The Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles and Splatoon had a crossover….of sorts in May 2018 when they had a special Splatfest to promote Rise of the TMNT. For those unfamiliar it’s a small tournament that has two sides battle out over a personal choice like Hot Dogs or Hamburgers. This sounds a bit dumb on text but somehow it is something you have to experience to see why it’s a lot of fun. Everyone gets so much into it and has all these cool catchphrases and drawings that add to the mood.
Marina Pearl
This was indeed a special Splatfest since normally they don’t do licensed properties but also it lasted 3 weeks as it put up Raph vs Leo the first week, Mikey vs Donnie for the second, and for the final the winner of both first rounds. Raphael ended up winning the first round and I lost since I had been representing Leonardo while on the second round I was on the winning side by representing Donatello. Finally on the final round with Raphael vs Donatello I chose Raph and lost alongside him as Donatello won the tournament of best turtle.
What’s so fun about the splatfests is the creativity of the community over something as dumb as dogs vs cats. It was great to have one about the franchise that I love and see all the fun memes that came out of it. You were even given cool TMNT shirts to wear during the splatfests, sadly for some odd reason they are taken away after the splatfest finishes. We also got to have some official art of Rave DJs Marina and Pearl cosplay as the TMNT.
Based on my findings at Inkopolis Square there was definitely some shade being thrown at the Rise of TMNT designs but it was a very small minority, there were more people just mentioning they didn’t like TMNT in general, and most messages people just having fun even if they might not be fans of TMNT. The splatfest plaza was so awesome with the RAVE neon colors and TMNT themed drawings and messages. The random jabs at the winners with Pearl calling Don Smell-a-tello and later the “infamously ugly” Dork-a-smello when he won or Leo-Nerdo just add to the fun.
Visiting inkopolis is so cool with the neon red/blue raph/leo drawings and memes all over the place. Even with the “I don’t like TMNT ones” this was good marketing, it might’ve raised interest in this fandom that might not care about the turtles. I saw drawings of the original show/Nick/Rise turtles but none of 2k3 sadly.
Here are some screenshots from the three splatfests that show a good enough picture of the miiverse like drawings that people made, I have a few more but I thought this was a good selection.
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