The Story of Jigglypuff Master

Tweets By @yuyan_mtg (6.14.2018)　Translation by Machiko Garcia


When it comes to Smash Bros., I always remember my elementary friend T-kun who was absent from school for long time. He stopped coming to school at 2nd grade; I had never met him before. One day, when I was in 4th grade, my teacher asked me to take a school letter to his house. I met his mom at the doorway and I heard the sound of Smash Bros.

“Oh, Smash Bros.” I thought out loud. His mom said “Do you know? Wanna play?” I accepted the offer, his mom looked happy and went to talked with T-kun. I waited about 10min, took off my shoes and went inside his house. T-kun who I met for the first time, handed me a controller and started playing the game with hardly any conversation.
“No Items, stock 3, OK?” Oddly, the way he suggested was the same as I do with my friends. We choose our characters. I picked Kirby, changed his color to blue. T-kun’s choice was... Jigglypuff!? At the time, no one I knew was using the character unless it was for shaming.

“Stage?” “Hyrule.” That was my favorite stage. Started the match T-kun against me. It was a complete victory by T-kun. I couldn’t take one life from him and the highest damage I gave him was only 58%. No one have never destroyed me this way before. “Again!” I said and T-kun nodded.

After all, we played at least three hours. Not only couldn’t I win once, but I also couldn’t take one life from him. It was close to 7:00 pm, T-kun’s mom called him for dinner. “Would you like to stay for dinner?” she asked, but I had to go home. On the night, I had a plan to have Chirashi-sushi with my family; my dad even told me not to overeat school lunch. I said, “No thank you, but I will come back.”

Next day at school, I told everyone in my class that I played Smash Bros. at T-kun’s house. “I couldn’t blow him off even once in three hours. Surprisingly, he uses Jigglypuff.” My classmates were so interested. Wasting no time, 6 of us went T-kun’s house after school on the day. T-kun’s mom was a little surprised, but she let us in.

Every one of us except me challenged T-kun one by one. The first challenger was Fujiwara, and he uses Ness. The result was, of course, T-kun’s complete win. “Let me do it again!” said Fujiwara. The second fight was also 3-0. At this moment, everyone‘s fighting spirit was reignited. “I’ll go get my controller,” said Yoshida, and he ran home.
They couldn’t wait for their turn. They wanted to play with T-kun sooner. Yoshida came back with two controllers and we were ready for 4-player mode. During the time waiting for Yoshida, Sugawara lost two times already. Yoshida said “Let’s play team fight!” and the first team was Me and T-kun vs. Yoshida and Kondo.

T-kun was overwhelmingly strong in the team fight, too. I didn’t make any difference. He was focusing on beating two opponents, didn’t care about me. He was fighting against two people at a time, and he didn’t lose one stock. It was always one against two, it seemed. After 3 hours, no one could take his life.

Same as the day before, his dinner time finished the game. His mom said “It’s dinner time. Would you like to eat with us?” All of us stayed for dinner. Not because the curry smelled so good, but we were interested in T-kun. His mom said “We normally don’t have this many guest. Sorry for the small space.” We didn’t care at all. We were dying to ask “Why are you so good at the game!?” “How did you do that? You blew me out.” Everybody had tons of questions. We even played the game one more hour after dinner, went home around 9:00 pm. My dad scolded me. From next day, T-kun’s nickname became Jigglypuff Master.

We went to Jigglypuff Master’s house after school every day. T-kun’s mom always welcomed us with a smile. T-kun told us how to dodge opponent’s attack. You have to see the timing, don’t give them a chance of attack. You need to think about the size of the jump. A few days later, the time had come.

Finally, someone took his one life. I’m not sure who that was. What I remember the most was not the game itself at the moment. T-kun made rueful face expression for the first time. I was so happy to see it. We kept going to his house until one special day.

The morning of that day, we were talking about “Who can come to Jigglypuff Master’s house?” as usual. The teacher came into the classroom and said “T-kun is joining the class again.” T-kun opened the door and entered the classroom. He looked a little bit smaller than we see him at his house, but still that was indisputably him, Jigglypuff Master.

“Hey, Jigglypuff Master!” “Master!” we called, he smiled a little. Because he started come to school, we could take him to other class’s Smash Bros. players’ house. However, there was no one better than T-kun in our grade. By the time we graduate, he was famous in the school.

The reason I could become a friend of T-kun’s was his skill of Smash Bros. with no doubt. You don’t need to be a good talker. Being good at games can change the situation. I don’t know If video games would help your studying, or if it will become an Olympic event. But I know, video games have unlimited power. I learned that from meeting T-kun.
As it is often said, video games can make you not to go to school or work, but it is also a truth that T-kun could come to school again because of video games. Since Gaming is so different from other entertainment mediums in many ways, we often see negative factors and bad news, I want to see more stories about good side of games and I wish those stories would be spread.