Job #11: Female Newcomers
Capcom Fighter - SonSon III (SonSon)
SonSon is a platform video game series created by Capcom in 1984, which was loosely based on the Chinese classic novel, Journey to the West. The player assumes the role of a monkey boy,
SonSon himself (who is based on Sun Wukong) as he fights his way from one side to another in order to reach the statue of Buddha while shooting enemies alongside his sidekick TonTon (based on Zhu Bajie/Cho Hakkai) to free their friends SuiSui (Sha Wujing) and Sanzo Hoshi (Tang Sanzang) from the
Great Demon. The game became popular enough to achieve home console ports on Famicom and later on, a sequel
SonSon II for the TubroGrafx/PC Engine in 1989, with even cameo appearances in Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Strider 2, Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure and as an available character in a cancelled RPG mobile game,
Capcom Super League Online.
In Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, SonSon III is the granddaughter of the original SonSon himself, having been created for the game as one of the three new characters alongside
Ruby Heart and
Amingo, in which her home village was afflicted by an epidemic upon
Abyss' awakening from it's slumber, leaving on a quest to find the origin of the mysterious strange disease, meeting with Ruby Heart, Cable and other various Marvel/Capcom characters.
Much like her grandfather, SonSon can straight up keep
her old techniques from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, alongside having new special moves from the original game series and using
items/spells from SonSon II such as:
- Shooting energy blasts from her staff like a machine gun (only attack method in the original arcade game).
- A glove/gauntlet that breaks certain walls (fist item in SonSon II; likely for a powerful rushdown move).
- Medicine that refills her health (SonSon II).
- A peach projectile that bounces around the terrain like Mario's fireballs (Peach spell).
- Tossing out bombs to create a jet of flames from the ground akin to Castlevania's Holy Water (Bomb spell).
- Three orbs rotating around her like a shield to absorb damage like Mega Man's Leaf Shield (Shield spell).
- Stopping time to freeze opponents for a few seconds by using a hourglass (Time Stop spell).
- Summoning multiple lightning bolts from the sky (Thunder spell).
She mainly fights by using her staff which she inherited from her grandfather by drilling it forward, spinning it while flying upwards, making it grow and then slam down onto opponents after throwing it into the air. She can also rip out three strands of her hair to shoot out small monkeys from them, suck opponents inside the gourd before cooking them on a bonfire, crawl onto the ground to sneak under several kinds of attacks, use the Kinto'un cloud to temporarily fly in the air for a few seconds or perform air dashes, walk around the edges of the screen, give her teammates a peach to recover their health, turn opponents into a giant fruit with "POW" (referencing a power-up that turns all on-screen enemies into food) and temporarily transform into a giant ape monster (En'ou) for stronger attacks and super armor.
Konami Fighter - Pastel & WinBee (TwinBee)
- Series: TwinBee
- First Appearance: Detana TwinBee!! (February 21th, 1991) and TwinBee (March 5th, 1985)
- Character Theme Choices:(so many bangers)
TwinBee is a cartoon-themed vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up video game series, which was created by Konami for the arcades in 1985 and centers around twin bee-shaped anthropomorphic androids named
TwinBee and
WinBee as they fight off the enemies to protect their home in
Donburi Island. The game quickly became a success to the point it started the "cute 'em up" subgenre alongside SEGA's Fantasy Zone (which was released the next year) and spawned multiple sequels,
manga,
radio drama and
anime adaptations with cameo appearances in other Konami franchises. The character designs in almost every single game in the series since
Detana!! TwinBee in 1991 were provided by a famous Japanese animator,
Shujirō Hamakawa (also known by the pseudonym of "SHUZILOW.HA"), who also worked on Thundercats, Transformers: The Movie, etc., thus pretty much establishing the series' tone itself and having been heavily involved in characters and the games' stories.
Introduced in
Detana!! TwinBee, Pastel is the deuteragonist who takes the role as WinBee's pilot and a second player, being part of the
TwinBee Team alongside her cousin
Light (TwinBee) and little brother
Mint (
GwinBee), led by her grandfather
Dr. Cinnamon, who created the bumblebee androids themselves. She is a gentle, outgoing young girl who spends most of her time keeping peace in Donburi Island, succeeding her father
Donnamon (from the original game), and her future descendants,
Whip (from Moero TwinBee/Stinger & TwinBee 3) and
Chime from
Mine Yoshizaki's
manga spin-off of Detana!! TwinBee, sharing a great friendship with
Madoka (who debuted in 1993's Super NES game
Pop'n TwinBee), who is her schoolmate/neighbor and is usually accompanied by her ship WinBee. She even had published
numerous musical albums based on the anime series, which were dedicated to her objective on becoming a popular idol singer and once appeared
as a guide/host alongside WinBee in a interactive activity game on computers,
TwinBee PARADISE in Donburi Shima, even turning herself into characters from
other Konami games.
While TwinBee himself would work as a fighter on his own, Pastel is certainly said, a fan favorite (and was proven to be the most popular character, even being used as the poster figure and
before she was named), since she made
multiple cameo appearances even as a playable character in many other Konami games, such as the Ganbare Goemon series (even appearing
in an OVA based on TwinBee, Gradius and Castlevania), Wai Wai Bingo,
Konami Krazy Racers, the SEGA CD and PlayStation versions of Snatcher, Bombergirl, Battle Tryst, etc., even having a few characters modeled after her such as
Pastel Bomb in Taisen! Bomberman and
Erul Tron in the Otomedius series (where WinBee also appeared as a boss in Otomedius Excellent), with characters from other franchises having seen sometimes cosplaying as her, like the protagonist's love interest in Bass-Tsuri Shiyouze! (with him being identical to Light) and
Homura Akai in Tokimeki Memorial 2.
Borrowing from her role as
a unlockable character in Battle Tryst (
her ending), Pastel herself is capable of fighting with boxing techniques by using gloves, her gymnastic skills for twirling/flip-kicking and even a laser revolver/handgun to fire energy projectiles like in
Bombergirl (being labeled as "Shooter" in class). She may also use
Bell Power-Ups to make her weapon more powerful with different properties,
summon a barrier/forcefield that lasts for several hits and even call out WinBee for
certain special moves and supers/Hyper Combos like punching opponents
with a enlarged fist (which can stop some projectiles),
boosting forward, diagonally or straight upwards with her turbines, using her Olympic ribbon as a whip, blasting opponents with missiles, bombs and sending out an
army of miniature "option" versions of herself that flutter everywhere around the screen.