this: How can I finagle Sakura Wars into doing reasonably well in America? Good marketing would help, what would make for effective marketing? Well, Sakura Wars is pretty anime, and anime is doing great in this timeline's America. How can I play on that? Oh yeah, if you tilt your head and squint Sakura Wars is a bit like Sailor Moon. There's a bunch of female characters with different personalities who fight evil, that's close enough. An ad campaign playing off those superficial similarities wouldn't be completely implausible, and I'm sure it'd help move units. What would be an ad campaign that sounds plausible? An ad that does a "fighting evil by moonlight" bit could fit the bill, and the idea makes me laugh, let's go with that.
As you can see, my creative process is a roughly even split between "How do I set up the outcome I want?" and "How can I take this into comedy territory?"
So the reference that both Rei Hino(during the 90s) and Sumire Kanzaki are both voiced by the same person in Japanese was 100% unintentional? If so, well, it certainly does come across as a "Hey, did you know that Sumire and Raye both have the same VA in Japanese" getting thrown around A LOT on forums online before the creation of Sailor Moon Crystal(if that is going to happen ITTL, I also assume that the 2003 live action is still going to happen regardless of the changes)
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Also on a wholy unrelated note
What's happening with DK in Monster Jam? Is it getting replaced with say an Altered Beast Truck, or does it remain DK? And will SEGA(Altered Beast)/Nintendo(DK) lean heavily into Monster Jam in the late 2000s? And maybe even renewing the sponsorship in 2010?
Donkey Kong(Monster Jam) BTW
What's happening with DK in Monster Jam? Is it getting replaced with say an Altered Beast Truck, or does it remain DK? And will SEGA(Altered Beast)/Nintendo(DK) lean heavily into Monster Jam in the late 2000s? And maybe even renewing the sponsorship in 2010?
Donkey Kong(Monster Jam) BTW
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I guess now it's this timeline's equivalent of "Hey, did you know Viggo Mortensen broke his toe kicking that helmet in Lord of the Rings?" And there probably still is a live-action Sailor Moon show in the early 2000s, if only because I can't bear to deprive the world of "Sailor Mercury has received her power from Satan" memes, though I don't know about Crystal. I didn't really like Crystal when I watched it, so I'm probably gonna avoid talking about it very much in this timeline. Maybe it happens, maybe the big anniversary thing is something else.
I had no idea this existed. I love it. What I'm leaning towards is that Sega answers the DK monster truck with a Sonic monster truck, and the console wars spread to the world of monster trucks. Who'd be the character for Sony's monster truck? Master Chief?Also on a wholy unrelated note
What's happening with DK in Monster Jam? Is it getting replaced with say an Altered Beast Truck, or does it remain DK? And will SEGA(Altered Beast)/Nintendo(DK) lean heavily into Monster Jam in the late 2000s? And maybe even renewing the sponsorship in 2010?
Donkey Kong(Monster Jam) BTW
And of course there's toy car versions of all these. Imagine the Youtube videos where collectors talk about having to fistfight someone for the Sonic monster truck. Hmm, maybe there'd be more range in the toy monster trucks, so you could have more Sonic characters in toy monster truck form. That way the fistfights can be over, say, an Amy Rose monster truck, which just seems funnier to me. A Sonic character who isn't Sonic himself would probably have their merch be less common anyway, so it makes collector fistfights more likely.
Come to think of it, maybe there should be more video game characters getting monster truck versions than just one from each console maker. They've all got more than one character who can serve as a mascot. I'm not sure which characters would translate well to that format, though, so I'm not gonna speculate about it more than I already have.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, it's cool but I never would have thought about it on my own. And thanks for all your questions and comments in general, they've gotten me to think about parts of this timeline I otherwise wouldn't have, and I'm very grateful for that.
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Huh?
Probably. I also just see in my head Sonic and Donkey Kong at Sam Boyd Stadium(in Las Vegas) for the 201x[not sure of the year, would be between 2011 and 2018] Monster Jam World Finals for the racing championship, with Sonic losing control into the turn, allowing the rookie driver who took over DK to win the World Finals racing championship. I can honestly see that the Monster Truck sponsorship side of the Console Wars would be getting pretty intense in the world of Monster Jam
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There's a part of the live-action Sailor Moon show where Sailor Mercury temporarily joins the villains, and as part of that she gets powered up by EVIL. There's a line in the show about it that's become a bit of a meme in the community of people who play the Sailor Moon fighting game since a skilled Mercury player can be really frustrating to play against.
I see.... The game is incredibly broken though, also, are we going to see that get on the professional level ITTL just like it got OTL?
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It's been a few days, but I have returned. With info about Sonic, even!
The last Sonic game that's more or less the same as in real life is Sonic Adventure 2. Soon after that game wraps up, Yuji Naka leaves Sega, and Takashi Iizuka becomes head of Sonic Team. Since they're not coming off of the Dreamcast living fast and dying young, Iizuka decides to revisit the idea of a Sonic RPG that had led to the original Sonic Adventure, as opposed to the need to introduce Sonic to a new audience that seems to have been behind the real-life Sonic Heroes.
The idea of a Sonic RPG quickly runs into the problem that Sonic and turn-based combat don't really mix, but the developers decide to lean into this fact by making it a part of the game's progression, with combat getting closer to real time as Sonic gets stronger. The story ends up being about Sonic getting sucked into the world of an MMORPG (made by Eggman for evil purposes, of course) and needing to escape/dismantle the game. The story of Sonic games is something I'm generally not very interested in, since they tend to be pretty formulaic, so don't expect a lot of detail about that topic from me. This first game after Adventure 2 is called Sonic Offline, both because the game isn't actually an online game and because it's about Sonic shutting down an online game. "Offlining" it, one might say.
Speaking of games in this period that are online, Final Fantasy XI has a Dreamcast version in this world. Thanks to Square porting Final Fantasy X to the Dreamcast, they have a relationship with Sega that results in Sega's chairman, Isao Okawa, pushing to get Square's MMORPG on the Dreamcast rather than having Sega's own staff make the online Dreamcast game he wanted (IRL, he had Sonic Team make Phantasy Star Online). By the time the Concord rolls around, the relationship between Sega and Square is established enough that when Sega wants to make their own MMO game, a sequel to Skies of Arcadia, they decide to collaborate with Square on it, to make use of their expertise. This turns out to help Sega a lot, because one of the people at Square who joins this group effort is Naoki Yoshida, a fan of the genre who forced his way onto the team once he heard about the project. Yoshida's familiarity with the genre means that he's able to help the team avoid some design mistakes that might have seriously hurt the game (such as a lack of fast travel), and the Skies of Arcadia MMO game has a good enough launch that it's able to last for some time and improve along the way.
As for what this MMO game is about, you play as the captain of one of the many sky pirate crews roaming the world, exploring new lands (read: buying expansion packs) and getting into ship battles and so on. I'm not a big fan of MMORPGs, so this isn't a topic I've had very detailed thoughts about. As for the name of this game, I haven't decided on that yet. I'm leaning towards Stories of Arcadia, at least for the Western release. As with all parts of this timeline, if you have any ideas for fleshing this out, feel free to offer them.
As you might have gathered from what I've already mentioned, the Dreamcast doesn't exactly begin the era of online gaming in this timeline, though as in real life it does have some of the first console games with DLC. It's really with the Playstation 3 and Concord (as well as the Wii, to a degree) that this timeline really starts to see online gaming get underway. Digital game stores, DLC, game updates, all of that really starts with the PS3 and Concord. The digital store for the PS3 is still called the Playstation Store, because I really can't imagine what else Sony might name it. The Concord's digital store (I haven't worked out a name I like yet) launches with a good number of games from Sega themselves as well as some from third-party developers. The need to have special digital-only games ready as well as games that are available physically is one of the major factors in Sonic Team expanding and splitting into separate sections for main games and spin-offs. Eventually, both the Playstation Store and Sega's digital store expand to the two companies' handheld systems. I also figured out a name for Sega's handheld that competes with the PSP, it's called the Sega Voyager, to fit with Sega's fondness for naming hardware after things in outer space. And since "voyager" means something similar to "nomad," it's also sort of meant to imply that the Voyager is the Sega Nomad done right.
Things to look forward to: More on this timeline's Sonic games as I work out those detaios, and maybe I'll think some more about American politics in this world too. Don't miss it!
The last Sonic game that's more or less the same as in real life is Sonic Adventure 2. Soon after that game wraps up, Yuji Naka leaves Sega, and Takashi Iizuka becomes head of Sonic Team. Since they're not coming off of the Dreamcast living fast and dying young, Iizuka decides to revisit the idea of a Sonic RPG that had led to the original Sonic Adventure, as opposed to the need to introduce Sonic to a new audience that seems to have been behind the real-life Sonic Heroes.
The idea of a Sonic RPG quickly runs into the problem that Sonic and turn-based combat don't really mix, but the developers decide to lean into this fact by making it a part of the game's progression, with combat getting closer to real time as Sonic gets stronger. The story ends up being about Sonic getting sucked into the world of an MMORPG (made by Eggman for evil purposes, of course) and needing to escape/dismantle the game. The story of Sonic games is something I'm generally not very interested in, since they tend to be pretty formulaic, so don't expect a lot of detail about that topic from me. This first game after Adventure 2 is called Sonic Offline, both because the game isn't actually an online game and because it's about Sonic shutting down an online game. "Offlining" it, one might say.
Speaking of games in this period that are online, Final Fantasy XI has a Dreamcast version in this world. Thanks to Square porting Final Fantasy X to the Dreamcast, they have a relationship with Sega that results in Sega's chairman, Isao Okawa, pushing to get Square's MMORPG on the Dreamcast rather than having Sega's own staff make the online Dreamcast game he wanted (IRL, he had Sonic Team make Phantasy Star Online). By the time the Concord rolls around, the relationship between Sega and Square is established enough that when Sega wants to make their own MMO game, a sequel to Skies of Arcadia, they decide to collaborate with Square on it, to make use of their expertise. This turns out to help Sega a lot, because one of the people at Square who joins this group effort is Naoki Yoshida, a fan of the genre who forced his way onto the team once he heard about the project. Yoshida's familiarity with the genre means that he's able to help the team avoid some design mistakes that might have seriously hurt the game (such as a lack of fast travel), and the Skies of Arcadia MMO game has a good enough launch that it's able to last for some time and improve along the way.
As for what this MMO game is about, you play as the captain of one of the many sky pirate crews roaming the world, exploring new lands (read: buying expansion packs) and getting into ship battles and so on. I'm not a big fan of MMORPGs, so this isn't a topic I've had very detailed thoughts about. As for the name of this game, I haven't decided on that yet. I'm leaning towards Stories of Arcadia, at least for the Western release. As with all parts of this timeline, if you have any ideas for fleshing this out, feel free to offer them.
As you might have gathered from what I've already mentioned, the Dreamcast doesn't exactly begin the era of online gaming in this timeline, though as in real life it does have some of the first console games with DLC. It's really with the Playstation 3 and Concord (as well as the Wii, to a degree) that this timeline really starts to see online gaming get underway. Digital game stores, DLC, game updates, all of that really starts with the PS3 and Concord. The digital store for the PS3 is still called the Playstation Store, because I really can't imagine what else Sony might name it. The Concord's digital store (I haven't worked out a name I like yet) launches with a good number of games from Sega themselves as well as some from third-party developers. The need to have special digital-only games ready as well as games that are available physically is one of the major factors in Sonic Team expanding and splitting into separate sections for main games and spin-offs. Eventually, both the Playstation Store and Sega's digital store expand to the two companies' handheld systems. I also figured out a name for Sega's handheld that competes with the PSP, it's called the Sega Voyager, to fit with Sega's fondness for naming hardware after things in outer space. And since "voyager" means something similar to "nomad," it's also sort of meant to imply that the Voyager is the Sega Nomad done right.
Things to look forward to: More on this timeline's Sonic games as I work out those detaios, and maybe I'll think some more about American politics in this world too. Don't miss it!
One of the people involved in the Sailor Moon fighting game coming to the wider FGC's attention is someone I know personally, and I don't feel comfortable with speculating on the lives of people I know in this timeline. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't.