Expy Cleanup Thread

I'd like to propose a potentially controversial example here: Marisa Kirisame started out as an Expy of Puyo Puyo/Madou Monogatari's Witch.

Hear me out. While Touhou has eclipsed Puyo in popularity nowadays, Puyo Puyo rather predates Touhou Project (and Madou Monogatari is even older). Both franchises are predominantly-female games. Both Marisa and Witch are The Rival to their main characters with jealousy towards their main characters having ridiculously powerful innate magical abilities. Marisa and Witch are both long-haired, blonde, blue-clad cute witches who use their brooms to attack. Witch's Signature Scene in Puyo Puyo Sun involved her trying to steal Schezo's clothes and before that she was characterized as money-grubbing. Marisa is a thief. Also, while Puyo's since moved away from depicting it as such, Witch's signature spell, Big Bang, was portrayed as a giant laser in Madou Monogatari: Tower of the Magician, evocative of Marisa's Master Spark.

It's also likely not unintentional; Puyo Puyo was explosively popular in Japan in the 90s and the Madou Monogatari series had a great deal of games coming out for the PC-98 during this time, including Comet Summoner, a game that introduced Dark Witch, an Evil Counterpart to Witch dressed in purple. This very likely inspired Marisa's original purple design. Given Puyo's popularity at the time, it's highly unlikely ZUN was unfamiliar with the franchise.

Edited by PhiSat on May 24th 2023 at 1:22:20 PM

Oissu!

An expy can't just be "likely not unintentional". It has to be objectively intentional.

Now, she certainly could be, but if there's any chance you can figure out the intention of the creators...

Edited by WarJay77 on May 24th 2023 at 3:34:27 PM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The best standard is the one in the trope description: an unambiguous and deliberate copy. If an example says a character is "probably" an Expy, they're probably not. That being said, an Expy does not have to be a 100% clone of the original character; they can (and should) have differences, but an Expy must come from the original as a "starting point." One test I like to use for Expy, though not a hard requirement, is "could the original character have been swapped in for the new one and still fit the role?"

The answer to that one is an unambiguous yes to me. When Marisa was first introduced her and Witch were interchangeable. I say "probably" because I don't have Word of God 100% confirmation that one was based off the other, but I think the evidence is strong enough to make an argument.

Edited by PhiSat on May 25th 2023 at 10:01:32 AM

Oissu!

it's definitely worth pointing out that PC-98 era touhou is well known for cribbing characters from other popular games of the time with ZUN outright admitting that reimu was based on sayo / pocky from pocky and rocky, and it's pretty commonly (not universally, but commonly) agreed that marisa was based on witch. their designs in the PC-98 games make it a lot more obvious, even without the official word

Bumping because I want more comments.

She/Her | Currently cleaning N/A

Update to a post from last year about Characters.Arknights Vanguards N To Z (the character Texas). Random Troper 123 removed one of the characters (Kazama Kiryu) claimed to be cribbed from given the rules about Expy outlined by this thread. DR34DN0UGHT then edited the Expy entry to be about Kiryu instead instead. Zaptech then insisted that "A character can be an expy of more than one other character" and added a second example for John Wick.

I would like some feedback on what to do about this.

Edited by Nouct on May 26th 2023 at 3:44:29 AM

Remove it, that's definitely misuse.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

~Zaptech claiming that a character can be an expy of more than one other character is false. The trope description itself stipulates that Expy is based on one character. We're not making up rules on the fly here.

"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

I found this under Corrupted Character Copy:

• Stranger Things:
  • Jason is a very dark subversion of The Hero Lovable Jock and Big Man on Campus archetype. He’s very similar to The Breakfast Club’s Andrew or Saved by the Bell’s A.C Slater in personality and behaviour, being a genuinely charming and inspiring guy on the surface and would usually be in the hero role in most stories. However unlike Andrew or A.C and other jock hero jocks who befriend social outcasts and nerdy types, Jason despises them and after the death of his cheerleader girlfriend Jumps Off The Slippery Slope becoming a riot-raising psycho and secondary antagonist.

Does this rule that an Expy must be of one character also apply to Corrupted Character Copy?

E: Corrupted Character Copy is a subtrope of Expy so yes, same restrictions apply.

---

Grabbed this example from Characters.Baldurs Gate III under Astarion's folder.

• Expy:
  • Of Sebille, another callous elf who interrogates you at knife-point when you meet, wants out from under an abusive master's thumb, and eventually lightens up.
  • Many players have also drawn parallels between him and Dragon Age's Zevran, another hedonistic, bisexual elven rogue who pulls a sort of quasi-Wounded Gazelle Gambit when you first meet.
  • He has more than a few things in common with Fenris as well: Both are white-haired, bisexual Defrosting Ice King elves who spent some time as a psychopath's personal slave (Astarion for 200 years, Fenris from birth to... Twenty-something). It took a Deus ex Machina (arguably a Diabolus ex Machina) for both to escape, and even after joining the PC's party their masters send people to hunt them down. Neither likes to be coddled, especially over either their magical physical scarring (given to them by their masters) or their forgotten pre-enslavement life. They have similar senses of humor, and both their primary goals are to ensure that they never have to go back to being slaves.

Thoughts? The first two entries aren't nearly as fleshed out but, going by Rally's earlier comment, it sounds like you could swap Astarion with Fenris. And speaking of Dragon Age, here's a couple of problematic entries I found while poking around.

• The Baroness: Pretty clearly [an expy] of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian aristocrat who gruesomely murdered dozens of young women and was rumoured (though never proven) to have bathed in their blood to remain youthful. Since Elizabeth Bathory was a real person, doesn't this go under No Historical Figures Were Harmed?
• Oghren: Of Korgan Bloodaxe and Black Whirlwind. The missing relative, the drinking, the axes, The Casanova Wannabe traits and the general Blood Knight attitude... it all checks out. Even one of his battle quotes ("Let's see what your innards look like!") is taken almost word for word from a battle quote the former uses. Similar issue of multiple character expy claims. I don't know anything about either character so I couldn't say but maybe Korgan with the shared battle quote?
• Varric Tethras:
  • Of Iolo FitzOwen from Ultima, the granddaddy of all Western RPGs: both men are professional storytellers (although Iolo is more musical, while Varric is more literary), both are the respective Featureless Protagonist's (the Avatar and Hawke) lifelong associates and confidantes, and both wield custom-built crossbows in combat.
  • Fans of this series and A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones have made comparisons between him and Tyrion Lannister. Each is The Unfavorite: a scarred, intelligent, snarky but easygoing Breakout Character, the younger son of a noble house. Each is also a dwarf (the fantasy race for Varric, a person with dwarfism for Tyrion), each befriends a displaced hero/heroine, and each was exiled at some point. They both even go through an Arranged Marriage and a broken heart because of class differences.
  • Of the garrulous crossbow-wielding gnome storyteller Jan Jansen from Bioware's own Baldur's Gate II. Jan tends to tell inane, annoying, blatantly untrue (but funny) stories while he plays up his Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, and he's at most a turnip merchant as opposed to the Tethras' mercantile empire, but unlike Varric he invented his own Automatic Crossbow and assorted other gadgets. It balances out. Sounds like too many differences.

Edited by Hello83433 on May 26th 2023 at 10:32:26 AM

CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors

I found these examples under Company Cross References in Tokyo Xanadu. Initially I moved them from the Shout-Out section but I'm now wondering if they fit the characters they are describing.

• Most of the party members are this to the cast of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, and some even from other Trails Series games:
  • Kou is a high school student who happens to take a lot of part-time jobs after school, like Rean who became an errand boy for Thors' Student Council which became the sources of some of the game's side quests. Additionally, he bears a passing resemblance to Joshua Bright, particularly in some of the 2D art shown in the game. maybe, I do see the resemblance
  • Asuka is a bright-haired tsundere who has a connection to an important group that has a big influence in the story (Nemesis), like Alisa's initial attitude to Rean and her being the heiress of the Reinford Group. seems valid
  • Sora is an athletic girl with a small figure, similar to Fie, although their personalities are WAY different- she's more on the Genki side like Millium. She also bears a passing resemblance to Kloe Rinz although her hair color is different. unsure, but the Kloe one seems like a stretch
  • Yuuki has some similarities with Elliot for being redheaded highschoolers, have overprotective older sisters, and Daddy Issues. And like Machias, Yuuki is also a bespectacled smart guy who was rather unsocial at the beginning. Additionally, Yuuki is also a major shoutout to Jona Sacred from Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure in that both are Computer Wizard/Playful Hackers with extremely similar personalities. They even recycled Terminal Room, which is practically Jona's theme, for use with Yuuki. maybe
  • Shio is this to Gaius and Jusis, for being the The Big Guy and very protective of his friends who starts out distancing himself from people around him as he doesn't want other people to get involved in his personal problems. Bonus points for having blonde hair just like the latter. doesn't explain the Gaius part
  • Mitsuki is a friendly Hot Witch who wields a stave-based weapon, she's also blue-haired, has a graceful upbringing, and The Ojou of a well-known family in the story, which sounds like an amalgamation of Emma and Laura. maybe
  • Gorou, who is a Bad Ass Teacher just like Sara. He's also a Walking Spoiler who joins the party rather late in the game and can wield both ranged and melee weapons similar to Crow, especially in his later appearances in Cold Steel 3 and 4, not to mention they have tragic pasts. Additionally, he hides the fact that he knows more than he lets on, like Thomas Lysander. mayhaps
  • Jun AKA White Shroud also has some similarities with Wazy Hemisphere from The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero as both of them are soft-spoken green-haired pretty boys who are actually powerful Church Militant on secret infiltration missions. Jun also bears a passing resemblance to Elliot Craig despite having mint-colored hair instead of being a redhead. seems valid to me but I would like more opinions
  • Mikuriya is practically the game universe's version of Gilbert Stein, down to looking like his model was designed based on Gilbert. Although Mikuriya is affably more evil than Gilbert, his Heel–Face Turn appears to be permanent as opposed to Gilbert, who despite siding the protagonists in Sky 3rd, returned to his evil ways when reintroduced in Cold Steel III. unsure since I haven't played Sky and my only introduction to Gilbert was Cold Steel IV

She/Her | Currently cleaning N/A

Well, just as a start, a character can't be an Expy of multiple other characters, so all of these are wrong in that regard. That aside:

• Kou = Rean I can see. I'm not 100 percent Expy is appropriate (they both play some tropes straight that the other subverts/deconstructs), but there's definitely a connection there that I don't really see with the other Trails main characters. I think they pass the substitution test. Joshua, OTOH, has nothing in common with Kou apart from them both having black hair, which is kind of a recurring problem with these.
• This one I don't really see at all, TBH. Asuka has brown hair, which is unrealistic for Japan but not really what I'd define as 'bright' or unusual in the context of some of the other characters. She's also more a Defrosting Ice Queen than a tsundere. And for that matter I think Alisa's not really that much of a tsundere either; it just gets exaggerated in perceptions because of that one early bit leaving a bad taste in people's mouths - most of her romance is pretty healthily mutually supportive.
• This admits itself it's not an example.
• Yuuki=Jona more or less fits (especially the bit with the music, which I hadn't picked up on before). The others are shoehorns.
• The similarity to Gaius seems to purely be that they're both The Big Guy - they otherwise don't really have that much in common. This whole entry holds up even worse than the Shio=Ash thing I argued for cutting in the past.
• Mitsuki is actually the character who most struck me as an obvious derivative - but not of anybody from Trails, but rather of Persona 3's Mitsuru. They're both female student council president Team Moms who seem a bit suspicious at first but are really totally nice, and are the heirs apparent to a mega corp in an arranged marriage with a douchebag. Even the names are similar. I don't know if I'd actually add that as an Expy example but it certainly holds up better than another one of these "expy of multiple characters" shoehorns.
• This is, again, mashing too many characters together.
• Jun=Wazy is probably valid. The other bit can be cut.
• I really don't see this one at all. The only thing they have in common is blue hair and being Smug Snakes (it is worth noting that Gilbert started out as less of a joke villain than he became), and it's not even similar blue hair. Gilbert has periwinkle Slimy Slicked Back Hair. Mikuriya is more of a dark blue tangly thing. (Actually the bit where someone called him 'kelp head' made me think of Shinji Matou more than anything, but while there's a couple of other similarities Shinji's way more loathsome than Mikuriya could ever dream of being.)

I do think that a lot of this sort of "here's some thoughts about design influences/inspirations for these characters" stuff that's very common on Expy misuse - especially the "expy of multiple characters" stuff - is probably tropeworthy in some way, FWIW, and it's why I've been so leery of the tendency to cut Fountain of Expies subtropes. But it's absolutely not a fit for "literally a copy of another character".

Thanks, I removed them and cited your statement.

Also, IIRC, you wanting to remove the Shio=Ash thing was on the Shout-Out cleanup and because they don't have that many similarities (Shio being a pretty respectful guy while Ash at the start is....not). I just want to jug my memory

As for the whole "expy of multiple characters" idea, we have Composite Character (characters based on two different characters from a different continuity) and I'm pretty sure the TLP doesn't like expy tropes since I saw a fair share of them being bombed hard.

Thanks for the source!

Edited by Ayumi-chan on May 28th 2023 at 9:41:10 PM

She/Her | Currently cleaning N/A

The TLP's issues with Expy tropes stem from this discussion.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Ash shouting out to Shio I'm ambivalent on - he's just definitely not an Expy. My point here was just that he's still closer to being an Expy than Shio is to being an Expy of Gaius and Jusis.

So on Characters.Honkai Star Rail Jarilo VI, this entry was just recently added to Svarog's profile by boobtuber.

---

• Expy: Svarog is a (mostly) purple, humanoid Cyber Cyclops fixated on logical approaches to most situations who also happens to have arm-based weaponry, making him a heroic-aligned Expy of Shockwave. Moreover, his sole eye being red in tandem with a deep voice bring to mind the Prime version of the character.

---

Honestly, this is a massive stretch even when taking into account that Hoyo is known for adding a bunch of references into their games. The similarities are superficial at best and unlikely to be intentional on Hoyo's part, and nothing about Svarog's design and character screams Shockwave to me, let alone a Transformer, period, since Svarog is not a transforming robot. If anything, Svarog is more of a combination of Berserker/Heracles from Fate/stay night and Legion from Mass Effect if we're talking possible expies, but I digress. What do you think?

Zap that with extreme prejudice, along with Sampo's Joseph Joestar comparison.

"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Alright, I'll remove the Svarog entry for being misuse, but I won't remove the Sampo one yet because no valid reason is given on this thread for me to cite back (I thought Sampo being based on Joseph Joestar was deliberate by Hoyo).

Sampo was ruled out as fan association on the previous page.

"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Found it. Thanks. I removed the Sampo entry too.

Bumping my questions, since they got skipped over.

CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors

I found this example in A.N.T. Farm. I guess that anything that lists more than a single "inspiration" could be consider fair-game to delete, but I wanted to bring it here first to see if maybe something might be salveagable.

I feel that most of these similarities come from the virtue of all of these being tween sitcoms, so thus they have similar character archetypes due to the genre.

I say cut them all because they all either lack context or violate the rule about expies being based off of only one character.