Naruto lives in a world where characters have Japanese names and the worldbuilding is largely based on Japanese mythology, culture, and architecture. It isn't at all comparable to Fire Emblem.
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Super Smash Bros Ultimate has 19 white male characters (6 of which are blue eyed / blonde hair), and 0 women of color
- Thread starter BigBlue
- Start date
Naruto lives in a world where characters have Japanese names and the worldbuilding is largely based on Japanese mythology, culture, and architecture. It isn't at all comparable to Fire Emblem.
If he gets in, not when (if I learned anything from Smash speculation, it's that very few things are guaranteed). With that said, my reaction to Travis would be the same as my reaction towards Terry, indifference. I'd be happy for his fans with a hint of disappointment that we got yet another guy (more so since the Fighters Pass would have turned out to be all primarily guys), which would hold back any hype I would have once had for Travis. The same applies for basically any other guy, including the ones I was once hoping for (Ex: Spring Man, Rex, Dante, etc.).
I think it's important to realize something about me.
I . Don't . Give . A . Fuck
I will never argue AGAINST wanting a characters inclusion as that's counter productive and frankly stupid IMO. I can't possibly know what this man would or wouldn't do, I've long since let go of the logic of made up "rules" or patterns.
Someone wants Goku? Cool, w/e ... it's prob been the most asked for thing in smash and maybe he'll do it as a mic drop before leaving the series or rebooting it or w/e. "But he said no-" dude also said Ridley was too big and awkwardly shaped to work in smash, he legit pointed out Villager as an example of someone who couldn't be a fighter so "don't vote for them", he said no 3rd parties until he did his friend a solid and then no realistic guns ... until the anime boi he really really really really likes (Who I personally think has no business being in smash) needed it as part of his character.
So IDC, everyone wants what they want and I see no reason to dictate that.
Like you just hit me with a " Smash characters aren't handed out like candy" ... after we got a mf-ing Piranha Plant and Joker added in. How long ago would you think " Smash characters aren't handed out like candy" would be a reasonable shutdown to someone who wanted a generic potted plant enemy to add to the ever growing list of Mario characters?
So for the idea ... do I think it could happen? Yeah, it COULD. He could be like "I've wanted to really represent the different parts of this series and they just gave me the prefect chance to not have sword lords with this huge smash hit of a game! Lets bring in allll 3!". Who knows.
Do I want it to happen? Yeah. MY personal fav is El but I know many fans have their own favs out of the lords and this would be a great way to service all parties.
Do I think it's likely to happen? No ... I don't really expect anything I want to happen in Smash.
I live in content indifference with his choices.
Tbh considering he's not the most known character I think people are gonna be upset for reasons regardless of whether they went with a woman fighter
.... But as someone who's been stanning for him for a decade by now it would probably be the happiest I've ever been for a Smash fighter bar none lol
The setting is European but characters like Corrin aren't actually white for instance. Characters like that are seen as Japanese or without ethnicity by Japan's audienc. It's the same ame as a character like Cloud Strife.
English names and blonde hair + blue eyes makes them seem exotic in an appealing way.
There's another argument to be had about Japan's idea of beauty standards being very Western-centric but that's a different argument.
I mean I'd say Travis is at least more well known to Smash fans than Terry. You'll get a lot less "who?" reactions.
Twintelle in ARMS, Urbosa in BOTW, Elma from Xenoblade Chronicles, and Marina and Agent 8 from Splatoon 2 are all popular characters.
We're still missing a black Mario character after all these years though
Yes, especially as of recently.
- Twintelle (ARMS)
- Agent 8 (Splatoon 2)
- She's a black Octoling girl by default
- Marina (Splatoon 2)
- Urbosa (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)
- Impa (The Legend of Zelda)
- She's more obviously a person of color in Skyward Sword
- Her Hyrule Warriors incarnation would also fit, but Smash seems to be ignoring that game
- Elma (Xenoblade Chronicles X)
- This is a bit more debatable for story reasons, but she's primarily black in terms of her portrayal
The Sheikah in more recent Zelda games are based on the Ainu, so it's not really accurate to call Impa black
I did some digging and this was the closest I could find:
Sonny from Mario Golf 64 has an alt with dark skin. I remember back when Camelot made all these human OCs for the sports games and wondered if one of them was black and uh, I guess this is all we got.
I did some digging and this was the closest I could find:
Sonny from Mario Golf 64 has an alt with dark skin. I remember back when Camelot made all these human OCs for the sports games and wondered if one of them was black and uh, I guess this is all we got.
Sonny's 4th alt for Smash lol
Daisy used to be tanned, which made sense considering she debuted as the Princess of Sarasaland, a desert kingdom. So not black but still problematic.
To add to this Pokemon has been diversifying recently.
Not only do they have black female gym leaders but are also taking the games to different settings based on RL non-Japanese lands.
I mean, no one's asking for Nessa to be a character or anything but I'm just saying.
I wonder if people who bring this issue up and suggest alternatives really consider the reality of adding their proposed alternatives in the framework Smash has provided:
There are good choices for expanding representation in Smash though that align with everything Nintendo and Sakurai are interested in:
- Mrs. Pac-Man: Stuck in legal hell and Bandai-Namco isn't exactly keen on supporting her.
- Any Punch-Out Character: Punch-Out! was arguably lucky to get Little Mac in the first place, and has been dead since the Wii version that got its first representation in Smash as playable.
- Medusa: There are already three Kid Icarus characters in the game, and people generally don't want more/are disappointed with the idea of more.
- Elma - Xenoblade Chronicles X was averagely received by the Xenoblade community, sold averagely, and was completely upstaged by Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which will take priority for a second Xenoblade character (also Xenoblade was also kind of lucky to get in when it did).
- Chun-Li - Street Fighter is basically the only series with two playable reps already and there's a shit load of Street Fighter content already in the game.
- Heroine - Square Enix doesn't really care about female alts in Dragon Quest and has generally moved more away from them.
- Krystal - Star Fox is pretty much dead, and Krystal died well before Zero did its damage. Her fan base has virtually evaporated despite being strong during Brawl's speculation scene.
- Warioware Characters - Warioware is fairly niche and its characters aren't terribly well defined in most instances, and have even less apparent moveset potential.
- Tifa - We've never seen a third party get two unique fighters and FF7's already barely got any content in the game, so it's unlikely we'll see more.
- Rodin - Can't be an Echo and Bayonetta was fairly unlikely to get a second character.
- Any ARMS fighter - Spring Man is the main fighter in all of the marketing, and it remains to be seen if ARMS has any staying power.
- Zelda Fighters - People can never agree on who they want, often suggesting characters like Urbosa who are very underdeveloped/share the spotlight with a bunch of other characters or they're characters from past games that are less relevant to Nintendo and only have smaller fan bases without push. Even Impa doesn't have a standardized appearance or general move-set to pull from.
There are good choices for expanding representation in Smash though that align with everything Nintendo and Sakurai are interested in:
- Jill Valentine - Debatable if she'll be the sole RE rep, but RE has plenty of reason to be in Smash and she's generally a good choice.
- Tracer - Overwatch is a huge new game and she's the mascot, and a LGBTQ+ icon to boot! It's also been recently announced for Switch!
- 2B - Maybe more of a pipe dream, but Sakurai does like 2B and Nier Automata was a very successful game.
- Lara Croft - The woman of gaming in many people's minds and she fits perfectly in expanding the crossover nature of Smash.
- Dixie Kong - One of the only Nintendo characters still supported heavily by fans and relevant given her big return in Tropical Freeze.
- Pyra/Mythra (probably with Rex, but I'll count it) - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was a big success for Nintendo and the Xenoblade fandom is craving another fighter with strong fan support.
- Reimu - A big Japanese indie icon that has been very influential to many franchises in the bullet hell genre. Alternatively, Shantae could be our first indie rep, but I'd argue she's probably a lower priority and it remains to be seen if her Spirit is really the end of the line.
2. Being "dead" doesn't disqualify choosing a character from it.
3. Medusa's also a classic Nintendo villain.
4. There are still plenty of people who would be happy for Elma for a multitude of reasons. A character doesn't have to aim for a maximum happiness quotient.
5. The arguments of "it's never happened before" never really matter much. Third-parties never happened, multiple third-parties per company never happened, multiple third-parties added in the same game never happened, multiple characters in a franchise never happened. There's simply no real rule excluding them. The only actual knock against Tifa is that SE is weird about FF7 content, but Chun-Li is an absolute icon.
6. Eh? Two of the last three Dragon Quest games had gender options. DQ11 is the outlier!
7. Krystal is still somewhat popular, enough so that if she was added it would be pretty exciting for a fair few people.
8. Ashley is more than WarioWare (for instance), she has her own series of Nintendo Badge Arcade badges and even had an April Fools joke from Nintendo and Ko Takeuchi of a game starring her. Plus, WarioWare characters actually have a lot of moveset potential that derives from a lot of games, especially Ashley being a witch.
9. Whether Bayonetta is unlikely or not to get a second character is seemingly based on nothing. I mean, it's a franchise exclusive to Nintendo that sells rather steadily.
10. Twintelle gets a lot of marketing separate from Spring Man and is arguably the most popular.
11. See, I never see this argument applied against Skull Kid (or not as much anyway). Midna and Impa certainly have recognition to them to justify their inclusion, especially the former who has a unique and iconic design. Both should be playable, honestly. (with Twilit Midna as a Zelda Echo Fighter).
imo there's one Capcom female character that a lot of people overlook when discussing possible female fighters in Smash, and she would align well with Sakurai's interests in bringing new worlds:
imo there's one Capcom female character that a lot of people overlook when discussing possible female fighters in Smash, and she would align well with Sakurai's interests in bringing new worlds:
Only if it's that exact sprite. The most overused sprite in crossover history.
Wart doesn't have comparative relevancy (heck, Bowser even replaces him in his own cartoon!).
Big enough that there was enough outcry for Pit in Smash
I forgot to mention, mad respect for this post. Some people get so invested in negativity when it comes to Smash roster discussion. Like, I've made innocuous comments about thinking a character would be fun to have in Smash and have someone be just SO aggressive in such a strange way over it. Like, a person can't just want a character or characters, they need to have a thesis at the ready, and they need to go by the book, no rule-breaking allowed.
Honestly, some Smash fans are among the most miserable gamers I've ever met
the reality is that the game industry doesnt have many minority characters.
up until recently most characters were animals, machines, or white and japanese people.
i has alot to do with the industry being dominated by japan and the us during the early days in tech when it was mostly full of white people and companies still catered almost exclusively to white people
up until recently most characters were animals, machines, or white and japanese people.
i has alot to do with the industry being dominated by japan and the us during the early days in tech when it was mostly full of white people and companies still catered almost exclusively to white people
Just like Medusa got replaced by Hades, so I believe the comparison is appropriate!
You know who just kept their cameo in the Link's Awakening Remake.
But the comparison only works if Medusa isn't in Uprising!
"Fairly big" is a stretch for a game that didn't even chart in the top 30 NES games sold. Not saying Kid Icarus didn't have a cult following, but Medusa even got upstaged in the series's grand revival.
Plus I'm unsure if Medusa could work as an echo, they would have to make some weird changes.
I can't think of much besides adding shadow effects and changing the names of things.
That said, it was big enough for Pit to be a fan favorite for Smash, and Medusa was also the first thing revealed for Uprising.
There is always a reason to pass over any character. Did you think Ridley and K. Rool were "bad" choices until they suddenly became "sensible" ones upon becoming playable?
I will also never understand the idea that Zelda has too many popular characters to warrant the inclusion of any more of them in Smash. And it doesn't matter that Impa doesn't have a standardized appearance, because neither do Link, Zelda, or—much less so—Ganondorf. Everyone knows her best as a ninja and that's the most obvious choice.
It's funny that ARMS has no legacy and yet Spring Man is seen as an obvious choice whereas Twintelle always has people shutting her down.
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Medusa as a Palu echo was always a cool idea. Either that or using the Specials Palu left behind in Smash 4. She'd need a new bair and dash attack though but that's not a huge effort for echoes.
it's also a shame she's instagibbed by Hades in KIU's finale. I really liked her redesign
- A bit cameo in Pac-Land doesn't compare to starring in the game as an Echo fighter, and there's no reason she wouldn't have been included to be completely honest if she had a chance. She's legitimately in a legal battle right now that is likely to hold up any future appearances of her character.
- No it doesn't disqualify them, but it seriously hurts them and their chances, particularly if they don't have demand behind them. People aren't clamoring for another Punch-Out character, the existing one is pretty much the lowest tier in the game, and Nintendo isn't continuing the franchise any time soon it seems.
- Kid Icarus isn't really a classic Nintendo franchise to begin with and like I said, her being a fourth Kid Icarus character wouldn't play well with most of the audience. Her "being a classic Nintendo villain" has no real pull.
- I mean it's just good business to try to appeal to the most people possible and the Xenoblade fan base that was responsible for 2's success really wants Rex and Pyra/Mythra in the game. It was just a more successful release than X, and that's all Nintendo really needs to see.
- You can argue "it doesn't matter much" all you want, but it's literally counter-intuitive to their entire approach with third party inclusions. There's much less value in going deeper in third parties than introducing new third parties quite frankly. New third parties improve the prestige image of the game as the ultimate crossover in gaming and further that lead in addition to potentially attracting new fans. A third Street Fighter character does relatively little to incentivize any new customers and just sort of adds to an existing universe. If it's any consolation, Chun-Li would be the one to do it, but again, it doesn't really fit with how they've approached third parties so far.
- You mean the two Dragon Quest games that had more in depth character creation tools (one that was a freaking MMO at that) versus the more story driven traditional Dragon Quest games that Hero is supposed to represent, which have generally emphasized gender options less and less (V, VI, VII, VIII, and XI all do not have gender options)?
- She's not really that popular these days and if Nintendo has no intention of using her, barely has intentions to carry on Star Fox, and she isn't popular anymore (in addition to being a 4th rep of Star Fox, which is already heavily represented), then Nintendo just doesn't have much reason to add her.
- Ashley got slightly more popular thanks to Badge Arcade and hasn't really had much sense then. Her being a generic witch who does very little in her home games doesn't cry move set either. Her fandom was also very flash in the pan between E3 2018 and August 2018.
- Bayonetta is currently two games that have sold OK, a second character was never going to be any sort of priority outside of maybe a Jeanne Echo in Ultimate.
- And? She's still not the main character of ARMS or the one heavily promoted in marketing when the game first released and what people are familiar with. I agree Spring Man is a trash looking character compared to her, but he's unlikely to be passed over, especially with Nintendo at the reigns of DLC.
- You haven't met me, because I lodge this against Skull Kid too. People want a Zelda character, but have zero consensus as to who they actually want which makes it hard for any of them to stand out enough to catch Nintendo's attention. Skull Kid very briefly had support due to a bizarre series of circumstances (LoZ18 and dumbass chair theory), but that kind of subsided fairly quickly and its back to being a more crowded and less clear field. Does Twili Midna even make sense as an Echo fighter, let alone is it worthwhile to represent Midna in the form she's barely known for compared to her primary role? That's such a half-assed way of including Midna (who is my personal pick for one BTW).
And Nintendo just isn't interested in their first party characters at this stage, and it makes sense as to why. Smash is such a bigger event when third parties are constantly hitting the floor and keeping hype up, whereas a lot of these characters come from more niche and/or already heavily represented series and/or irrelevant to their current plans series, that makes them a lot less attractive to Nintendo as inclusions. Smash has been on the path of diminishing returns with first parties for a while, and that seriously cuts off a lot of options for female representation since they were having to get so much deeper into first party inclusions. Dixie Kong is the exception because she's the only one here I've actually seen strong with fan demand that has generally survived more than a couple of months, and she's one of the few first parties people tend to universally agree on needing to be in given her big place in 90s DKC. That's why I say look to new third parties with strong female leads for your increase in representation. Sakurai and Nintendo have to be given incentive to include fighters, and pleasing some people who have already bought the game and are invested in Smash and/or Nintendo products just doesn't have a whole lot of pull when the stakes are Super Smash Bros. Ultimate high.
For reference, don't confuse my speculation as personal dislike of these characters. I personally enjoy several of these characters, but my speculative approach is pretty straight to the point and much colder in how I view and interpret things.
That's true that there are reasons to pass over any character, but some have significantly more than others. Most character additions fall into fan demand, relevancy to recent releases, major third parties, or Sakurai picks. If you can't fit any of those addition "definitions" so to speak, you're facing an incredibly uphill battle to inclusion in Smash. King K. Rool and Ridley managed to fit those places, and thus made more sense as inclusions. And I've also stated by these options would less of a priority to Sakurai and Nintendo.
My point about Zelda is that the characters that got in from the ballot got in because fans unified behind one character and pushed hard. Zelda fans are a scattered mess when it comes to fan support and that makes it harder for their voice to be heard overall because you're not just picking one character to rep a franchise like Cloud did for Final Fantasy, you're picking which character to add to a lineup of 6 existing fighters. Rally behind one and your voice is more likely to be heard.
My issue with Impa is that she doesn't really add much to the game quite frankly. I do think the lack of a standardized appearance hurts her quite a bit as hers are much more wildly different thank Link to Link, or even Ganondorf to Ganondorf. She appears briefly in OoT as a ninja, Skyward Sword as a less defined protector that looks less similar, and then in Breath of the Wild as an old woman. It's just less consistent overall. Then, Shiek's already kind of a niche addition that specifically fills the niche Impa even would in the first place. She just kind of blandly adds another female fighter as an Echo, which I don't think does much other than help the raw numbers side of things since I wouldn't really call it meaningful representation being added (which is something I think that should be more emphasized in these discussions). If she's unique, that works a little better, but then you run into the priority issues and again, her niche is already quite filled by Shiek.
Sheik and Impa use different weapons and elements in their combat. No character in Smash uses her weapon, and only few characters use water. That said, it's rather silly to say that it's hard to pick a character out of the Zelda franchise. Sakurai should have the ability to observe the characters that are getting attention and, if he wants to make a new Zelda character, pick the one he think would be best to pick. If this was the reason, I'd be skeptical of Sakurai's critical thinking skills.
As far as the counters:
1. I can't think of a legal issue that would exclude Ms. Pac-Man as a playable character while still featuring her in Smash.
2. Doc Louis and King Hippo do get attention, and Sakurai should have be casting a wider net for popular characters.
3. The varying factors however do. Medusa is an iconic Nintendo character and one who players can pretty easily recognize in both incarnations.
4. Good business sense would be Dixie Kong instead of King K. Rool, as she is more relevant.
5. My point is that people have made similar comments about companies having multiple characters in Smash, with similar speculation, only for it to be wrong. If your rebuttal to Chun-Li is "hasn't happened yet," it's kind of weak.
6. Whether you or I view Nine and Ten as equal to Erdrick, Solo (who isn't even as popular as his female counterpart), Eight, and Eleven is irrelevant to whether Square Enix does, and they very clearly do. Not counting an MMORPG and a game with a character creator is silly given how little personality Heroes in DQ have in the first place.
7. Representation is an adequate enough reason to add a character, and Krystal has the supplementary value of having a following.
8. Ashley does lots of different magic stuff in her games though? Like not through gameplay, but the game shows very clearly in cutscenes and even in her song different magic she has done/can do.
9. Who is to determine that? Kid Icarus: Uprising sold worse than the Bayonettas, Fire Emblem got characters even when the series wasn't selling like hot cakes as it is now, and Mother 3 got its own character despite being a Japan-only game that sold like 205,000 copies, and as is obvious, Sakurai added Lucas (and Ness) because he liked EarthBound and Itoi. If Sakurai thought very highly of Bayonetta, that would be justification enough to add more of its characters to the roster.
10. And what? ARMS is an ensemble cast and Twintelle is its most popular. Like, that's enough reason that if Sakurai chose her, it wouldn't be odd.
11. I meant include both Midnas. And she absolutely would work as an Echo Fighter. Just change Zelda's attacks to have Twili magic effects. Din's Fire? Midna shoots a ball of Twili energy that explodes with shadow damage. Nayru's Love? Spins around with a Twili effect and Shadow Damage. Farore's Wind? Midna enters a Twili portal and exits another. The only moves I think should reasonably change are her Down B and Final Smash, but it's not remotely unprecedented for that to happen, as Dark Pit and Ken demonstrate.
I mean that just has to do with the fact that people see Spring-Man as the obvious choice and the one that embodies the game's mechanics the best as the de facto mascot. I don't actually think a lot of people are dying to have an ARMS character either way. They aren't going to fruitlessly support a character like Twintelle if the best Spring-Man and Ribbon Girl can get is secondary representation as an Assist Trophy and costume.
Like without an actual Smash Ballot to materialize our demand, people aren't going to be starting movements and campaigning. We don't even know if the characters are decided on for future DLC yet.
I think it's more the issue that, in my experience, there's a lot of people aiming to "shut down" ideas, and all too often do so with fan rules, so it gets pretty frustrating.
- Look Mrs. Pac-Man is in legal hell right now, I don't know what else to tell you. Licensing is complicated and just because you can get likeness of a character in one context, does not necessarily entitle you to their likeness in another. They may have full rights to all Pac-Land content but not Mrs. Pac-Man herself for example to use liberally as they see fit. This has been a known thing for a while, and has recently been shown to be an escalated problem.
- And they're not particularly talked about or popular in any circles. No secondary Punch-Out! character is.
- Kid Icarus is the fucking 33rd best selling NES game, so I'm not going to race to call it iconic, let alone the villain who then promptly didn't appear for 20 years.
- But King K. Rool was more popular by a wide margin, thus he was better business. If Elma was more popular than Rex/Pyra, I'd say she was better business. It's nothing against her, it's in the hands of the fans to decide who they want more. And they want Rex/Pyra. If Nintendo's going to add another Xenoblade character, they'd be foolish to not add the easy win.
- It's a little weak, but we're now 12 unique third party newcomers and not one has doubled up yet. They clearly add third parties in with a goal in mind and I see no indication they're going to change that behavior any time soon given the success of the Smash Bros X "Brand New Series" moniker that generates so many positives for them. Yeah, it's the weakest one (a fact I admitted as I said Chun-Li would likely be the one to break this tradition), but I'll always argue there's more benefit to more new third party series cause there kind of is.
- Square Enix doesn't prioritize any version of the Heroine in any of their marketing regardless of who's more popular, and my point was that games with a defined physical protagonist have largely moved away from having gender options. I think it's completely relevant to treat character creators differently from those defined options, and Square Enix clearly didn't have any suggestions for the Heroine in this process.
- She has some following... Not as much as others and brings very little practical benefit to the table beyond as a female rep. I'm fine with Krystal, but it's exceedingly clear Nintendo has little interest in her and her support has largely fallen heavily since her Brawl heyday. That's something you would consider in choosing characters.
- Ashley's entire existence in WarioWare is in this hour-long video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhNzxELIIjs. It isn't much to go off of like you seem to be implying.
- I mean, Bayonetta got the award for destroying the meta and had become a hated character in the Ultimate lead-up to the point where assholes boo'd her being back in some cases. It just wasn't going to be good PR to add another really, and it's just niche with nowhere for addition in Ultimate's plans (again, none of base could be removed, DLC focused on other stuff).
- Others have already said the issues with this.
- There's absolutely no reason to include Midna as an Echo fighter and a unique one. A unique one is the only way that really makes sense, and again, there's no room for her in the roster as is.
I mean, part of speculation is ruling out options to predict what makes sense as an inclusion. Speculations can be wrong without a doubt, but its intrinsic to committing to speculation and different from just general discussion. I also think that we're at the point where we have Nintendo's internal IR reports, incredibly detailed knowledge about Sakurai's process from a good 20 years of interviews including incredible transparency nowadays, and 20 years of Smash history, particularly with regards to Smash 4 and Ultimate being so closely developed after one another, that we can more seriously speculate based on real factors. Especially since Nintendo is the one picking future DLC and not Sakurai himself.
I mean it's more just being realistic. You can discuss who you want, but there is no reason to think like urbosa will be added if just being real.
Based on accounts given from the likes of Reggie before his retirement (which came after Sakurai made the same response he made now about who's picking), it seems like Sakurai downplayed his own involvement (possibly to get annoying assholes off his back) & that it's actually a joint effort between him & Nintendo. I don't doubt that Nintendo has a bigger hand in selection this time around, but the only person saying that DLC selection is all Nintendo is Sakurai. This is why I direct my criticisms to both of them when talking about the issues with the roster.
I mean, Nintendo makes the call. Sakurai has pointed this out multiple times in multiple different works. He's the one who physically does the legwork on the third party licensing, and it's possible he gives suggestions to Nintendo, but Nintendo does the choosing. Sakurai has been very clear about this multiple times now.