Tragic Backstory Origins

Author's Note: All copyrights for the images in this comic go to their respective owners.

Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the Japan Airlines Flight 123 tragedy that has left enormous scars to this very day. With 520 fatalities, it still remains the worst single-plane crash in aviation history.

It may have been possible that Sailor Moon author Naoko Takeuchi drew inspiration from the Japan Airlines Flight 123 crash for the tragic backstory revolving around the death of Makoto Kino's parents in a plane crash. This may not be true, but we still do not know yet.

Close-Quarters Combat Flops

When it comes to close-quarters combat, Usagi and Kagome would suck at it. Usagi is a crybaby who does not want to hurt anybody, even after they became monsters due to getting corrupted by evil forces, while Kagome never gets involved in close-quarters combat despite her archery skills. In contrast, Sakura Kinomoto would use her magic wand as a melee weapon, while Link and Pit are capable of engaging their enemies in melee combat in addition to having excellent archery skills. If Usagi or Kagome were to fight someone like, say, Street Fighter's Chun-Li, they would stand no chance if Chun-Li got close enough to kick their face. Therefore, Usagi and Kagome would get rekt very easily when it comes to melee combat.

Memory Preservation

Remember GeoCities? That website was a place where you can create your own digital home in the days before Facebook, Twitter and even MySpace. While GeoCities no longer exist, a Tumblr account dedicated to the memory of GeoCities was established to ensure that even if GeoCities is gone, it will not be forgotten. You can even find Sailor Moon images and cat pictures that were uploaded to GeoCities on that Tumblr account. You just need to dig deep and search thoroughly.

All in all, I wish more effort was put into preserving the past. Therefore, archiving should not be outlawed for the sake of protecting intellectual properties or combating digital piracy.

Magical Girl Smash Argument

Some people think a crybaby like Usagi Tsukino from Sailor Moon should be in Super Smash Bros because she can punish villains such as Bowser, Ganondorf and Ridley in the name of the Moon. Others think Madoka Kaname from Puella Magi Madoka Magica would be the best magical girl for Smash because she could right the wrongs caused by Kyubey. But she erased her own existence in the process. Deep inside, however, the best magical girl for Smash has to be Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura. She could use her magic staff as a melee weapon, meaning she can go toe to toe against Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby and Pikachu to name a few.

Too Horrific For Smash

Credits to SrGrafo for providing the template for this comic.

There's always a valid reason non-video game characters should not be in the Super Smash Bros series (Aside from the series being a celebration of video game history). Puella Magi Madoka Magica is clearly not suitable for Nintendo territory because of all the brutality found in the twelve episodes of the anime series. But if that was not enough, Sailor Moon was marketed as one of those stereotypical magical girl anime shows, when in reality, it is far darker than you think. Sailor Moon contains levels of incest worse than Fire Emblem, grotesque villains so ugly they could give Eldritch Abomination-type Final Fantasy villains such as Jenova and Ultimecia a good run for their money, and let's not talk about Sailor Galaxia, because she came close to ending all life in the universe, and she came a lot closer to achieving that than any Dragon Ball Z villain. With that said, Masahiro Sakurai has good reasons to be adamant with his decisions, and it's for the good of everyone.

Respecting Sakurai's Policies

Masahiro Sakurai stated that Super Smash Bros was designed to be from the very first entry in the series, a celebration of Nintendo's video game history. Non-video game characters are therefore not allowed. But there may be reasons that support Masahiro Sakurai's decision. Reasons related to lore, that is.

You may think Sailor Moon cannot join Smash due to the possibility of a panty shot overdose, but that is not the real reason. The real reason is that Sailor Moon has to face villains so ghastly they're worse than the biggest, baddest villains Nintendo has to offer. What's more, Sailor Moon was revealed to be Princess Serenity, which explains why she does not want to engage in mortal combat against her enemies. Then there's Sakura Kinomoto's magical girl escapades. It turns out that this was because of the dark events of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle chapter 200, where Fei Wong Reed's death seal devoured Princess Sakura, resulting in a series of events leading to Clow Reed having to split into two personalities. There are even claims that Akiho from Cardcaptor Sakura's Clear Card Arc has something to do with Clone Sakura. With all that said, Nintendo decided that Lip the Flower Fairy from Panel de Pon should only be a Mii Swordfighter costume in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and Lip was the closest Nintendo has to a proper magical girl.

At the end of the day, magical girl lore is clearly not compatible with everything Super Smash Bros is all about. Therefore, we should respect Masahiro Sakurai's policies that disallow non-video game characters from taking part in Super Smash Bros. Even Sony's PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale do not allow non-video game characters from taking part in the PlayStation-themed dueling tournament, possibly for the same lore-related reasons. At the end of the day, if licensing issues was not the reason, then it has to be the lore that poses a big problem, because lore plays a huge part in every major franchise, and if the lore is too ghastly, then it is definitely not allowed in dueling tournaments.

Legitimate Reasons

Masahiro Sakurai said that Super Smash Bros should remain a celebration of Nintendo's video game history, which also happens to include third-party video games that appeared on Nintendo platforms before, meaning that non-video game characters are not allowed at all. However, there is another reason non-video game characters are not allowed in Nintendo's crossover dueling tournament series, and it has something to do with universal scale destruction of all life, and possibly worse than what Galeem or Dharkon is capable of.

While Pokemon's Team Galactic was considered as the most sinister criminal syndicate in the history of the Pokemon series, due to their evil plan to destroy the universe and recreating it in their image, their level of success would, however, be nowhere near that of Sailor Moon's Sailor Galaxia, who could have brought all life in the universe to an end, and actually came way closer to accomplishing that than not only Team Galactic, but also just about any Dragon Ball Z villain you can think of. Even if Team Galactic acquired Giratina, who was supposed to be based on the fallen angels from the Bible, Team Galactic would still be nowhere near Sailor Galaxia's level. Compared to Tabuu, Galeem or Dharkon, many of Sailor Moon's enemies are incorporeal, and would be way harder to defeat than these three bosses.

For those who wonder where the stabbing incident that "killed" Princess Sakura at the end of Tsubasa Shunraiki came from, it was actually extracted from chapter 178 of the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle manga. The manga's level of violence is so terrible it would actually make the Pokemon Adventures manga, which contains the darkest version of the Pokemon World known to exist in any official Pokemon canon, not as dark as you think. And that is excluding chapter 200 of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, where Princess Sakura was devoured by a death seal placed on her by Fei Wong Reed. The most tragic part of it was that Princess Sakura had no idea that Fei Wong Reed placed a death seal on her, and she was nowhere near as dumb as Red or Ash Ketchum, both of whom are notoriously dumb protagonists, and yet, Red is in Smash.

When there are anime characters who have the ability to destroy entire planets, or even the entire universe, it's better that Super Smash Bros should remain a video game characters only tournament. Therefore, we should respect Masahiro Sakurai's policies, if it means not having anybody far more destructive than Galeem or Dharkon, both of whom could have possibly killed billions of characters, become a playable character. Otherwise, the game would become almost unplayable...