u/SufferingKabutops

I'm looking for an artist interested in designing an original anime-style character and his four robotic animal puppets. His main inspirations are Kankuro from Naruto for the puppet master concept, the mechanical animal designs of the Ty the Tasmanian Tiger series, particularly the Bunyips and robots, and the dynamic mechanical creature aesthetic of the Bit Beast figures from Bakuten Shoot Beyblade. I want the final design to be completely original rather than a copy of any of these inspirations.

The character is named Maraku, a mysterious teenage hermit, scientist and puppet master who lives alone in the Australian wilderness. He is known as The Hermit of the Iron Dreaming and The Deadly Puppet Master of the Brass Wilds. Although feared as an incredibly dangerous fighter with a ruthless combat style, he is calm, quiet and detached, preferring the company of his puppets over other people. He treats his creations like loyal companions rather than weapons, maintaining and caring for them like beloved pets.

Maraku has an anime-inspired appearance with light, sun-weathered skin, messy dark brown hair tied back loosely, white and red Aboriginal-inspired face paint similar in placement to Kankuro's, dark markings around his eyes, a sleeveless poncho or cloak, practical belts and pouches filled with tools, simple sandals, and a mix of earthy fabrics with mechanical accessories. His design should feel mysterious, tribal and mechanical without looking overly futuristic.

His four robotic animal puppets are named Warru, a Tasmanian Devil built for brutal close combat with an earth and metal theme, Marra, a massive Saltwater Crocodile acting as a heavily armoured defensive powerhouse with a water theme, Kirra, a sleek Wedge-tailed Eagle designed for reconnaissance and aerial combat with a wind theme, and Yarra, a powerful Red Kangaroo that specializes in speed, devastating kicks and lightning-based attacks. Their designs should feel like handcrafted mechanical guardians made from brass, steel, wood and stone with exposed joints, layered armour and expressive animal silhouettes rather than sleek sci-fi robots. They should look like ancient machines brought to life, with each puppet having its own distinct personality and presence.

I love Super Saiyan Nubert.

By me.

I understand that Rayman Legends came out not that long ago, so a remake may feel a bit out of place, and some people don’t like the new 3D graphics, but there is an important reason why we should not not attempt to boycott Rayman Legends Retold.

UbiSoft is doing something similar to what Crash Bandicoot’s revival did. They are testing demand with merchandise and remakes to see if they think making a whole new Rayman game is worth it for them as a company. Over the last three years or so we have seen that Rayman has been trying his best to reintegrate himself into UbiSoft’s current business model and it seems to be working. Mario + Rabbids, Captain Laserhawk, the YouTooz products, they were all stepping stones. Small actions to slowly see if we as consumers were fully willing to invest money and interest in Rayman despite the fact that UbiSoft no longer focuses a whole lot on family friendly platformers.

My point is, if Legends Retold succeeds, then we may get a new game on the way, and we have been wanting Rayman 4 for years, we really just need to be far more patient and take into account the fact that UbiSoft is actually giving Rayman a chance. This kind of moment is super rare die a franchise like Rayman, so we must take full advantage of it and show how much we care for him.

One of the strangest power-scaling questions in the original Beyblade trilogy is Kenny's actual strength as a blader in G-Revolution.

At first glance, Kenny seems easy to scale. He is usually portrayed as the team's analyst rather than a frontline battler, and he only has a handful of serious matches throughout the series. However, his battle against Tala creates a surprisingly difficult problem.

The biggest issue is Kenny's Bit Beast, or lack thereof.

According to Kenny's character cards in G-Revolution, his Beyblade Hopper has "Bit Beast: None" listed. This is significant because character cards are usually treated as official information within the anime. If taken literally, Kenny is the only Bladebreaker and member of the BBA Revolution competing at the World Championship level without a Bit Beast.

This creates a continuity issue involving Dizzi.

For dub viewers, Dizzi was presented as Kenny's companion and was often associated with him throughout the first two seasons. However, Dizzi was never part of the original Japanese version of the series. She was a character created exclusively for the English dub to add a recurring female voice to the cast before Hilary was introduced in V-Force. As the dub became more faithful to the Japanese version over time, Dizzi's role was gradually reduced and she completely disappeared by G-Revolution.

It is also important to note that Dizzi was never inside Kenny's Beyblade. She was always inside his computer. Because of this, the common explanation that Dizzi was somehow "inside Hopper" during G-Revolution does not really solve the continuity problem. The dub never established that Dizzi became Hopper's Bit Beast, and G-Revolution itself explicitly lists Hopper as having no Bit Beast at all. The anime simply never explains what happened to Dizzi, creating an odd contradiction between the earlier dub continuity and the later, more accurate adaptation of the Japanese version.

The broader context of G-Revolution is also important. Unlike Season 1 and V-Force, where Bit Beasts were often treated as major sources of power, G-Revolution places much greater emphasis on blader skill. Bit Beasts still appear visually during attacks, but battles are generally decided by the bladers themselves rather than by summoned creatures fighting each other. The term "Bit Beast" itself never acknowledged, unlike the previous two seasons.

This is what makes Kenny's performance against Tala so interesting.

The Tala Kenny faces is not the massively amplified Tala from the end of Season 1. During the final arc of the first season, Wolborg had absorbed multiple Bit Beasts, including Draciel, Dranzer, and several others. That version of Tala was operating with a level of power he never possessed again after Tyson defeated him and the stolen Bit Beasts were released.

By G-Revolution, Tala has become a more skilled and experienced blader, but he no longer has access to that enormous temporary power boost. Even so, he remains one of the strongest bladers in the world and is consistently portrayed as a top-level competitor.

What stands out about Kenny's match is that Tala is forced to take him seriously.

Kenny spends much of the battle avoiding Wolborg's attacks and using strategy to create openings. When Hopper successfully lands attacks on Wolborg, Tala visibly becomes frustrated and angry. Kenny ultimately loses, and Hopper is completely destroyed, but the fact that he is able to pressure a world-class blader at all is remarkable.

Kai's criticism of Tala after the match is also telling. Kai is not impressed with Tala's performance and effectively suggests that he should have handled Kenny much more easily. While this is often used to downplay Kenny, it can also be interpreted the opposite way: Kenny performed well enough that one of the strongest bladers in the series noticed Tala struggling.

The result is a difficult scaling question.

If Hopper truly had no Bit Beast, then Kenny's accomplishments are almost entirely the result of intelligence, engineering, and skill. Under that interpretation, Kenny may actually be the strongest Bit Beast-less blader in the entire original trilogy by the time G-Revolution takes place.

He is obviously nowhere near the level of Brooklyn, Tyson, Kai, Ray, Max, Garland, Mystel, Crusher, Ming Ming, or even Daichi at his best. Those characters consistently perform at the highest levels in the series and have far stronger overall records.

However, Kenny's performance against Tala suggests that he scales above most ordinary tournament-level bladers and national-level competitors. A reasonable placement would be somewhere around (but still lower than) early G-Revolution Daichi.

The biggest obstacle to scaling Kenny is that the series never clearly defines how much Bit Beasts matter by G-Revolution. If Bit Beasts still provide major power boosts, then Kenny surviving as long as he did against Tala is an incredible feat. If Bit Beasts have become largely symbolic by that point, then his performance becomes easier to explain through strategy and customization alone.

Either way, Kenny remains one of the most unusual characters in the franchise from a power-scaling perspective. The combination of a supposedly Bit Beast-less Beyblade, the unresolved Dizzi continuity issue, and a surprisingly competitive match against Tala makes him far more difficult to rank than most fans initially realize. In a series where nearly every major blader relies on a Bit Beast, Kenny may be one of the few examples of a competitor who reached a world-class level almost entirely through his own knowledge and skill.