Yesterday, I published my final research on what characters are being the most talked about/ requested online in Japan. For today’s post, we at Source Gaming decided we would post our reactions to the data, and how it might impact the upcoming DLC. Please take note that all of the research was done by myself (PushDustIn). The rest of the Source Gaming team watched as the data unfolded, but for the most part they did not directly assist with the research. Anyway, let’s get started!
Spazzy_D
I honestly was not too surprised by PushDustIn’s findings. 
The tastes of theJapanese Smasher isn’t really all the far removed from the Western Smash fan, after all. I was glad to see that the K. Rool costume didn’t hurt his support much, but the third party information is what I found the most interesting.
Arle Nadja is not character I would think of when considering possible Sega reps… she makes a lot of sense, though. Puyo Puyo is Sega’s premiere puzzle franchise, and although it has been brought to the West multiple teams (including once as Doctor Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine) It’s never really caught on. It is a completely different story in Japan. It is one of the top selling Sega franchises of all time, selling 13.5 million units as of 2014.
Cloud (the protagonist from Final Fantasy 7) is also a compelling choice, and one that we do not see much here in the West. He is the highest ranking Square Enix character after Geno (whom is in a strange spot as both a Mario and SE rep) and is a top 20 pick. He is a character that is more closely associated with Sony than even Snake, but he is also undoubtedly a video game icon. I would argue he is actually the most iconic character in their intellectual property stable followed by Lara Croft.
Other than that, there was really nothing that I found shocking. I suppose that it’s nice to see Isaac in the top 20, even if he was on the lower end. It’s just good to see that he’s at least on the radar in Japan.
TheAnvil
I think it’s safe to say that the list has all the usual suspects on it, at least somewhere. It’s so interesting to see the Japanese perceptions on some of the more popular requests over here, Isaac for example barely scraping it into the top 20, as opposed to the top 5 character that he’s perceived to be on this side of the world.
King K. Rool and Wolf aren’t surprising in the least. They’ve basically been trading blows between 1st and 2nd overall spot since the ballot began. Wolf’s chances are always good, though the longer he goes unrevealed, the more concerned I become for him actually making his return to Smash. K. Rool is in
a tricky spot now more than ever thanks to his Mii Fighter costume. He also still maintains all of the issues that I highlighted in my K. Rool article. Though, I think if anything the ballot has increased his support, as we’ve seen Dixie’s popularity slide a little. Possibly because her fans have jumped ship and are backing the more popular K. Rool.
One of the most surprising figures from these findings for me is Geno. Whose popularity has seen a dramatic decrease within the Western fanbase. To see him rank joint 9th overall in Japan definitely caught me off guard. Though his presence as an “almost Nintendo” character surely boosts his fan support. This is afterall, a Nintendo crossover. Adding to that, seeing Cloud, another Square Enix rep rank in the top 20 is a little awkward since his main game was never released on Nintendo systems.
It’s interesting to see the Inklings rank so high, considering they were among my picks (along with Wolf and Rayman) to “win” the character ballot in SourceGaming Choice #2. It’s good to see that they have a strong foundation of support worldwide.
Nantendo
Magnemite is a weird choice. I mean, out of all 700 pokemon you go for the floating ball and magnets? Apart from that the rest are all very similar to what we have here in the west. We have the veterans, the big names like King. K. Rool, Geno and Ridely and then the region-’exclusives’ (over here it is Shovel Knight and Shantae, in Japan it is Jibyanyan and Arle Nadja).
It seems a bit odd to me that Takamaru does not appear on the list. His game only came out a year ago for the west but he already has a big following over here, one that is apparently bigger than in the east where his game has actually been out for quite some time. In fact, there is hardly any mention of any retro characters for dlc. That is quite surprising. I guess the majority in Japan are more focused on the now and future of Nintendo rather than its rich history.
Overall, I think these findings go to show that for the most part, us western smash fans and our fellow brothers and sisters in the east all share a similar interest in which characters we all want for Super Smash Bros. 4 dlc. There is the one big difference that i pointed out but heck, maybe my own perceptions of what western fans want is wrong and that my own bias is getting in the way. Who knows?
Conclusion
I was pretty shocked to see a lack of Takamaru too. In general, I feel that ATs, and characters that already have an in-game role were less likely to be “requested” or talked about…with the
clear exception of Ashley. For Ashley it might because there isn’t a strong contender from the Wario series, so her fans haven’t disappeared.
As for Magnemite, I explained it in the tentative data…but he is a “meme” vote. Much like Goku, Shrek or Spongebob. He apparently ranked pretty high on a Yahoo poll, so fans have latched onto that and decided to “vote” for him as their favorite Pokemon.
I’d like to highlight a recent comment made by vaanrose. When I was discussing the Ultimate Smash Ballot and potentially making a data set without the votes influenced by Jordan Sweeto, vaanrose made an excellent point. At the end of the day — what’s different about what Jordan Sweeto did compared to the other groups sharing the poll? The only difference is scale, and it’s something that has impacted the actual ballot results. If I were to remove the Krystal votes influenced by Jordan Sweeto, then I should removed the King K. Rool votes influenced by the Kutthroat Kremlings, and the Wolf votes by the Wolf support group, etc. Eventually — I’d be left with 0 votes.
Furthermore, vaanrose discussed that using one source as proof of popularity is not accurate. With polling only on reddit or SmashBoards, we are bound to pick up the echo-chamber effect which again might not be reflective of the general public. I’ve discussed this issue in my “Dangers of Online Polling”.
What do you guys think? Let us know in the comments!
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I’m not really surprised Takamaru is on there… what DOES surprise me is that Ashley is. The “not supporting AT’s” thing is understandable, but “supporting an AT just because x series doesn’t have a better rep” is kind of weird.
But y’know, I kinda wonder if 9-Volt could work as that “general NES rep” character Sakurai mentioned a long time ago if we need someone else for WarioWare…
Glad to see Inkling is in the top 5.
So many familiar faces show up here for both Japan and North America, which is a good thing. There a potential fighters that’s make everyone happy. While some characters rank higher in the west, like Isaac, more immediate characters like K. Rool and Wolf still appear prominently.
I’ve never understood the support for Magolor though, in both the east and west. I agree that Kirby can use more representation, but Magolor has only appeared in two games, with the latter being an anniversary compilation. Squeak Squad’s Daroach has more to his name than Magolor.
I’m also surprised to find that there are no Legend of Zelda characters on polls for either territory, but I suppose support was “louder” before Tingle, Midna, Ghirahim, and Skull Kid all appeared within the game as assist trophies. Guiltily I would love a playable Lana, but as she was conceptualized by Koei Tecmo she risks entering “Geno” territory.
In actuality I voted for Impa, but I suppose that may have been in vein…
I’m an active member on Krystal’s support thread on Smashboards and just want to clarify some things about the Jordan Sweeto movement. We’ve been aware of his influence for a while now. First happened when an account limited poll made a few months back had a sudden spike and we did our own research to find out where it was coming from.
Since then some of us have had a chance to talk to him and gauge the legitimacy of his influence. While probably a good number of his fans aren’t necessarily true honest Krystal fans too, they are fans by proxy. They support Krystal because they support Jordan and want to share his passions. What they do truly represent however is ballot votes. It’s clear that he’s generated a lot of ballot support and has stated that the ballot is his focus in terms of getting Krystal votes. If anything, the poll numbers are just a sample of what he’s managing for the ballot. And before legitimacy is called into question, we know there’s plenty of fans of all characters everywhere enlisting their friends or family for support or just straight up “device voting”. In fact, there’s a big question mark regarding what exactly the ballot “allows” and doesn’t so Jordan’s influence may yet just be a drop in the bucket in the face of multivotes for instance. At least Jordan has generated votes from individuals.
It’s certainly an interesting situation for us Krystal fans on Smashboards. We don’t know what his votes will truly mean to the ballot since, again, there’s so much we don’t know about the ballot. We want Krystal though, so naturally we love the support. We’re lucky to have it.
Only mentioned this here since a question about Jordan’s influence was presented at the end of the article. Plus it was worth making public and it was a bit late to respond to in the linked thread with vaanrose’s post in it.
Hi, sorry for posting a comment in this old post, but I randomly found a japanese page of a Smash Bros pool and I wanted to share somehow.. I’m not sure how I got there, I only remember clicking on random links in Sakurai’s twitter, but after looking at his twitter account again I saw that this link wasn’t from there.. It must have been from a response from a random fan.. Anyway, here it is, maybe you have already saw. (I found interesting because one of the options is Shovel Knight) http://esports-runner.com/ssb4/sinkyara_yosou/