Board Thread:King for A(nother) Day Discussion/@comment-38797685-20200624000404

Now, I don't know how popular this opinion is, but I personally think that the Mojo was implemented kind of poorly. It's a great way to see the characters interact in a fun way, don't get me wrong, but this is my line of thinking:

DJ Professor K, Mariya Takeuchi, and MissingNo. were all kind of portrayed as protagonists, or at least the characters that we were meant to be enjoying the most (though for different reasons). DJPK was super happy all the time and only cared about being happy and making everyone happy, and Mariya was basically his apprentice in this practice. They both consoled other fan favorites after their losses, and a lot of Mojo posts seemed to make them appear to the reader as the characters that we were supposed to vote for.

MissingNo., on the other hand, was portrayed as a different type of protagonist. He was struggling to fit in, and despite his social awkwardness coming off as, well, being terrifying, he really just wanted to make friends. Given that the readers are people listening to a meme music tournament, I can't help but feel that a lot of people reading might've been able to relate to this character, and I think that the Mojo team knew this. They wanted to make MissingNo. relateable and likeable, and so they did their best to do so.

In doing these things, they brought about an issue. They established distinct arcs for some characters, but not all of them. Where DJPK, Mariya, and MissingNo. became fan favorites because they all befriended our other favorites, Popoy and Thanos had a conversation about getting bananas at CVS. The "protagonists" had so much focus that other characters, such as ZUN, or Daft Punk, or Ajit Pai, or many others, lacked. Even other arcs they tried to establish were unsatisifying (like the Snake/Rhythm Masters arc) or seemingly unfinished (like the Mr. Bean/Law & Disorder arc).

I'm not trying to say that Mariya, DJPK, or MissingNo. didn't deserve to have made it as far as they did - necessarily. In fact, DJPK is one of my top two picks to take the entire tourney, and I'm very happy he's getting his day. Hideki Naganuma is incredibly talented, and DJPK's sourcelist including JSR to Sonic Rush to anything in the Naganuma style is incredible and will make for an awesome experience.

What am I saying, then? Well, I'm saying that despite the team wanting us to "vote responsibly," they put heavy emphasis on other characters in the Mojo in a way that seemed contradictory to their "vote responsibly" mantra. Seeing characters with incredible sourcelists, like Dr. Piccolo, Donkey Kong, Off the Hook, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and Daft Punk ft. Pharell (especially Daft Punk ft. Pharell) fall to characters that were clearly fan favorites due to a somewhat unfair advantage the team gave them on the Mojo, and this fact makes it seem to me that the Mojo should've been implemented better.

I'd love to hear other thoughts about this. I mean no offense to anyone - KFAD was an amazing experience, I still listen to the songs and peruse the battle quotes regularly. The team clearly cared about each and every character when you see all of the references in their quotes, all the personality they have there, and when you listen to the music they put out - I just wish that their care went into each character equally.

Again, I'd really like to hear other thoughts about this. If you made it all the way through this wall of text, props to you and thank you for reading this rant about a six-month-old music tournament. 