Hello, this is WumpaGem, writer and editor of the original video, coming from the future! I'm writing this top comment to be pinned because some interesting development came about regarding Coco's creation and the involvement of Sony Japan on that, basically to offer extra details and corrections. Responding to a fan on Twitter (oops, I mean X), Roppyaku Tsurumi, the producer of the Japanese localization of Crash's PS1 titles, confirmed that they gathered artists within Shuhei Yoshida's group at SCEI Product Departement, to come up with illustrations under the theme of "what if Crash had a little sister and how would she look like?", to be sent to Naughty Dog. The idea was that Japanese artists would draw the concepts first, so to keep elements that are incorporated to be sensible to a Japanese audience, which would then be adapted by the Western artists. Tsurumi asked Takamitsu Iijima and Taichi Ogawa from the Ape Escape team to work on the initial character design. The specific concept art we've shown in the video was actually Ogawa's work and not Iijima's. Charles Zembillas would then take these concepts and refine them, with oversight from Tsurumi. The idea behind Coco's final design, specifically her overalls with the straps off the dominant arm, was to make her look active, and her thick-soled sneakers and laptop were a fad in Japan in the 1990s. Tsurumi explained to Zembillas that "Japanese characters wear meaningful symbols like these". I asked Tsurumi-san on that same thread if the people at SCEI resented the character Tawna in any way and mandated her removal from the series, offering a new character like Coco as a mean to fill the void. Tsurumi responded that SCE Japan did not request her removal and that Jason Rubin's claims were absolutely correct, that being the feud with Universal Interactive's marketing director at the time, Kelly Flaherty. Although there is some truth about Tawna's "nice-body" nature motivating the creation of Coco in the first place. As Shuhei Yoshida commented in a GDC conference back in 2002, when they were playtesting the first game in Japan, one kid commented she looked like a middle-aged woman, thus deeming her too old to be considered a heroine for a young Japanese audience. So it's fair to assume that when Naughty Dog and SCEA took their own initiative to remove Tawna after the feud with Universal, Sony Japan followed in with their own solution of a new character that's more appropriate for Japan. Link to the thread and other sources: twitter.com/tsurumy/status/1692328597145669638 twitter.com/tsurumy/status/1692560355422343353 twitter.com/sarugearchive/status/1692531502364369323 www.gdcvault.com/play/1022565/Next-Generation-Console-Development-and (Timestamp: 40:09)

Megumi Hosoya has given us so much... the beloved Crash Dance and the best character in CTR: Megumi.

God bless you, Megumi Hosoya. 🙏

7:04 *SomeCallmeJohnny* always gets me for some reason

6:08 That edit got me laughin

Suprising amount of stuff I didnt know about. Great job guys!

7:07 Wasn't it confirmed that Charles Zembellas assumed Japan also had an issue with Tawna but I think Andy Gavin said the removal of Tawna was strictly from Universal? They didn't like the forced redesign which is the Tawna we saw so they scrapped her?

I know your channel is relatively new, but you guys deserve way more subscribers. This is high-quality content.

I wish Activision cared about japanese Crash players like Naughty Dog used to do back in those days; the two remakes we had are almost perfect for western Crash fans, but they are just made identical in their Japan releases except for the game cover

Definitely learned something here. The only things I knew about was Fake Crash and Penta coming from Japan. Everything else I was clueless about.

I hate the US Crash costume, but the Japanese one is *BANDIKUUUUU~*

The bandicoot can talk, he just likes fucking with cortex. Him speaking in full sentences would emotionally destroy the doctor. And you said the naughty dog word, "trope", hold this nitro crate.

Lol I laughed when crash fell in the hole

2:13 small correction, two more mangas were made, one for Crash 1, and another that features *Baby Crash and Baby Coco* , there's a vintage CTR comic that got remade by many people including me, and CTR NF got a free comic as a neat little gift.

No wonder Coco has big eyes. She originated from japan

Cool video 🔥

In the end we still had no way to recycle butter. By the way, the manga of Crash 2, when Crash is dreaming about being a popular hero, we can see some bandicoot girls being all like: "Kyaaa! Crash-kun!", and they look suspiciously similar to the Trophy Girls as they were in CTR (before CTR Nitro-Fueled changed their designs and turned them into actual, infinitely better characters). Even though those in the manga were just some random female characters, I have some reasons to think Naughty Dog might have seen them as well and decided to put them in CTR as some minor character, then naming them after some real women (most notably, Megumi, as already mentioned in this video). That could be possible because those minor characters were never meant to have any personality or name, since they were drawn for the sake of a joke about Crash wanting to be irresistible and missing Tawna. In Crash Team Racing, those girls have big eyes, a feature that is (or used to be) stereotypically associated to most anime/manga characters. Therefore, even though I can't confirm this 100%, it is possible that the first appearance of Nitro Squad (formerly "Trophy Girls" for nostalgics, or "Race Queens" in Japan) *might* actually have been in that manga, so we might as well thank Japan for making them (even though I'd rather thank Beenox for bringing them back as playable characters).

amazing video

CRASH BANDICOOT 4 IT ABOUT TIME GAME PLAY FLASH BACK V2"5 2022)😀😀

I dont get why this channel has 2k subs! It's a really cool channel!

🥰🥰🥰Every time I see Megumi in CTR Nitro-Fueled I blush.🥰🥰🥰

Well i learn something new that I already know. 😂👌

Crashy news:#1:Coco bandicoot!Me:WHAAAAAAT!

That hole gag was peak

It makes me wonder if they brought back the crash dance commercials for the Crash Nsane trilogy

CRASHY THERES A NEW CRASH BANDICOOT LEAK OF THE BOX ART

Hey Crashy news Crash cartoon

Coco bandicoot is the best

Thnk u japan uwu®

5:56 crash bandicoot bootleg lol

The biggest surprize was that Japan ruined Crash Bandicoot by kicking out of Tawna and introducing Coco, the most annoying character in the series.

Calling it right now The crash dance Fake crash / Trash bandicoot

not fake crash trash bandicoot

The name of the fake crash is trash Bandicoot.

I love Coco. She is my favorite character from the Crash game series.

amazing video