Huh? Why the strange greeting? No, I'm just annoyed. Aya Shameimaru said that since I would be enjoying the privilege of leaving Gensokyo Island earlier, I'd better do more work to make up for it. Not just that, but she said I needed to run around more to slim down. Can you imagine that? The cheek of her!
It's not like Gensokyo Island's residents haven't been putting on the pounds recently, too. After things were all quiet last week, big events are starting to pick up over here and the biggest of them all are the sheer numbers of swollen bellies of pregnant islanders!
Okay, fine, I know they don't actually get all that much fatter. And I know they don't actually get pregnant, it's the stork that brings them (also explaining why they never get fat, of course!). But the past couple of days have seen a ballooning bonanza of babies.
Clockwise from top left, it's Reimu, Unyuho, Chiyo, and Shanghai, all happy mothers. And happy mothers and fathers don't fight as much.
Reimu Hakurei and her husband Junya Ohta clocked one in for the record books today with the birth of their seventh child, their third daughter Reina. It was quickly commented that the child wasn't much of a looker, diminishing the couple's hopes of finally having a child move in on the island. Later, Shanghai Margatroid and Kanako Yasaka surprised the island and most certainly Okuu's Look-alike with the birth of their ridiculously photogenic daughter Hourai, who seemed almost a copy of her mother in appearance! It was mentioned that she'd be an immediate shoo-in for residency if not for the fact that her elder brother Shinichi Yasaka had already taken that slot. Oh, how fortunes differ between the most experienced and the youngest couples!
Plans were also set in motion for another three children to be born in the next couple of days or so. Unyuho Morichika, another second-generation islander making her mark with her husband Berthold Gregor, announced her second child, while Chiyo Mihama and Shikieiki Yamaxanadu added to their running tally with a sixth child! Lastly, Youmu Konpaku and Drake Kitazawa, despite being one of the closest couples on the island, made plans for what was only their second child. Where's their photograph? You'll see it later.
Okuu's Look-alike's plans for "better living through the flesh of babies" seems to be working here on Gensokyo Island - by encouraging islanders to have children more often, they spend less time arguing and fighting with each other and decreasing their relationship levels and threatening divorce. However, the same can't be said for the children born of this plan, who are tossed out into the world with barely the clothes on their back, made to work in sweatshop factories, and can say little other than an annoying catchphrase - a miserable existence indeed. What's the best way to resolve this dilemma? Well, it doesn't take a professor of demographics to tell you the first step would be changing the name of that baby producing campaign.
Speaking of Professor...
You should totally try this at home. It's not like they tell you how to do it anyway.
Despite being a haven for all kinds of maniacs, villains, and beings of mass destruction, another thing that Gensokyo Island has in abundance is, oddly enough, academics. Well, explaining that is the fact the a majority of those academics also happen to be maniacs, villains, or beings of mass destruction. Take Overlord Mao, Maximillian Magma, or Mister Kimura for instance.
However, there is in fact one boffin among them who is in fact only just as dangerous as he looks. Actually, scratch that, the three folks above both look and are dangerous to one's continued well being. I meant to say, one such academic among them who not only looks relatively normal, but is genuinely well-intentioned, kind and innocent at heart, not a raging psychopath plotting planetwide destruction, and most certainly does not kidnap little girls. Please meet Drake Kitazawa, Gensokyo Island's own nutty professor!
Drake Kitazawa
All information correct as of 16 March 2015
Utonium - so dedicated to science, he'll even experiment on himself! His head's bigger than his whole body!
Name: Drake Kitazawa
Nickname: Utonium (pronounced "Professor Utonium")
Date of Birth: 18th November 1974
Personality: Easygoing Buddy
Favourite Colour: White
Quotation: "Girls, girls!"
Drake Kitazawa is the full name of the scientist better known as Professor Utonium, a main character of the anime series Powerpuff Girls Z, who's based on the original character from the cartoon series The Powerpuff Girls by Cartoon Network. He is an inventor and researcher who dedicates himself to improving the quality of life of humanity, and in the anime series, he also has a son, Ken Kitazawa, and a wife who works as an astronaut. Unlike the original source material, Utonium did not create the Powerpuff Girls, but rather he determined the source of their powers which were caused by an accident involving superpower-granting cosmic white and black "strange lights", while the girls in question were ordinary middle school girls afflicted by the white lights. However, he plays a similar role by serving as a supporting protagonist who provides guidance and expertise and his laboratory is a second home for the girls between their missions.
It's immediately obvious that Utonium is the first and so far only character on Gensokyo Island whose (original) source material isn't a Japanese game or anime series. In fact, the nod to Powerpuff Girls Z in his name is almost cursory seeing how his appearance is based on the American cartoon, anyway. Well... every themed Tomodachi Life island has its oddballs, and conceptually Utonium is one of them to Gensokyo Island. I added him despite this thanks to his distinctive appearance, a long face, a square jaw, and a nose and mouth that appear to be composed of a single line - and most importantly, the fact that I love how his old-fashioned seriousness and non-sequitur moments greatly contribute to the comedy of the series.
Utonium is a nice guy at heart, and separated from his beloved Powerpuff Girls and placed on an island full of crackpots and maniacs, it really shows. He's gentle, kind, and naïve, leading pretty much everybody, including his so-called "friends", to take advantage of him. Nevertheless, he tries his best to stay above it all by acting as a force of reason. When he says his catchphrase "Girls, girls!", he's supposed to sound like he's trying to calm them down - not like he's having the time of his life during a swimsuit or beach episode. That's Mister Kimura's job.
Miniature American scientist meets half-ghost Japanese samurai gardener. Love story of the century.
Wife: Youmu Konpaku
Best Friend: Evil Spirit Mima
Children: Kenji
Ex-Sweethearts: Yuuka Kazami
Like all seemingly sweet and innocent residents of Gensokyo Island, Utonium too has a heart-wrenching story of trauma and betrayal behind him. It was fleshed out in more detail on Yuuka Kazami's biography, but here's the recap - friend (fellow "kind" scientist Augustine Sycamore) introduces guy to girl, guy and girl get hitched, girl gets tired of guy, and girl and friend decide to hook up, ditch guy, and laugh at his misery. Yeah, it wasn't pretty, especially for a timid and impressionable man like Utonium. Did we mention that Yuuka is a chronic sadist? And that Sycamore is French? No wonder Utonium couldn't hold it together.
In fact, it must have been so traumatic for him that it drove him completely round the bend, causing him to experiment on himself with an untested Kid-o-matic formula to return himself to an innocent childlike state. It was... a mixed success, considering that he turned his body into that of a child, but his head remained the same size, i.e. bigger than the rest of his body. And so he continued in this bizarre half-formed state in second childishness and mere oblivion until he met the person who would be the love of his life, Youmu Konpaku.
Youmu, the half-human, half-ghost underling of Yuyuko Saigyouji, must have taken a fancy to the oddly-shaped and awkward Utonium, and it's still not clear whether she knew beforehand that he wasn't actually a 'kid' like her but an adult transformed into one. Not that it mattered - in the end, they hooked up, Utonium proposed, and the power of love (well, an Age-o-Matic, actually) returned the maimed and distorted Utonium to his original state.
It's like a modern fairy tale! Except... not really. Perhaps it's just that Utonium has a thing for the spiritual and supernatural despite being a scientist, after all, his best friend Evil Spirit Mima happens to be an actual ghost, and being close to them would help him in conducting a closer study. Because science.
In today's news - further studies conducted into the offspring of a human and a ghost. Sample size still too small.
Food Preferences:
Worst Ever: Rice
Okuu's Look-alike Rating - Rice: Like. Oh goodness, Utonium, Rice might just be plain carbohydrates but how could you possibly hate it more than anything else? It's like hating bread, or water, or air. Unless he's one of those people who's been traumatised by seeing weevils or maggots crawling around in grains of rice - there actually are people like that in this world. All I can say is such people probably don't even know or care where bread comes from. Or eggs.
Song Participation:
(none)
Mmm... nope, I don't have any ideas for a song Utonium might sing. As long as it isn't something by the Beat-alls. In fact, I doubt he'd know very much about music at all...
I was wrong. That is seriously awesome taste in music he's got there.
Apartment: Apt. 402, formerly Apt. 405
Islander Rating: Average Tier
Utonium is actually the lowest-levelled islander among the fourth batch, living on the fourth floor of Mii Apartments. Somehow, it's not really that surprising, considering the suffering he experienced early on in his life on Gensokyo Island. I daresay it's probably scarred him for life, too, as he seems to get in fights that end in tears an awful lot for someone who's relatively friendly and easygoing. It just doesn't help that he's socially awkward. There's also the fact that, being such a nice guy, he rarely demands anything and is usually outshone by the more outspoken islanders.
And then there's also the no All-Time Favourite food thing working against him too. It's particularly obvious in his case seeing as to how his wife Youmu, who was introduced a couple of weeks after him in the fifth batch of islanders, is almost ten levels higher than him. Admittedly, she's also the highest levelled by far in her batch, but the point holds as to what finding a 1/4 fullness All-Time Favourite food early can do.
Poor Utonium just can't catch a break. His traumatic experiences, being outshone by just about anyone, outlevelled by his (younger) wife, in fact the only thing he's got going for him is his presently extremely stable relationship. People don't even have any idea who he is when you mention his full name Drake Kitazawa! It's almost like this island discriminates against characters from a non-Japanese source, but I'm certain that isn't the case.
Perhaps, just like his second childhood, Utonium is still feeling out of sorts here among the ghosts and spirits of Gensokyo Island and has yet to find his rhythm. Maybe his wife and his soon-to-be-born second child can help him find that. Or maybe you can do better. Why not invite Utonium to your island today? No need for fighting crime or saving the world, just let the power of science compel you. Compel you!
Actually, if you change his name, he can just pass right off for the original Utonium. Maybe it's really him in disguise...
BUNBUNMARU UPDATES, 15th March 2015
Children
Youmu Konpaku announced that she was pregnant with her and Drake Kitazawa's second child!
Reina was born to Reimu Hakurei and Junya Ohta. It's their seventh child! She is an Independent Artist.
BUNBUNMARU UPDATES, 16th March 2015
Children
Hourai was born to Shanghai Margatroid and Kanako Yasaka. It's their second child! She is an Easygoing Dreamer.
Unyuho Morichika announced that she was pregnant with her and Berthold Gregor's second child!
Chiyo Mihama announced that she was pregnant with her and Shikieiki Yamaxanadu's sixth child!
No comments:
Post a Comment