Let’s just jump right into this: How about that Smash?!?

The new Super Smash Bros. Game has gotten nearly perfect scores across the board and for good reason. It never looked better, it’s portable, and there are even more modes, characters, trophies, and collectables than ever before.

Yet in the playable characters, no matter the move, special or otherwise, it is reminiscent of their other games.

Kirby, Mario, Mega Man, even my boy Sonic all have moves that greatly reflect their original games.

But one character’s movesets caught my eye: Fox McCloud from Star Fox.

Yeah, his reflector and blaster are ripped from his game, but when was the last time Fox charged flames and exploded upward, or appeared to dash fifty feet in a fraction of a second?

Well, lets start with Fox-lusion. With Nintendo being a Japanese company the source is quite interesting. Fox could have been rounded out by a well known Japanese mythological creature, The Kitsune.

Kitsune are magical fox spirits that as they grow older gained more and more tails as well as magical powers. But, their greatest trick was to assume human form, it was because of this and their closeness with people they became guardians, friends, and even spouses. Taking human form, however wasn’t their only trick, they could obtain more and more powers as they aged. Truth be told, they were kind of tricksters, using their illusionary powers to pick on pheasants. Maybe this is why Pokemon like Vulpix and Ninetails have moves like Confuse Ray. So, the Fox-lusion isn’t out of place here.

But what about the Fire-Fox, you ask? Fox charging into flames then exploding into another direction does seem a tad out of place, but the source isn’t too crazy though. Going back to the Kitsune, assuming human form isn’t their only trick. It was believed that as they aged they learned to harness the powers of lightning and Fire at their whim, these were referred to as Kitsune Bi or literally “Fox Fire.”

So if we’re looking at this from the Japanese point of view, it would only make sense that Fox would spontaneously combust. Kitsune powers don’t even end there, it was thought that as they aged, they could harness the powers of flight, invisibility, illusions so hard that they manifest, time travel, and even the ability to transform into something unbelievably large, like a second moon.

Could you believe what Fox could do with time-space bending powers?

It’s just cool that Nintendo decided to grab a cultural aspect of their homeland to round out one of their characters when so many others have moves that specifically reflect their original games.