Aku's Fairy Tales
Episode numeral: XIII
Original air date: 12/3/01
As word of Jack's amazing feats spreads across the lands and inspires children everywhere, Aku decides to take action. Bringing every child in the capital of his realm to a stadium, he tries to wow them with Fractured Fairy Tales featuring Jack as the villain.
Tropes:
- 0% Approval Rating: The only episode in which Aku tries to subvert his very low public opinion by telling stories to convince a group of children to like him.
- A Day in the Limelight: This episode features Aku telling stories to children without Jack present. Jack only appears in the fairy tales themselves, though as an exaggeratedly evil caricature of himself.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Aku's final tale, after he gets so fed up with the children that he gets right to the point.Aku: Here is the truest tale of all! There was an almighty, all-powerful wizard, and there was a stupid, pathetic little samurai! And the wizard DESTROYED him! The End!
- Balloon Belly: After Jack eats the porridge and destroys the home of the three bears, he falls to sleep on one of their beds with a noticeable gut from all that eating.
- Blatant Lies: Not one single child believed whatever stories Aku is telling that involve him as the hero and Jack as the villain that Aku claims to be true to "the uttermost detail". They just can't comprehend as to why exactly the "The Master of Darkness and Great Shogun of Sorrow" could be capable of doing good deeds or how the Samurai is as cartoonishly evil as Aku perceives him to be.
- Chewing the Scenery: "GREAT FLAMING EYEBROWS!!!"
- Demonization: Ineptly done to Jack by Aku, portraying the former as "an impudent, bad old samurai" who trashes the Three Bears' house and terrorizes the Three Little Pigs just so Aku can make himself look better.
- Expy: The wolf in the "Little Red Hood" segment is an amalgamation of several classic Hanna-Barbera characters: he looks like Hokey Wolf, talks like Top Cat and acts like Yogi Bear.
- Extreme Omnivore: During the "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" segment, Jack eats one of the bowls of porridge and the bowl the porridge is in.
- The Face of the Sun: The sun has a big smiling face in the beginning of the "Little Red Hood" story.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: Aku is... not the most skilled despot at propaganda.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: Aku tries to tell fairy tales to children hoping that they will enjoy his stories and like him better than Jack.
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Aku paints himself as the hero in all of his stories. It's especially obvious in the "Little Red Riding Hood" segment, where he's "beloved by all" and easily beats up the wolf with laser eye beams and "great combat skills".
- Kudzu Plot: After an attempt at retelling Cinderella with Jack as its antagonists, Aku's stories end up becoming this in a rapid-fire manner:Girl: What's happening?
- Metronomic Man Mashing: Little Red Hood Aku does this to the wolf to demonstrate her "great combat skills".
- Pet the Dog: Imposing as he was, Aku never harmed or threatened the children and was quite cordial to them despite becoming increasingly irritated with their fondness for Jack.
- Revenge via Storytelling: In most of Aku's stories, he portrays Jack as a Jackass who loves to inflict as much misery towards others as possible in order to justify him being beaten up and humiliated by other fairy tale characters. When the children keep pointing out flaws in his stories, he gets frustrated and tells a final story about him destroying Jack before leaving in a fit of anger.
- Shout-Out: In the "Three Little Pigs" segment, Jack chops through the pigs' door and peers through while saying "Heeeeere's Jackie!"
- Storybook Episode: Aku tells the children versions of famous fairy tales with him as the hero and Jack as the villain.
- Tempting Fate: The kids declare that they're not afraid of Aku, just as Aku himself is watching. Once they actually meet Aku, they're terrified.
- Understatement: When a kid points out that Jack wouldn't act in the way Aku is describing, he says that he may have over-exaggerated Jack's personality a tad.
- Villain Episode: Aku is the focus of the episode.
- Villainous Breakdown: As more and more children began to question the validity of Aku's stories, so does the quality of the tales as he began to mix up more and more of his stories but always involves Jack being maimed or beaten up ultimately culminating in this one line before rage-quitting:Aku: Enough! Here is the truest tale of all! There was an almighty, all-powerful wizard! And there was a pathetic little samurai! And the wizard DESTROYED HIM! THE END! (leaves)
